Know-how,intellectualism, and memory systems

ABSTRACT

A longstanding tradition in philosophy distinguishes between knowthatand know-how. This traditional “anti-intellectualist” view is soentrenched in folk psychology that it is often invoked in supportof an allegedly equivalent distinction between explicit and implicitmemory, derived from the so-called “standard model of memory.”In the last two decades, the received philosophical view has beenchallenged by an “intellectualist” view of know-how. Surprisingly, defenders of the anti-intellectualist view have turned to the cognitivescience of memory, and to the standard model in particular, todefend their view. Here, I argue that this strategy is a mistake. As it turns out, upon closer scrutiny, the evidence from cognitivepsychology and neuroscience of memory does not support theanti-intellectualist approach, mainly because the standard modelof memory is likely wrong. However, this need not be interpretedas good news for the intellectualist, for it is not clear that theempirical evidence necessarily supports their view either. I arguethat, currently, the philosophical debate is couched in terms thatdo not correspond to categories in psychological science. As aresult, the debate has to either be re-interpreted in a vocabularythat is amenable to experimental scrutiny, or it cannot be settledempirically.     

Addressing Diversity in the Decade of Behavior: Focus on Women of Color

The Decade of Behavior provides an opportunity to reflect on the need for psychologists to develop a "diversity mindfulness" in their education, training, and research activities, a need that has never been more urgent. In this article, we focus on the lives of women of color to illustrate diversity-mindful feminist principles that may inform research and program development related to other aspects of diversity. We discuss perspectives and priorities of women of color in psychology. We consider why implementing feminist psychology's inclusive vision for research is a continuing struggle, particularly with regard to research on poor women, and identify some contributions and priorities of feminist research on women of color that relate to Decade goals of achieving a "safer, better educated, healthier, more democratic and more prosperous nation" (White, Travis, & Russo, 2001, p. x). Understanding and incorporating perspectives of women of color in Decade activities is essential if researchers are to generate new knowledge "to prepare the world for facing emerging problems in the 21st century" (Decade of Behavior website: http://www.decadeofbehavior.org).     

Feed the Church,starve the party? Church-state relations and religious political mobilisation in 21 Catholic-majority countries

ABSTRACT

This contribution examines the effects of state religion policy on religious political mobilisation, focusing on the case of the Catholic Church in the post-Cold War era. Catholicism remains politically salient in most Catholic-majority societies, but the presence and success of parties that explicitly mobilise Catholicism in the electoral arena varies enormously. In addition, Catholic-majority countries display a wide variety of institutional arrangements governing the relationship between religion and state. This contribution presents a theoretical framework for analysing the effect of these institutions on the performance of political parties that seek to mobilise religion. Relying on a dataset that covers 137 elections in 21 Catholic-majority countries as well as key measures from the Religion and State (RAS) dataset, this contribution shows that countries with higher levels of state regulation of religion and friendlier religion-state relations are more likely to host parties that mobilise religion; it also suggests that funding for the Catholic Church may constrain such parties.     

Feminism and the Decade of Behavior

This Psychology of Women Quarterly special issue argues that the goals of the Decade of Behavior to foster a healthier, safer, better educated, more prosperous, and more democratic nation cannot be achieved without contributions from feminist psychology. Its individual articles reflect feminist perspectives and provide examples of how feminist perspectives can inform behavioral and social research within Decade domains. In this overview, we outline the challenges that gender poses to achieving Decade goals, and discuss four cross-cutting feminist principles for research to address those challenges: Inclusiveness and Diversity, Context, Power and Privilege, and Activism. We discuss specific limitations of traditional research, and emphasize the need for new models that view the world in more complex, context-based ways. We underscore the importance of generating new, diversity-mindful research questions and of developing and accepting new methods to answer them. We discuss policy implications, stressing the need for activism. We hope this work will encourage the expansion of feminist scholarship in the new millennium and be helpful to researchers, educators, and policymakers in working to achieve the goals of the Decade of Behavior.