New Foundations for Imperative Logic I: Logical Connectives,Consistency, and Quantifiers*

Imperatives cannot be true or false, so they are shunned by logicians. And yet imperatives can be combined by logical connectives: “kiss me and hug me” is the conjunction of “kiss me” with “hug me”. This example may suggest that declarative and imperative logic are isomorphic: just as the conjunction of two declaratives is true exactly if both conjuncts are true, the conjunction of two imperatives is satisfied exactly if both conjuncts are satisfied—what more is there to say? Much more, I argue. “If you love me, kiss me”, a conditional imperative, mixes a declarative antecedent (“you love me”) with an imperative consequent (“kiss me”); it is satisfied if you love and kiss me, violated if you love but don't kiss me, and avoided if you don't love me. So we need a logic of three‐valued imperatives which mixes declaratives with imperatives. I develop such a logic.     

Compounds,confounds, and models in developmental information processing: A reply to Trabasso and Foellinger

A point by point examination of Trabasso and Foellinger's paper shows their criticisms of my 1970 work to be based on errors of fact (regarding the data I reported) and errors of method (regarding proper procedures for model evaluation). Factual errors are refuted by summarizing crucial data reported in 1970 but ignored by my critics. Errors of method are refuted by contrasting my $\text{CSVI}\text{BE}$ model and data with Trabasso and Foellinger's model and data in the light of the scientific epistemology of model evaluation. The issues of “general” versus “local” models, their “empirical scope,” “number of empirical parameters,” and “simplifying assumptions” are examined. Five ways of evaluating models are distinguished, and in all five my 1970 model is shown to be superior to that of Trabasso and Foellinger. The 1970 data (in light of the controls built into the CSVI task) and new unreported data exhibiting developmental step functions confirm the model of a developmental growth of M (mental energy, working memory), which occurs concurrently with and independently from the growth of executive/control structures. Executive growth alone cannot explain the obtained results.     

More than,less than,or minimum,maximum: how upper and lower bounds determine subjective interval estimates

Uncertain quantities can be described by single‐point estimates of lower interval bounds (X₁), upper interval bounds (X₂), two‐bound estimates (separate estimates of X₁ and X₂), and by ranges (X₁?X₂). A price estimation task showed that single‐bound estimates phrased as “T costs more than X₁” and “T costs less than X₂,” yielded much larger intervals than “minimum X₁” and “maximum X₂.” This difference can be attributed to exclusive interpretations of X₁ and X₂ in the first case (X₁ and X₂ are unlikely values), and inclusive interpretations in the second (X₁ and X₂ are likely values). This pattern of results was replicated in other domains where participants estimated single targets. When they estimated a distribution of targets, the pattern was reversed. “Minimum” and “maximum” values of variable quantities (e.g., flight prices) were found to delimit larger intervals than “more than” and “less than” estimates. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Personality,Childhood Experience,and Political Ideology

This article studies the relationship between the “big five” personality traits and political ideology in a large U.S. representative sample (N = 14,672). In line with research in political psychology, “openness to experience” is found to predict liberal ideology, and “conscientiousness” predicts conservative ideology. The availability of family clusters in the data is leveraged to show that these results are robust to a sibling fixed‐effects specification. The way that personality might interact with environmental influences in the development of ideology is also explored. A variety of childhood experiences are studied that may have a differential effect on political ideology based on a respondent's personality profile. Childhood trauma is found to interact with “openness” in predicting ideology, and this complex relationship is investigated using mediation analysis. These findings provide new evidence for the idea that differences in political ideology are deeply intertwined with variation in the nature and nurture of individual personalities.     

Concepts of Creativity: Similarities and Differences among Mainland,Hong Kong and Taiwanese Chinese

Aspects of creativity concepts across different Chinese populations were examined. A Likert style questionnaire consisting of 60 adjectives was administered to 451 undergraduates from Beijing, Guangzhou, Taipei and Hong Kong. The results show that: (a) the core characteristics of creativity identical in all the samples are: “originality”, “innovativeness”, “thinking” and “observational skills”, “flexibility”, “willingness to try”, “self confidence”, and “imagination”; (b) the Taipei sample, unlike the other three samples, does not associate “wisdom”, “assertiveness”, and “individualism” with creativity; (c) in all Chinese populations the three factors labeled innovative, dynamic, and intellectual were distinguishable in the concept of creativity; (d) “artistic” and “humorous” were missing in the Chinese perception of creativity; (e) creativity characteristics received relatively low ratings on the desirability scale.     

Mental Health and Mental Disorder: A Sociological Approach,edited by Arnold M. Rose

This paper presents a model of group analysis based on Aristotle's causal notions. Aristotle's concept of man as a social animal provides a philosophical rationale for an interpersonal treatment forum. His causal theory supplies an encompassing atheoretical model for examining, understanding, and changing “things which have in themselves the source of their changing or staying unchanged.”

Attention to the four causal foci is suggested as the basis for a full-ranging group analysis. Material cause examines: “what” makes a thing what it is. Efficient cause investigates “how” various behaviors and emotions are set in motion. Final cause searches out “where” behavior is aimed. Formal cause traces “why” behaviors take particular forms.

It is suggested that a “cause for pause,” in the ongoing group process, is the emergence of a powerful and specifiable trend, whether a transference, poignant interaction, or groupwide conflict. The “pause to cause” is examined in detail, as each causal foci is elaborated. A sequential analysis moving from “what > how > where > why” is suggested at three levels of possible intervention: individual, interpersonal, and group as a whole. In conclusion, the timing, advantages, and restrictions of such a causal approach are considered.     

Self-Reference,Reality Principles,Marxism, and Social Transformations in the Postmodern Era

Three distinct turning points (“bottleneck breakings”) in universal evolution are discussed at some length in terms of “self-reference” and (corresponding) “Reality Principles.” The first (origin and evolution of animate Nature) and second (human consciousness) are shown to necessarily precede a third one, that of Marxist philosophy. It is pointed out that while the previous two could occupy a natural (so in a sense neutral) place as parts of human science, the self-reference of Marxism, as a social human phenomenon, through its direct bearings on the practice of society, did have a stormy history. I conclude that the fall of Bolshevism was unavoidable, and still, we might uphold our hope for a truly free society of humankind, just on the very basis of what we have learned of the fate of Marxist philosophy as such, as a recursively evolving social practice: the freedom of humankind of its own ideological burdens (constraints).     

Citizen Science,the Body of Christ,and Testimonial Epistemology

How does explicit theological knowledge emerge out of communal practices, who is involved in its production, and what are its procedures? These are neither neutral nor arbitrary methodological questions; they are themselves deeply theological. Digital innovations and the subsequent transformations of society and academia invite us to redefine the work of theology. Epistemologically drawing on a theology of the cross and centring the communal nature and vulnerable existence of the witnessing community, we develop a model of doing theology that is collaborative and exploratory within the medial transformations of the digital age. Taking cues from participatory research conceptions of “citizen science,” we propose going toward and beyond a “citizen theology.” We need the courage to conceive of a theology that is ultimately centreless. Therefore, we cannot aspire to testimonially responsible forms of doing theology without striving for epistemic justice and diaconal empowerment at a global level. The “distributed theology” we envision promotes global (catholic), decentral (apostolic), and communal (local) forms of knowledge production by the whole of the body of Christ in ever more distributed ways.     

Evangelism in Evangelii Gaudium,The Cape Town Commitment,and Together towards Life

The term “evangelization” has a very broad meaning in Evangelii Gaudium, encompassing everything that is subsumed under “mission” in The Cape Town Commitment and Together towards Life. For those two documents, “evangelism” is just one aspect of mission, namely the verbal communication of the gospel message. In their underlying theological propositions, the three documents are very similar. There is one fundamental difference, though: Evangelii Gaudium focuses on affective transformation, while the other two stress ethical renewal.     

Salivating,and Thinking in Different Languages

This study investigated age, sex, and title of therapist as determinants of patients' preferences. In general it was found that (a) “psychologists” and “psychiatrists” were preferred to “behavioral consultants,” “emotional counselors,” and “psychoanalysts” who, in turn, were preferred to “social workers”; (b) male therapists were preferred to female therapists; and (c) 40-year-old therapists were preferred to 55-year-old therapists who, in turn, were preferred to 25-year-old therapists.     

The Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms Distress Index: A pragmatic exploration of general factors to enhance a multidimensional scale

Objective: The authors attempted to develop and validate a general distress index for a multidimensional psychological symptom/outcome measure used in over 300 college counseling centers with more than 100,000 cases annually: the Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms (CCAPS). Method: Four models were compared for fit indices (n = 19,247): the existing first-order factor model (without a general factor), a second-order factor model, a bifactor model, and a single factor or “total score” model. In separate clinical and non-clinical samples, concurrent and divergent validity were examined using several well-established measures of psychological symptoms, as well as two-week test–retest and treatment utilization data. Results: Second-order and bifactor models which captured a single “distress” factor both exhibited good fit to the data relative to the baseline and “total score” model. Validity data indicated that factors adequately measured meaningful clinical onstructs. Conclusion: Both the bifactor and second-order models indicated the presence of a “distress index” comprised items across many of the CCAPS subscales. This distress scale has strong applicability for benchmarking the overall severity and complexity of patients at different centers, and can be used to help identify colleges and universities with areas of clinical strength, which can be studied to improve the field. Clinically, the distress index offers a parsimonious and efficient method for clinicians to monitor patients’ progress through treatment.     

DIMENSIONS OF COMPLIANCE-GAINING SITUATIONS

A seven-factor model of situation perception, including “personal benefits,”“intimacy,”“rights,”“resistance,”“dominance,”“situation apprehension,” and “relational consequences” was proposed. Confirmatory factor analysis was employed to test the fit of the model to the data. One sample (N=450) was employed to test a six-factor sub model (excluding relational consequences) and a separate sample (N= 270), employing a different situation, was utilized to test the seven-factor model. The proposed model proved to fit the data well (x²/df ratios of 3.14 and 2.97, respectively) and was superior to alternative models. Future research recommendations were provided.     

“A GREATEST MIRACLE”: STANLEY CAVELL,MORAL PERFECTIONISM,AND THE ASCENT INTO THE ORDINARY

What to make of “the ordinary,”“the everyday,” and their common “eventfulness”? What to think of what Veena Das, in her recent book Life and Words, prefaced by Stanley Cavell, has called our need to “descent into the ordinary”? Is there a parallel figure of “ascent,” again, into the same “ordinary,” that we might we want to juxtapose with it and that resembles the motif of “change,” even “conversion,” that Cavell analyzes at some length in The Claim of Reason and throughout his oeuvre as a whole? And what could be our reasons for doing so? This essay will draw on Cavell's reading of Ibsen's work in the volume Cities of Words to spell out what such an “ascent” might mean.     

Critical Notice: Paul Russell's The Riddle of Hume's Treatise: Skepticism,Naturalism, and Irreligion (OUP 2008)

In The Riddle of Hume's Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion (2008), Paul Russell makes a strong case for the claim that “The primary aim of Hume's series of skeptical arguments, as developed and distributed throughout the Treatise, is to discredit the doctrines and dogmas of Christian philosophy and theology with a view toward redirecting our philosophical investigations to areas of ‘common life,’ with the particular aim of advancing ‘the science of man’” (2008, 290). Understanding Hume in this way, according to Russell, sheds light on the “ultimate riddle” of the Treatise: “is it possible to reconcile Hume's (extreme) skeptical principles and conclusions with his aim to advance the ‘science of man’” (2008, 3)? Or does Hume's skepticism undermine his “secular, scientific account of the foundations of moral life in human nature” (290)? Russell's controversial thesis is that “the irreligious nature of Hume's fundamental intentions in the Treatise” is essential to solving the riddle (11). Russell makes a compelling case for Hume's irreligion as well as his atheism. Contrary to this interpretation I argue that Hume is an irreligious theist and not an atheist.     

D. Z. Phillips and Wittgenstein's On Certainty

I start from Phillips' discussion of Rhees's dissatisfaction with the idea of a language‐game. Then, from a rereading of Moore, I go on to exemplify interconnected uses of the expressions “language‐game,”“recurrent procedure,”“world‐picture,”“formal procedure,”“agreement in judgment,”“genre picture” and “form of life.” The discussion is related to sense perception, our knowledge of time and space, and the picture‐theory. These topics connect with Wittgenstein's earlier treatment of the will – which changed markedly later. The subtext (in footnotes) confronts (i) the sceptical methods of Descartes and Hume with the grammatical methods of Leibniz, Kant and Wittgenstein, and (ii) the realism of Leibniz and the Tractatus with the transcendental idealism of Kant. My conclusion is that, although the method of Wittgenstein's later work remains in a sense grammatical, (i) in its new form it can free us from the conviction that the intellect can and must resolve one way or the other the conflicts that arise in the course of the latter confrontation, and that (ii), although release from such a conviction is to be seen as the aim of philosophical discourse in general, it allows philosophy to retain its overriding significance. A positive element in that lies in the respect the method demands for that in a human life which is transcendental to the activity of scientific theorising: respect, therefore, for the unique perspective of the individual historical agent.     

“Dignity was the First to Leave”:* Godinez V. Moran,Colin Ferguson,and the Trial of Mentally Disabled Criminal Defendants

This article considers the Colin Ferguson trial in the context of the United States Supreme Court's decision in Godinez v. Moran, establishing a unitary standard for the determinations of competence to stand trial, competence to plead guilty, and competence to waive counsel. The Ferguson trial was widely seen as a “charade.” I argue that the Ferguson spectacle was the inevitable denouement of the Godinez decision. I then look at the Ferguson trial (through contemporaneous press and television coverage) under the filters of “sanism” and “pretextuality.” I conclude that the “dignity” value—a prerequisite for a constitutionally-acceptable fair trial—was, as a result of Godinez, lacking in the Ferguson case.