Understanding and taking stock of positive emotion disturbance

The prevailing view on positive emotions is that they correlate with and confer psychological health benefits for the individual, including improved social, physical and cognitive functioning. Yet an emerging wave of scientific work suggests that positive emotions are also related to a range of suboptimal psychological health outcomes, especially when the intensity, duration, or context do not optimize the individual's goals or meet current environmental demands. This paper provides an overview of the “other side” of positive emotion, by describing and reviewing evidence supporting the emerging field of positive emotion disturbance (PED). We review relevant emotion processes and key themes of PED and apply this framework to example emotional disorders, and discuss implications for psychological change and future research agendas.     

Challenging racism, sexism, and social injustice: support for urban adolescents' critical consciousness development

This mixed-model study examined the relationship between urban adolescents' perceived support for challenging racism, sexism, and social injustice from peers, family, and community members and their critical consciousness development. These relationships were examined by relating participants' qualitative perceptions of support for challenging racism, sexism, and social injustice to quantitative data obtained from Likert-type measures of the reflection and action components of critical consciousness. Perceived support for challenging racism, sexism, and social injustice had a significant impact upon the reflection component of critical consciousness; the significance criterion was supported by effect size estimates. Support for challenging racism, sexism, and social injustice was not significantly related to the action component of critical consciousness. Participants perceived the most support for challenging racism, moderate support for challenging social injustice, and the least support for challenging sexism. Additionally, female participants perceived more support for challenging sexism than male participants. These results suggest that the informal interactions of urban adolescents play a role in shaping their critical consciousness, and hold implications for psychosocial interventions and research with marginalized populations.     

The Knowledge Argument and Objectivity

In this paper I argue that Frank Jackson’s Knowledge Argument is better considered not as an argument against physicalism, but as an argument that objective theories must be incomplete. I argue that despite the apparent diversity of responses to the knowledge argument, they all boil down to a response according to which genuine epistemic gains are made when an individual has an experience. I call this the acquaintance response. I then argue that this response violates an intuitive stricture on the objectivity of theories. Therefore, the knowledge argument does show that objective theories cannot provide a complete understanding of the world. The result, however, is that both objective dualism and objective physicalism are refuted by the argument. In the end it is suggested that the notion of “subjective physicalism” is one that should be pursued.     

How Wittgenstein Defeated Russell’s Multiple Relation Theory of Judgment

In 1913 Wittgenstein raised an objection to Russell’s multiple relation theory of judgment that eventually led Russell to abandon his theory. As he put it in the Tractatus, the objection was that “the correct explanation of the form of the proposition, ‘A makes the judgement p’, must show that it is impossible for a judgement to be a piece of nonsense. (Russell’s theory does not satisfy this requirement,” (5.5422). This objection has been widely interpreted to concern type restrictions on the constituents of judgment. I argue that this interpretation is mistaken and that Wittgenstein’s objection is in fact a form of the problem of the unity of the proposition.     

THE USE OF REBT PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES IN LEADERSHIP TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

Training, coaching, and consulting with people in leadership roles can be a primary consulting function for clinicians. In this paper, the authors describe their model of leadership, and what they believe to be the central personality or character components of leadership necessary for producing extraordinary results. Throughout they will show where and how REBT skills can make a significant contribution.     

Explication Defended

How can formal methods be applied to philosophical problems that involve informal concepts of ordinary language? Carnap answered this question by describing a methodology that he called “explication." Strawson objected that explication changes the subject and does not address the original philosophical problem; this paper shows that Carnap’s response to that objection was inadequate and offers a better response. More recent criticisms of explication by Boniolo and Eagle are shown to rest on misunderstandings of the nature of explication. It is concluded that explication is an appropriate methodology for formal philosophy.     

Cracking the mirror: on Kierkegaard’s concerns about friendship

In this article, I offer a brief account of some of Kierkegaard’s key concerns about friendship: its “preferential” nature and its being a form of self-love. Kierkegaard’s endorsement of the ancient idea of the friend as “second self” involves a common but misguided assumption: that friendship depends largely upon likeness between friends. This focus obscures a vitally important element, highlighted by the so-called “drawing” view of friendship. Once this is emphasized, we can see a significant aspect - though by no means all - of Kierkegaard’s worry as misplaced. However, the “drawing” view also enables us to begin to see what a “Kierkegaardian” friendship might look like.