CONCEPTS, CATEGORIES, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE

Why are psychologists not often called on for their expertise in connection with the larger problems of society? The nature of expertise is analyzed in the framework of a theory of concept formation and categorization. Expert-novice differences in approaches to problems, and, more generally, the nature oj abstraction and judgment, are interpreted in terms of cognitive processes that operate by computations on an instance-based composite memory. Applied to "growing pains" of psychological science, the theory has implications for graduate training and the direction of research support.     

CONCEPTS AND OBJECTIVITY

Some philosophers—indeed, a large number—have presented us with a picture of human knowledge which makes it problematic as to whether we can ever be acquainted with an objective world. Given the nature of perception and thought as characterized by, e.g., Descartes and Hume, there is a problem about how anything I can be aware of can have any sort of objective status; there is a problem of how my awareness of anything can amount to anything other than its merely seeming to me that things are thus and so. And of course many of these same philosophers, and other philosophers, have tried in all sorts of different ways to counter this skeptical thrust. Some, like Descartes, have argued that although human perceiving and human thinking are themselves purely subjective affairs, nevertheless the content of some of our thoughts and ideas is such that it (the content) could not exist if there did not also exist certain things of a quite objective nature. Another way of putting Descartes' thesis is to say that although all our concepts of things are, as concepts, purely subjective entities, nevertheless the content of some of our concepts requires that there exist certain objective entities.     

LIFE AND MEANING

This paper addresses an apparent tension between a familiar claim about meaning in general, to the effect that the meaning of anything owes to its place, ultimately, within a ‘form of life’, and a claim, also familiar, about the meaning of human life itself, to the effect that this must be something ‘beyond the human’. How can life itself be meaningful if meaning is a matter of a relationship to life? After elaborating and briefly defending these two claims, two ways of amending and thereby reconciling them are considered and rejected. These ways involve either spiriting away the issue of life's meaning or encouraging unwelcome metaphysical views. The author then argues that, rather than remove the tension between the two claims, each should be viewed as expressing an aspect of a delicate metaphysical position. This position is distinguished from ones, like transcendental idealism and constructivism, with which it might be confused, and is then related to Daoist and Zen thought and to the later philosophy of Heidegger. Crucial to the position is the proposal that the ‘beyond the human’ which enables life to be meaningful is both ineffable and ‘intimate’ with life itself.     

国外本土心理学研究进展

首先指出本土心理学产生的思想基础是后现代主义思潮和多元文化的理念,其直接的推动力是来自于心理学内部对严格的行为主义的局限的批判和对具有文化契合性的心理学的倡导以及心理学应用方面的需要;其次,阐明了本土心理学与心理学本土化涵义上的区别和本土心理学4种主要研究模式;最后,对本土心理学的积极作用和存在的问题进行了评述。.     

GEOENGINEERING,THEOLOGY, AND THE MEANING OF BEING HUMAN

Because of the lack of a meaningful international response to global warming, geoengineering has emerged as a potential technological response to climate change. But, thus far, little attention has been given to how religion impacts our understanding of geoengineering. I defend the need to incorporate theological reflection in the conversation of geoengineering by investigating how geoengineering proposals contain an implicit anthropology. A significant framework for our assessment of geoengineering is the balance of human capability and fallibility—a balance that is at the center of theological and religious interpretations of the meaning of the human condition. Similarly, geoengineering challenges our past understandings of theological anthropology.