On Making Sense (and Nonsense) of Heidegger

Herman Philipse's Heidegger's Philosophy of Being is an attempt to interpret, analyze, and ultimately discredit the whole of Heidegger's thought. But Philipse's reading of the texts is uncharitable, and the ideas he presents and criticizes often bear little resemblance to Heidegger's views. Philipse relies on a crude distinction between "theoretical" and "applicative" interpretations in arguing that Heidegger's conception of interpretation as a kind of projection ( Entwurf ) is, like the liar's paradox, formally self-defeating. But even granting the distinction, the charge of reflective incoherence is fallacious and question-begging. Finally, Philipse advances the astonishing "interpretive hypothesis" that the seemingly morbid existential themes in Being and Time were part of a deliberate "Pascalian strategy" to win converts to Heidegger's own idiosyncratic "postrnonotheist worship of Being." In short, notwithstanding its nearly comprehensive coverage of Heidegger's works, the book does not represent a sufficiently serious effort to understand the complexities and obscurities of Heidegger's thinking.     

THE ROLE OF AFFECT AND LEADERSHIP DURING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

Based on multilevel data collected at 2 points in time, we examine the role of employees’ affective experiences in shaping their commitment and behavioral responses to both the initial (Time 1) and later (Time 2) phases of organizational change (12 months later). We also test the cross‐level effect of workgroup managers’ transformational leadership on their employees’ responses to change. We find strong support for predicted longitudinal relationships between employees’ affective experiences and their commitment and behavioral responses to change. In particular, employees’ positive and negative affect (NA) at Time 1 significantly predict both their commitment to change and the 3 dimensions (supportive, resistant, and creative) of behavioral responses at Time 2. Further, the effects of NA directly influence employee change commitment and behaviors at Time 2, whereas the long‐term effects of positive affect occur both directly and indirectly through commitment to change at Time 1. Finally, our results support the hypothesized role of workgroup managers’ transformational leadership in shaping employees’ affective reactions and commitment to change at the initial phase of change and thereby, their subsequent behavioral responses in the later phase. We discuss the implications for theory and practice in organizational change.     

Foucault and Familial Power

This paper provides an overview of Michel Foucault's continually changing observations on familial power, as well as the feminist‐Foucauldian literature on the family. It suggests that these accounts offer fragments of a genealogy of the family that undermine any all‐encompassing or transhistorical account of the institution. Approaching the family genealogically, rather than seeking a single model of power that can explain it, shows that far from this institution being a quasi‐natural formation or a bedrock of unassailable values, it is in fact a continually contested fiction that masks its own histories of becoming.     

More Thinking About Gender: Reply

Patricia Elliot distorts my work, in summarizing my position as one of advocating a revaluing of feminine qualities. After clarifying my position, I flesh out in greater detail my argument that complete gender neutrality is neither necessary nor sufficient for a non-sexist society. The argument focuses on gender as a cognitive category and on the crucial question of “how do we get there from here.”     

Similarity and preference judgments of musical stimuli

Two experiments were performed comparing similarity (technical-structural) and preference personal-affective) judgments of jazz improvizations (Experiment 1) and of classical, pop-rock, and jazz music (Experiment 2). A multidimensional scaling paradigm (INDSCAL) was used for pairwise comparisons of the 12 musical pieces in each experiment. Each 2 minute piece was subdivided into 10 second segments in order to reduce fatigue or boredom and provide better sampling across comparison trials. In general, similarity dimensions reflected greater agreement among the subjects that did preference dimensions and were hierarchically ordered. The dominant dimensions for both similarity and preference judgments of jazz improvizations were: Tempo, Dominant Instrument (Horns-guitar), and Articulation. The dominant dimensions for similarity judgments involving all three genres were: Classical-Contemporary, Jazz-Rock, and Tempo. The dominant dimensions for preference judments were: Rock-Classical, Jazz-Classical, and Tempo. In general, the preference judgments of musically sophisticated subjects were less constrained by salient dimensions.     

Reflections on Parenting: A Multigenerational Perspective

This paper presents some of the underlying patterns of parenting that have emerged from six years of ethnographic field research into the role of the family in children's acquisition and use of reading and writing skills. The research has provided some insights into the many complex and interrelated ways that children's literate activities are mediated and affected by multigenerational family patterns and by their personal experience of everyday life both within and outside the family. Two central themes are discussed: the spirit of change, which breaks the patterns of the past and brings new interpretations into the present, and the spirit of conservation, which maintains the continuation of family patterns from one generation to the next. Also described are the important parental attitudes of social flexibility and resiliency that are frequently evident in these processes of conservation and change of multigenerational patterns. One specific family story provides the background for the theoretical issues that are explored.     

The Revolution in Counseling: A Sociological Perspective

Revolution, from a sociological perspective, requires more than a full acceptance of behavioral techniques and applications by counselors. What the behaviorists have contributed is not a revolutionary stance but a newly coherent set of strategies for dealing with client problems. It is still the client who is encouraged to acquire behaviors more consistent with the immediate social milieu rather than the reverse—It is easier to fit the individual into the existing social order than to confront and change the social order. A revolution would entail taking on society as the client, and then developing and applying efficacious change strategies to social structures.