How Are We to Interpret Heidegger's Oeuvre? A Methodological Manifesto

One may have different objectives in interpreting texts. If a judge interprets a statute in order to obtain a satisfactory solution to a case, his aim may be called "applicative". But if a historian of science wants to reconstruct the meaning of obscure passages of Ptolemy's "Hypotheses planetarum", his objectives are purely historical and theoretical.
The paper argues that these different aims, applicative and historical ones, require different methodologies of interpretation, and imply different criteria of success. In particular, the "principle of charity" according to which an interpretation is better to the extent that we agree more with what the text as interpreted says, is fitting for applicative interpretations, but not without further qualifications for historical ones.
The paper argues further that we should apply the methodology of historical interpretation to the entire body of German texts now available, if we want to interpret Martin Heidegger's philosophical oeuvre, assess its philosophical value, and investigate its links to Nazism. These were the aims of Herman Philipse's book "Heidegger's Philosophy of Being. A Critical Interpretation" (Princeton University Press, 1998, 555 pp.). Criticisms of this book by Taylor Carman and others are often off target because they presuppose applicative interpretations that aim at making Heidegger say things the interpreter believes himself, instead of striving for historical adequacy, and that are based upon a small selection of translations instead of upon the entire corpus of extant German texts.     

How Are Different Properties of a Scene Encoded in Visual Memory?

Recent studies in scene perception suggest that much of what observers believe they see is not retained in visual memory. Depending on the roles they play in organizing the perception of a scene, different visual properties may require different amounts of attention to be incorporated into a mental representation of the scene. The goal of this study was to compare how three visual properties of scenes, colour, object position, and object presence, are encoded in visual memory. We used a variation on the change detection “flicker” task and measured the time to detect scene changes when: (1) a cue was provided regarding the type of change; and, (2) no cue was provided. We hypothesized that cueing would enhance the processing of visual properties that require more attention to be encoded into scene representations, whereas cueing would not have an effect for properties that are readily or automatically encoded in visual memory. In Experiment 1, we found that there was a cueing advantage for colour changes, but not for position or presence changes. In Experiment 2, we found the same cueing effect regardless of whether the colour change altered the configuration of the scene or not. These results are consistent with the idea that properties that typically help determine the configuration of the scene, for example, position and presence, are better encoded in scene representations than are surface properties such as colour.     

Are Parents Accurate Reporters of Their Child's Cognitive Abilities?

Examined parent's ability to accurately report their child's cognitive functioning. Participants were 145 children and their parents referred to an outpatient mental health clinic for cognitive testing. Parent reports were measured using Likert ratings designed for research and clinical purposes. Children's cognitive abilities were measured using the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery—Revised (Woodcock, 1989) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—Third Edition (Wechsler, 1991). For boys, parental reports of general cognitive ability, fluid reasoning, comprehension-knowledge, visual processing, auditory processing, and acquisition and retrieval were significantly related to performance-based measurements of these same traits, and parental report of boys' fluid reasoning and visual processing ability evidenced specificity. For girls, parental report of general cognitive ability, fluid reasoning, visual processing, and auditory processing were significantly related to performance-based measurements of these same traits, and parental reports of girls visual processing and auditory processing evidenced specificity. These findings suggest areas where clinicians can be more confident of parental report of children's cognitive abilities and other areas where clinicians should be wary of parental report.     

Are Disciplinary Students Different?

This study was conducted in an attempt to identify affective characteristics which distinguish between disciplinary and nondisciplinary students. The measures employed were the Inventory of Beliefs, Rokeach's Dogmatism Scale, and the Differential Values Inventory. A control group, matched on the basis of college aptitude score and socio-economic status, was selected with which to compare the disciplinary group. Male and female scores were analyzed separately. The writer hypothesized that disciplinary offenders would tend to be more flexible, less dogmatic, and hold more emergent value systems than non-offenders. In each case except one the hypotheses were rejected. Female offenders differed significantly from non-offenders with regard to value orientation in the direction predicted.     

How Accurate are Recruiters' First Impressions of Applicants in Employment Interviews?

The ability of recruiters and laypersons (students) to detect applicant personality traits and deception was studied. Participants viewed mock videotapes of target applicants answering interview questions. They subsequently judged the applicants' personality on the Big Five dimensions. Then, they viewed another videotape with other applicants presenting themselves either truthfully or not, and subsequently guessed which version was truthful. Personality judgments were compared with targets' self‐assessments and peer assessments to create an accuracy score. Both recruiters and students accurately detected applicants' global personality profile. Recruiters were better at this than students. However, students were better at judging the specific traits of openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness, whereas recruiters only accurately detected openness. Recruiters detected lies above chance whereas students did not.     

What Are They Thinking? A National Study of Stability and Change in Divorce Ideation

This study reports on a nationally representative sample of married individuals ages 25–50 (N = 3,000) surveyed twice (1 year apart) to investigate the phenomenon of divorce ideation, or what people are thinking when they are thinking about divorce. Twenty‐eight percent of respondents had thought their marriage was in serious trouble in the past but not recently. Another 25% had thoughts about divorce in the last 6 months. Latent Class Analysis revealed three distinct groups among those thinking about divorce at Time 1: soft thinkers (49%), long‐term‐serious thinkers (45%), and conflicted thinkers (6%). Yet, divorce ideation was not static; 31% of Time 1 thinkers were not thinking about it 1 year later (and 36% of nonthinkers at Time 1 were thinking about it 1 year later). Also, Latent Transition Analysis revealed 49% of Time 1 long‐term‐serious thinkers, 56% of soft thinkers, and 51% of conflicted thinkers had shifted groups at Time 2, mostly in the direction of less and softer thinking about divorce. Overall, divorce ideation is common but dynamic, and it is not necessarily an indication of imminent marital dissolution.     

How Accurate Is the Pearson r-from-Z Approximation? A Monte Carlo Simulation Study

The Pearson r-from-Z approximation estimates the sample correlation (as an effect size measure) from the ratio of two quantities: the standard normal deviate equivalent (Z-score) corresponding to a one-tailed p-value divided by the square root of the total (pooled) sample size. The formula has utility in meta-analytic work when reports of research contain minimal statistical information. Although simple to implement, the accuracy of the Pearson r-from-Z approximation has not been empirically evaluated. To address this omission, we performed a series of Monte Carlo simulations. Results indicated that in some cases the formula did accurately estimate the sample correlation. However, when sample size was very small (N = 10) and effect sizes were small to small-moderate (ds of 0.1 and 0.3), the Pearson r-from-Z approximation was very inaccurate. Detailed figures that provide guidance as to when the Pearson r-from-Z formula will likely yield valid inferences are presented.     

Are Judgments of Linear Size More Accurate When Based on an Affordance?

Perceptual judgments of size affect a wide variety of activities but can be difficult to measure. Two methods of estimating size (linear extent) were compared. One required adjustment of the distance between a point created by a laser beam and a fixed reference line; the other involved adjusting the separation of 2 vertical posts. Two groups of adults were instructed to use these methods to indicate either simple linear extent ("width") or the affordance of passability (minimal opening) for identical dimensions of objects and their own bodies. Afterward, the participants completed a survey including the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26). Accuracy did not vary with instructions or EAT-26 scores. As predicted, accuracy was found to be lower for participants whose body weight had recently changed by 5% or more, presumably due to a less refined attunement to their current body sizes. Higher accuracy was expected for both the method (posts) and instructions ("opening") that should foster affordance-based judgments. Despite the greater ease and precision of the laser-based method, more accurate estimates were made using movable posts. These results are discussed in terms of 2 contrasting perceptual modes.     

What Is Neurophilosophy? A Methodological Account

The term ``neurophilosophy' is often used either implicitly or explicitly for characterizing the investigation of philosophical theories in relation to neuroscientific hypotheses. The exact methodological principles and systematic rules for a linkage between philosophical theories and neuroscientific hypothesis, however, remain to be clarified. The present contribution focuses on these principles, as well as on the relation between ontology and epistemology and the characterization of hypothesis in neurophilosophy. Principles of transdisciplinary methodology include the `principle of asymmetry', the `principle of bi-directionality' and the `principle of transdisciplinary circularity'. The `principle of asymmetry' points to an asymmetric relationship between logical and natural conditions. The `principle of bi-directionality' claims for the necessity of bi-directional linkage between natural and logical conditions. The `principle of transdisciplinary circularity' describes systematic rules for mutual comparison and cross-conditional exchange between philosophical theory and neuroscientific hypotheses. The relation between ontology and epistemology no longer is determined by ontological presuppositions i.e. ``ontological primacy'. Instead, there is correspondence between different `epistemological capacities' and different kinds of ontology which consecutively results in ``epistemic primacy' and ``ontological pluralism'. The present contribution concludes by rejecting some so-called `standard-arguments' including the `argument of circularity', the `argument of categorical fallacy', the `argument of validity' and the `argument of necessity'. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

How Secure are Unproctored Pre-Employment Tests? Analysis of Inconsistent Test Scores

Employment tests have long been scrutinized for psychometric considerations such as validity and reliability, but the extent to which cheating may occur on pre-employment tests has generally been overlooked. With the rise of unproctored, on-demand, online testing, the need has never been greater to focus on design and process considerations that can help mitigate the potential for cheating on employment tests. This paper builds on the limited existing research on the detection of inconsistent test scores on unproctored Internet testing. Job candidates (n = 4,026) completed a computer adaptive cognitive ability test under two conditions: an unproctored screening test followed by a proctored confirmation test. Analyses focused on detecting instances of inconsistent test scores based on comparison of standard errors of measure for the unproctored and proctored test scores (Guo and Drasgow, Int J Sel Assess 18:351–364, 2010). Results revealed a relatively low number of inconsistent scores and are discussed in the context of future research, application, and theory building on the nature of cheating on pre-employment tests.     

How low does ethical leadership flow? Test of a trickle-down model

This research examines the relationships between top management and supervisory ethical leadership and group-level outcomes (e.g., deviance, OCB) and suggests that ethical leadership flows from one organizational level to the next. Drawing on social learning theory [Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.; Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.] and social exchange theory [Blau, p. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. New York: John Wiley.], the results support our theoretical model using a sample of 904 employees and 195 managers in 195 departments. We find a direct negative relationship between both top management and supervisory ethical leadership and group-level deviance, and a positive relationship with group-level OCB. Finally, consistent with the proposed trickle-down model, the effects of top management ethical leadership on group-level deviance and OCB are mediated by supervisory ethical leadership.     

Are Newborns Morally Different from Older Children?

Policies and position statements regarding decision-making for extremely premature babies exist in many countries and are often directive, focusing on parental choice and expected outcomes. These recommendations often state survival and handicap as reasons for optional intervention. The fact that such outcome statistics would not justify such approaches in other populations suggests that some other powerful factors are at work. The value of neonatal intensive care has been scrutinized far more than intensive care for older patients and suggests that neonatal care is held to a higher standard of justification. The relative value placed on the life of newborns, in particular the preterm, is less than expected by any objective medical data or any prevailing moral frameworks about the value of individual lives. Why do we feel less obligated to treat the premature baby? Do we put newborns in a special and lesser moral category? We explore this question from a legal and ethical perspective and offer several hypotheses pertaining to personhood, reproductive choices, “precious children,” and probable evolutionary and anthropological factors.     

How Social Are Task Representations?

ABSTRACT— The classical Simon effect shows that actions are carried out faster if they spatially correspond to the stimulus signaling them. Recent studies revealed that this is the case even when the two actions are carried out by different people; this finding has been taken to imply that task representations are socially shared. In work described here, we found that the "interactive" Simon effect occurs only if actor and coactor are involved in a positive relationship (induced by a friendly-acting, cooperative confederate), but not if they are involved in a negative relationship (induced by an intimidating, competitive confederate). This result suggests that agents can represent self-generated and other-generated actions separately, but tend to relate or integrate these representations if the personal relationship between self and other has a positive valence.     

Do Master Narratives Change Among High School Students? A Characterization of How National History Is Represented

Master narratives frame students’ historical knowledge, possibly hindering access to more historical representations. A detailed analysis of students’ historical narratives about the origins of their own nation is presented in terms of four master narrative characteristics related to the historical subject, national identification, the main theme and the nation concept. The narratives of Argentine 8th and 11th graders were analyzed to establish whether a change toward a more complex historical account occurred. The results show that the past is mostly understood in master narrative terms but in the 11th grade narratives demonstrate a more historical understanding. Only identification appears to be fairly constant across years of history learning. The results suggest that in history education first aiming at a constructivist concept of nation and then using the concept to reflect on the national historical subject and events in the narrative might help produce historical understanding of a national past.