Learning from Levinas: A Response

In this paper I explore the question of how toapproach the writings of Emmanuel Levinas fromthe point of view of education. I argue thatLevinas has challenged the modern conception ofsubjectivity which underpins modern education.Instead of providing a new conception ofsubjectivity, his work should be understood asan attempt to account for the awakening of theuniqueness of the subject in ethical terms. Thecentral idea is that we come into presencethrough responding, through taking up – or notdenying – the undeniable responsibility whichprecedes our subjectivity. Levinas not onlyprovides us with a new way to `understand'subjectivity. `Responding' also suggests a wayto approach Levinas's writings that goes beyondthe simple application of his `truths' toeducational practice. Levinas's writingschallenge their reader to articulate a unique,unprecedented response. It is argued that thepapers to which this paper is a response alldisplay this approach to Levinas's writings. Itis further argued that `responding' is not onlya way to read Levinas, but ultimately a way tothink about education itself. To learn (fromLevinas) is to respond (to Levinas).     

Requiring and Justifying: Two Dimensions of Normative Strength

Many contemporary accounts of normative reasons for action accord a single strength value to normative reasons. This paper first uses some examples to argue against such views by showing that they seem to commit us to intransitive or counterintuitive claims about the rough equivalence of the strengths of certain reasons. The paper then explains and defends an alternate account according to which normative reasons for action have two separable dimensions of strength: requiring strength, and justifying strength. Such an account explains our intuitions in the cases that make trouble for single-value views. The justifying/requiring account is compared with two other solutions that have been offered to justify and explain our intuitions about these sorts of cases. These other solutions appeal to the notions of incommensurability of reasons, and to second-order normative entities called `exclusionary permissions'. It is argued that the justifying/requiring distinction provides a superior solution.     

Early stopping of clinical trials: charting the ethical terrain

The decision to terminate a clinical trial earlier than planned is often described as ethically problematic, but it is rarely systematically analyzed as an ethical issue in its own right. This paper provides an overview of the main ethical considerations at stake in such decisions and of the main tensions between these considerations. Arguments about informed consent and the impact of early stopping on research and society are explored. We devote particular attention to a familiar conflict that arises with special urgency when early data suggest that the experimental treatment is superior. Should the trial be stopped so that participants in the control group will not be allocated a seemingly inferior treatment, or should it continue in pursuit of evidence conclusive enough to improve the care of future patients? We scrutinize three ways to address this problem. Rather than dissolving the tension, they represent different trade-offs between the respective welfare interests of subjects and future patients.     

Executive functioning and positive psychological characteristics: a replication and extension

Positive psychological characteristics and executive function are correlated with gratitude, satisfaction with life, and forgiveness. The goal of this study was to replicate these findings while examining two additional constructs, namely, hope and optimism. 113 students (25 men, 88 women) between the ages of 17 to 24 years (M = 19.4, SD = 1.5) volunteered to participate. Positive correlations between executive function and gratitude were found but mixed results were obtained for forgiveness and satisfaction with life. Hope and optimism correlated positively with executive function and hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that they contributed significantly to the explanation of executive functioning. Further investigation into relationships between executive functioning, its neurobiological substrates, and positive psychological attributes is recommended.     

The generalized polymorphous concept account of graded structure in abstract categories

Abstract categories present with graded structure. The extent to which feature commonality between exemplars and category provides a satisfying account of this graded structure varies from one abstract category to the other (Hampton, 1981). We investigate whether the incorporation of features that exemplars share with external categories yields an improved account of abstract categories' graded structures. In doing so, we follow the suggestion that abstract categories are relational in nature (Goldstone, 1996; Wiemer-Hastings & Xu, 2005). The generalized polymorphous concept model, which incorporates both types of features, is found to improve the account of typicality and category membership in three of seven studied abstract categories. These three categories are found to be the most abstract, suggesting that it is appropriate to think of abstract categories as varying along a continuum of abstractness/interrelatedness rather than as a distinct type of category altogether.     

Raising argument strength using negative evidence: a constraint on models of induction

Both intuitively, and according to similarity-based theories of induction, relevant evidence raises argument strength when it is positive and lowers it when it is negative. In three experiments, we tested the hypothesis that argument strength can actually increase when negative evidence is introduced. Two kinds of argument were compared through forced choice or sequential evaluation: single positive arguments (e.g., “Shostakovich’s music causes alpha waves in the brain; therefore, Bach’s music causes alpha waves in the brain”) and double mixed arguments (e.g., “Shostakovich’s music causes alpha waves in the brain, X’s music DOES NOT; therefore, Bach’s music causes alpha waves in the brain”). Negative evidence in the second premise lowered credence when it applied to an item X from the same subcategory (e.g., Haydn) and raised it when it applied to a different subcategory (e.g., AC/DC). The results constitute a new constraint on models of induction.     

On domain differences in categorization and context variety

Membership in many natural categories is considered all-or-none, while membership in most artifact categories is found to be graded. We introduce an alternative for the prevailing view that this domain difference in categorization results from representational differences. The context variety account posits that an item’s gradedness reflects the variety of contexts it appears in. Items that feature in a variety of contexts are assumed to be more likely to elicit a graded categorization response, since the suggested target category only provides one of many solutions to the question of the item’s identity. We review earlier work that suggested a domain difference in context variety, with artifactual items appearing in a greater variety of contexts than natural ones. The context variety domain difference is established in two separate experiments but is shown not to explain the domain difference in categorization. A selection of artifactual and natural items, for which the domain difference in context variety is reversed, is presented for categorization in a third experiment. This selection, too, fails to provide evidence for the context variety account of categorization differences. The domain difference in categorization is shown to be robust against this manipulation. Context variety appears to have no bearing on categorization, so the context variety account is not a sustainable alternative to accounts that posit representational differences between natural and artifact categories.