The Behavior of Organisms?

The Psychological Record - The term & #x2018;organism & #x2018; enjoys a revered place within the vocabulary of behavior analysis, most notably perhaps within the title of...     

The Sexualisation of Culture?

This article examines contemporary debates about the ‘sexualisation of culture’. It sets out the context for claims that Western societies are becoming more sexualised and it explores a number of competing perspectives about sexualisation. It then looks in more detail at the nature of claims about sexualisation as they emerge from the different disciplinary perspectives of Psychology and Media and Cultural Studies, contrasting the strengths and weaknesses of each, and raising criticisms of both. In a final discussion section, the article considers the usefulness or otherwise of the notion of ‘sexualisation’ as analytic category and points to the need to go beyond polarised positions. It advocates a psychosocial approach that takes seriously differences and power in considering the contemporary proliferation of ‘sexualised’ images, practices and media.     

The boston bio-bang: The emergence of a “Regional system of innovation”

In this article we will describe the emergence of a great number of small, regionally concentrated, innovative biotech companies. We see these organizations as “hosts” of concepts and ideas, greatly influencing their spreading over the sector. We have chosen an evolutionary perspective following individual companies in their struggle for survival, describing it as “obtaining food” and “fooling predators.” This struggle gives insight in the behavior of the biotech companies and related institutions as a “system of innovation.” One of our findings is that the variety of biotech companies is conditioned by their selection environment, but that this selection environment allows great variety and even encourage variety by keeping the companies small. Haiko Van der Voort is a research associate who lectures and publishes in a wide range of issues including precess management and system innovations. Martin De Jong is associate professor of public management.     

The Critical Reception of Michelangelo's ‘The Last Judgement': The Theological Context

Abstract

Considered here will be the question of how the hostility of the clerical elite in sixteenth-century Italy to Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ‘Last Judgment’ may be explained. The problem arose from the many nude figures that the fresco contained. Why was nudity in Church so unpopular with the clerical elite in 1541 and for sixty years afterwards, bearing in mind that it had not raised an outcry in roughly similar circumstances earlier in the century? No real answers to these questions are to be found either in the Trent Decree on sacred images, or in the work of such sixteenth-century critics as Gilio da Fabriano. This study aims to shed more light on the matter. Some help is forthcoming from modern writers like Romeo de Maio and Bernardine Barnes. They emphasize the leading role of the ‘Theatine’ prelates, but without exposing the basic assumptions on which the ‘Theatine’ attitude depends. These basic assumptions can be probed to assess whether the objection was only to nudity in sacred spaces or to nudity tout court, and with particular reference to the argument of one theologian—Catharinus—who opted for comprehensive restrictions. In an argument directed against the Erasmian view of marriage, Catharinus identified Erasmus as a Pelagian and summarized the Augustinian argument against the Pelagians. His emphasis is on the fundamental depravity of all human beings after the Fall, a depravity that involved the stigmatization of the body and particularly of the sexual organs, since sin is a sexually transmitted disease. The upshot is that much of the human body is only presentable when veiled. In other words, nude art—'pagan art'—is not compatible with the Christian ethos.     

Witnessing and Passing. Discussion of Prince's “The Self in Pain: The Paradox of Memory. The Paradox of Testimony”

The author indicates that she has two voices. One voice speaks to the patient's loneliness and detachment and her expectation to not be seen, believed, or acknowledged. This voice, housing the knowledge that events that remain unprocessed continue to have an impact, wants Dr. Prince to risk intrusion and preemption. This voice believes that it is worth it. The author's other voice considers bottomless wounds and speaks to the patient's need to build up healthy aspects of personality that is necessary to do the holocaust work. This voice holds that this is not the time for Dr. Prince to witness what happened to the patient, what the perpetrators of massive crimes did to her or what the onlookers saw and chose not to do. This voice says that the patients lead should be followed. The author elaborates on her two voices and indicates what she would have done had she been working with the patient.     

Imagining the Truth. Discussion of Prince's “The Self in Pain: The Paradox of Memory. The Paradox of Testimony”

The discussion highlights the significant role played by imagination in representing the horrors that resist representation. It is Dr. Tylim's position that imagination assists patient and analyst in overcoming the limitations of memory. Imagination is the gateway to truth. In working with survivors, the therapeutic encounter may become a stage where unspeakable experiences attain presence in their absence. The silence or the gaps are then the victim's testimony.     

The status of psychoanalytic theory∗

What is the place of Psychoanalytic Theory on our map of knowledge and belief? Various alternatives are considered. Is it a scientific theory? — a myth? — or like a prescientific example of natural philosophy? — a branch of medical knowledge? — a premature empirical synthesis that is an approximation to the truth? Each of these answers runs into objections and difficulties, some of which are examined or noted. On the assumption that it is a provisional story which approximates to the truth, the question is then raised: what can we do to find out how much of an approximation to the truth the theory really is? The relevance and value of psychological studies are discussed; and the suggestion is made that the status of Psychoanalytic Theory will remain an ambiguous one for some time to come.     

The One-Variable Fragment of T→

We show that there are infinitely many pairwise non-equivalent formulae in one propositional variable p in the pure implication fragment of the logic T of “ticket entailment” proposed by Anderson and Belnap. This answers a question posed by R. K. Meyer.     

The Tyranny of the Enfranchised Majority? The Accountability of States to their Non-Citizen Population

The debate between legal constitutionalists and critics of constitutional rights and judicial review is an old and lively one. While the protection of minorities is a pivotal aspect of this debate, the protection of disenfranchised minorities has received little attention. Policy-focused discussion—of the merits of the Human Rights Act in Britain for example—often cites protection of non-citizen migrants, but the philosophical debate does not. Non-citizen residents or ‘denizens’ therefore provide an interesting test case for the theory of rights as trumps on ordinary representative politics. Are they the ultimate success story of the human rights framework? Or was Michael Walzer correct to describe government of denizens by citizens as a modern form of ‘tyranny’? This paper argues that neither liberal rights theorists nor democratic republicans provide a coherent response to the existence of denizens. Liberal rights theorists overstate the extent to which a politically powerless status can secure individual rights, while democratic republicans idealise the political process and wrongly assume that all those affected by laws are eligible for political participation. The paper outlines an alternative model for assessing the accountability of states to their non-citizen population, informed by the republican ideal of non-domination. It identifies gaps in state accountability to denizens–such as where there is inadequate diplomatic protection—and argues that these gaps are particularly troubling if their exit costs of leaving the state are high.     

Cyber-Islamophobia? The case of WikiIslam

A large amount of academic research has analysed and documented the fact that Muslims are often presented in a negative or stereotypical way in Western media and popular culture. This article focuses on how the Internet can also be used in spreading and publishing anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim opinions. Although the Internet is significant in the development of contemporary society, no studies have focused on the importance of information and communication technologies in spreading Islamophobic opinions. However, the new technologies can also be used for monitoring and combating Islamophobia, and many Muslim organisations are today using the Internet for these purposes. The article is based on an indepth analysis of both anti-Muslim and pro-Muslim homepages that can be related to the debate over Islamophobia.     

The cause of infant categorization?

We asked whether infants are sensitive to causal relations between objects and outcomes and whether this sensitivity supports categorization. Fourteen- and 18-month-old infants were familiarized with objects from a novel category. For some, the objects caused an electronic toy to activate. For others, the objects were present during activation of the toy, but did not cause the event. For the remaining infants, the events were never activated. Infants were asked to select another category member from a pair of previously unseen objects (one from the familiar, and one from a novel, category). Infants were more likely to select the category match in the causal than the non-causal and no outcome conditions, suggesting that they capitalize on causal information in forming object categories.     

The power of being heard: The benefits of ‘perspective-giving’ in the context of intergroup conflict

Although hundreds of dialogue programs geared towards conflict resolution are offered every year, there have been few scientific studies of their effectiveness. Across 2 studies we examined the effect of controlled, dyadic interactions on attitudes towards the ‘other’ in members of groups involved in ideological conflict. Study 1 involved Mexican immigrants and White Americans in Arizona, and Study 2 involved Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East. Cross-group dyads interacted via video and text in a brief, structured, face-to-face exchange: one person was assigned to write about the difficulties of life in their society (‘perspective-giving’), and the second person was assigned to accurately summarize the statement of the first person (‘perspective-taking’). Positive changes in attitudes towards the outgroup were greater for Mexican immigrants and Palestinians after perspective-giving and for White Americans and Israelis after perspective-taking. For Palestinians, perspective-giving to an Israeli effectively changed attitudes towards Israelis, while a control condition in which they wrote an essay on the same topic without interacting had no effect on attitudes, illustrating the critical role of being heard. Thus, the effects of dialogue for conflict resolution depend on an interaction between dialogue condition and participants' group membership, which may reflect power asymmetries.     

The Ingredients of Aristotle’s Theory of Fallacy

In chapter 8 of the Sophistical Refutations, Aristotle claims that his theory of fallacy is complete in the sense that there cannot be more fallacies than the ones he lists. In this article I try to explain how Aristotle could have justified this completeness claim by analysing how he conceptualizes fallacies (dialectical mistakes which do not appear so) and what conceptual ingredients play a role in his discussion of fallacies. If we take the format of dialectical discussions into account, we will see that there are only so many mistakes one can make which still do not appear to be mistakes. Aristotle’s actual list is almost identical to these apparent mistakes.     

The Return of the Myth of the Mental∗

McDowell's claim that “in mature human beings, embodied coping is permeated with mindedness”,1 1. “What Myth?”, this issue, p. 339. suggests a new version of the mentalist myth which, like the others, is untrue to the phenomenon. The phenomena show that embodied skills, when we are fully absorbed in enacting them, have a kind of non‐mental content that is non‐conceptual, non‐propositional, non‐rational and non‐linguistic.

This is not to deny that we can monitor our activity while performing it. For solving problems, learning a new skill, receiving coaching, and so forth, such monitoring is invaluable. But monitoring what we are doing as we are doing it degrades performance to at best competence. On McDowell's view, there is no way to account for such a degradation in performance since the same sort of content would be involved whether we were fully absorbed in or paying attention to what we were doing.

McDowell claims that it is an advantage of his conceptualism that it avoids any foundationalist attempt to build up the objective world on the basis of an indubitable Given or any other ground‐floor experience. And, indeed, if the world is all that is the case and our minds are unproblematically open to it, all experience is on the same footing. But one must distinguish motor intentionality, and the interrelated solicitations our coping body is intertwined with, from conceptual intentionality and the world of propositional structures it opens onto. The existential phenomenologist can then agree with McDowell in rejecting traditional foundationalisms, while yet affirming and describing the ground‐floor role of motor intentionality in providing the support on which all forms of conceptual intentionality are based.