Indeterminacy and the analytic/synthetic distinctions: a survey

It is often assumed that there is a close connection between Quine’s criticism of the analytic/synthetic distinction, in ‘Two dogmas of empiricism’ and onwards, and his thesis of the indeterminacy of translation, in Word and Object and onwards. Often, the claim that the distinction is unsound (in some way or other) is taken to follow from the indeterminacy thesis, and sometimes the indeterminacy thesis is supported by such a claim. However, a careful scrutiny of the indeterminacy thesis as stated by Quine, and the varieties of the analytic/synthetic distinction, reveals that the two claims are mutually independent. Neither does the claim that the distinction is unsound follow from the indeterminacy thesis, nor that thesis from unsoundness claim, under any of the common interpretations of the analytic/synthetic distinction.     

Danger and safety: The analyst as analytic subject

Abstract

This paper considers questions of danger and safety in the analytic relationship in light of the contemporary recognition of analysis as a co-participatory process. In the interest of safety, the psychoanalyst has the responsibility to be persistently curious, particularly about the problems derived from his contact with the analysand. Information about the analyst's impact must be taken to heart; it must be experientially considered. As the process unfolds, the analyst presumes that a portion of its effect will be negative. The analyst aspires not to preempt all negative impact but to create an analytic environment in which the analysand's conscious and unconscious communications about impact may be attended to. The analyst's ability to receive such information is crucial in the establishment of a reliable process capable of addressing and surviving the unanticipated dangers that inevitably emerge and securing the analysand for further self articulation. The analyst can simultaneously attend to being the analyst and being a subject of analysis by regarding all communications from the analysand as representing, at least in part, interpretations of the analyst and the analyst's participation. Illustrative material is presented.     

The analytic situation as a dynamic field. 1969

This paper discusses the consequences of the importance that recent ³ papers assign to the countertransference. When the latter acquires a theoretical and technical value equal to that of the transference, the analytic situation is configured as a dynamic bi‐personal field, and the phenomena occurring in it need to be formulated in bi‐personal terms. First, the field of the analytic situation is described, in its spatial, temporal and functional structure, and its triangular character (the present–absent third party in the bi‐personal field) is underlined. Then, the ambiguity of this field is emphasized, with special weight given to its bodily aspect (the bodily experiences of the analyst and the patient being particularly revealing of the unconscious situation in the field). The different dynamic structures or lines of orientation of the field are examined: the analytic contract, the configuration of the manifest material, the unconscious configuration – the unconscious bi‐personal phantasy manifesting itself in an interpretable point of urgency – that produces the structure of the field and its modifications. The authors describe the characteristics of this unconscious couple phantasy: its mobility and lack of definition, the importance of the phenomena of projective and introjective identification in its structuring. The authors go on to study the functioning of this field, which oscillates between mobilisation and stagnation, integration and splitting. Special reference is made to the concept of the split off unconscious ‘bastion’ as an extremely important technical problem. The analyst’s work is described as allowing oneself to be partially involved in the transference–countertransference micro‐neurosis or micro‐psychosis, and interpretation as a means of simultaneous recovery of parts of the analyst and the patient involved in the field. Finally, the authors describe the bi‐personal aspect of the act of insight that we experience in the analytic process.     

The child as informant: Eliciting linguistic intuitions from young children

In this paper we report an interview technique we have developed to elicit judgments from young children about the well-formedness and referential properties of sentences. Judgments are compared with act-out responses of a group of 20 children ranging in age from 3 years 9 months to 5 years 4 months. We argue that judgment data are more revealing of children's grammars than are traditional performance tasks.     

Verbs as linguistic markers of agency: The social side of grammar

Basic grammatical categories may carry social meanings irrespective of their semantic content. In a set of four studies, we demonstrate that verbs—a basic linguistic category present and distinguishable in most languages—are related to the perception of agency, a fundamental dimension of social perception. In an archival analysis of actual language use in Polish and German, we found that targets stereotypically associated with high agency (men and young people) are presented in the immediate neighborhood of a verb more often than non‐agentic social targets (women and older people). Moreover, in three experiments using a pseudo‐word paradigm, verbs (but not adjectives and nouns) were consistently associated with agency (but not with communion). These results provide consistent evidence that verbs, as grammatical vehicles of action, are linguistic markers of agency. In demonstrating meta‐semantic effects of language, these studies corroborate the view of language as a social tool and an integral part of social perception.     

The topics in medieval logic

The topics is a theory of argumentation based upon topoi or in Latin loci. The medieval logicians used works by Aristotle and Boethius as their sources for this doctrine, but they developed it in a rather original way. The topics became a higher-level analysis of arguments which are non-valid from a purely formal point of view, but where it is none the less legitimate to infer the conclusion from the premiss(es). In this connection the topics give rise to a number of discussions about the form and the matter of arguments. Further the topic contribute to the elaboration of the important doctrine of the second intentions, i.e. higher-level concepts of the particular things. In some respects the topics may be said to form a link between formal and informal logic. The topics vanished as a part of logic at the end of the Middle Ages, perhaps because the medieval logicians never got rid of Boethius' claim to have compiled a complete list of the loci, which was an unlucky one. The topics does not have an exact parallel in modern formal logic, but some reflections on non-formal argumentation by recent authors contain certain resemblances to it.     

Predicate-argument structure as a link between linguistic and nonlinguistic representations

We present a study wherein a severe Broca's aphasic patient was trained to learn symbols representing both pure transitive and dative predicates--predicates differing in argument structure--in a visually based artificial language (c-ViC). We found a decrease in performance when two symbols, rather than one, were used to depict these "verbs." However, this decrease in performance was more pronounced for symbols representing pure transitive verbs--those that allow only one argument structure--than for symbols representing dative verbs--those that allow two different argument structures. Also, dative "verbs" yielded better performance when they were inserted in more complex, three-argument "sentences" than when they were inserted in two-argument "sentences." The opposite pattern was found for pure transitives. These results are discussed in terms of our claim that argument structure serves as a point of connection between linguistic information and non-linguistic visual information and in terms of the possibility that argument structure entries are shaped by the form in which visual information is parsed.