Are moods cognitive?: A critique of Schmitt on Heidegger

Conclusion If, as Schmitt suggests, Heidegger bases the claim that moods are cognitive on the philosophical distinction between theoretical and non-theoretical knowing, then much of what Heidegger says in this connection turns out to be either unclear, trivially true, or else false. Yet Schmitt himself only occasionally seems to recognize how dubious this account really is. Moreover, in attempting to help Heidegger say what he means, Schmitt's interpretation in Chapter 5 falters. It falters because(1) the emphatic likening of moods to skills,(2) the introduction of the bizzare notion knowing how occurrently, and (3) the misconceiving of self-deception, are not to be found in Sein und Zeit. They represent, rather, an imposition upon Sein und Zeit from without. This fact means either that Schmitt's interpretation is faulty or else that it is as much reconstructive as explicative. And if reconstructive, then several conceptual mistakes are attributable to him more than to Heidegger. In spite of these difficulties Martin Heidegger on Being Human is a prize book. It attempts to understand a thinker better than he understood himself. And according to Schleiermacher this is the goal of every hermeneutic.In contrast to the successful parts of the book, the chapter on moods fails to make sense out of Heidegger's view - one reason being, I would guess, that Heidegger is, after all, equivocating on the German word Stimmung. Sometimes he uses it to refer specifically to states such as being depressed, being serene, being anxious. At other times he uses it to refer vaguely to Dasein's attunement to the world. If the human being is always already (immer schon) attuned to the world, and if such a posture toward the world is also considered a mood, then in some imprecise way one's being in a mood might be a necessary condition for any belief to affect him emotionally. But, of course, mood in this broad sense would indicate an ontologically, and not a causally, necessary condition. And so, it would not follow that every belief which affected one emotionally need have some specific mood (e.g., depression, serenity, anxiety) as its necessary causal antecedent. Nor would it follow that, as a matter of fact, a change of belief could not effect a specific change of mood.I fear that with regard to some topics the sense in which one understands Heidegger better than he understood himself may well be the original Socratic sense: one knows what Heidegger himself does not know, viz., that the conceptions of Sein und Zeit are not always intelligible. And one wonders whether any philosophical midwifery can really be of aid - at least with respect to the claim that moods are cognitive.     

Does binge eating play a role in the self-regulation of moods?

Self-reported emotional experiences and eating behaviors were studied in college students in an attempt to determine what types of emotional experiences precede and follow binge eating and how specific types of compensatory behaviors modify these experiences. First-year male and female students (N=390) were surveyed for depression, anxiety, health status, life satisfaction, and eating attitudes (EAT-26). Those reporting recurrent binge eating episodes were asked to describe their emotional feelings before and after bingeing and before and after compensatory activities. EAT-26 scores corresponding to scores previously reported for eating disordered patients were found in 9.7% of students. Binge eating was nearly twice as frequent among females (16.4%) as males (8.6%) Among females, positive relationships were found between specific EAT-26 factors scores and both anxiety and depression scores. The emotional antecedents and consequences of binge eating and of compensatory activities were compared in three sub-groups of individuals who reported recurrent bingeing with loss of self-control during binges. The three sub-groups consisted of individuals who reported, 1) bingeing without engaging in compensatory activities, 2) bingeing and compensating by means other than vomiting (fasting, exercising, or use of laxatives or diuretics), and 3) bingeing and compensating by vomiting. Regardless of the type of activity, those individuals who engaged in compensatory activities reported greater negative affect preceding binge episodes than those who did not compensate. In addition, contrary to expectations, negative affect did not decrease, but instead increased significantly, following binge episodes and decreased immediately before and after compensatory activities.     

Does binge eating play a role in the self-regulation of moods?

Self-reported emotional experiences and eating behaviors were studied in college students in an attempt to determine what types of emotional experiences precede and follow binge eating and how specific types of compensatory behaviors modify these experiences. First-year male and female students (N=390) were surveyed for depression, anxiety, health status, life satisfaction, and eating attitudes (EAT-26). Those reporting recurrent binge eating episodes were asked to describe their emotional feelings before and after bingeing and before and after compensatory activities. EAT-26 scores corresponding to scores previously reported for eating disordered patients were found in 9.7% of students. Binge eating was nearly twice as frequent among females (16.4%) as males (8.6%). Among females, positive relationships were found between specific EAT-26 factors scores and both anxiety and depression scores. The emotional antecedents and consequences of binge eating and of compensatory activities were compared in three sub-groups of individuals who reported recurrent bingeing with loss of self-control during binges. The three sub-groups consisted of individuals who reported, 1) bingeing without engaging in compensatory activities, 2) bingeing and compensating by means other than vomiting (fasting, exercising, or use of laxatives or diuretics), and 3) bingeing and compensating by vomiting. Regardless of the type of activity, those individuals who engaged in compensatory activities reported greater negative affect preceding binge episodes than those who did not compensate. In addition, contrary to expectations, negative affect did not decrease, but instead increased significantly, following binge episodes and decreased immediately before and after compensatory activities.     

Aristotle on the reducibility of all valid syllogistic moods to the two universal moods of the first figure (APr A7, 29b1–25)

In Prior Analytics A7 Aristotle points out that all valid syllogistic moods of the second and third figures as well as the two particular moods of the first figure can be reduced to the two universal first-figure moods Barbara and Celarent. As far as the third figure is concerned, it is argued that Aristotle does not want to say, as the transmitted text suggests, that only those two valid moods of this figure whose premisses are both universal statements are directly reducible to Barbara and Celarent, but rather that it is those four valid moods of this figure whose respective minor premisses are universal statements of which this is true. It is shown that in order to carry this sense the transmitted text has to be corrected by inserting just one word, which seems to have dropped out.     

Seeing bad does good: Relational benefits of accuracy regarding partners’ negative moods

When would greater empathic accuracy (EA) be an asset and when would it not? In two studies of romantic couples (both employing daily diaries, the second also involving a lab-based video-recall paradigm), we explored the associations between EA (at the day-level, person-level, and in the lab) and an important relationship outcome: negative relationship feelings. Our results show that accuracy is tied more strongly to this relational outcome when negative (vs. positive) moods are the target of empathic judgments. The association between accuracy and (better) feelings was true for both perceivers and targets. Importantly, these associations emerged only in diary-based accuracy scores, and not in the lab-based ones. These results further support the importance of everyday empathic accuracy. They also highlight the need to consider such accuracy as multi-faceted, and in particular, to recognize the differential role of attending to our partners’ negative versus positive moods in daily life.     

Are real moods required to reveal mood-congruent and mood-dependent memory?

While simulating, or acting as if, they were either happy or sad, university students recounted emotionally positive, neutral, or negative events from their personal past. Two days later, subjects were asked to freely recall the gist of all of these events, and they did so while simulating a mood that either did or did not match the one they had feigned before. By comparing the present results with those of a previous study, in which affectively realistic and subjectively convincing states of happiness and sadness had been engendered experimentally, we searched for—and found—striking differences between simulated and actual moods in their impact on autobiographical memory. In particular, it appears that the mood-congruent effects elicited by simulated moods are qualitatively different from those evoked by induced moods, and that only authentic affects have the power to produce mood-dependent effects.     

Better moods for better eating?: How mood influences food choice

How do moods influence one's preference for foods? By introducing the role of enjoyment- versus health-oriented benefits of foods in the mood and food consumption relationship, this research informs both temporal construal theory and mood management framework by positing that mood influences the choice between healthy versus indulgent foods through its impact on temporal construal, which alters the weights people put on long-term health benefits versus short-term mood management benefits when making choices. The results from four experiments show that a positive mood cues distal, abstract construal and increases the salience of long-term goals such as health, leading to greater preference for healthy foods over indulgent foods. The results also show that a negative mood cues proximal construal and increases the salience of immediate, concrete goals such as mood management, leading to greater preference for indulgent foods over healthy foods.     

The effects of good moods on systematic processing: “Willing but not able,or able but not willing?”

Previous research has indicated that good moods may disrupt systematic processing of persuasive messages (e.g., Worth & Mackie, 1987). Three experiments were conducted to attempt a replication of this disruptive effect and determine whether this effect is attributable either to cognitive capacity deficits (i.e., ability) or to motivational concerns (e.g., mood maintenance, desire to think about something other than the experimental topic). Several similarities were noted across the experiments. First, no interactions between mood and argument strength emerged on measures of message-based persuasion. Similarly, the quantity of message-related thoughts generated by our subjects was not consistently influenced by the manipulation of mood. Most importantly, consistent findings regarding the relationship between polarity of message elaborations and message-based persuasion implied that good moods may have disrupted message processing when (a) the message was low in personal relevance, (b) source information preceded the message itself, or (c) subjects were led to believe that their moods were stabilized by a drug. These results call into question the robustness of the alleged disruptive effect of positive mood on systematic processing, and are incompatible with the view that such effects are attributable to cognitive capacity deficits.Portions of this research were presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Psychological Association, Boston, August 1990, and San Francisco, August 1991. The authors wish to thank Richard E. Petty and several anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.     

Do people with low self-esteem really want to feel better? Self-esteem differences in motivation to repair negative moods.

This research examined the hypothesis that people with low self-esteem (LSE) are less motivated than people with high self-esteem (HSE) to repair their negative moods. In Study 1, participants completed diaries in response to either a success or a failure in their everyday lives. Participants described what they intended to do next and the reasons behind those plans. After failure, fewer LSE than HSE participants expressed a goal to improve their mood. A follow-up investigation (Study 2) suggested that this difference was not due to a self-esteem difference in knowledge of mood repair strategies. In Study 3, after undergoing a negative mood induction, fewer LSE than HSE participants chose to watch a comedy video, even though both groups believed the comedy video would make them happy. Studies 4 and 5 explored possible reasons why LSE people are less motivated than HSE people to repair their negative moods.     

Did I do that? Self–esteem–related differences in reactions to romantic partners’ moods

This study examined the relation between self–esteem and responses to a romantic partner's moods. College students in dating relationships imagined one scenario in which their romantic partners were in a positive mood and one in which their partners were in a negative mood. A probable source of each mood was suggested to half the participants. Participants reported their cognitive, affective, behavioral, and attributional responses to each scenario. When the partner's mood was negative and ambiguous in cause, participants with low self–esteem felt more responsible for the mood, more rejected, and more hostile than did those with high self–esteem. A mediational analysis suggested a dependency regulation explanation of the results, such that low self–esteem people perceived self–directed negativity in their partners’ bad moods and in turn responded with more negativity toward their partners.     

Severity of Types of Violations of Research Ethics: Perception of Iranian Master’s Students of Translation

Violations of research ethics including a varieties of plagiarism by students in Iran is a concern which has lately called promising levels of attention as rules are updated and better enforced and more awareness is being raised. As to deal with any problem, a full understanding of its nature is necessary, the current study focused on how a sample of Iranian students construe this phenomenon. To collect the necessary data, an original questionnaire with 34 closed-ended items included the most common instances of violations of research ethics was designed. The items included were mainly varieties of plagiarism identified in the literature. The items were narrowed down with reference to the qualitative data from focus group interviews with a purposive sample of Iranian graduate students. In the main phase of the study, using the questionnaire, quantitative data were obtained from the responses of 274 graduate students of translation studying in various Iranian universities. The findings revealed the participants did not have a fully accurate perception and appreciation of research ethics violation as they failed to distinguish ethically acceptable from unethical conducts. The contributing sample showed indifference to most ethical issues in scholarly publication. Translating a text and presenting it as one’s own in addition to text recycling were identified as the most severe instances perceived. The types, fraudulence, unacknowledged use, duplicate publication, misreferencing, excessive overuse were perceived the most severe to the least severe according to the sample. The typology and the findings on the severity of the types and instances were recommended to be used as an empirically supported guideline for curriculum design of academic writing courses in graduate programs in Iranian universities or similar contexts.     

A Review of “A Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion”

ABSTRACT

HOLMAN OLD TESTAMENT COMMENTARY: EXODUS, LEVITICUS, NUMBERS. Glen S. Martin. Nashville, TN: Broadman &; Holman Publishers, 2002, 387 pp., $19.99. Reviewed by Gregg Watson.

THE WESTMINSTER DICTIONARY OF NEW TESTAMENT AND EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE AND RHETORIC. David E. Aune. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003, xii, 595 pp., ISBN: 0-664-21917-9, $49.95. Reviewed by Iren L. Snavely, Jr.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION AND WAR, Routledge Encyclopedias of Religion and Society Series. Edited by Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez. New York &; London: Routledge, 2004, 512 pp., 33 b/w illustrations, ISBN: 0-415-94246-2, $125.00. Reviewed by Al Vara.

READING IS BELIEVING: THE CHRISTIAN FAITH THROUGH LITERATURE AND FILM. David S. Cunningham. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2002, 237 pp., $18.99. Reviewed by Robert F. Darden III.

UNDERSTANDING THE HADITH: THE SACRED TRADITIONS OF ISLAM. Ram Swarup. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002, 258 pp., $22.00. Reviewed by Jeannie Colson.

AN INDEX TO ENGLISH PERIODICAL LITERATURE ON THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN STUDIES, Vol. VIII, ATLA Bibliography Series, 21. Compiled and edited by William G. Hupper. Lanham, MD and London: The American Theological Library Association, and The Scarecrow Press, 1999, 483 pp., $70.00. Reviewed by John Dickason.

BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF EVANGELICALS. Editor: Timothy Larsen; Consulting Editors: David Bebbington and Mark Noll. Leicester, England and Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003, 816 pp., $45.00. Reviewed by J. Michael Garrett.

LOGOS BIBLE SOFTWARE SERIES X-SCHOLAR'S LIBRARY (QB). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, 2004, $599.95, CDROM or DVD. Reviewed by Jason D. Baker.     

Theory of science in the light of Goethe's science of nature∗

J. W. Goethe is well known as one of the world's greatest poets. Some are also aware that throughout his long and active life Goethe devoted much of his time to natural science. His theory of colour and studies in the morphology of plants are acknowledged contributions in their fields. What is much less known is that in his scientific work Goethe was attempting to elaborate and justify a new basic methodology for the natural sciences. He opposed and wished to refute the one‐sided quantitative‐mechanistic method which had been dominant since Galileo and Newton (and in principle still prevails today) and to set up against it a qualitative method. An essential characteristic of this qualitative method, according to Goethe, is that it is immune to a Humean reduction of the status of ‘natural laws’ to mere hypotheses. This claim makes Goethe's view directly relevant for current discussion of such questions as the status of scientific ‘laws’ and the correct method of theory construction. The present essay tries to show the fruitfulness of Goethe's view for such discussions, partly by means of an exposition of the view — drawn from various works — and partly by drawing consequences from it which bring it into direct contact with contemporary discussions in philosophy of science.     

The Principle of Production and a Critique of Metaphysics： From the Perspective of Theory of Baudrillard

In this article, I discuss Baudrillard＇s critique of metaphysics based on his work The Mirror of Production, in which he stresses the principle of production--i.e., dichotomy and derivation. In the development of classical German philosophy, the principle of production was speculatively established, first as Descartes＇ cogito, then as Fichte＇s Tathandlung, and finally as Hegel＇s labor, and grew to be a major principle of modem metaphysics. At the article＇s conclusion, the meaning of Symbolic Exchange--Baudrillard＇s utopian condition lying beyond the principle of production--will be discussed.     

Managers’ theories of subordinates: A cross-cultural examination of manager perceptions of motivation and appraisal of performance

The present study sought to examine the relationship between managers’ perceptions of employee motivation and performance appraisal by surveying managers and employees in three distinct cultural regions (North America, Asia, and Latin America) within a single global organization. Three distinct cultural patterns emerged in the theories managers’ held about their subordinates. While North American managers perceived their employees as being more extrinsically than intrinsically motivated, perceptions of intrinsic motivation proved to be a more robust predictor of performance appraisal. Asian managers exhibited a holistic tendency in that they perceived their subordinates as equally motivated by intrinsic and extrinsic factors, and their perceptions of both motivations proved to be comparable predictors of performance appraisal. Latin American managers perceived their employees as being more intrinsically than extrinsically motivated, and accordingly, only their perceptions of intrinsic motivation proved to be significantly correlated with performance appraisal. In contrast to the cultural variations exhibited in manager perceptions, employees consistently reported themselves as being more motivated by intrinsic than extrinsic incentives. Explanations for the distinct cultural patterns that emerged and their implications for the study of culture and organizational behavior are discussed.     

The Potential of Paradox in States of Exile: Discussion of “States of Exile and Marginalization”

This commentary paper engages with Gillian Straker’s “States of Exile and Marginalization,” (this issue) in which she analyzes Tracey Moffatt’s film Night Cries through a Lacanian register. In addition, it surfaces certain aspects of Moffatt’s interpretation of her social world through the representational medium of her film. Tracing Straker’s themes of marginality and continued trauma as exilic consequences of colonization and coloniality, it also suggests that there are generative possibilities in the multiple states of exile that occur under such conditions, where the unknowability and irresolvability of trauma and its many associated states of exile are precisely what paradoxically allow for the emergence of productive alternatives to trauma repetition.     

Why do People Blame Victims of Abuse? The Role of Stereotypes of Women on Perceptions of Blame

Stereotyping research suggests that traditional women (e.g., housewives) are seen as warm and weak, whereas nontraditional women (e.g., career women) are seen as lacking warmth but competent. We expected a nontraditional female abuse victim to be perceived as less warm than a traditional victim, and thus be blamed more in an abuse scenario. In an experiment, 118 Midwestern United States college students read a marital conflict in which the husband perpetrated high levels of psychological abuse. The victim’s gender role and reaction to the abuse each were manipulated. As expected, when the victim was nontraditional or she reacted negatively to the abuse (e.g., yelled back), she was rated more negatively and blamed more due to her lack of warmth.