Notes on "bioethics and sin" by Jean-Francois Collange.

Placing the notion of sin in the context of a meontic account of evil, and emphasizing the effect of sin on the sinner himself, this commentary exposes the insufficiency of restricting oneself to human efforts at atonement, and of thus underemphasizing the role of Christ. Collange's claim that the teaching of "predestination" is rooted in Paul and that the doctrine of merits and indulgences is rooted in Augustine is criticized, and Luther's "forensic" understanding is linked with Augustine, rather than with Paul. Collange's reduction of the concern for holiness to respect and trust is contrasted with holiness's essential context of loving unification with God. The commentary closes by exposing the unsatisfactory scantiness of Collange's treatment of cloning, health-care economy, and of the evils of life.     

Gender differences in implicit and explicit memory for affective passages

Thirty-two participants were administered 4 verbal tasks, an Implicit Affective Task, an Implicit Neutral Task, an Explicit Affective Task, and an Explicit Neutral Task. For the Implicit Tasks, participants were timed while reading passages aloud as quickly as possible, but not so quickly that they did not understand. A target verbal passage was repeated three times, and alternated with other previously unread passages. The Implicit Affective and Neutral passages had strong affective or neutral content, respectively. The Explicit Tasks were administered at the end of testing, and consisted of multiple choice questions regarding the passages. Priming effects in terms of more rapid reading speed for the target compared to non-target passages were seen for both the Implicit Affective Task and the Implicit Neutral Task. Overall reading speed was faster for the passages with neutral compared to affective content, consistent with studies of the emotional Stroop effect. For the Explicit memory tasks, overall performance was better on the items from the repeated passage, and on the Affective compared to Neutral Task. The male subjects showed greater priming for affective material than female subjects, and a greater gain than female subjects in explicit memory for affective compared to neutral material.     

Parenting as Mediator Between Post-divorce Family Structure and Children’s Well-being

Divorce and its subsequent transitions can be stressful for children and therefore, affect their well-being in a negative manner. Effective parenting (with high support and high control) can, however, function as a protective factor. While previous studies have indicated that effective parenting does indeed improve children’s well-being after divorce, these studies tended to concentrate on maternal family structures and transitions as well as maternal parenting. With this study, we investigate the mediating role of both maternal and paternal parenting between various family structures after divorce (including the custodial arrangement as well as the repartnering of both parents) and children’s well-being. Therefore, we analyzed 618 parent–child dyads from the multi-actor dataset “Divorce in Flanders—DiF” using a mediated structural equation model. Results revealed that both maternal and paternal parenting can mediate between family structure after divorce and children’s well-being. Depending on the type of post divorce family constellation, parenting can be considered as a risk or a protective factor, for both maternal and paternal parenting.     

Interpretive Internalism and Hermeneutic Realism

Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research - The aim of this paper is to outline the program of a hermeneutic theory of the way in which reality becomes disclosed and meaningfully...     

On the hermeneutic fore-structure of scientific research

The paper provides an overview of the hermeneutic and phenomenological context from which the idea of a “constitutional analysis” of science originated. It analyzes why the approach to “hermeneutic fore-structure of scientific research” requires to transcend the distinction between the context of justification and the context of discovery. By incorporating this approach into an integral “postmetaphysical philosophy of science”, I argue that one can avoid the radical empiricism of recent science studies, while also preventing the analysis of science's discursive practices from collapsing into the frames of radical anti-epistemological critique mandated by some hermeneutic philosophers. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Searching for a (Post)Foundational Approach to Philosophy of Science: Part I

This paper represents an attempt to articulate the basic principles of a hermeneutic philosophy of science. Throughout, the author is at pains to show that both (i) overcoming epistemological foundationalism and (ii) insisting on the multiplicity, patchiness, and heterogeneity of the discursive practices of scientific research do not imply a farewell to an analysis of the constitution of science's autonomous cognitive structure. Such an analysis operates in two directions: “continuous weakening” of epistemological foundationalism and “hermeneutic grounding” of a cognitive structure. Carrying out the analysis in both directions leads to a (post) foundational picture of science. The main thrust of the first part of the paper is to outline the tenets of a constitutional analysis of scientific research. This part focuses especially on the notion of “unified narrativestructures” which refers to the “effective histories” of the main epistemic types of science. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Attitudes on commercialisation and anti‐commercial reactions on gift‐giving occasions in Belgium

Gift‐giving occasions, like Christmas, Mother's Day and Valentine's Day, are being ritually celebrated in the same period every year. But a transition is going on. Every year gift‐giving occasions start earlier. Well in advance, shops are decorated with Christmas items, Valentine hearts, Easter eggs, etc. This paper examines how people experience this increasing commercial pressure. For example, what do they think of the attention the media and the shops give to ritual gift‐giving occasions? Do people react differently if they have a more critical attitude to the commercialisation of gift‐giving occasions? These and other research questions are examined in a research project on gift‐giving, which started at the University of Antwerp in 1999. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications.     

The General Factor of Personality and Character: A Reanalysis

Using data from the Texas Twin Project, it was recently reported that 7 measures of character covaried to the extent that they formed a general factor of character (Tucker-Drob, Briley, Engelhardt, Mann, &; Harden, 2016 Tucker-Drob, E. M., Briley, D. A., Engelhardt, L. E., Mann, F. D., &; Harden, K. P. (2016). Genetically-mediated associations between measures of childhood character and academic achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111, 790–815. doi:10.1037/pspp0000098.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). In turn the relationship between the general factor of character and the Big Five personality traits were examined. It was found that personality was associated with the general factor of character primarily through the traits of conscientiousness and openness. For several reasons we propose that a more accurate interpretation of the data is that a Big Five personality traits form a general factor of personality, and that the relationship between the general character factor and personality is primarily through the general factor of personality. The results lend some support to this contention and are discussed in relation to the growing interest in covariation among multiple personality traits.     

Why do High IQ Societies Differ in Intellectual Achievement? The Role of Schizophrenia and Left-Handedness in Per Capita Scientific Publications and Nobel Prizes

Previous research has attempted to understand why countries with relatively favorable conditions and high estimated average IQs (such as Finland and Japan) have a relatively low per capita number of scientific Nobel prizes. In the present study, we examine whether there is a relationship between national schizophrenia and left-handedness prevalence, on the one hand, and per capita scientific and literary achievement, on the other hand, in countries with IQ estimates of at least 90. We found that per capita science and literature Nobel prizes and scientific publications are strongly negatively associated with schizophrenia and strongly positively correlated with left-handedness. There also was a very pronounced negative correlation between schizophrenia rate and left-handedness rate. These results suggest that genius can be regarded as a combination of very high IQ, aspects of high-functioning autism (specifically low empathy) plus relatively low impulse control, consistent with observations of intellectually outstanding individuals, and the fact that schizophrenia appears to constitute the opposite pole of these aspects of autism spectrum. We posit differences in androgen levels as a possible underlying explanation for these findings.