Is the Humean defeated by induction?

Many necessitarians about cause and law (Armstrong, What is a law of nature. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983; Mumford, Laws in nature. Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Philosophy. Routledge, Abingdon, 2004; Bird, Nature’s metaphysics: Laws and properties. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007) have argued that Humeans are unable to justify their inductive inferences, as Humean laws are nothing but the sum of their instances. In this paper I argue against these necessitarian claims. I show that Armstrong is committed to the explanatory value of Humean laws (in the form of universally quantified statements), and that contra Armstrong, brute regularities often do have genuine explanatory value. I finish with a Humean attempt at a probabilistic justification of induction, but this fails due to its assumption that the proportionality syllogism is justified. Although this attempt fails, I nonetheless show that the Humean is at least as justified in reasoning inductively as Armstrong.     

Beyond Original Sin: A Paradigm Shift for the Age of Neuroscience

In this article I explore the implications of Jesus?? location of the kingdom of heaven in the lived experience of the individual and of the findings of neuroscientific research for a paradigm shift in Christian theology, one that moves us beyond the Adamic myth and belief in original sin. Support for a theological paradigm shift based on lived experience is provided by Capps (1993) and for this particular paradigm shift by Pagels (1989) and Ricoeur (2004). I point out that the doctrine of original sin supports and fosters the negativity bias of the brain and inhibits the resculpting of the brain. Drawing on Hanson??s (2009) evidence in support of the brain??s neuroplasticity (i.e., its capacity to change itself) and on Brach??s (2003) critique of the ??trance of unworthiness,?? I make the case for meditative and mindful awareness practices in Christianity and other religious traditions as proven methods for the resculpting of the brain in order that individuals may experience greater joy, contentment, and awareness of the goodness of life and of God??s creation. A longitudinal neuroscientific research study of Roman Catholic nuns (Newberg and Waldman 2009) provides evidence in support of the role of contemplative prayer and meditation in generating the joy and serenity that Jesus?? allusion to the hidden treasure envisions.     

Exemplification as molecular function

Since the publication of Universals and Scientific Realism (Armstrong 1978a, b) until Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics (Armstrong 2010), via Universals: An Opinionated Introduction (Armstrong 1989), a World of States of Affairs (Armstrong 1997), and Truth and Truthmakers (Armstrong 2004), David Armstrong has developed one of the most influential theories of instantiation in contemporary analytic metaphysics (see, for example, Lewis, in Aust J Phil 61(4), 343–377, 1983; Baxter in Aust J Phil, 79, 449–464, 2001; Forrest, in Aust J Phil, 83, 213–228, 2006). Instantiation has been advocated by Armstrong to give a solution to what he has called the “pressing problem” of “the multiple location of property universals” (Armstrong, in Universals: An opinionated introduction. University Press, Cambridge, 1989, pp. 89–90). Here I argue that Armstrong’s theory of instantiation fails to solve the problem because it involves two kinds of instantiation to account for particulars “having” and “sharing” universals. As a viable alternative to Armstrong’s theory, I propose a theory of instantiation capable of accounting for both phenomena in a univocal way.     

Disrupting the Coloniality of Being: Toward De-colonial Ontologies in Philosophy of Education

This essay works to bridge conversations in philosophy of education with decolonial theory. The author considers Margonis?? (1999, 2011a, b) use of Rousseau (1979) and Heidegger (1962) in developing an ontological attitude that counters social hierarchies and promotes anti-colonial relations. While affirming this effort, the essay outlines a coloniality of being at work in Rousseau and Heidegger through thier reliance on the colonial conceptualization of African Americans and Native Americans as savage and primitive. The essay turns to decolonial theory and the work of Maldenado-Torres (Cult Stud 21(2?C3):240?C270, 2007, 2009) to highlight how a decolonial attitude complicates, yet enriches Margonis?? philosophical framework.     

Semantic plasticity and epistemicism

This paper considers the connections between semantic shiftiness (plasticity), epistemic safety and an epistemic theory of vagueness as presented and defended by Williamson (1996a, b, 1997a, b). Williamson explains ignorance of the precise intension of vague words as rooted in insensitivity to semantic shifts: one??s inability to detect small shifts in intension for a vague word results in a lack of knowledge of the word??s intension. Williamson??s explanation, however, falls short of accounting for ignorance of intension.     

The Laborers in the Vineyard: Putting Humor to Work

This article focuses on Jesus?? parable popularly known as ??The Laborers in the Vineyard?? (Matt. 20:1?C16). I propose that a psychoanalytic reading of the parable offers insights that are missing or overlooked in more traditional readings. In support of this proposal, I discuss the interpretation of the parable by Richard Q. Ford (1997) and his emphasis on the critical role of the listener in effecting the reconciliation of disputing parties; and then turn to Freud??s analysis of beggar jokes (Freud 1905/1960) to explore the generosity vs. envy issue to which the landowner alludes in his response to the complaining workers. I also employ Freud??s view that humor (Freud 1927/1963) reflects the superego??s comforting side to suggest that humor may assist in the effort to get the disputing parties to listen to one another and even perhaps to resolve their differences.     

Disability: An Embodied Reality (or Space) of Dasein

The ‘body’ has remained the pivotal and essential mechanism for analysis within disability scholarship. Yet while historically conceptualized as an individual’s fundamental feature, the ‘disabled identity’ has been more recently explained as a function of ‘normalcy’ through social, cultural political, and legal discriminations against difference and deviancy. Disability studies’ established tradition of consultation with philosophical endeavour remains apparently unwilling to exploit or utilize Martin Heidegger’s understanding of ‘Being’ and interpretation of Dasein as a possible framework for unravelling the complexities of contemporary discrimination and oppression of those others. This paper in tracing Heidegger’s explanation of humankind, inspired by arguments proposed by Cerbone (Int J Philos Stud 2:209–230, 2000) and in consultation with Levin (The body: classic and contemporary readings, Blackwell, Malden, 1999), Aho (2009), Malpas (Heidegger’s topology: being place, world, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2008), and Rae (Hum Stud 33:23–39, 2010) among others, will interpret the ‘embodied’ reality of ‘Being,’ of being-disabled-in-the-world as primarily involved within the practical context and structured according to impersonal, normative social norms, rather than detached, theoretical contemplation or observance.     

Exploring the Causes of Subjective Well-Being: A Content Analysis of Peoples’ Recipes for Long-Term Happiness

This study set out to explore conceptions of the elements or ingredients that lead to long-lasting happiness. A content analysis (Smith in Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000; Weber 1990) coded 201 respondents’ (18–84 years old) written happiness recipes for the mention of a priori (pre-defined from a literature review) and empirical (from a pilot study) content analysis categories. These were organized into six dimensions (i.e. Personality, Circumstances, Social Relationships, Behavioral Activities, Cognitive Activities and Volitional Activities) based on a model of the causes of long-term happiness (Lyubomirsky et al. in Rev Gen Psychol 9(2):111–131, 2005b). Participants were happy and mentally healthy. An overwhelming majority of responses referred to Social Relationships such as with Family, Friends and Partners, supporting the assertion that relationships are necessary for happiness (Diener and Oishi in Psychol Inquiry 16(4):162–167, 2005; Diener and Seligman in Psychol Sci Public Interest 5(1):1–32, 2002). Participants frequently mentioned Circumstances such as Health despite the fact these have been found to have a minimal influence over long-term happiness (Argyle in The foundations of hedonic psychology. Russel Sage Foundation, New York, 1999). Respondents mentioned a variety of New Behavioral Activities (e.g. time in Nature) that could offer a list of active leisure pursuits for use in happiness interventions. Finally, participants spoke of the importance of Social Values and having a Philosophy of Life (New Cognitive Activities). A recipe for long-term happiness is proposed based on past and current findings.     

Addressing Conceptual Confusions About Evolutionary Theorizing: How and Why Evolutionary Psychology and Feminism Do Not Oppose Each Other

This commentary is a rejoinder to the Buss and Schmitt (2011) and Eagly and Wood (2011) commentaries concerning how evolutionary psychology and feminism might fit together. This rejoinder provides one path toward uniting these perspectives in psychological literature by accomplishing three tasks. First, this rejoinder addresses and removes conceptual confusions offered by Buss and Schmitt (2011) concerning the philosophy of science and psychology research. Second, this rejoinder fits evolutionary psychology perspectives into a correctly understood philosophy of science for psychology. Third, enacting Eagly and Wood’s (2011) suggestions, this rejoinder connects evolutionary psychology and feminism by expanding Tate and Ledbetter’s (2010) stepwise model for understanding the simultaneous contributions of evolutionary and developmental factors to psychological phenomena. Thus, by removing conceptual roadblocks, this rejoinder provides a scaffold for fruitful discussions concerning the interplay of evolutionary psychology and feminist perspectives when characterizing gender differences and similarities.     

Turkish Migrants�� Organizations in Germany and Their Role in the Flow of Remittances to Turkey

Various studies, including ?stergaard-Nielsen (New York & London: Routledge, 2003), Pries and Sezgin (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag f??r Sozialwissenschaften, 2010), Thr?nhardt and Wei? (Freiburg: Lambertus, 2005), and Yurdakul (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2009) have examined the aims, activities, functions, and structures of migrant organizations in Germany. Among others, Daume et al. 2007, Kausch (Nr. 28: 21?C25 (http://www.service-eine-welt.de/images/text_material-1049.img). Accessed 23 October 2009, 2007), and Schmelz (Eschborn: GTZ, 2007) illustrated that some migrant organizations aim at supporting the development of their countries of origin. These organizations invest in infrastructure and agriculture, facilitate funding for development projects, provide post-disaster humanitarian aid, and offer social and financial assistance to their counterparts and to certain religious and/or political movements. A research gap, however, persists concerning the role of Turkish migrants?? organizations (TMOs) in the flow of remittances to Turkey. Particularly, it is not clear how organizational characteristics of TMOs influence their potential in attracting and transferring remittances. Combining approaches from organizational sociology and migration research, this paper intends to generate empirically founded knowledge about TMOs in Germany, while highlighting their need to legitimate themselves in multiple organizational fields. This paper illustrates that the potential of TMOs in attracting and transferring remittances depend on multiple factors such as the demographic characteristics of the Turkish migrants, Turkish and German governmental policies, and the organizational characteristics of TMOs. It also shows that the role of TMOs in the flow of remittances is limited as: (1) Turkish migrants?? social and economic resources are restricted, (2) TMOs?? competency in mobilizing migrants, fundraising, project development, and management has not been fully developed, and (3) Turkish and German governments do not actively cooperate with TMOs in transferring remittances.     

Importing Logics

The novel notion of importing logics is introduced, subsuming as special cases several kinds of asymmetric combination mechanisms, like temporalization [8, 9], modalization [7] and exogenous enrichment [13, 5, 12, 4, 1]. The graph-theoretic approach proposed in [15] is used, but formulas are identified with irreducible paths in the signature multi-graph instead of equivalence classes of such paths, facilitating proofs involving inductions on formulas. Importing is proved to be strongly conservative. Conservative results follow as corollaries for temporalization, modalization and exogenous enrichment.     

Psychotherapy as Moral Encounter: A Crisis of Modern Conscience

Psychotherapy can no longer be understood as a morally neutral or value-free practice. Many have argued that psychology is implicitly and inevitably laden with moral assumptions and has a significant impact on the moral and ethical fabric of its clients and surrounding society (Browning 1987; Doherty 1995; Dueck and Reimer 2003; Kelly and Strupp 1992; Rieff 1987, 2006). In this work, the authors highlight the profound identity crises within the field of psychology around the place of morality/ethics in its theories and practices. Chronicling some of the shifts between modern and postmodern theory will allow for a meaningful engagement with this issue. The postmodern shifts in the field have left clinicians ideologically hampered in their ability to attend to the moral dimensions of their clients’ lives. In conclusion, the authors posit a virtue ethics and consider avenues of holistically and meaningfully infusing clinical practice with moral sensibilities.     

The (Un)bearable Educational Lightness of Common Practices: On the Use of Urban Spaces by Schoolchildren

The present paper is about the author??s current research on children??s education in urban contexts. It departs from the rising offer of programmes for school children in out-of-school contexts (e.g. museums, libraries, science centres). It asks what makes these practices educational (and not just interesting, entertaining and/or audience building). Based on Biesta (2006a, 2010) theory of education, the author frames and analyses the educational characteristics of, and possibilities of articulating, in and out-of-school educational practices. This paper aims at understanding if the occasional outing from primary school premises promotes interruptions in the humanist foundations of school. In order to analyse relations between different institutions and professionals (to be) engaged in educational activities and programmes, Nóvoa (2002, 2009) essays will be brought to the discussion, namely his conception of the ??Public Space of Education????as a space where culture, education, arts, sports and leisure are shared responsibilities, and where diverse institutions are networked aiming towards societal pluralism. I argue for the possibility of using cities?? public spaces as contexts with a worldly quality to complexify children??s education. Nevertheless, I draw attention to the unbearable educational lightness that these practices may carry if they do not go beyond the praise of chance; as well as to their unsustainable weight if they perpetually repeat school??s normal orders and add up rational discourses.     

A Parable, A Pearl and “Popular”? How the Broadway Musical Wicked—Especially Elphaba’s Character—May Assist Adolescent Girls to Claim Their Uniqueness

In this essay I provide a brief exegesis of the parable of the ??pearl of great price?? (Matthew 13:45?C46) as an introduction to an examination of Elphaba??s character in the Broadway musical Wicked [as distinguished from her character in Gregory Maguire??s novel, Wicked (1996)] and the potential value this character has for pastoral care with adolescent girls who struggle with the need to belong as well as the need to be themselves. I argue that Wicked may be understood as a twenty-first century parable that appeals to many, adults and adolescents alike, but it is especially appealing to teenage girls because it ??taps into a certain teenage angst?? (Zinoman 2005) that relates to the quest for popularity, a first true love, and beauty makeovers. Elphaba??s seriousness has a certain kind of spiritual nature which may be related to her green skin (James 1984, p. 160) that may encourage adolescent girls to adopt their own spiritual natures and enable them to claim their own voices even as Elphaba finally ??defies gravity?? and learns to fly.     

The Logical Form of Interventionism

This paper argues that, notwithstanding the remarkable popularity of Woodward??s (2003) interventionist analysis of causation, the exact definitional details of that theory are surprisingly little understood. There exists a discrepancy in the literature between the insufficient appreciation of the logical details of interventionism, on the one hand, and the amount of theoretical work interventionism is expected to do, on the other. The first part of the paper distinguishes four significantly different readings of the logical form of Woodward??s analysis and identifies the two readings that best capture Woodward??s intentions in (2003) and (2008a), respectively. In the second part, I show that these different readings are not clearly kept apart in the literature, and, moreover, that neither of them can do all the work that interventionists would like the theory to do.     

Mirror systems and simulation: a neo-empiricist interpretation

It is often claimed that the discovery of mirror neurons supports simulation theory (ST). There has been much controversy about this, however, as there are various competing models of the functional contribution of mirror systems, only some of which characterize mirroring as simulation in the sense required by ST. But a brief review of these models reveals that they all include simulation in some sense. In this paper, I propose that the broader conception of simulation articulated by neo-empiricist theories of concepts can subsume the more specific conceptions of simulation presented by ST and by these other models, thereby offering a framework in which each of these models may play a role. According to neo-empiricism, conceptual thought in general involves simulation in the sense that it is grounded in sensory, motor, and other embodied systems (Barsalou, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 577?C609, 1999, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences, 364, 1281?C1289, 2009; Barsalou et al., Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(2), 84?C91, 2003; Prinz 2002, Mind & Language, 25(5), 612?C621, 2010; Glenberg and Robertson, Journal of Memory and Language, 43, 379?C401, 2000). Crucially, the term ??simulation?? here refers not to simulations of a target agent??s experience in the sense endorsed by simulation theory but to the activation of sensory, motor, affective, and introspective representations. This difference does not entail that neo-empiricism must be in competition with ST??indeed, I will propose that ST can be embedded as a special case within neo-empiricism.     

Thinking Styles and the Eriksonian Stages

The primary objective of this study was to investigate the predictive power of thinking styles for psychosocial development. Four hundred and twenty-six (212 men and 214 women) students from a large comprehensive university in Shanghai, the People??s Republic of China, responded to the Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised II (TSI-R2, Sternberg, Wagner, and Zhang 2007) and the Measures of Psychosocial Development (MPD, Hawley 1988). The TSI-R2 is based on Thinking styles, Cambridge University, Press, New York, (1997) theory of mental self-government, while the MPD is based on Identity: Youth and crisis, W.W. Norton, New York, (1968) theory of psychosocial development. Results suggested that after the variables gender and academic discipline were controlled for, creativity-generating styles positively contributed to psychosocial development and that norm-favoring styles negatively contributed to psychosocial development. Implications of these findings are discussed for university students, faculty members, and for university student development educators.