A Funny Thing Happened on the Way Through the Sermon

Abstract :  The purpose of this article is to give thought to the listener as co-creator of meaning with the preacher during the sermon event. The underlying conviction of the author is that preachers and listeners have always been co-creators but have not been recognized as such. The author sketches the history of the task of preaching as a movement from getting something said to getting something heard , and suggests that, building on this, preaching can now be viewed as getting something created . Finally, the qualities of humility, imagination , and a "catalytic consciousness" are seen as essential for any preacher willing to take up this task.     

论净明道吸纳儒家伦理的方式及其意义

净明道在吸纳儒家伦理的过程中,不仅扩充了忠孝道德的内涵,而且将忠孝道德与长寿、成仙的人生理想相联系,有利于激发主体内在的道德需要;将忠孝道德与炼形、救度法术相融会,有助于激发人们被压抑的主体精神和责任感;将心性道德修养与祈福去祸的愿望相结合,可促进人们进行道德修养的自觉性。这些融会儒道伦理文化的方式对建设现代伦理文化和今天的道德培育工作均有一定启示。     

Painting Group Portraits: Studying Life Outcomes for Aggressive and Withdrawn Children

Aggression and social withdrawal have long been of interest to personality psychologists. The present article presents a longitudinal study of the development of children selected from a community sample who were high on aggression and withdrawal. The selection of outcome variables is discussed, and outcomes during adolescence are described. For both males and females, high aggressiveness was predictive of low intelligence, poor school achievement, and psychiatric problems. For females, high aggressiveness was also predictive of general health problems. High social withdrawal was predictive of poor school achievement. Females who were high on withdrawal also had an elevated rate of abortions. Individuals who were high on both aggression and withdrawal had relatively poor social competence, had general problems with behavior, had low intelligence, and were performing poorly in school.     

Kurosawa's Existential Masterpiece: A Mediation on the Meaning of Life

In the first part of the paper, I try to clarify the cluster of moods and questions we refer to generically as the problem of the meaning of life. I propose that the question of meaning emerges when we perform a spontaneous transcendental reduction on the phenomenon my life, a reduction that leaves us confronting an unjustified and unjustifiable curiosity. In Part 2, I turn to the film ikiru, Kurosawa's masterpiece of 1952, for an existentialist resolution of the problem.     

The Meaning of Brand Names to Children: A Developmental Investigation

We explored the way that children use brand names in making consumer judgments. Brand names can serve as a simple perceptual cue that identifies a product as one people are familiar with or one they associate with certain perceptual features. Brands can also be associated with symbolic or conceptual meanings, conveying status, prestige, or trendiness. We proposed that young children relate to brands on a perceptual level, whereas older children relate to brands on a conceptual basis as well. We examined this proposition in an experiment conducted with children 8,12, and 16 years of age. Participants were asked to evaluate an advertised product (e.g., athletic shoes) with a familiar brand name that was either popular (e.g., Nike^®) or less popular (e.g., Kmart^®). The advertised product was physically identical in both cases, allowing us to explore whether the brand name had meaning for children apart from its name familiarity or perceptual features. The use of conceptual brand meanings was assessed by asking participants to make several types of brand‐related judgments including evaluations of the advertised product, impressions of the owners of the advertised product, and evaluations of possible extensions of the popular brand name advertised. Results indicate that by the time children reach 12 years of age, they use brand names as an important conceptual cue in consumer judgments.     

Meaning in Life: A Qualitative Inquiry into the Life of Young Adults

The present study explores the relationship of meaning in life with subjective well-being among a sample of young adults launching their career. Using a qualitative approach, ten young adults were asked to share their life experiences using a semi structured interview schedule. A grounded theory analysis revealed that happiness forms a core concern for an individual where it depends not only on the cultural norm involving an individual where social relationships form an important part, but also goals and aims (s) he/she wishes to achieve in life. It exists in temporality but is impacted by the larger dimension of meaning in life which is relatively stable and covers a huge expanse of an individual’s existence. Finding a meaning in life involves both personal goals such as self growth and attainment of peace, and also professional goals like fulfillment of one’s academic aim. Meaning in life is also seen as being impacted by an individual’s past happenings, belief in self- worth and social responsibility.     

The Good,the Bad,and the Funny: An Ethics of Humor

This article begins by reviewing the overwhelmingly negative assessment of laughter and humor in Western philosophy and in Christianity, arguing that that evaluation arises from a misclassification of amusement as a malicious emotion. It then sketches a play theory of humor in which humor is an activity pursued for pleasure which allows participants to violate linguistic and social norms, especially rules about sincerity. Once we understand humor as a kind of play, familiar ethical objections to jokes based on gender and race are seen to be mistaken, and a new approach to the negative ethics of humor becomes possible. What is more, this play theory also explains how humor is morally praiseworthy in many situations.     

Introduction: Finding out the Right Way to Understand Virtue Ethics

It is very apparent that a discussion on virtue ethics—perhaps even a hot debate,the origin of which can be traced back to the late 1950s,has been going on during the past two decades,and has marked the philosophical domain we call ethics.Three authors' views on this topic will be seriously examined in this special theme. Chen Lai treats the topic in the context of Confucianism.He carefully explores Mencius' theory of virtue,and sees two main contrasts between the ideas of Mencius and those of Confucius,as well as three main features they both share.     

Need for Meaning,Meaning Confusion,Meaning Anxiety,and Meaning Avoidance: Additional Dimensions of Meaning in Life

Two aspects of meaning in life have drawn much attention in previous research: presence of meaning and search for meaning. We proposed four additional aspects concerning individuals’ thoughts and feelings about meaning in life: need for meaning, meaning confusion, meaning avoidance, and meaning anxiety. We developed items to measure these dimensions. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the data fit the factors well. Convergent and discriminant validities of the four dimensions were demonstrated though their distinct patterns of correlations with other variables, such as personality traits, need satisfaction, personal aspirations, life satisfaction, anxiety and depression. Moreover, cluster analysis revealed that individuals could be divided into meaningful groups according to these dimensions, with each group demonstrating unique psychological features. Implications for future studies on meaning in life are discussed.     

以生命把握生命——狄尔泰哲学方法论初探

为了以某种恰当的方式来把握作为活生生之流的生命,狄尔泰先后提出了描述心理学和解释学的方法.这两种方法对于后来及同时代的一些哲学家,尤其是生命哲学家和以胡塞尔、海德格尔为代表的现象学家,产生了重要影响,并为西方哲学的发展作出了重要贡献.然而,他的方法论也不可避免地存在着某些缺陷.这表现在:首先,他对生命哲学的理解最终还是以生物学和生理学为基础的描述心理学;其次,他对概念性表达的倚重,使他脱离了他自己所发现的历史性生命体验自身的表达;另外,他以一种"后退运动"为前提,故而他只能在记忆中反思地理解已是活生生的生命体验之流,并将这一僵死的结果客体化.虽然,这些缺陷自20世纪初就一直遭到了很多哲学家的批评,但是,如果站在我们今天的立场上来重新审视狄尔泰对生命哲学的贡献与缺失,就会发现其仍然有着不可低估的意义与价值.     

情感与人生:伦理学视野的审视

人是情感的动物.人的情感是以本能和欲望为基础,受理智影响和控制的心理感受.人的情感是一个多彩的、复杂的天空,存在着性质、广度、深度和强度的区别.从伦理学的角度看,可以根据是否有利于人的生存,从是否健康、是否丰富、是否持久、是否高尚、是否美好五个维度对人的情感进行价值审视.这五个维度也是情感是否有利于人的生存的五条标准,其中是否健康是底线标准,规定着情感的好坏善恶性质.情感对人生有全面、深刻而直接的影响,可以成为人生幸福的源泉,也可以成为人生痛苦的渊薮.情感需要理智的合理导向和控制,理智与情感以更好生存为取向实现和谐,才会有完整意义上的真正人生,才有人生的幸福.     

Being Forgotten: Implications for the Experience of Meaning in Life

ABSTRACT

Two studies investigated the effects of being forgotten on the target of memory. In Study 1, undergraduate women (N = 96) who had completed a lab session two days prior, were randomly assigned to be remembered, forgotten, complimented, or to a control group. In the absence of effects on mood or social self-esteem, being forgotten resulted in lower meaning in life. In Study 2, participants (N = 47) who had completed a group exercise were informed two days later that no one remembered them, that everyone remembered them, or that no one wanted to work with them. Being forgotten led to lower meaning in life than being remembered but did not differ from being excluded. Being forgotten may be considered a type of incipient ostracism that influences meaning in life but not mood or state social self-esteem.     

The Meaning of Life in Indian Philosophy: A Contemporary Reconstruction

In this paper, I would like to discuss the meaning of life in Indian philosophy. All Indian philosophies are philosophies of life. Indian philosophy is not merely an intellectual activity but has practical application which enables men to lead an enlightened life. Any philosophy, either Indian or Western which makes no difference to human life, is not a philosophy. The human life always strives towards freedom, duty, wisdom, well-being, etc. These are the noble values in Indian philosophy that play a very vital role in shaping the meaning of life. All schools of Indian philosophy give importance to individual freedom for self-realization. Every school of Indian philosophy prescribes its way of overcoming ignorance, and thereby overcoming pain, to achieve the goal of life. Thus, every human being has to look within, understand his nature, and figure out her or his way to self-realization. The way to reach this goal includes selfless love, service to others, self-control, and self-purification. Because of their practicality, each system of Indian philosophy is as new today as it was 3000 years ago. These are the ideas which we can find in Vivekananda, Gandhi, Aurobindo, and many others. All these philosophical schools/thinkers hold that philosophy and practical life are necessarily integrated.