Deviant Causal Chains and Hallucinations: A Problem for the Anti-causalist

The causal theory of perception is opposed by anti-causalists, who claim that the notion of causality is not part of our ordinary concept of perception, and sometimes raise the possibility of deviant causal chain counter-examples in an attempt to undermine the causal theory. I argue that such examples in fact cause more difficulties for anti-causalist accounts of perception. Anti-causalists are unable to explain how the examples can be recognized as deviant, and why such cases are incompatible with perception. They have a general problem in providing a satisfactory account of hallucination. A comparison with certain complex cases of illusion suggests that our grasp of the concept of perception does indeed involve some kind of understanding of the kinds of causal chains appropriate to genuine perception.     

Making sense of powerful qualities

According to the powerful qualities view, properties are both powerful and qualitative. Indeed, on this view the powerfulness of a property is identical to its qualitativity. Proponents claim that this view provides an attractive alternative to both the view that properties are pure powers and the view that they are pure qualities. It remains unclear, however, whether the claimed identity between powerfulness and qualitativity can be made coherent in a way that allows the powerful qualities view to constitute this sort of alternative. I argue here that this can be done, given a particular conception of both the qualitativity and powerfulness of properties. On this conception, a property is qualitative just in the sense that its essence is fixed independently of any distinct properties, and it is powerful just if its essence grounds its dispositional role.

     

The Enkratic Requirement

Abstract: Agents are enkratic when they intend to do what they believe they should. That rationality requires you to be enkratic is uncontroversial, yet you may be enkratic in a way that does not exhibit any rationality on your part. Thus, what I call the enkratic requirement demands that you be enkratic in the right way. In particular, I will argue that it demands that you base your belief about what you should do and your intention to do it on the same considerations. The idea is that, if you base your belief and your intention on different considerations, then you are inconsistent in your treatment of those considerations as reasons. The enkratic requirement demands that you be enkratic by treating considerations consistently as reasons.     

The Child as Traumatic Trigger: Commentary on Paper by Laurel Moldawsky Silber

In this discussion of Laurel Moldawsky Silber's paper I try to amplify her paper by suggesting 6 ways that a child can serve as a posttraumatic trigger to traumatic memories memories in the mother that have been unresolved and that the consequence can be to activate intergenerational transfer of trauma.     

A symbolic interactionist understanding of the selves of former members of New Religious Movements

The current study investigates the construction of self in New Religious Movement (NRM) membership and argues that there is significant variation in the way in which members construct their sense of self. While the majority of the literature suggests that differences in the way in which former members describe and experience NRM membership can be attributed to gender and the nature of the group, analysis of the life histories of 23 former members identified variations in the way in which these participants construct their sense of self as significant to understanding NRM membership. While some participants describe selves that are high in conformity or social connectedness, and depict NRM membership as motivated by a need for guidance and direction, others describe selves that appear high in individuality and personal autonomy and depict membership as motivated by a desire to overcome isolation and develop social connectedness. Even though these two narratives are conceptualised as distinct, they are not viewed as dichotomous but understood as on a continuum. To make sense of the selves of the participants in this study symbolic interactionist understandings of the self as to varying degrees informed by both “self” and “others” are applied.     

Ethical Internalism and Cognitive Theories of Motivation

Cognitive internalism is the view that moral judgments are both cognitive and motivating. Philosophers have found cognitive internalism to be attractive in part because it seems to offer support for the idea that moral reasons are categorical, that is, independent of agents’ desires. In this paper, I argue that it offers no such support.     

Help-seeking for AIDS-related concerns: A comparison of gay men with various HIV diagnoses

Examined help-seeking and psychological distress among four groups of gay men (30 AIDS-diagnosed, 107 HIV-seropositive, 149 HIV-seronegative, 244 untested) in the AIDS Behavioral Research Project, a longitudinal survey of San Francisco gay men. The men reported high levels of anxiety, depression, and help-seeking from their social networks. AIDS-diagnosed and HIV-positives reported the most AIDS worry and were the most likely to seek help. High percentages of AIDS-diagnosed men sought help from all sources (peers, professionals, family), whereas nondiagnosed men were more likely to seek help from peers. Regardless of the men's HIV status, peers were perceived to be the most helpful source. Family members were less likely sought and perceived as least helpful. The strengths and limitations of peers as social support providers for AIDS-related concerns are discussed, including implications for the design of community programs to enhance the abilities of peer helpers.     

PARENTAL INFLUENCES ON CHILDREN'S EATING BEHAVIOR AND RELATIVE WEIGHT

We investigated the relationship between selected parent behaviors, child mealtime behavior, and infant relative weight. Subjects were 7 male and 7 female children varying in age from 12 to 30 months (mean = 23.9 months). Each subject and parents were observed during the dinnertime meal on two occasions using the BATMAN (Bob and Tom's Method of Assessing Nutrition). The children spent 58% of the mealtime eating. They spent very little time making active decisions about what and how much they ate (food requests = 2% of the time; food refusals = 1% of the time). We found significant correlations between child relative weight and (a) parental prompts to eat (r = .81, p < .001), (b) parental food offers (r = .51, p < .05), and (c) parental encouragement to eat (r = .82, p < .001). Thus, the present study suggests a relationship between certain parental variables and the relative weight of their children.     

Development and effects of an MMPI--A K-correction procedure

Although the results of research on the effectiveness of the K-correction factor have been inconclusive, this procedure has been widely used with adult respondents to correct for defensiveness or underreporting of symptomatology on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Although the K-correction procedure was incorporated into the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A) was developed based exclusively on the use of non-K-corrected T scores. This study derived age-appropriate K-weights for the MMPI-A to determine the degree to which the use of this procedure could improve test accuracy in the classification of participants into normal and clinical groups. Discriminant function analyses were performed to determine the K-weight that, when combined with basic scale raw score values, optimally predicted normal versus clinical status for each of the eight basic clinical scales. Hit rate analyses were utilised to assess the degree to which K-corrected T scores resulted in improvements in classification accuracy in contrast to standard MMPI-A non K-corrected norms. Results indicate that the adoption of K-correction procedure for the MMPI-A does not result in systematic improvements in test accuracy and the current findings do not support the clinical use of a K-correction factor in interpreting MMPI-A protocols.