A critique of Dennett

This essay is intended to be a systematic exposition and critique of Daniel Dennett's general views. It is divided into three main sections. In section 1 we raise the question of the nature of a plausible scientific psychology, and suggest that the question of whether folk psychology will serve as an adequate scientific psychology is of special relevance in a discussion of Dennett. We then characterize folk psychology briefly. We suggest that Dennett's views have undergone at least one major change, and proceed to discuss both his earlier and his later views.In section 2 we suggest that Dennett is correctly perceived as an instrumentalist in his earlier works. We think that Dennett later abandons this position because of general worries about instrumentalism and, more importantly, because Dennett became convinced that an instrumentalist conception of folk psychology will not enable us to vindicate the notions of personhood, moral agency, and responsibility. This left Dennett with a dilemma. On the one hand, he does not think that beliefs, etc., will turn out to be genuine scientific posits. On the other hand, he thinks that moral agency would be impossible if we could not treat beliefs, etc. as causally efficacious in some suitable sense.In section 3 we discuss Dennett's resolution of this dilemma. The key to his current view, we suggest, is the illata-abstracta distinction. Dennett holds that both illata and abstracta are real and have causal powers, even though only illata are genuine scientific posits. He suggests that beliefs etc. are abstracta, and are the subject matter of what he calls intentional system theory. The subject matter of another theory, what Dennett calls subpersonal cognitive psychology, are illata, which are subpersonal intentional states. The important point is that this distinction lets Dennett have it both ways: (i) Since beliefs are mere abstracta, we need not commit ourselves to the thesis that beliefs will turn out to be posits of an adequate scientific psychology. (ii) Since beliefs have causal power, we are assured of moral and rational agency. We shall argue that Dennett's current view is untenable. If we are right in our arguments, then Dennett's program to produce a scientifically plausible psychology, one that will turn out to vindicate folk psychology (in some suitable sense), is a failure. It fails in the following important ways: (i) What Dennett sketches — intentional system theory cum subpersonal cognitive psychology — is not a plausible scientific psychology. (ii) As a consequence, Dennett also fails to provide a satisfactory foundation for moral and rational agency.     

Do recognizable figures enjoy an advantage in binocular rivalry?

Five experiments examined whether recognizable stimuli predominate in binocular rivalry. It was found that a face predominated more than did a pattern equated for spatial frequency, luminance, and contrast; an objective reaction time procedure confirmed predominance of the face. The face was still liable to fragmentation as stimulus size increased. Observers tracked exclusive dominance of a picture of a camouflaged figure (a Dalmatian dog) prior to and then following discovery of the figure's presence; control observers received the same protocol with a scrambled version of the dog stimulus. Compared with control results, predominance of the dog picture was higher even before observers knew of the camouflaged figure. Inversion of the dog figure reduced its predominance. Binocular rivalry is sensitive to object-related, configural properties of a stimulus.     

青少年学校归属感问卷编制

该研究在开放式问卷与相关研究基础上,编制了学校归属感初始问卷。对240名学生初始测试后进行探索性因素分析,然后对440名学生的正式测验结果进行验证性因素分析。结果表明学生归属感问卷包括四个维度：同伴关系,教师支持,规章制度,硬件设施。验证性因素分析后各个数据均达到可接受水平,四维度模型拟合度较好。问卷具有良好的信度与效度,可以作为青少年学校归属感水平的测量工具。     

试论庄子“亚齐物”境界及其对古代文人精神的影响

庄子哲学在先秦时期是不同于儒、墨、法等诸家政治哲学的。一部《庄子》,诙诡奇谲,洋洋洒洒,倾注的是庄子对生命深切的终极关怀———人的命运和精神自由。庄子笔下,各色人物你方唱罢我登场。当中有逍遥游于天地,与造化相流行的神人,以己意出法令的人间帝王,欲致君尧舜的士人,恶于世的隐者,普通的匠     

宗教问题与社会变迁的双重探索——宗教社会学在当代中国的发展轨迹

从1980年代以来,中国宗教社会学的研究就已经从欧美宗教社会学的译介开始了。30年以来,中国宗教社会学的研究,无论是对欧美经典的翻译,还是对中国本土宗教的社会学研究,都已经形成了一道可观的学术风景线,成为当代中国宗教学领域中一个重要的构成。本文对30年宗教社会学在中国的引进和发展,有一大致的综述,希望能够从中总结出中国宗教学、宗教社会学研究的某些发展规律。     

试论山西介休后土庙道教建筑群之管理

本文利用山西介休后土庙道教古建筑群内的碑刻等资料,探讨后土庙建筑群与三清观发展历史、管理方式及其庙宇市场效应,尝试以田野考古方法研究古代道教历史及其管理模式。     

制度性宗教VS分散性宗教——关于杨庆堃《中国社会中的宗教》的讨论

<正>杨庆堃的《中国社会中的宗教》中译本问世后,产生了很大的影响。人们在阅读之后,有所消化和吸收,有些学者在学术上深入"反刍",提出了许多值得进一步思考的问题。《世界宗教文化》编辑部特邀《中国社会中的宗教》的主译者、上海复旦大学的范丽珠教授,上海复旦大学     

Stereotype activation is unintentional: Behavioural and event‐related potenials evidence

In this study, a priming Stroop paradigm was used to determine whether stereotype activation is unintentional. Priming conditions (priming/no‐priming) and the relationship between priming and target (consistent/inconsistent/no‐relation) were the independent variables; accuracy, reaction time and N400 amplitude were used as dependent variables. The reaction time revealed that stereotype activation is, to some extent, unintentional. Furthermore, the event‐related potenial (ERP) results showed that N400 amplitude was larger for inconsistent conditions than for consistent conditions. This result supported the notion that stereotype activation is an unintentional and automatic process.     

The effects of physical contact and decision type on moral decision making: A study of harm to save moral behavior

This study examined the relationship between physical contact and decision type in predicting “harm to save” behavior. Participants were assigned to making either a judgment or a choice involving moral dilemmas. All participants were presented with dilemmas that either required or did not require having physical contact with potential victims. Participants were asked to decide whether to sacrifice fewer people to save more (utilitarian responses) or not to do so and thus more people would die (deontological responses). The study sample included 345 participants who completed a set of self‐report measures. Results indicated an interaction between physical contact and decision type. In the choice condition only, participants reported significantly less utilitarian responses to the dilemmas that required having physical contact with the person to be harmed than to dilemmas that did not require physical contact. This difference was not found in the judgment condition. These results contribute to a greater understanding of the nature and potential malleability of human morality.     

Help yourself by helping others: The joint impact of group member organizational citizenship behaviors and group cohesiveness on group member objective task performance change

This paper examines how a group member's individual‐targeted citizenship behavior (OCBI) and organization‐targeted citizenship behavior (OCBO) interact with a salient group‐level contextual variable, group cohesiveness, to foster positive change for that group member, starting with job self‐efficacy change, and followed by objective task performance change. Over a span of 6 months, we engaged in multilevel, multisource, multistage data collection and surveyed 587 members in 83 work groups. Our results indicate that a group member's OCBI, in comparison with OCBO, is more positively related to his or her job self‐efficacy change. Group cohesiveness was found to attenuate the relationship between a group member's OCBI and job self‐efficacy change, and conversely, to accentuate the relationship between a group member's OCBO and job self‐efficacy change. Furthermore, a group member's job self‐efficacy change mediated the interactive effects of the group member's OCBI and group cohesiveness (as well as the group member's OCBO and group cohesiveness) on his or her objective task performance change.