Chris: The “crazy” kid as a family hero

A case is discussed of an eleven-year-old schizophrenic male who had made a conscious decision several years earlier to act crazy to keep his parents from fighting and divorcing. A relabeling of his crazy behavior as that of a family hero was a first step in releasing him from marital difficulties and beginning to return him to a normal life.     

Clocks,Creation and Clarity: Insights on Ethics and Economics from a Feminist Perspective

This essay discusses the origins, biases, and effects on contemporary discussions of economics and ethics of the unexamined use of the metaphor an economy is a machine. Both neoliberal economics and many critiques of capitalist systems take this metaphor as their starting point. The belief that economies run according to universal laws of motion, however, is shown to be based on a variety of rationalist thinking that – while widely held – is inadequate for explaining lived human experience. Feminist scholarship in the philosophy of science and economics has brought to light some of the biases that have supported the mechanistic worldview. Possible alternatives to the an economy is a machine include an economy is a creative process and an economy is an organism. Such metaphors are intellectually defensible as guides to scientific inquiry and provide a richer ground for moral imagination.     

Variations in use of the term “or”

Two studies showed that adults' responses to questions involving the term or varied markedly depending upon the type of question presented. When presented with various objects (A's and B's) and asked to circle all things which are A or B subjects tended to circle A's as well as B's, whereas when asked to circle all the A's or B's subjects showed a relatively stronger tendency to circle one or the other. Moreover the nature of the sets of objects (As and Bs) influenced behavior as well. There was also evidence that the effects due to question wording or set type transferred.     

Heidegger's Brightness as a Responsibility of the Therapist in Existential Family Therapy

The author reflects upon the Heideggerian concepts of thrown-ness, death imagery, arrogance and brightness and their usefulness in existential family therapy. The article describes and illustrates with clinical material the process of helping a couple or family to move from an arrogance response to thrownness and death imagery to the response of brightness as attendants of Being. The responsibilities of the therapist in facilitating such a process are also described.Director of the Worthington Logotherapy Institute, co-director of Lantz and Lantz Counseling Associates, and a professor at The Ohio State University. College of Social Work     

In and behind a Lenneberg paradigm

Lenneberg suggested that a chimpanzee's linguistic ability could be tested by presenting sentences containing two prepositional phrases joined by a conjunction. This would involve joining two semantic propositions, and thus represents a more complex test of chimpanzee syntactic competence than previously attempted. Jane, a five year-old language trained chimpanzee, was tested on her ability to both produce and comprehend sentences involving a preposition (in or behind) and a conjunction (and). The results from production and comprehension were substantially the same. Jane showed the ability to appropriately deploy and, behind and in, but displayed very little flexibility in their use. It is suggested that a chimpanzee may be able to learn some rules of syntax but is not able to be creative with that syntax.     

The Origin of the Concept of “Allgemeinbildung” in 18th Century Germany

The German theory of education refers mainly to what is called Bildung. The historical sense of Bildung is not cultivaion, but cultivation for inwardness. This concept has two sources, the neo-platonic inner soul on one hand, pietistic piety on the other hand. The article shows that these sources had been part of European discussions before the development of national cultures after 1750. So the German concept of Bildung, famous for the German Sonderweg in culture and politics, had been composed out of non-German sources. The nationalizaiton of inwardness began at the end of the 18th century and was established in 19th century German Higher Education.     

Oral production of linguistically complex sentences with meaning relationships of time

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the abilities of children to use the adjoining mechanism in combining two constituent sentences with the temporal adjoiners: after, before, until, when, and while. To elicit responses, a sentence repetition task was devised that included these five temporal adjoiners in four different syntactic environments: transitive sentences with the adjoiner and the subordinate clause following the main clause, transitive sentences with the adjoiner and the subordinate clause preceding the main clause, intransitive sentences with the adjoiner and the subordinate clause following the main clause, and intransitive sentences with the adjoiner and the subordinate clause preceding the main clause. The 30 were between the ages of 4O and 66 years. They were average children who were free from any known emotional disturbance, who were acquiring Standard American English as a native language, who had normal speech and hearing, and whose parents had neither very high nor very low socioeconomic status. To the extent that the children in this study were representative of normal-speaking children of their ages, certain general conclusions were drawn. Children begin to use the temporal adjoining mechanism early, but they do not master it by the age of 66 years. The ability to use the adjoiners, nor is it equal for different syntactic structures nor for all degrees of semantic complexity. After, before, and when appear earlier than while and until. A rapid period of growth in learning to use the temporal adjoining mechanism occurs between the ages of 4 and 5 years. However, a plateau of learning appears to be reached between the ages of 5 and 6 years. In general, children first learn to use the temporal adjoining mechanism in intransitive sentences with the adjoining link in the middle or at the beginning of the utterance. Next, they learn to use it in transitive sentences with the adjoining link at the beginning of the utterance. Finally, they learn to use it in transitive sentences with the adjoining link in the middle of the utterance. In transitive sentences, children appear to learn the rule for placing the subordinate clause at the beginning of the utterance when temporally adjoining two constituent sentences before they learn the base structure rule. In intransitive sentences, they appear to learn the rule for placing the subordinate clause at the beginning of the utterance when temporally adjoining two constituent sentences at the same time that they learn the base structure rule. The underlying semantic relationships that are expressed by specific temporal adjoiners are important determinants of children's abilities to use these adjoiners. In linguistic evaluations, one should consider the syntactic environment in which the temporal adjoiner occurs and assume that after, before, and when are developmentally earlier than while and until.     

The family as portrayed on prime-time television, 1947–1990: Structure and characteristics

Successful family series across four decades of American prime-time television were examined. Family portrayals were defined as either conventional or nonconventional. Conventional families were categorized as couples without children and couples with children. Nonconventional families were categorized as single parent or contrived. Additional family characteristics were also recorded including sex of single parent, reason for singleness, social class status, females employed outside the home, live-ins, race, and whether the presentation was dramatic or comedic. The data show a trend toward more equal presentation of conventional and nonconventional families, few divorced or female single parents, and few minority families. Implications of findings are discussed and future research questions suggested.     

Creative analogy and language evolution

The English good and intensifier is discussed as an example of a form that is acceptable even though ungrammatical, both synchronically and diachronically. The construction is analyzed as a case of creative analogy: the extension of a grammatically generated form to a new function, one for which it has no direct grammatical justification. From the perspective of a dynamic theory of language acquisition and evolution, it is argued that such forms constitute a new sort of evidence regarding the nature of language universals.Previous versions of this work were presented to the LSA summer meetings in 1974 and in Carroll (1975, 1978).     

Yes,Virginia, Lemons are Yellow

This paper discusses a number of themes and arguments in The Quest for Reality: Stroud's distinction between philosophical and ordinary questions about reality; the similarity he finds between the view that coloris unreal and the view that it is subjective; his argument against thesecondary quality theory; his argument against the error theory; and the disappointing conclusion of the book.     

The group member's view of inner and outer reality: The Janus phenomenon applied to the group

This paper surveys some theoretical aspects of psychodynamic group treatment from the vantage point of the Janus phenomenon. This focus may provide some clarification in understanding how group therapy facilitates growth, especially in the relationships between inner realities and the realities of the external world. The paper explores and seeks bridges and connections between the dynamics of the group and intrapsychic dynamics. The inner view may be understood as intimately connected with intrapsychic concerns, whereas the issues for patients in groups do, to a degree, concern interpersonal processes in and projections onto the external world. The paper concludes that, thus far, we must accept less than perfect integration of theory and settle for limited domain reasoning (Scheidlinger, 1982). Erlebnis is the term coined by Paul Federn (1952) to refer to subjective experience of the self.     

A game-based formal system for Ł∞

A formal system for , based on a game-theoretic analysis of the ukasiewicz prepositional connectives, is defined and proved to be complete. An Herbrand theorem for the predicate calculus (a variant of some work of Mostowski) and some corollaries relating to its axiomatizability are proved. The predicate calculus with equality is also considered.     

Theorizing Gender for Experimental Game Theory: Experiments with “Sex Status” and “Merit Status” in an Asymmetric Game

In experimental game-theoretic research, to the extent that sex has been considered at all, the approach has been to focus on the individual level of analysis. This paper reports the results of experiments designed to focus on sex/gender and to expand the level of analysis to include the institutional level. An asymmetric game was designed such that players in the male and female institutional locations had 3 and 2 alternatives, respectively. Players earned the institutional locations based on a test, so that top and bottom scorers respectively merited the 3- and 2-alternatives locations. Game-theoretic understandings of sex-of-player were compared to the expectations states theory concept of sex status; that is, men expect and are expected to perform more competently than women. Results indicated that top-scorer men and women behave similarly; bottom-scorer men resist their low merit status (behaving the most rationally of all player groups); bottom-scorer women accept their low merit status (behaving the most irrationally of all player groups). Whereas game theory cannot provide a coherent understanding of these findings, the concept of sex status helps to interpret the behavior of all four player groups and shows how judgments about rationality and irrationality depend critically on the interpretive framework used.     

Moral Philosophy and the Ontology of Relations

The essay undertakes to explore the possibilities of mutually fruitful dialogue between moral philosophy and ontology, in particular, the ontology of relations. The latter copes with the question of how relations relate, whereas moral philosophy often ignores the ontological implications of such crucial relations as love and interpersonality. The paper proceeds as follows. First, the ontology of relations is discussed. Second, various examples are analysed. From this, a conception of relation instantiation emerges, according to which to determine which relation actually obtains, one has to take into account (a) the context, (b) the specific content or meaning of the relation, and (c) some action or decision or mode of existence of the relata. This conception suggests that relation instantiation cannot be explained by a single formula. By the help of this conception, Hume's thesis of the identity of killing relations between human and nonhuman beings is questioned. Then, the relation of love is analysed. It is shown that love as a moral relation is perfectly explicable in terms of ontology. Moreover, its essence is best captured by the interrelation of the particulars, the relation of love as a universal, and by the relating action of the particulars. Finally, the alleged relation of universal fraternity (interpersonality as such), linking up each human being to all other human beings, is discussed.     

Distinctions between subgroups of asthmatic children: Parental reactions to experimental separation

Parental reactions to experimental separation were analyzed for two groups of asthmatic children, those for whom behavioral factors were judged highly relevant to asthma and those for whom such factors appeared unimportant. The former group of 13 (predicted positives) had shown a highly significant improvement in asthma during separation from their families; the latter group of 12 (predicted negatives) had not. Coding of standardized interviews conducted around the time of separation disclosed that parents (mothers, especially) of predicted positives scored significantly higher than parents of predicted negatives on such scales as fussing over the child at the time of leave taking, missing child, experiencing pain and discomfort during the separation, being anxious over child's welfare, etc. Psychological test data did not discriminate between the parents' or childrens' groups as clearly as the more focused separation interviews but the test results were consistent with interview differences. The separation elicited very strong emotional reactions from several mothers.This study was supported by United States Public Health Service Grant No. HD01060 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Kirk Brady, John Means, loan Muser, and Claire Purcell contributed to data collection and/or data analysis.     

The origins and crisis of Continental philosophy

When contemporary continental philosophy dismisses, with the discourse of post-modernism, the role of origin, teleology, foundation, etc., it is forsaking its own style of thinking and as a consequence is no longer able to discern crises of lived-meaning or to engage in the transformation of historical life. I address this crisis by characterizing continental philosophy as a particular style of thinking, generative thinking. I then examine the meaning and origins of philosophical thinking by drawing, for strategic reasons, on Jacques Derrida's essay Cogito et histoire de la folie. For not only has the very question of origins come under fire through various post-modern readings of Derrida, but Derrida's own point of critique concerning Western Metaphysics depends upon a specific understanding of origin that I call origin-originating. In the final section of this paper. I interpret the crisis within continental philosophy as a forgetting the point of origin-originating within the generative structure of experience.     

Time,quantum mechanics,and decoherence

State-reduction and the notion of actuality are compared to passage through time and the notion of the present; already in classical relativity the latter give rise to difficulties. The solution proposed here is to treat both tense and value-definiteness as relational properties or facts as relations; likewise the notions of change and probability. In both cases essential characteristics are absent: temporal relations are tenselessly true; probabilistic relations are deterministically true.The basic ideas go back to Everett, although the technical development makes use of the decoherent histories theory of Griffiths, Omnès, and Gell-Mann and Hartle. Alternative interpretations of the decoherent histories framework are also considered.I would like to thank Abner Shimony for valuable criticism.     

Dynamic Inconsistency and Performable Plans

An agent may abandon an initiated action plan, although he doesnot acquire new information or encounter unforeseen obstacles.Such dynamic inconsistency can be to the agent';s guaranteeddisadvantage, and there is a debate on how it should rationallybe avoided. The main contenders are the sophisticated andthe resolute approaches. I argue that this debate is misconceived,since both approaches rely on false assumptions about theperformability of action plans. The debate can be reformulated,so as to avoid these mistaken assumptions. I try to show that sucha reformulation must rely on certain implausible claims.     

Definitions of Gender and Sex: The Subtleties of Meaning

Definitions of the word gender were collected from 137 participants, who also completed questionnaires designed to determine aspects of the usage of the words gender and sex. The majority of participants were European American (86.9%), followed by Latino/a (3.6%), Asian/Asian American (2.9%), African American (2.2%), Native American (1.5%), and West Indian (1.5%). Most participants (70.9%) had attended at least some college and occupations included students (43%), professionals (27.8%), health care workers (4.3%), technical workers (5%), sales and service workers (9.4%), maintenance workers (1.4%), and business owners (1.4%). Data were examined to see which common themes emerged from the free form define gender question, the amount of interchangeability of sex and gender in a sentence completion task, and the varieties of beliefs about the relation between the terms gender and sex. Results indicate a variety of understandings and beliefs about gender that range from the common response that gender is the same as sex to some less common responses that associate gender with females or discrimination. Implications of the ambiguous meaning of gender are discussed with an emphasis on the responsibility of researchers to clarify their own understanding of the terms when they discuss gender or sex in their research and publications.     

Computer content analysis of sex differences in the language of children

This study presents empirical procedures for the collection and content analysis of the oral language of kindergarten children. The analysis technique used material and machines available to most researchers. The results of the analysis of language samples of 144 randomly selected children from the entire kindergarten class of the Ithaca, New York, school system showed that boys produced significantly more language than did the girls as well as significantly more references to aggression, self, time, space, quantity, fears, good, act of oral communication, negation, and affirmation, and asked more questions of the examiner than did the girls. The girls made significantly more female references than did the boys. Implications for future research are discussed.