God’s Melancholia

Donald Capps’s (Capps 1997, 2001, 2002a, b) male melancholia theory has been of interest to me during the past few years (Carlin 2003, 2006, 2007), and Capps (2004, 2007a, b) himself has been publishing more on the topic. In his psychobiographical book on Jesus, Capps (2000) notes that psychologists of religion have been reluctant to psychoanalyze Jesus, and here I note that even fewer have been willing to diagnose God, one recent exception being J. Harold Ellens (2007). In this article, I explore the melancholia issue further, this time applying the theory to God by means of theological concepts that deal with the Trinity and the passion of God. And while this article is playful (Pruyser 1974; cf. Dykstra 2001), the upshot is more serious: If men are incurably religious and melancholic, as Capps argues, and if men, by and large, are the creators of religion, wouldn’t one expect to find traces of this melancholy in religion, particularly in its sacred texts and doctrines? By identifying these tendencies in religion, especially in God, the pastoral psychologist, I believe, is helping contemporary Christian men—especially fathers and sons—recognize their own melancholy selves and, perhaps, helping them get along a little better.     

Why realists must reject normative quietism

The last two decades have seen a surge of support for normative quietism: most notably, from Dworkin (1996, 2011), Nagel (1996, 1997), Parfit (2011a, b) and Scanlon (1998, 2014). Detractors like Enoch (2011) and McPherson (2011) object that quietism is incompatible with realism about normativity. The resulting debate has stagnated somewhat. In this paper I explore and defend a more promising way of developing that objection: I’ll argue that if normative quietism is true, we can create reasons out of thin air, so normative realists must reject normative quietism.     

The consequence argument ungrounded

Peter van Inwagen’s original formulation of the Consequence Argument employed an inference rule (rule beta) that was shown to be invalid given van Inwagen’s interpretation of the modal operators in the Consequence Argument (McKay and Johnson in Philos Top 24:113–122, 1996). In response, van Inwagen (Metaphysics. The big questions, Blackwell, Oxford, 2008a, Harv Rev Philos 22:16–30, 2015) recently suggested a revised interpretation of his modal operators. Following up on a debate between Blum (Dialectica 57:423–429, 2003) and Schnieder (Synthese 162:101–115, 2008), I analyze van Inwagen’s revised interpretation in terms of explanatory notions and I argue that van Inwagen faces a dilemma: he either has to admit that beta entails fatalism, or he has to admit that a new counterexample invalidates beta. Either way, it seems reasonable to reject beta and to conclude that the Consequence Argument fails. Further, I argue that Widerker’s (Analysis 47:37–41, 1987) well-known substitute for rule beta is faced with a similar dilemma and, therefore, is bound to fail as well. I conclude that, if the modal operators are interpreted in terms of explanatory notions, neither van Inwagen’s nor Widerker’s rule of inference turns out to be valid.     

The personal and the subpersonal in the theory of mind debate

It is a widely accepted assumption within the philosophy of mind and psychology that our ability for complex social interaction is based on the mastery of a common folk psychology, that is to say that social cognition consists in reasoning about the mental states of others in order to predict and explain their behavior. This, in turn, requires the possession of mental-state concepts, such as the concepts belief and desire. In recent years, this standard conception of social cognition has been called into question by proponents of so-called ‘direct-perception’ approaches to social cognition (e.g., Gallagher 2001, 2005, 2007, 2012; Gallagher and Hutto 2008; Zahavi 2005, 2011) and by those who argue that the ‘received view’ implies a degree of computational complexity that is implausible (e.g., Bermúdez 2003; Apperly and Butterfill 2009). In response, it has been argued that these attacks on the classical view of social cognition have no bite at the subpersonal level of explanation, and that it is the latter which is at issue in the debate in question (e.g., Herschbach 2008; Spaulding 2010, 2015). In this paper, I critically examine this response by considering in more detail the distinction between personal and subpersonal level explanations. There are two main ways in which the distinction has been developed (Drayson 2014). I will argue that on either of these, the response proposed by defenders of the received view is unconvincing. This shows that the dispute between the standard conception and alternative approaches to mindreading is a dispute concerning personal-level explanations - what is at stake in the debate between proponents of the classical view of social cognition and their critics is how we, as persons, navigate our social world. I will conclude by proposing a pluralistic approach to social cognition, which is better able to do justice to the multi-faceted nature of our social interactions as well as being able to account for recent empirical findings regarding the social cognitive abilities of young infants.     

Scientific Progress,Understanding, and Knowledge: Reply to Park

Dellsén (2016) has recently argued for an understanding-based account of scientific progress, the noetic account, according to which science (or a particular scientific discipline) makes cognitive progress precisely when it increases our understanding of some aspect of the world. I contrast this account with Bird’s (2007, 2015); epistemic account, according to which such progress is made precisely when our knowledge of the world is increased or accumulated. In a recent paper, Park (2017) criticizes various aspects of my account and his arguments in favor of the noetic account as against Bird’s epistemic account. This paper responds to Park’s objections. An important upshot of the paper is that we should distinguish between episodes that constitute and promote scientific progress, and evaluate account of scientific progress in terms of how they classify different episodes with respect to these categories.     

Learning to Live in the Anthropocene: Our Children and Ourselves

This essay responds to recent philosophical interest in the Anthropocene by asking (Trachtenberg in Inhabiting the Anthropocene: how we live changes everything, 2016): Can and should educators adopt, form, transmit, teach ways of living to maintain, if not enhance Earth’s habitability, especially its habitability for diverse children? This inquiry therefore calls for conceptual study of learning to live through the Anthropocene—with, despite, after, before, amid, among, away from, and against its myriad harms, possible and actual, especially its harms to children. Examining cases of environmental racism in Checker’s Polluted Promises (2005), and other cases of environmental threats to children’s health, in Steingraber’s Raising Elijah (2011), this study begins by proposing the ecological gap in philosophy of education consequential for children resides within another epistemological gap, variously designated gender gap, love gap, care gap (Martin in The schoolhome: rethinking schools for changing families. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1992; Education reconfigured: culture, encounter, and change. Routledge, New York, 2011; Warren in Ecofeminist philosophy: a Western persepctive on what it is and why it matters. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, 2000). Ruddick’s maternal thinking (1984, 1988) provides a conceptual frame for theorizing three moral aims of learning to live in the Anthropocene that might inform public schooling.     

Explicating the Key Notions of Copresence and Verification in Relation to Husserl’s Use of the Term Direct to Describe Empathy

Zahavi and Gallagher’s contemporary direct perception model of intersubjectivity has its roots in the phenomenological project of Edmund Husserl. Some authors (Smith in Philos Phenomenol Res 81(3):731–748, 2010; Krueger in Phenomenol Cogn Sci 11:149–173, 2012; Bohl and Gangopadhyay in Philos Explor 17(2):203–222, 2014) have utilised, and criticised, Husserl’s model of direct empathic perception. This essay seeks to correct certain misunderstandings of Husserl notion of direct empathic perception and thus, by proxy, clarify the contemporary direct perception model, through an exegesis of Husserlian texts. In the first half of this essay I clarify the analogy between the directness of regular material object perception and the directness of empathic perception via a clarification of Husserl’s notion of co-presence. I argue that contemporary renditions of Husserl’s account which stress the dis-analogy between these two types of perception (Smith 2010; Krueger 2012) are based on a superficial and incorrect rendering of Husserl’s notion of co-presence. In the second half of this essay I clarify the notion of verification. I argue that, for Husserl, behaviour does not verify mental life. Instead, empathic verification occurs via the relation between concepts and intuitions. In my conclusions I show how contemporary authors misunderstand the fundamental nature of Husserl’s account of empathy because of the downgraded status of psychic life within contemporary cognitive science.     

Glymour and Quine on Theoretical Equivalence

Glymour (1970, 1977, 1980) and Quine (1975) propose two different formal criteria for theoretical equivalence. In this paper we examine the relationships between these criteria.     

Solving Smullyan Puzzles with Formal Systems

Solving numeric, logic and language puzzles and paradoxes is common within a wide community of high school and university students, fact witnessed by the increasing number of books published by mathematicians such as Martin Gardner (popular books as old as Gardner in Aha! insight. W. H. Freeman & Co., London, 1978, Wheels, life and other mathematical amusements. W H Freeman & Co., London, 1985), Douglas Hofstadter [in one of the best popular science books on paradoxes (Hofstadter in Godel, escher, bach: an eternal golden braid, Penguin, London, 2000)], inspired by Gödel’s incompleteness theorems), Patrick Hughes and George Brecht (see Hughes and Brecht in Vicious circles and infinity, an anthology of paradoxes. Penguin Books, London, 1993) and Raymond M. Smullyan (the most well known being Smullyan in Forever undecided, puzzle guide to godel. Oxford Paperbacks, Oxford 1988, To Mock a Mockingbird and other logic puzzles. Oxford Paperbacks, Oxford 2000, The lady or the tiger? And other logic puzzles. Dover Publications Inc., Mineola 2009), inter alia. Books by Smullyan (such as Smullyan 1988, 2000) are, however, much more involved, since they introduce learning trajectories and strategies across several subjects of mathematical logic, as difficult as combinatorial logic (see, e.g., Smullyan 2000), computability theory (see Smullyan 1988), and proof theory (see Smullyan 1988, 2009). These books provide solutions to their suggested exercises. Both statements and their solutions are written in the natural language, introducing some informal algorithms. As an exercise in Mathematics we wonder if an easy proof system could be devised to solve the amusing equations proposed by Smullyan in his books. Moreover, university students of logic could well train themselves in constructing deductive systems to solve puzzles instead of a non-uniform treatment one by one. In this paper, addressing students, we introduce one such formal systems, a tableaux approach able to provide the solutions to the puzzles involving either propositional logic, first order logic, or aspect logic. Let the reader amuse herself or himself!     

Modus Ponens Under the Restrictor View

There is a renewed debate about modus ponens. Strikingly, the recent counterexamples in Cantwell (Theoria, 74, 331–351 2008), Dreier (2009) and MacFarlane and Kolodny (The Journal of Philosophy, 107, 115–143 2010) are generated by restricted readings of the ‘if’-clause. Moreover, it can be argued on general grounds that the restrictor view of conditionals developed in Kratzer (1986) and Lewis (1975) leads to counterexamples to modus ponens (cp. Charlow Synthese, 190, 2291–2323 2013; Khoo Philosophical Studies, 166, 153–64 2013). This paper provides a careful analysis of modus ponens within the framework of the restrictor view. Despite appearances to the contrary, there is a robust sense in which modus ponens is valid, owing to the fact that conditionals do not only allow for restricted readings but have bare interpretations, too.     

Names Introduced with the Help of Unsatisfied Sortal Predicates: Reply to Aranyosi

In this paper I answer Aranyosi’s (Axiomathes 19(2):223–224, 2009) criticism of my “Is Phosphorus Hesperus?” (Axiomathes 19(1):101–102, 2009).     

Lost in Translation: Religion in The Public Sphere

This paper proposes a Wittgenstein-inspired critique of the prism of translation that frames the recent literature about the debate between Rawls and Habermas on the role of religious reasons in the public sphere (Habermas 2008; Weithman 2006; Wolterstorff 1997). This debate originates with the introduction of Rawls’s proviso in his conception of the public use of reason (Rawls The University of Chicago Law Review, 64(3), 765-807, 1997), which consists in the “translation” of religious reasons into secular ones, which he thinks is necessary in order for religious reasons to be legitimate in the public sphere (Courtois Dialogue, 49, 91-112, 2010; Loobuyck and Rummens Ars disputandi: The Online Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 5, 237–249, 2011; Sikka The Review of Politics, 78, 91-116, 2016). Even though Wittgenstein is not himself concerned with religious pluralism as a political issue, there are numerous scholars who have discussed the political implications of his remarks (Gunnell Contemporary Political Theory, 12 80-101, 2013; Livingston Philosophy and Social Criticism, 33(6), 691–715, 2007; Moore Philosophy and Social Criticism, 36(9), 1113-1136 2010; Pohlhaus and Wright Political Theory, 30(6), 800–27, 2002). The thesis of this paper is that the interpretation proposed by Cora Diamond (2000) in regards to ethical and religious questions turns out to be a suitable way out of the “translation requirement”. According to this solution, if there is to be an understanding between secular and religious citizens on the basis of religious reasons, it should not rely on a “translation” but rather on mutual self-representation.     

Deference,respect and intensionality

This paper is about the standard Reflection Principle (van Fraassen in J Philos 81(5):235–256, 1984) and the Group Reflection Principle (Elga in Nous 41(3):478–502, 2007; Bovens and Rabinowicz in Episteme 8(3):281–300, 2011; Titelbaum in Quitting certainties: a Bayesian framework modeling degrees of belief, OUP, Oxford, 2012; Hedden in Mind 124(494):449–491, 2015). I argue that these principles are incomplete as they stand. The key point is that deference is an intensional relation, and so whether you are rationally required to defer to a person at a time can depend on how that person and that time are designated. In this paper I suggest a way of completing the Reflection Principle and Group Reflection Principle, and I argue that so completed these principles are plausible. In particular, they do not fall foul of the Sleeping Beauty case (Elga in Analysis 60(2):143–147, 2000), the Cable Guy Paradox (Hajek in Analysis 65(286):112–119, 2005), Arntzenius’ prisoner cases (Arntzenius in J Philos, 100(7):356–370, 2003), or the Puzzle of the Hats (Bovens and Rabinowicz in Episteme 8(3):281–300, 2011).     

The Hidden Set-Theoretical Paradox of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Tractatus</Emphasis>

We are familiar with various set-theoretical paradoxes such as Cantor's paradox, Burali-Forti's paradox, Russell's paradox, Russell-Myhill paradox and Kaplan's paradox. In fact, there is another new possible set-theoretical paradox hiding itself in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (Wittgenstein 1989). From the Tractatus’s Picture theory of language (hereafter LP) we can strictly infer the two contradictory propositions simultaneously: (a) the world and the language are equinumerous; (b) the world and the language are not equinumerous. I call this antinomy the world-language paradox. Based on a rigorous analysis of the Tractatus, with the help of the technical resources of Cantor’s naive set theory (Cantor in Mathematische Annalen, 46, 481–512, 1895, Mathematische Annalen, 49, 207–246, 1897) and Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice (hereafter ZFC) (Jech 2006: 3–15; Kunen 1992: xv–xvi; Bagaria 2008: 619–622), I outline the world-language paradox and assess the unique possible solution plan, i.e., the mathematical plan utilizing ‘infinity’. I conclude that Wittgenstein cannot solve the hidden set-theoretical paradox of the Tractatus successfully unless he gives up his finitism.     

Distilling Common History and Practice Elements to Inform Dissemination: Hanf-Model BPT Programs as an Example

There is a shift in evidence-based practice toward an understanding of the treatment elements that characterize empirically supported interventions in general and the core components of specific approaches in particular. The evidence base for behavioral parent training (BPT) and the standard of care for early-onset disruptive behavior disorders (oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder), which frequently co-occur with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, are well established, yet an ahistorical, program-specific lens tells little regarding how leaders, University of Oregon Medical School, shaped the common practice elements of contemporary evidence-based BPT. Accordingly, this review summarizes the formative work of Hanf, as well as the core elements, evolution, and extensions of her work, represented in Community Parent Education (COPE; (Cunningham et al. in J Child Psychol Psychiatry 36:1141–1159, 1995; Cunningham et al. in COPE, the community parent education program: large group community-based workshops for parents of 3- to 18-year-olds, COPE Works, Hamilton, 2009), Defiant Children (DC; (Barkley in Defiant children: a clinician’s manual for assessment and parent training, Guilford Press, New York, 1987; Barkley in Defiant children: a clinician’s manual for assessment and parent training, Guilford Press, New York, 2013), Helping the Noncompliant Child (HNC; Forehand and McMahon in Helping the noncompliant child: a clinician’s guide to parent training, Guilford Press, New York, 1981; McMahon and Forehand in Helping the noncompliant child: family-based treatment for oppositional behavior, 2nd ed., Guilford Press, New York, 2003), Parent–child interaction therapy (PCIT; Eyberg and Robinson in J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol 11:130–137, 1982. doi:10.1080/15374418209533076; Eyberg in Child Fam Behav Ther 10:33–46, 1988; Eyberg and Funderburk in Parent–child interaction therapy protocol, PCIT International, Gainesville, 2011), and the Incredible Years (IY; (Webster-Stratton in Behav Ther 12:634–642, 1981. doi:10.1016/S0005-7894(81)80135-9; Webster-Stratton in J Pediatr Psychol 7:279–294, 1982. doi:10.1093/jpepsy/7.3.279; Webster-Stratton in The incredible years: parents and children series. Leader’s guide: preschool version of BASIC (ages 3–6 years, The Incredible Years, Seattle, 2008). Our goal is not to provide an exhaustive review of the evidence base for the Hanf-Model programs, rather our intention is to provide a template of sorts from which agencies and clinicians can make informed choices about how and why they are using one program versus another, as well as how to make inform flexible use one program or combination of practice elements across programs, to best meet the needs of child clients and their families. Clinical implications and directions for future work are discussed.     

Predicating from an Early Age: Edusemiotics and the Potential of Children’s Preconceptions

This paper aims to explain how semiotics and constructivism can collaborate in an educational epistemology by developing a joint approach to prescientific conceptions. Empirical data and findings of constructivist research are interpreted in the light of Peirce’s semiotics. Peirce’s semiotics is an anti-psychologistic logic (CP 2.252; CP 4.551; W 8:15; Pietarinen in Signs of logic, Springer, Dordrecht, 2006; Stjernfelt in Diagrammatology. An investigation on the borderlines of phenomenology, ontology and semiotics, Springer, Dordrecht, 2007) and relational logic. Constructivism was traditionally developed within psychology and sociology and, therefore, some incompatibilities can be expected between these two schools. While acknowledging the differences, we explain that constructivism and semiotics share the assumption of realism that knowledge can only be developed upon knowledge and, therefore, an epistemological collaboration is possible. The semiotic analysis performed confirms the constructivist results and provides a further insight into the teacher-student relation. Like the constructivist approach, Peirce’s doctrine of agapism infers that the personal dimension of teaching must not be ignored. Thus, we argue for the importance of genuine sympathy in teaching attitudes. More broadly, the article also contributes to the development of postmodern humanities. At the end of the modern age, the humanities are passing through a critical period of transformation. There is a growing interest in semiotics and semiotic philosophy in many areas of the humanities. Such a case, on which we draw, is the development of a theoretical semiotic approach to education, namely edusemiotics (Stables and Semetsky, Pedagogy and edusemiotics: theoretical challenge/practical opportunities, Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, 2015).     

Transformation emergence,enactive co-emergence,and the causal exclusion problem

In The Self: Naturalism, Consciousness and the First-Person Stance (Oxford University Press 2012), Jonardon Ganeri draws on the ancient Indian Cārvāka philosophy to delineate a “transformation” account of strong emergence, and argues that the account adequately addresses the well-known “causal exclusion problem” formulated by Kim (Supervenience and mind. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993; Mind in a physical world: an essay on the mind-body problem and mental causation. MIT Press, Cambridge, 1998; Philos Stud 95:3–36, 1999; Synthese 151:547–559, 2006). Ganeri moreover suggests that the transformation account is superior to the enactive account of emergence, developed by Francisco Varela and Evan Thompson (Varela et al. in Embodied mind: cognitive science and human experience. MIT Press, Cambridge, 1991; Thompson and Varela in Trends Cogn Sci 5:418–425, 2001; Thompson in Mind in life: biology, phenomenology, and the sciences of mind. Belknap Press, Cambridge, 2007) for the latter merely “sidesteps” the exclusion problem (Ganeri in The self: naturalism, consciousness, and the first-person stance. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012: ch. 4, footnote 9). In this commentary, presented in an “author meets critics” panel at the Pacific APA 2016, I suggest that, contrary to Ganeri’s claim, the enactive account does not merely sidestep the causal exclusion problem—the response the enactive account can offer is actually highly similar to the response offered by the transformation account.     

Mental Illness Publications in Major Pastoral Care Journals from 1950 to 2003

The issue of mental illness has been of considerable interest to both of us over the past several years. The first author has taught a course on the subject for a decade, and his recent publications on the subject include several articles on John Nash (Capps, 2003b, 2004a,b, 2005b), a book on mental illness for pastoral care professionals (2005a), and an article on whether William James was a patient at McLean Hospital (2007). The second author has had experience with the mentally ill through his pastoral work at Trenton Psychiatrist Hospital in Trenton, New Jersey, a mental hospital with a rather checkered history (see Scull, 2005), and in Scotland and has also written an article on John Nash (Carlin, 2006). This shared interest, together with evidence that serious mental illness in America has been steadily increasing (Torrey &; Miller, 2001, pp. 295–299), caused us to wonder what sort of attention mental illness has received in our major journals of pastoral care from 1950 to the present. Specifically, has this attention kept pace with the increase in mental illness?     

Gender Differences in Experiences with Couples Treatment for IPV

Evidence suggests that conjoint treatment can be effective for certain violent couples in certain situations (Finkel in Rev Gen Psychol 11:193–207, 2007; LaTaillade et al. in J Cogn Psychother 20:393–410, 2006; Fals-Stewart et al. in J Consult Clin Psych 73:239–248, 2005; Stith et al. in J Marital Fam Ther 29(3):407–426, 2003). However, not as much is known about which aspects of conjoint treatment make a difference, nor if male and female participants experience these elements of treatment differently. Knowing which components of couples’ treatment clients perceive as helpful—and whether their perceptions differ by gender—will allow us to redefine models with an eye toward making them more effective. In this study we used qualitative methods to examine the aspects of a particular couples’ treatment program (Stith and McCollum in Aggress Violent Beh 16(4):312–318, 2011) that clients found useful while also considering the differences between men’s and women’s responses. Fourteen couples, in which the male had been identified as the primary aggressor, were interviewed multiple times to gain their perspectives about components of the program they found helpful and their suggestions for program improvement. Themes are analyzed by gender. Implications for treatment and future research are provided.     

Bridging Ranking Theory and the Stability Theory of Belief

In this paper we compare Leitgeb’s stability theory of belief (Annals of Pure and Applied Logic, 164:1338-1389, 2013; The Philosophical Review, 123:131-171, [2014]) and Spohn’s ranking-theoretic account of belief (Spohn, 1988, 2012). We discuss the two theories as solutions to the lottery paradox. To compare the two theories, we introduce a novel translation between ranking (mass) functions and probability (mass) functions. We draw some crucial consequences from this translation, in particular a new probabilistic belief notion. Based on this, we explore the logical relation between the two belief theories, showing that models of Leitgeb’s theory correspond to certain models of Spohn’s theory. The reverse is not true (or holds only under special constraints on the parameter of the translation). Finally, we discuss how these results raise new questions in belief theory. In particular, we raise the question whether stability (a key ingredient of Leitgeb’s theory) is rightly thought of as a property pertaining to belief (rather than to knowledge).