ON ULTIMATE EPISTEMIC FOUNDATIONS1

This paper is a contribution to the debate on epistemic foundationalism. Section I expounds and criticises Hans Albert's critical rationalist antifoundationalism position. Section I1 discusses Karl-Otto Apel's ‘transcendental pragmatic’ argument for ultimate epistemic foundations. Section III suggests how the latter argument can be restated so as to avoid ambiguity and yield a plausible case for epistemic foundationalism.     

The dynamics of Prägnanz

Summary There is quite wide-spread agreement about the relevance of pattern Pragnanz (Koffka, 1935) with respect to the human interpretation of visual patterns. There is less agreement about whether pattern Pragnanz is based solely on pattern information (static) or also on the history of the perceiver (dynamic). In Van Leeuwen and Van den Hof (1991), experimental data concerning serial patterns are presented within the framework of the dynamic-network approach initiated by Buffart (1986, 1987). These experimental data are claimed to give evidence against the static-coding approach initiated by Leeuwenberg (1969, 1971). In the present paper, however, I show first that Buffart's theoretical basis is incorrect, and that in fact Leeuwenberg's static-coding approach is the basis for the dynamic-network approach. Second, I show that those experimental data rather give evidence in favor of the static-coding approach, by using those same data for a test of the most recent static-coding model (Van der Helm & Leeuwenberg, 1991; Van der Helm, Van Lier, & Leeuwenberg, 1992). Finally, I propose a reconciliation between the two approaches, in the sense that the dynamic-network model could be shaped in such a way that it yields a simulation, and maybe even an enrichment, of the static-coding model.     

Thinking About “Tests and Assessment” and the Career Beliefs Inventory

The author (a) comments briefly on the “Tests and Assessment” section of the Journal of Counseling & Development (JCD)—what it has covered and has not covered in recent years—and (b) introduces a set of articles that discuss a new career-oriented inventory of potential interest to counselors.     

The Enjoyment of Sexist Humor,Rape Attitudes,and Relationship Aggression in College Students

The current study tested Freud's (1905/1960)theory that sexist humor may be associated withhostility toward women and extended previous researchshowing a link between hostile humor and aggression.Colleges students (N = 399 — approximately 92%white, 5% African American, and 3% other minorities)rated 10 sexist jokes on their perceived funniness.Results showed that the enjoyment of sexist humor waspositively correlated with rape-related attitudes andbeliefs, the self-reported likelihood of forcing sex,and psychological, physical, and sexual aggression inmen. For women, the enjoyment of sexist humor was only positively correlated with Adversarial SexualBeliefs and Acceptance of Interpersonal Violence. Womenalso found the jokes to be less enjoyable, lessacceptable, and more offensive than the men, but they were not significantly less likely to tell thejokes.     

Personal advertisements of male-to-female transsexuals,homosexual men,and heterosexuals

Transsexuals, because of their attempts at gender reversal, offer a unique opportunity to study self-presentation, social roles, and stereotypes. The present study is a content analysis of personal advertisements of male-to-female transsexuals (TM, N =99), homosexual (HoM, N =64) and heterosexual men (HM, N =99), and heterosexual women (HW, N =99). Advertisements were coded for the presence or absence of 11 characteristics either offered or sought, based on the 1984 work of Deaux and Hanna. The content of TM personal advertisements was significantly different from those of HW, HM, or HoM. TM mentioned physical characteristics and sincerity, and requested friendship most often; HoM mentioned sexuality most often; HM offered financial security and status in the form of occupation, and listed marital status most often; and HW offered personality characteristics and attractiveness most often. Several factors may contribute to the pattern of differences observed, including the fact that TM were more likely to be seeking friendship than sexual partners, in contrast to the other three groups.     

A Grammatical Specific Language Impairment in Children: An Autosomal Dominant Inheritance?

The aim of this study is to provide further characterization of a subgroup of so-called “Grammatical specific language-impaired (SLI)” children. The Grammatical SLI children have a persistent and disproportionate impairment in grammatical comprehension and expression of language. Previous research has indicated that their language impairment may be characterized by a domain-specific and modular language deficit. This study provides an initial investigation as to whether there is a genetic basis underlying their disorder as has been found for other forms of SLI and for SLI in general. The incidence of familial aggregation of language impairment was investigated in 12 Grammatical SLI children (aged 9:3 to 12:10). A familial language impairment (LI) history was classified as positive if one or more of the probands' relatives had a history of a speech/language or reading/writing problem which required speech therapy or any other form of remedial help. Case history information provided an initial indication that the Grammatical SLI children had a significantly higher incidence of a positive familial LI history than could be expected by chance. A questionnaire provided evidence of a positive LI history in the first-degree relatives of the SLI probands and 49 normally developing control probands. The SLI probands had a clearly and significantly higher incidence of a positive familial LI history than the control probands (77.8 vs. 28.5%, respectively). The results are consistent with a genetic basis underlying Grammatical SLI. The pattern of impairment in the SLI probands' relatives is consistent with an autosomal dominant genetic inheritance. In contrast to the control probands, the SLI probands' impaired relatives did not show a male gender bias. Thus, the gene does not appear to be sex-linked. The data indicate that further research is warranted to investigate the nature of the LI in the relatives of the Grammatical SLI probands and the genetic characteristics of this subgroup. The implications for the biological, domain-specific, and modular bases to language are discussed.     

Effects of diagnostic classification systems on clinical hypothesis-generation

In this study it was determined whether (a) classification as opposed to absence of classification has an effect on the quality of clinical hypotheses (b) the DSM-III-R and the CBCL have a different effect on the quality of clinical hypotheses, and (c) the potential difference between the DSM-III-R and the CBCL is moderated by the different number of syndromes identified by these systems. To investigate these questions, an experiment was conducted in which 86 clinicians generated hypotheses for six cases. The clinicians were divided into a DSM-III-R, a CBCL, and a control group. Of the six cases, two were classified by both classification systems as one syndrome, two were classified as one syndrome by the DSM-III-R but as two syndromes by the CBCL, and two were classified as two syndromes by the DSM-III-R but as one syndrome by the CBCL. The quality of the hypotheses was determined by means of four dependent variables selected from an overview of qualitative criteria: explanatory value, redundancy, possibility of operationalization, and specificity. No differences between the CBCL and the control groups were found. The DSM group performed better than the control group regarding explanatory value and redundancy. The DSM-III-R group also scored better than the CBCL group regarding explanatory value, particularly when the number of identified syndromes was two for the CBCL and one for the DSM-III-R.