Qualia im Knotenpunkt zwischen Leib und Seele: „Argumentatives“ Dilemma in der gegenwärtigen Diskussion über die Subjektivität mentaler Zustände

Qualia in the node-point between mind and body: Dilemma of present discussion about the subjectivity of mental states. The present discussion about qualia shows a bewildering variety of different positions. We show implicit assumptions about brain, subject, and qualia of this complex discussion. By means of three assumptions we divide the discussion about qualia into three different positions (proposition, opposition, intermediate solutions). These positions and their exemplaric authors are briefly presented along the lines of the three assumptions. The next step shows how each position solves the dilemma which arises if one relates all three assumptions by eliminating at least one of the three assumptions. Finally, general problems in the discussion of qualia are shown by means of which the dilemma of the relation between brain, subject and qualia may be brought closer to a solution without eliminating one assumption.     

Experimentelle Untersuchungen über simultane und sukzessive Gesichtswahrnehmungen

Zusammenfassung A. Lehmann hat in seiner Psychophysiologie ein allgemeines Gesetz aufgestellt, wonach gleichzeitige Erregungen sich hemmen, sukzessive dagegen sich bahnen. Die Schwelle für einen Schallreiz ist z. B. h?her, wenn gleichzeitig ein elektrischer Reiz einwirkt, wogegen, im allgemeinen von zwei einander folgenden gleich starken Reizen der zweite für st?rker gehalten wird. Wir führen hier diesen Satz an, um die Vermutung ausdrücklich abzuweisen, als ob unsere Prinzipien diesen oder einen ?hnlichen Sachverhalt ausdrückten. Wir sprachen nicht von einwirkenden Reizen oder physiologischen Erregungen, sondern von psychischen Inhalten, bzw. von deren gleichzeitigem oder sukzessivem Gegebensein. Und es war das Ergebnis unserer Versuche nicht, da? gleichzeitig erscheinende psychische Inhalte sich hemmen bzw. sukzessive sich bahnen, sondern es ergab sich nur,da? stückhafte Teile in einer einheitlichen simultanen Wahrnehmung in minderwertigerer Weise zur Geltung kommen als in zwei sukzessiven Wahrnehmungen, wo sie eben keine stückhaften Teile mehr sind, sondern selbst?ndige Gegebenheiten. Die Umkehrung dieses Satzes trifft aber auch zu und ist z. B. ableitbar aus unseren Versuchen über den Entfernungsvergleich der Diagonalen eines Quadrates. In jeder simultanen Wahrnehmung ergibt sich ein einheitlicher Gesamteindruck, und die diesem entsprechende Wahrnehmungsart ist eben die simultane, in welcher er auch besser verwirklicht wird, als wenn er aus einigen sukzessiven Wahrnehmungen zu entstehen h?tte. Mit 10 Figuren im Text. über einen Teil der nachfolgenden Experimente hat der Verf. schon auf dem Münchener Psychologenkongre? (April 1925) berichtet.     

Everyday temptations: an experience sampling study of desire, conflict, and self-control

How often and how strongly do people experience desires, to what extent do their desires conflict with other goals, and how often and successfully do people exercise self-control to resist their desires? To investigate desire and attempts to control desire in everyday life, we conducted a large-scale experience sampling study based on a conceptual framework integrating desire strength, conflict, resistance (use of self-control), and behavior enactment. A sample of 205 adults wore beepers for a week. They furnished 7,827 reports of desire episodes and completed personality measures of behavioral inhibition system/behavior activation system (BIS/BAS) sensitivity, trait self-control, perfectionism, and narcissistic entitlement. Results suggest that desires are frequent, variable in intensity, and largely unproblematic. Those urges that do conflict with other goals tend to elicit resistance, with uneven success. Desire strength, conflict, resistance, and self-regulatory success were moderated in multiple ways by personality variables as well as by situational and interpersonal factors such as alcohol consumption, the mere presence of others, and the presence of others who already had enacted the desire in question. Whereas personality generally had a stronger impact on the dimensions of desire that emerged early in its course (desire strength and conflict), situational factors showed relatively more influence on components later in the process (resistance and behavior enactment). In total, these findings offer a novel and detailed perspective on the nature of everyday desires and associated self-regulatory successes and failures.     

Gef?hrliche N?he

The author examines the association between trauma and psychosis. To illustrate this he presents clinical examples of active and passive experiences of violence by adult psychotic patients, for whom forerunners in the form of childhood experiences of violence were found in some psychoanalytical treatments. They take place in traumatic relationships. Recent empirical studies have shown that trauma plays an influential role in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. Traumatic relationships have a contradictory structure which possesses an impressive similarity to the schizophrenic dilemma of adult psychotics. The author therefore considers the schizophrenic dilemma as an introspective manifestation of a traumatic relationship, a part of the violent nature of psychiatric institutions as re-enactment of the traumatic relationship.     

Sex differences of salivary cortisol secretion in patients with major depression

Depression is associated with increased cortisol secretion and occurs more often in women than in men. Thus, it has been hypothesized that differences in cortisol secretion might, in part, be responsible for the greater risk of developing depression in women. However, only few studies have examined sex differences in baseline cortisol secretion in depressed patients and healthy controls. We examined sex effects on cortisol secretion in 52 medication-free patients with major depression (37 women, 15 men, mean ± SD age 35 ± 11 years, Hamilton Depression Scale mean score 27 ± 5) and 50 healthy age- and sex-matched control subjects. Salivary cortisol concentrations were measured at 8:00, 12:00, 16:00, and 22:00 h. Repeated measures analysis of covariance revealed a group × sex interaction (p = 0.05). Post hoc tests revealed higher cortisol concentrations in depressed compared to healthy men [F(1;29) = 7.5, p = 0.01]. No differences were found between depressed and non-depressed women. Our results do not support the hypothesis that differences in cortisol secretion between depressed and non-depressed subjects are more pronounced in women than in men. Study characteristics and methods as well as sex-specific confounding variables such as menstrual cycle, menopause and the use of oral contraceptives may account for inconclusive results across studies.     

Analogical Reasoning in Ethics

In this article I am concerned with analogical reasoning in ethics. There is no doubt that the use of analogy can be a powerful tool in our ethical reasoning. The importance of this mode of reasoning is therefore commonly accepted, but there is considerable debate concerning how its structure should be understood and how it should be assessed, both logically and epistemically. In this paper, I first explain the basic structure of arguments from analogy in ethics. I then discuss the diversity of analogical arguments that can be found in ethics. I analyse their structure, assess them from a logical viewpoint, and show how they can be epistemically challenged and defended. The result of this investigation is that, contrary to a commonly held view, analogical reasoning can be a logically valid type of ethical reasoning that can provide reasons for action that are not worse than the reasons provided by any other kind of practical reasoning.     

Spatial updating of dynamic scenes: Tracking multiple invisible objects across viewpoint changes

Research on dynamic attention has shown that visual tracking is possible even if the observer’s viewpoint on the scene holding the moving objects changes. In contrast to smooth viewpoint changes, abrupt changes typically impair tracking performance. The lack of continuous information about scene motion, resulting from abrupt changes, seems to be the critical variable. However, hard onsets of objects after abrupt scene motion could explain the impairment as well. We report three experiments employing object invisibility during smooth and abrupt viewpoint changes to examine the influence of scene information on visual tracking, while equalizing hard onsets of moving objects after the viewpoint change. Smooth viewpoint changes provided continuous information about scene motion, which supported the tracking of temporarily invisible objects. However, abrupt and, therefore, discontinuous viewpoint changes strongly impaired tracking performance. Object locations retained with respect to a reference frame can account for the attentional tracking that follows invisible objects through continuous scene motion.