The Living Human Web: A Twenty-five Year Retrospective

This article traces developments in the 25-year history of a metaphor that has shaped the late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century discipline of pastoral theology in the United States. It looks back at the ‘living human document’ as a pivotal image and then identifies three trends behind the appearance of the ‘living human web,’ its key attributes, four divergent ways the metaphor has been used, and tasks ahead. The article argues that while the living human document addressed the challenge of irrelevant theology, the living human web responded to the challenge of social injustice. But both metaphors share a common aim endemic to the discipline—to expand empathy, whether for the individual or the wider context, in order to respond to people in need.     

The Living Fossil of Human Judgment

Although the biases and anomalies characterizing psychometric data should serve as conclusive evidence of systematic flaws in scientific methodology, these problems are usually ignored, which reduces empirical psychology to the closed system of its error theory. However, psychometric scores are ambiguous, and response-shifts and fluctuating validities point to fundamental differences in what the measuring-apparatus questionnaire records and how the measuring-apparatus person judges. Therefore, empirical methods fail when psychology requires evidence-based knowledge about cognitive processes and phenomena. Correcting these flaws requires a reassessment of basic scientific premises and careful consideration of Homo sapiens’ biosemiotic heuristics. Based on comprehensive biopsychosocial, data, the author reconstructs the evolutionary axioms of self-referenced cognitions and reveals what is usually obscured by the axioms of normal science. He substantiates the need for a paradigm shift toward basic bio–cultural principles and an evolutionary understanding of human thinking and behavior.     

荀子对人的主体性的强调

本文从天人理论、社会政治思想、个人礼义修养三个方面论述了荀子对人的主体性的强调。     

Correction to: The Ethical Subject and Willing Subject in the Tractatus: an Alternative to the Transcendental Reading

Philosophia - The original version of the article missed to include an acknowledgments. The missing information is provided below.     

The Ethical Subject and Willing Subject in the Tractatus: an Alternative to the Transcendental Reading

Philosophia - The Transcendental Reading of the Tractatus argues that Wittgenstein endorses, under the notion of ‘metaphysical subject’, the existence of a willing subject as a...     

Subject relative clauses are not universally easier to process: Evidence from Basque

Studies from many languages consistently report that subject relative clauses (SR) are easier to process than object relatives (OR). However, Hsiao and Gibson (2003) report an OR preference for Chinese, a finding that has been contested. Here we report faster OR versus SR processing in Basque, an ergative, head-final language with pre-nominal relative clauses. A self-paced reading task was used in Experiments 1 and 2, while ERPs were recorded in Experiment 3. We used relative clauses that were ambiguous between an object or subject-gap interpretation and disambiguated later in the sentence. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 showed that SR took longer to read than OR in the critical disambiguating region. In addition, Experiment 3 showed that SR produced larger amplitudes than OR in the P600 window immediately after reading the critical disambiguating word. Our results suggest that SR are not universally easier to process. They cast doubts on universal hypotheses and suggest that processing complexity may depend on language-specific aspects of grammar.     

Human Imprints of Real Time: from Semantics to Metaphysics

Investigation into the reality of time can be pursued within the ontological domain or it can also span human thought and natural language. I propose to approach time by correlating three domains of inquiry: metaphysical time (M), the human concept of time (E), and temporal reference in natural language (L), entertaining the possibility of what I call a ‘horizontal reduction’ (L?>?E?>?M) and ‘vertical reduction’. I present a view of temporality_L/E as epistemic modality, drawing on evidence from the L domain and its correlates in the E and M domains. On this view, the human concept of time is a complex, ‘molecular’ concept and can be broken down into primitive concepts that are modal in nature, featuring as degrees of epistemic commitment to representations of states of affairs. I present evidence from tensed and tenseless languages (endorsing the L?>?E path) and point out its compatibility with the view of real time as metaphysical modality (endorsing the E?>?M path).

     

The Reasons for Living Inventory: psychometric properties

The test-retest reliability, internal consistency reliability, normative, and item analysis data of the Reasons for Living Inventory were investigated in a sample of 116 college students. The inventory has six subscales, each of which assesses a category of adaptive beliefs and expectations considered reasons for not committing suicide. The inventory was administered twice, with a 3-week interval between testings. Test-retest coefficients for the men, women, and total sample were moderate to high. The alpha coefficients and item-total correlations for the subscales and the total inventory provided strong support for internal consistency. 26 items were consistently endorsed by 30% or more of our total sample as "extremely important," while only four were suggested as "not at all important" reasons for not committing suicide.     

论社会主体如何可能——面对人类解放的困惑

唯物史观通过对资本主义生产现实的批判,认为人类解放是历史的必然.人类解放将产生全新的社会主体,社会能够预先规划全面合理的社会生产活动.作为主体的社会既与通常的个体形态的主体相似,又比个人主体更有能力,是一个"社会-鲁滨逊".社会-鲁滨逊的可能性乃至必然性一方面依赖于想象力,另一方面依赖于辩证法.想象力虽具有创造性,却根本地受制于经验.而辩证法是在反思性前提下呈现客观历史进程的,它只有去除反思性才能预断未来,但这样它的效力就会成为问题.就这两方面来说,作为主体的社会总不免令人产生理智上的困惑.     

从心灵到语言 ——语言研究与人文科学

该文概述西方学术主流从“心灵”到“语言”的范式转换;清理以语言为批评范式的思想家们对语言“本质”的不同理解以及由此而产生的不同学术立场;凸显语用学对人文学术之重构的巨大影响;指出乔姆斯基的“普遍语法”以及与之似乎针锋相对的“认知语言学”,都在相当程度上代表了索绪尔之前的本质主义语言观对语言决定论的抵制。     

The Argument for Subject Body Dualism from Transtemporal Identity Defended

In my argument for subject body dualism criticized by Ludwig I use the locution of a genuine and factual difference between two possibilities. Ludwig distinguishes three interpretations of this locution. According to his analysis the argument does not go through on any of these interpretations. In my response I agree that the argument is unsuccessful if ‘factual difference’ is understood in the first way. The second reading—according to a plausible understanding—cannot be used for the argument either. The discussion of this reading raises fundamental issues about different notions of propositional content. I disagree with Ludwig's diagnosis with respect to the third reading. Contrary to Ludwig's claim, there is no modal error involved if ‘factual difference’ is understood in the third way. Ludwig's objection to the argument according to its third reading can be answered by pointing out that every individual has its identity conditions necessarily. ¹ At this point fundamental and general metaphysical issues (concerning the link between identity conditions and the nature of ontological categories and between transworld and transtemporal identity) prove relevant. Finally, I make more explicit how ‘factual difference’ should be understood in the context of the argument (this is a fourth reading not considered by Ludwig) and explain how this reading strengthens the argument (compared to the third reading) by weakening its central premise. I conclude that Ludwig's attempt at undermining the argument from transtemporal identity for subject body dualism is unsuccessful.     

The Zombie Archetype: Living in a Viral Culture

When psyche brings forth monsters, it is always wise to take a close look. When the active imagination of global culture fixates on a particular kind of monster, there's a veritable treasure trove of hidden meaning and valuable psychological information to be unearthed. Zombies warrant closer scrutiny for several reasons: (1) They are currently enjoying a place in the cultural spotlight; (2) they embody the loss of will and the disempowerment that occurs in so many of the situations humans fear and loathe the most; and (3) they are remarkably flexible metaphors that stand in as symbols for social ills as disparate as viral pandemics, the evils of technology, and the chaos that threatens to take over in the face of political collapse. What is behind the popular appeal of the brain-devouring quest of the walking dead? Can the lure be linked to globalization and the inevitable sharing of biohazardous particulates among the people of the world? Or can it be further reduced to a manifestation of the primordial fear of death itself? This article examines zombies across time and place and finds them to be worthy representations of the specters of frightening forces that hunt down and haunt the living.