Well Founding Grounding Grounding

Those who wish to claim that all facts about grounding are themselves grounded (“the meta-grounding thesis”) must defend against the charge that such a claim leads to infinite regress and violates the well-foundedness of ground. In this paper, we defend. First, we explore three distinct but related notions of “well-founded”, which are often conflated, and three corresponding notions of infinite regress. We explore the entailment relations between these notions. We conclude that the meta-grounding thesis need not lead to tension with any of the three notions of “well-founded”. Finally, we explore the details of and motivations for further conditions on ground that one might add to generate a conflict between the meta-grounding thesis and a well-founded constraint. We explore these topics by developing and utilizing a formal framework based on the notion of a grounding structure.     

Unrestricted composition and restricted quantification

Many of those who accept the universalist thesis that mereological composition is unrestricted also maintain that the folk typically restrict their quantifiers in such a way as to exclude strange fusions when they say things that appear to conflict with universalism. Despite its prima facie implausibility, there are powerful arguments for universalism. By contrast, there is remarkably little evidence for the thesis that strange fusions are excluded from the ordinary domain of quantification. Furthermore, this reconciliatory strategy seems hopeless when applied to the more fundamental conflict between universalism and the intuitions that tell against it.

Overview: For crying out loud--dangers and opportunities of communicating in the public domain

Communication often extends into the public domain, inviting "eavesdropping" and other forms of exploitation by other species. Conflict is frequently the result, although interspecific communication can be mutually beneficial even when interests conflict fundamentally, such as between predator and prey. However, the most complex communication systems are likely to involve species with mutual rather than with conflicting interests. When interests do conflict, exploitation of the communication systems of others may impose high costs on signalers and select for signals that are less exploitable. Other costs of communication in the public domain arise from "mistakes" (e.g., mating with the wrong species) and select for more species-specific signal structure. The articles in this section illustrate the complexity of interspecific communication and yield important insights into the dynamic nature of communication systems.     

Smarter than we think: when our brains detect that we are biased

Human reasoning is often biased by stereotypical intuitions. The nature of such bias is not clear. Some authors claim that people are mere heuristic thinkers and are not aware that cued stereotypes might be inappropriate. Other authors claim that people always detect the conflict between their stereotypical thinking and normative reasoning, but simply fail to inhibit stereotypical thinking. Hence, it is unclear whether heuristic bias should be attributed to a lack of conflict detection or a failure of inhibition. We introduce a neuroscientific approach that bears on this issue. Participants answered a classic decision-making problem (the "lawyer-engineer" problem) while the activation of brain regions believed to be involved in conflict detection (anterior cingulate) and response inhibition (lateral prefrontal cortex) was monitored. Results showed that although the inhibition area was specifically activated when stereotypical responses were avoided, the conflict-detection area was activated even when people reasoned stereotypically. The findings suggest that people detect their bias when they give intuitive responses.     

Resistance in long-term cancer support groups

This article describes the common resistance patterns that occur in ongoing cancer support groups. These resistances, which can often go unrecognized, are a normal part of group development and group life in such groups, rather than the result of a few "problem" group members. The thesis of this article posits that the identification and working through of these resistances creates openings to deeper engagement among members and to overall greater group cohesion. Technical guidelines are offered for working with these resistances in the group-as-a-whole, in members, and also in the therapist.     

Value Words and Lizard Brains: Do Citizens Deliberate About Appeals to Their Core Values?

Political elites often present citizens with frames that define issues in terms of core values. This study tests two competing accounts of how citizens might process such frames. According to the "passive receiver" thesis, citizens process elite frames automatically, without engaging in critical thought. In contrast, the "thoughtful receiver" thesis holds that the impact of frames may depend on how favorably or unfavorably citizens respond to them. An experiment in value framing produced evidence more consistent with the thoughtful receiver thesis: The message that welfare reform is "tough love" influenced opinion only among those it did not anger, whereas the message that welfare reform is "cruel and inhumane" produced an effect only among those who judged it to be strong. More generally, these findings suggest that active processing of frames may limit the power of elite framing.     

Representationalism, peripheral awareness, and the transparency of experience

It is often said that some kind of peripheral (or inattentional) conscious awareness accompanies our focal (attentional) consciousness. I agree that this is often the case, but clarity is needed on several fronts. In this paper, I lay out four distinct theses on peripheral awareness and show that three of them are true. However, I then argue that a fourth thesis, commonly associated with the so-called "self-representational approach to consciousness," is false. The claim here is that we have outer focal consciousness accompanied often (or even always) by inner peripheral (self-)awareness. My criticisms stem from both methodological and phenomenological considerations. In doing so, I offer a diagnosis as to why the fourth thesis has seemed true to so many and also show how the so-called "transparency of experience," frequently invoked by representationalists, is importantly relevant to my diagnosis. Finally, I respond to several objections and to further attempts to show that thesis four is true. What emerges is that if one wishes to hold that some form of self-awareness accompanies all outer-directed conscious states, one is better off holding that such self-awareness is itself unconscious, as is held for example by standard higher-order theories of consciousness.

Assertion, Practical Reason, and Pragmatic Theories of Knowledge

Defenders of pragmatic theories of knowledge (such as contextualism and sensitive invariantism) argue that these theories, unlike those that invoke a single standard for knowledge, comport with the intuitively compelling thesis that knowledge is the norm of assertion and practical reason. In this paper, I dispute this thesis, and argue that, therefore, the prospects for both "high standard" and "low standard" invariantist theories are better than the pragmatists contend. I also provide a limited defense of the "high standard" approach, and contend that if one abandons the thesis that knowledge is the norm of assertion and practical reason, the most serious arguments against it lose their force.     

MORAL PSYCHOLOGY AND THE UNITY OF THE VIRTUES

The ancient Greeks subscribed to the thesis of the Unity of Virtue, according to which the possession of one virtue is closely related to the possession of all the others. Yet empirical observation seems to contradict this thesis at every turn. What could the Greeks have been thinking of? The paper offers an interpretation and a tentative defence of a qualified version of the thesis. It argues that, as the Greeks recognized, virtue essentially involves knowledge – specifically, evaluative knowledge of what matters. Furthermore, such knowledge is essentially holistic. Perfect and complete possession of one virtue thus requires the knowledge that is needed for the possession of every other virtue. The enterprise of trying to reconcile the normative view embodied in this conception of virtue with empirical observation also serves as a case study for the field of moral psychology in which empirical and normative claims are often deeply and confusingly intertwined. ¹ 1 I owe thanks to audiences at the University of Arkansas, Rice University, the University of Texas, Princeton University, Yale University, Oxford University, the Australian National University, and Monash University, and more particularly to Robert Adams, John Cooper, and Jerome Schneewind for their extremely helpful and illuminating comments on an earlier version of this paper.
     

Intentionality,Cognitive Integration and the Continuity Thesis

Naturalistic philosophers ought to think that the mind is continuous with the rest of the world and should not, therefore, be surprised by the findings of the extended mind, cognitive integration and enactivism. Not everyone is convinced that all mental phenomena are continuous with the rest of the world. For example, intentionality is often formulated in a way that makes the mind discontinuous with the rest of the world. This is a consequence of Brentano’s formulation of intentionality, I suggest, and can be overcome by revealing that the concept of intentional directedness as he receives it from the Scholastics is quite consistent with the continuity thesis. It is only when intentional directedness is conjoined with intentional inexistence that intentionality and content are consistent with a discontinuity thesis (such as Brentano’s thesis). This makes room to develop an account of intentional directedness that is consistent with the continuity thesis in the form of Peirce’s representational principle. I also argue against a form of the discontinuity thesis in the guise of the derived/underived content distinction. Having shown that intentionality is consistent with the continuity thesis I argue that we should focus on intentionality and representation as bodily enacted. I conclude that we would be better off focussing on representation and intentionality in action rather than giving abstract functional accounts of extended cognition.

工作场所中他人感知的员工工作-家庭冲突：刻板印象视角

以往研究发现工作场所中他人感知的员工工作-家庭冲突对员工工作结果具有重要影响, 但相关研究处于起步阶段。在文献回顾的基础上, 从刻板印象理论出发, 提出可能影响他人感知员工工作-家庭冲突的工作、家庭相关因素; 采用能力-热情维度框架探讨他人感知员工工作-家庭冲突的作用机制及其结果。今后研究可在整合工作-家庭冲突研究和刻板印象理论的基础上, 对他人感知员工工作-家庭冲突的形成及人际效用机制等方面进行拓展。     

Multicultural Women's Experience of Household Labor, Conflicts, and Equity

This study examines a group of 419 multicultural women (64 African Americans, 136 Asian Americans, 171 Hispanic Americans, and 48 Middle Eastern Americans) from Southern California. It examines Chafetz's thesis that women with macrolevel power (high socioeconomic status, SES) will show higher levels of conflict with their spouses over household labor. Such conflict is expected to relate to dissatisfaction with the division of household labor as well as time or task differences with spouses over housework. The multicultural women in this study differed among themselves by SES (proportional income, job status, and education) as well as by the household time and tasks with their spouses, but such factors did not influence conflict. Results indicate that regardless of ethnicity or macrolevel power, multicultural women who perform more household tasks than other women are more dissatisfied with the division of labor. These variables alone influence the number of conflicts per week reported by racial and ethnic couples. When reasons for conflict are compared, the equity issue of unfair share is cited more frequently than any others. In general, comparisons with one's spouse on traditional woman's tasks and time on women's work are not salient to the experience of household labor conflicts among multicultural women even when macrolevel power is attained. The majority of our respondents earn 39% of the household income and work for pay 30 hr/week, yet perform the majority of necessary household labor. The proportional income and overall education levels of this sample are similar to Census Bureau statistics for their respective U.S. groups in 1995–1996.     

The human body as field of conflict between discourses

The approach to AIDS as a disease and a threat for social discrimination is used as an example to illustrate a conceptual thesis. This thesis is a claim that concerns what we call a medical issue or not, what is medicalised or needs to be demedicalised. In the friction between medicalisation and demedicalisation as discursive strategies the latter approach can only be effected through the employment of discourses or discursive strategies other than medicine, such as those of the law and of economics. These discourses each realise different values, promote a different subject, and have a different concept of man. The concept of discourse is briefly outlined against concepts such as the linear growth concept of science and the growth model of science as changes in paradigm. The issue of testing for AIDS shows a conflict between the medical and the legal discourse and illustrates the title of our contribution: the human body as field of conflict between discourses.     

After the Standard Dirty Hands Thesis: Towards a Dynamic Account of Dirty Hands in Politics

This essay locates the problem of dirty hands (DH) within virtue ethics – specifically Alasdair MacIntyre’s neo-Aristotelian thesis in After Virtue. It demonstrates that, contra contemporary expositions of this problem, MacIntyre’s thesis provides us with a more nuanced account of tragedy and DH in ordinary life, in its conventional understanding as a stark, rare and momentary conflict in which moral wrongdoing is inescapable. The essay then utilizes elements from MacIntyre’s thesis as a theoretical premise for Machiavelli’s thought so as to set the foundations for a nascent but richer framework of DH in politics and move beyond the standard, ‘static’ conceptualization of the problem within this context. In developing a dynamic account of DH, I conceive of politics as a distinct practice and way of life, with its own demands and standards of excellence, and draw on Machiavelli’s thought to sketch some of these. The dynamic account uncovers an inexhaustible tension between two ways of life, each with its own demands and standards of excellence: a virtuous politician should become partially vicious and no longer innocent. Understood in dynamic terms, DH in politics involves a paradox of character, not just a paradox of action as the standard, ‘static’ DH thesis suggests.     

Anterior cingulate cortex and conflict detection: An update of theory and data

The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and associated regions of the medial frontal wall have often been hypothesized to play an important role in cognitive control. We have proposed that the ACC's specific role in cognitive control is to detect conflict between simultaneously active, competing representations and to engage the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) to resolve such conflict. Here we review some of the evidence supporting this theory, from event-related potential (ERP) and fMRI studies. We focus on data obtained from interference tasks, such as the Stroop task, and review the evidence that trial-to-trial changes in control engagement can be understood as driven by conflict detection; the data suggest that levels of activation of the ACC and the DLPFC in such tasks do indeed reflect conflict and control, respectively. We also discuss some discrepant results in the literature that highlight the need for future research.     

医患风险沟通：角色与信息匹配的视角

医患沟通失真常引发高误诊率、医患冲突。现有风险具体观和抽象观各自提出风险沟通模型,但存在诸多矛盾或不一致。通过引入角色与信息匹配视角,从建构水平理论提出事件体验(事件吸引力)和概率体验(概率敏感性)解释,有助于调和矛盾并提出建议：为医生匹配抽象风险信息、患者匹配具体风险信息,能减少沟通失真,提高风险沟通质量。未来需进一步深究个体差异对匹配效应的影响、探索匹配效应的生态效度、开发科学有效的沟通模式。     

How wide is the widening scope of psychoanalysis and how solid is its structural model? Some concerns and observations

The author advances the thesis that in the past 35 years there has been a relatively silent but nonetheless significant movement within the mainstream of American psychoanalysis toward a more "modest" position. This movement has been stimulated from different sources, sometimes with diverse goals and different programs. One determinant was the reaction to the post-World War II euphoria in regard to psychoanalysis and its possible therapeutic powers. Another element has been the ongoing consolidation of our knowledge and understanding of the ego-psychological, structural-model approach to analytic theory and technique, an approach which emphasizes both intrapsychic conflict and compromise formations. A consequence of this more modest position has been a greater appreciation of the limitations of psychoanalysis as well as the significance of those limitations. This more realistic appraisal of psychoanalysis may not have encouraged the widening scope of the indications for analysis, but the enhanced understanding of its limitations offers the promise of more effective psychoanalytic work in areas that have not been considered ideal for the so-called "traditional" analysis. It is suggested that more sophisticated approaches in the analysis of resistance and character, of "conflict" (in distinction to "diagnoses"), together with a more applicable understanding of the psychoanalytic process, can all contribute to a deepening, if not necessarily widening, of our psychoanalytic endeavors.     

When bystanders become bothersome: The negative consequences of bystander conflict and the moderating role of resilience

Bystander conflict is a situation in which employees are hindered in their work by parties not involved in the primary process. Public service employees and emergency care workers, such as ambulance employees and firefighters, often encounter this kind of conflict with potentially far-reaching detrimental effects for public or patient safety. Unfortunately, until now, bystander conflict has hardly received scientific attention. In this paper, we will present the results of an experiment (Study 1) and a simulation study (Study 2). Taken together, the results indicate that bystander conflict is negatively related to the affective, behavioural, and cognitive outcomes of individuals. Higher levels of bystander conflict were associated with more negative and less positive feelings (Studies 1, 2), unfavourable bystander appraisals (Studies 1, 2), and lower levels of performance (Study 2). Additionally, Study 2 revealed that bystander conflict was negatively and indirectly related to positive affect and performance through cognitive capacity. We investigated the moderating role of resilience, in order to provide insight into potential factors alleviating these negative associations. In both studies, resilience alleviated the negative associations of bystander conflict. Overall, the results of the two studies provide a first step towards a theory on bystander conflict.     

Decline and Conflict: Causes and Consequences of Leadership Transitions in Religious Congregations

Changes in leadership can be difficult for any organization. Leadership transitions in religious congregations might be especially challenging given the personal relationships involved and the spiritual dimension of a leader's position. This complexity often makes it difficult to separate the reasons for the transition from the impacts of the transition. For example, loss of membership and congregational conflict can be both a cause and a consequence of leadership change. Using the 2006–2007 National Congregations Study, this research explores how membership decline and congregational conflict are associated with leadership transitions in religious congregations. Although we find that leadership transitions are associated with conflict and membership decline, we also find that certain factors, such as whether the leader comes from within the congregation and context of the transition, moderate these associations.