Order-Constrained Solutions in <Emphasis Type="Italic">K</Emphasis>-Means Clustering: Even Better Than Being Globally Optimal

This paper proposes an order-constrained K-means cluster analysis strategy, and implements that strategy through an auxiliary quadratic assignment optimization heuristic that identifies an initial object order. A subsequent dynamic programming recursion is applied to optimally subdivide the object set subject to the order constraint. We show that although the usual K-means sum-of-squared-error criterion is not guaranteed to be minimal, a true underlying cluster structure may be more accurately recovered. Also, substantive interpretability seems generally improved when constrained solutions are considered. We illustrate the procedure with several data sets from the literature.     

Re-conceptualizing the past: Historical data in vocational interest research

Noteworthy progress has been made in the development of statistical models for evaluating the structure of vocational interests over the past three decades. It is proposed that historically significant interest datasets, when combined with modern structural methods of data analysis, provide an opportunity to re-examine the underlying assumptions of J.L. Holland’s [Holland, J. L. (1959). A theory of vocational choice. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 6, 35–45; Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices (3rd ed.). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources] RIASEC model. To illustrate this potential, data obtained from J. P. Guilford’s study of interest structure were re-analyzed using modern circumplex and hierarchical clustering techniques to evaluate Holland’s and I. Gati’s [Gati, I. (1979). A hierarchical model for the structure of interests. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 15, 90–106; Gati, I. (1991). The structure of vocational interests. Psychological Bulletin, 109, 309–324] interest structures. Obtained results indicate that a circumplex model can be used to effectively represent the structure underlying Guilford’s interest measures. However, hierarchical clustering results suggest that Holland’s RIASEC types may not be the most effective categories for grouping specific interest measures into broader interest areas. The current findings provide support for the continued investigation of alternatives to Holland’s interest categories using modern measures of basic interests.     

What is Debate for? The Rationality of Tibetan Debates and the Role of Humor

In this essay, I examine the mode of operation and aim of debates in the Tibetan Buddhist traditions. I contrast the probative form of argument that was privileged by the Indian tradition to the more agonic practice favored by Tibetan scholastics. I also examine the rules that preside over this dialectical practice, which is seen by the Tibetan tradition as essential to a proper scholastic education. I argue, however, that the practice of debates cannot be reduced to this dialectical model, for it has an important performative aspect not easily encompassed by the rules. I examine this aspect of Tibetan debates, focusing particularly on the role of humor. I conclude with a few remarks on the type of rationality entailed by the importance of humor and of other rhetorical elements involved in Tibetan debates.

The discovery of pluralistic ignorance: An ironic lesson

In recent years, an increasing number of social and behavioral scientists have begun to pay serious attention to pluralistic ignorance, the shared false ideas of individuals about the sentiments, thoughts, and actions of others. Most of these researchers are unaware of the original effort to investigate these patterns of cognitive error and, consequently, misunderstand, as did the original investigators, some of the implications of their own work. The discovery of this important social phenomenon by Floyd H. Allport and his students, Daniel Katz and Richard L. Schanck, and how their preoccupation with individual characteristics and their relative neglect of social characteristics led them to underestimate the value of their discovery, is discussed. Allport's original interest in pluralistic ignorance and how he and Katz documented it empirically are presented, as is a review of Schanck's research extending their analysis.     

The priority ofthe world tomy world: Heidegger's answer to Husserl (and Sartre)

Continental Philosophy Review -     

Bizarreness effects in verbal tasks and subject-performed tasks

Abstract

Recognition and cued recall of ordinary action phrases (e.g. “open the book”) and bizarre ones (e.g. “plant the hammer”) were compared under two encoding conditions: in verbal tasks (VTs), subjects learned the phrases by simply listening to them; in subject-performed tasks (SPTs), subjects learned the phrases by performing the denoted actions (without real objects). Memory performance was better after SPTs than after VTs in recognition and cued recall. In addition to this already established finding, it was observed that recognition was better for bizarre phrases than for ordinary ones after VTs and that bizarreness was unrelated to recognition after SPTs. Cued recall, on the other hand, depended on bizarreness after VTs as well as after SPTs and, in contrast to the recognition findings, ordinary phrases were recalled better than bizarre phrases. This pattern of findings was explained by the assumptions that lexical and conceptual information is encoded after VTs and motor information is additionally encoded after SPTs, and that different kinds of information are used in recognition and cued recall, and after VTs and SPTs.     

Interpreting Heidegger on Das Man

In their debate over my interpretation of Heidegger's account of das Man in Being and Time, Frederick Olafson and Taylor Carman agree that Heidegger's various characterizations of das Man are inconsistent. Olafson champions an existentialist/ontic account of das Man as a distorted mode of being‐with. Carman defends a Wittgensteinian/ontological account of das Man as Heidegger's name for the social norms that make possible everyday intelligibility. For Olafson, then, das Man is a privative mode of Dasein, while for Carman it makes up an important aspect of Dasein's positive constitution. Neither interpreter takes seriously the other's account, though both acknowledge both readings are possible. How should one choose between these two interpretations? I suggest that we choose the interpretation that identifies the phenomenon the work is examining, gives the most internally consistent account of that phenomenon, and shows the compatibility of this account with the rest of the work.     

Alfred Schutz’ Theory of Communicative Action

This paper addresses the notion of communicative action on the basis of Alfred Schutz’ writings. In Schutz’ work, communication is of particular significance and its importance is often neglected by phenomenologists. Communication plays a crucial role in his first major work, the Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt from 1932, yet communication is also a major feature in his unfinished works which were later completed posthumously by Thomas Luckmann: The Structures of the Life World (1973, 1989). In these texts, Schutz sometimes refers to “communicative action,” and he comes to ascribe a crucial role to communication within the domain of the life world he calls everyday life. Based on Schutz’ texts, I shall first attempt to critically reconstruct the defining features of his notion of communication and communicative action. As a result, it emerges that Schutz’ notion of communication, particularly in its early incarnation, seems to be, at first glance, characterized by a dichotomy between virtual communication, that is communicative action in a narrow sense, and non-virtual communication. As I want to show with respect to the seemingly established dichotomous distinction between “mediated” and “immediate social action,” Schutz himself started to overcome this dichotomy. Based on this thesis, I will try to sketch a basic outline of a theory of communicative action, a theory less formulated by Schutz’ than built on Schutz’ writings. As the idea of communicative action, and particularly the transgression of the distinction between mediated and immediate action, affects the very structures of the life-world described by Schutz and Luckmann, I will ultimately demonstrate that any mundane phenomenology of the life-world requires a triangulatory method.