Moral Beliefs,Isolation from Peers,and Abstention from Delinquency

Criminological research has established that the vast majority of young people engage in some level of delinquency and drug use during the period of adolescence. Thus young people who completely refrain from delinquency and drug use are atypical and, as such, are deserving of scientific scrutiny. Perhaps because they have been impressed by the statistical abnormality of delinquency abstention, some researchers have explained this behavior in terms of the characterological abnormality of abstainers, arguing that abstention may be less the result of positive characteristics (such as strong moral beliefs) than the result of pathological traits that serve to isolate abstainers from their peers. In this study, data from a large survey of adolescents are used to help assess the respective roles of moral beliefs and peer isolation in delinquency abstention. The findings challenge certain previous interpretations of delinquency abstention and shed additional light on the forces that help to sustain adolescent conformity. The findings also raise intriguing questions about the stigma attached to delinquency abstainers.     

分清科学与伪科学、宗教与邪教

20世纪80、90年代,我国伪科学和邪教大量出现,给我国社会和人民带来巨大危害,它们都宣称自己是科学,是宗教;不承认自己是伪科学,是邪教;甚至参与批判别的伪科学、邪教,以显示自己是科学,是宗教。这样就搅浑了水,混淆了视听,使人真伪莫辨,便于它们浑水摸鱼,在浑水中生存和发展。它们也正是在这种情况下发展起来。     

Knowledge,learning, and freedom from thought

This paper discusses the acquisition of knowledge by one generation from another, and the problems inherent in the process. The difficulties are seen as falling into three areas: (i) the difficulty of understanding the knowledge itself; (ii) the difficulty that a fact or a theory becomes an internal object subject to all the vicissitudes of object relations; and (iii) the difficulty of finding a training method that will enable the learner to assimilate knowledge and use it judiciously rather than to swallow it in an uncomprehending way. Examples are drawn from the history of ideas in general, and from the author's experience of therapeutic communities, particularly the Cassel Hospital. The danger of allowing a body of knowledge to become, in its passage from one person to another, a mere set of never-to-be-questioned beliefs is illustrated. The common frailties of both trainers and trainees are discussed and methods suggested for understanding and overcoming them.     

Learning from people, things, and signs

Starting from the observation that small children can count more objects than numbers—a phenomenon that I am calling the “lifeworld dependency of cognition”—and an analysis of finger calculation, the paper shows how learning can be explained as the development of cognitive systems. Parts of those systems are not only an individual’s different forms of knowledge and cognitive abilities, but also other people, things, and signs. The paper argues that cognitive systems are first of all semiotic systems since they are dependent on signs and representations as mediators. The two main questions discussed here are how the external world constrains and promotes the development of cognitive abilities, and how we can move from cognitive abilities that are necessarily connected with concrete situations to abstract knowledge.

Polyamory: Experiences of Power from Without,from Within,and in Between

This article highlights the ways in which cultural, relational, and therapeutic power can affect polyamorous relationships and the therapeutic process. In therapy, focusing on the power narratives that polyamorous partners might experience can aid in challenging mononormativity while creating space for a variety of relational orientations. Power processes are presented as occurring on three levels: social discourse (without), relational meaning-making (within), and therapeutic practice (in between). A case study is used to evaluate these processes and implications are provided for clinicians working with polyamorous families.     

Stress, religiosity, and abstinence from alcohol

The purpose of this study was to test a conceptual model that attempts to identify psychosocial factors associated with the avoidance of alcohol in later life. This model is based on the life stress literature. Although most researchers maintain that life events are associated with greater alcohol consumption, a basic premise of this study is that certain stressors may be related to abstinence from alcohol in later life. In examining this relationship, the effects of a potentially important coping resource (religiosity) were also considered. Findings from a nationwide survey suggest that although greater health problems are associated with a greater probability that elderly people will abstain from using alcohol, financial difficulties had the opposite effect and were instead related to a lesser probability that older adults would avoid drinking alcoholic beverages. Finally, gender and race were found to exert important effects throughout the model.     

To Jim,from Fiji

A braided epistolary essay, “To Jim, from Fiji,” explores three kinds of relationships: how musicians share music; the relationship of an artist to art itself; and human interaction with the divine via music. The article begins as a personal letter to the writer's Jungian therapist, then tells the story of a trip to Fiji, where music became the entryway to a deep and connective experience. The sections weave together to develop an inquiry into how humans use music to relate with each other and with a numinous reality, where the artist can become “vassal and vessel both.”     

Socrates,Crito, and emigration from South Africa

This article uses Plato’s Crito as a lens through which to consider the question of whether a South African citizen should emigrate from South Africa. While this question is not exactly parallel to that of whether the condemned Socrates should flee Athens, it has much more to do with justice than is commonly thought. For in order for one to know whether one has an overall duty to remain in or leave South Africa, one must determine what one owes to one’s country and compatriots, one’s community, one’s family, and oneself.     

Epistemicism,Distribution, and the Argument from Vagueness

This paper consists of two parts. The first concerns the logic of vagueness. The second concerns a prominent debate in metaphysics. One of the most widely accepted principles governing the ‘definitely’ operator is the principle of Distribution: if ‘p’ and ‘if p then q’ are both definite, then so is ‘q’. I argue however, that epistemicists about vagueness (at least those who take a broadly Williamsonian line) should reject this principle. The discussion also helps to shed light on the elusive question of what, on this framework, it takes for a sentence to be borderline or definite. In the second part of the paper, I apply this result to a prominent debate in metaphysics. One of the most influential arguments in favour of Universalism about composition is the Lewis‐Sider argument from vagueness. An interesting question, however, is whether epistemicists have any particular reasons to resist the argument. I show that there is no obvious reason why epistemicists should resist the argument but there is a non‐obvious one: the rejection of Distribution argued for in the first part of the paper provides epistemicists with a unique way of resisting the argument from vagueness.