Animals and humans,thinking and nature

Studies that compare human and animal behaviour suspend prejudices about mind, body and their relation, by approaching thinking in terms of behaviour. Yet comparative approaches typically engage another prejudice, motivated by human social and bodily experience: taking the lone animal as the unit of comparison. This prejudice informs Heidegger’s and Merleau-Ponty’s comparative studies, and conceals something important: that animals moving as a group in an environment can develop new sorts of “sense.” The study of animal group-life suggests a new way of thinking about the creation of sense, about the body, the brain, and the relation between thinking and nature.     

Nonabsolute/relativistic thinking: A common factor underlying models of postformal reasoning?

Strong empirical evidence was obtained in support of the proposition that nonabsolute/relativistic (N/R) thinking is a unifying commonality underlying four postformal models of higher-order thinking, namely, problem finding, dialectical reasoning, relativistic operations, and reflective judgment. Within the construct of N/R thinking, two dimensions—the basic form and the epistemic view—and two levels—the formal form and the postformal form—were differentiated as hypothesized. The findings clarify logical relationships among the models as well as provide a common link unifying their diversity. Implications and suggestions for future research are provided.     

Types of body representation and the sense of embodiment

The sense of embodiment is vital for self recognition. An examination of anosognosia for hemiplegia—the inability to recognise that one is paralysed down one side of one’s body—suggests the existence of ‘online’ and ‘offline’ representations of the body. Online representations of the body are representations of the body as it is currently, are newly constructed moment by moment and are directly “plugged into” current perception of the body. In contrast, offline representations of the body are representations of what the body is usually like, are relatively stable and are constructed from online representations. This distinction is supported by an analysis of phantom limb—the feeling that an amputated limb is still present—phenomena. Initially it seems that the sense of embodiment may arise from either of these types of representation; however, an integrated representation of the body seems to be required. It is suggested information from vision and emotions is involved in generating these representations. A lack of access to online representations of the body does not necessarily lead to a loss in the sense of embodiment. An integrated offline representation of the body could account for the sense of embodiment and perform the functions attributed to this sense.     

Graveyards: Russian ritual and belief pertaining to the dead

The age-old tradition of feasting the dead has been maintained by Russian populations for well over five centuries. Graveyards hold a special place both in traditional Orthodox faith and in the lives of Russians and others in the city of Narva, Estonia. The tradition of feasting the dead for three, nine and forty days after death, can be traced unbroken to pre-Christian Rus’. Details may vary, but always the soul of the deceased must battle its way out of the body and then spend time in both heaven and hell. While this journey is occurring, the living must remember the dead, helping their souls during this period of travail. Even a final feast one year after the death of the individual does not end the relationship between the living and the deceased, for the graves are still visited on a regular basis as a sign of respect to the dead, who are potential saints in the Russian Orthodox tradition. This ‘saintly’ land — Russian graves — defines homeland and roots the population to a new area. By examining the importance of graveyards to Russians, to the ethnic Komi of Northern Russia, and other Eastern Europeans, I demonstrate that a sense of place is maintained in these rituals of daily life.     

Skepticism,relevant alternatives,and deductive closure

My view is that the relevant alternative position should be conceived of as in two parts:

Subversive Redemption in Psychoanalysis

Subversive redemption—the sense of overturning the conventional order of things in order to recover lost parts of the self—is a virtually neglected topic in psychoanalysis. With free association, Freud empowered patients to harness unconventional thoughts and feelings. Patients who engage in subversive redemption frequently have a strong sense of agency prompting them to open up in new ways in lieu of “playing it safe.” When patients begin to express certain forbidden ideas, the boundaries of analysis are broadened, freeing the analytic pair to become fully authentic. Psychoanalysis provides patients with an arena to renew themselves as they risk “killing off” their status quo positions to achieve the paradox of living more dangerously in the safety of the analytic surrounds. Patients then feel more confident about undertaking the process of subversive redemption in the wider world.     

After Kohlberg: Some implications of an Ethics of Virtue for the theory of moral education and development

It is beyond serious dispute that post-war reflection upon and research into moral education and development has been well nigh dominated by an extensive and ambitious research programme influenced and initiated by the modem cognitive developmental theorist Lawrence Kohlberg — a programme which can also be seen, moreover, as standing in a tradition of philosophical reflection about the nature of moral life going back to such significant enlightenment thinkers as Kant and Rousseau. It will also be familiar, however, that a powerful critique of this essentially liberal conception of the nature of moral life and values has lately gathered momentum under the influence of contemporary post-analytical and communitarian social and moral theorists variously under the spell of Aristotle. In the first place, then, this paper argues that a basically Kohlbergian approach to thinking about moral education is difficult — if not impossible — to sustain in the face of this neo-Aristotelian critique; secondly, however, it attempts to explore the possibilities of an alternative virtue-theoretical basis for understanding the nature of moral life and education.     

Unsymbolized thinking

Unsymbolized thinking—the experience of an explicit, differentiated thought that does not include the experience of words, images, or any other symbols—is a frequently occurring yet little known phenomenon. Unsymbolized thinking is a distinct phenomenon, not merely, for example, an incompletely formed inner speech or a vague image, and is one of the five most common features of inner experience (the other four: inner speech, inner seeing, feelings, and sensory awareness). Despite its high frequency, many people, including many professional students of consciousness, believe that such an experience is impossible. However, because the existence of unsymbolized thinking indicates that much experienced thinking takes place without any experience of words or other symbols, acknowledging the existence of unsymbolized thinking may have substantial theoretical import.     

Are natural languages universal?

Summary We began by distinguishing Tarskian and Fitchean notions of universality in such a way that the claim that no language is universal in the sense of Tarski is compatible with accepting Fitchean universality. Then we examined a proposal involving two truth concepts — one that fit the Fitchean notion and another that followed Tarski's views on truth — finding little advantage in such generosity. We attempted a reformulation of Herzberger's argument for the negative view — the view that no language is universal in Tarski's sense — but found it unsuccessful when the language of the argument's formulation was brought under consideration. A more persuasive argument for EI was found, free of the defect of the previous one. EI was then shown to have unsettling consequences, prompting us to inquire about avoiding it. We found this possible, noting that EI is itself a solution to the semantic paradoxes, to which there are alternatives that avoid the unwelcome aspects of EI. However, whether any such alternative is ultimately preferable to EI remains to be seen.Section 4 of this paper was presented at the 1973 Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, and I am particularly grateful to the paper's commentator, Stephen P. Stich, for his helpful comments. I have also profited from correspondence with Paul Teller, whose paper The Universality of Natural Languages and Paradoxes of Grounding in Semantics: A Response to Herzberger (1971, ditto) presents a position similar in certain respects to mine.     

Logical versus psychological necessity: A discussion of the role of common sense in psychological theory

Smedslund's has argued that psychological theory should be concerned with the logical analysis of common sense since (a) empirical data are "arbitrary" and no general and empirical laws can exist when it comes to human action; and (b) theoretical explanation of data is likely to be empirically empty—psychological theory often cannot be falsified. The argument was supported mainly by an analysis of Bandura's self-efficacy conceptions. Bandura's approach is, however, not developed to the point of being an explicit theory, a fact that explains why it can be demonstrated as being non-distinguishable from the naive analysis of action. Many well developed theories of decision making, such as Tversky's EBA theory, transcend common sense and are falsifiable. Common sense is, furthermore, subject to change over time and differs between cultures, and even between individuals. There is no such things as the common sense. It is also inconsistent and ambiguous and uses a loose mode of thinking which can often provide post hoc explanations but no predictions. Therefore, common sense probably offers little in the way of profound insights. Furthermore, the problems of inferrring general laws from unique events have not stifled progress in the natural sciences and should not discourage psychologists. The case for general laws in psychology is still being heard. Besides, even if findings are restricted in time and space they concern important questions of how people act here and now. Finally, Smedslund's attempt at logical analysis of treatment rules is shown to provide little more than semantic explication of the chosen definitions of key terms; in no way can such explication serve as a substitute for empirical research on psychotherapy effects.     

A theory of causality: Causality=interaction (as defined by a suitable quantum field theory)

In this paper I put forward a suggestion for identifying causality in micro-systems with the specific quantum field theoretic interactions that occur in such systems. I first argue — along the lines of general transference theories — that such a physicalistic account is essential to an understanding of causation; I then proceed to sketch the concept of interaction as it occurs in quantum field theory and I do so from both a formal and an informal point of view. Finally, I present reasons for thinking that only a quantum field theoretic account can do the job — in particular I rely on a theorem by D. Currie and to the effect that interaction cannot be described in (a Hamiltonian formulation of) Classical Mechanics. Throughout the paper I attempt to suggest that the widespread scepticism about the ability of quantum theory to support a theory of causality is mistaken and rests on several misunderstandings.     

On the Logic of Classes as Many

The notion of a "class as many" was central to Bertrand Russell's early form of logicism in his 1903 Principles of Mathematics. There is no empty class in this sense, and the singleton of an urelement (or atom in our reconstruction) is identical with that urelement. Also, classes with more than one member are merely pluralities — or what are sometimes called "plural objects" — and cannot as such be themselves members of classes. Russell did not formally develop this notion of a class but used it only informally. In what follows, we give a formal, logical reconstruction of the logic of classes as many as pluralities (or plural objects) within a fragment of the framework of conceptual realism. We also take groups to be classes as many with two or more members and show how groups provide a semantics for plural quantifier phrases.     

WebDiP: A tool for information search experiments on the World-Wide Web

We describe WebDiP (Web Decision Processes)—an open-source, online tool—which enables a researcher to track participants while they search for information in a database, available through the Internet. After various instructions on setup and configuration are given, a detailed view of WebDiP explains the system’s technical features. Furthermore, other open-source tools are mentioned that helped in programming WebDiP, running it, or analyzing data gathered with it. We present new approaches of how open-source thinking can be incorporated into a research process and discuss future perspectives of WebDiP.     

Emotions,feelings and intentionality

Emotions, I will argue, involve two kinds of feeling: bodily feeling and feeling towards. Both are intentional, in the sense of being directed towards an object. Bodily feelings are directed towards the condition of one's body, although they can reveal truths about the world beyond the bounds of one's body – that, for example, there is something dangerous nearby. Feelings towards are directed towards the object of the emotion – a thing or a person, a state of affairs, an action or an event; such emotional feelings involve a special way of thinking of the object of the emotion, and I draw an analogy with Frank Jackson's well-known knowledge argument to show this. Finally, I try to show that, even if materialism is true, the phenomenology of emotional feelings, as described from a personal perspective, cannot be captured using only the theoretical concepts available for the impersonal stance of the sciences.     

Shortcuts and Dynamic Marking in the Tableau Method for Adaptive Logics

Adaptive logics typically pertain to reasoning procedures for which there is no positive test. In [7], we presented a tableau method for two inconsistency-adaptive logics. In the present paper, we describe these methods and present several ways to increase their efficiency. This culminates in a dynamic marking procedure that indicates which branches have to be extended first, and thus guides one towards a decision — the conclusion follows or does not follow — in a very economical way.     

Standard and non-standard Newcomb Problems

Examples involving common causes — most prominently, examples involving genetically influenced choices — are analytically equivalent not to standard Newcomb Problems — in which the Predictor genuinely predicts the agent's decision — but to non-standard Newcomb Problems — in which the Predictor guarantees the truth of her predictions by interfering with the agent's decision to make the agent choose as it was predicted she would. When properly qualified, causal and epistemic decision theories diverge only on standard — not on non-standard — Newcomb Problems, and thus not on examples involving common causes.     

Dr. Albert Ellis—In His Own Words—On Success

Albert Ellis, Ph.D. gives his formula for success, along with his unique and extremely candid take on some of the obstacles he encountered along the way in his amazing quest to take Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)—the original cognitive behavioral approach—from its initial status as renegade to its current mainstream status.     

Interviewing as Communication: An Alternative Way of Administering the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children

Parents of 24 children referred to an outpatient psychology clinic (mean child age 10.8, range 6–15) were administered the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children Version 2.3 (DSIC-2.3) twice in a 1-week test–retest reliability design (mean retesting interval = 7.5 days, range = 6–11 days). An alternative mode of administration of the DISC, based on communication principles, was used, involving (a) a schematic representation of the areas to be covered; (b) definition of a common language for the categories, diagnoses, and criteria; and (c) the respondent being allowed to select the order in which the diagnostic areas were covered. The DISC items and modules were unchanged. Symptom scores derived from the DISC were highly reliable over 1 week (average ICC = .85, range = .67–.95) and showed no attenuation from Time 1 to Time 2. Reliability of DSM diagnoses averaged kappa = .80 (range = .63–1.0). There was no significant attenuation in diagnoses from Time 1 to Time 2. Overall, this alternative way of administering the DISC appears to have promise for reducing attenuation and boosting the reliability—and ultimately the validity—of child psychiatric diagnoses. Further investigations of the mechanisms underlying these effects, and further studies with child and adolescent respondents and nonreferred community samples are recommended.     

Life and Death Matters: Losing a Sense of the Value of Human Beings

The essay combines a specific and a more general theme. In attacking ‘the doctrine of the sanctity of human life’ Singer takes himself thereby to be opposing the conviction that human life has special value. I argue that this conviction goes deep in our lives in many ways that do not depend on what Singer identifies as central to that ‘doctrine’, and that his attack therefore misses its main target. I argue more generally that Singer’s own moral philosophy affords only an impoverished and distorted sense of the value of human life and human beings. In purporting to dig below the supposedly illusion–ridden surface of our thinking about value, Singer in fact often leads us away from the robust terrain of our lived experience into rhetorical, and sometimes brutal, fantasy.     

Phenomenology,physical education,and special populations

This paper attempts to show the complementarity between phenomenology and physical education as human sciences, and discusses how a consideration of this relation might inform the questions we ask and the methods we use in our research and teaching. We enter the common ground shared by phenomenology and physical education by way of three sensitizing concepts: lived experience, intersubjectivity, and insiders stories. Using examples from physical education and phenomenology, the paper shows the connections between these two increasingly compatible partners, emphasizes the primary connection — the body — and shows the practical and heuristic applications of phenomenology in the lifeworld of physical education.