THE EXPERIENCE OF HOME AND THE SPACE OF CITIZENSHIP

I argue that, although we are inherently intersubjective beings, we are not first or most originally “public” beings. Rather, to become a public being, that is, a citizen—in other words, to act as an independent and self‐controlled agent in a community of similarly independent and self‐controlled agents and, specifically, to do so in a shared space in the public arena—is something that we can successfully do only by emerging from our familiar, personal territories—our homes. Finding support in texts from philosophy, psychology, and the social sciences, I construe the claim that citizenship is a developed stance as a spatial issue. I conclude that a state (or, for that matter, a philosophy) that takes the human being to begin as an isolated individual agent fails to recognize the essential spatial relationships on which we depend—namely, those arising through our way of being‐at‐home in the world; and, as a result, such a stance not only misconstrues the parameters on which citizenship is itself possible but also risks developing a social situation that encourages behaviors we see in the agoraphobic—namely, the behaviors of alienated and fundamentally homeless human beings.     

The accidental transgressor: morally-relevant theory of mind

To test young children’s false belief theory of mind in a morally relevant context, two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, children (N = 162) at 3.5, 5.5, and 7.5 years of age were administered three tasks: prototypic moral transgression task, false belief theory of mind task (ToM), and an “accidental transgressor” task, which measured a morally-relevant false belief theory of mind (MoToM). Children who did not pass false belief ToM were more likely to attribute negative intentions to an accidental transgressor than children who passed false belief ToM, and to use moral reasons when blaming the accidental transgressor. In Experiment 2, children (N = 46) who did not pass false belief ToM viewed it as more acceptable to punish the accidental transgressor than did participants who passed false belief ToM. Findings are discussed in light of research on the emergence of moral judgment and theory of mind.     

Camus and Nihilism

Camus published an essay entitled ??Nietzsche and Nihilism,?? which was later incorporated into The Rebel. Camus' aim was to assess Nietzsche's response to the problem of nihilism. My aim is to do the same with Camus. The paper explores Camus' engagement with nihilism through its two major modalities: with respect to the individual and the question of suicide in The Myth of Sisyphus, and with respect to the collective and the question of murder in The Rebel. While a Nietzschean influence thoroughly suffuses both books, it is in the second that Camus' most explicit, and most critical, engagement with the German philosopher takes place. The crux of Camus' critique of Nietzsche is that the absolute affirmation of existence he proposes as a response to nihilism cannot say ??no?? to murder. In the terms of Camus' discussion in The Rebel, Nietzsche's philosophy is thus culpable in the straying of rebellion from its own foundations and its slide into bloody revolution. First, the paper argues that Camus' criticisms of Nietzsche are misplaced. Camus focuses his analysis on sections of the problematic text The Will to Power and misses important sections of Nietzsche's published texts which in fact support the condemnation of revolution which is the project of The Rebel. However, the paper argues that Camus moves beyond Nietzsche in radically democratizing the response to nihilism. While Nietzsche's hopes for the creation of meaning are focused on exceptional individuals, Camus insists that any response to nihilism needs to be accessible to the average person. Such a move is laudable, but it raises a number of questions and challenges regarding the type of problem nihilism is, and how these might be addressed.     

Counterfactuals and Causal Explanation

This article defends the use of interventionist counterfactuals to elucidate causal and explanatory claims against criticisms advanced by James Bogen and Peter Machamer. Against Bogen, I argue that counterfactual claims concerning what would happen under interventions are meaningful and have determinate truth values, even in a deterministic world. I also argue, against both Machamer and Bogen, that we need to appeal to counterfactuals to capture the notions like causal relevance and causal mechanism. Contrary to what both authors suppose, counterfactuals are not “unscientific”—a substantial tradition within statistics and the causal modelling literature makes heavy use of them.     

Scrutinizing the Emotional Nature of Intuitive Coherence Judgments

Dual‐system models propose that cognitive processing can occur either intuitively or deliberately. Unlike deliberate decision strategies, intuitive ones are assumed to have an emotional component attached to the decision process. We tested if intuitive decisions are indeed accompanied by an emotional response while deliberate decisions are not. Specifically, we conducted a psychophysiological study in which participants were instructed to decide either intuitively or deliberately if three simultaneously presented words were semantically coherent or incoherent (triad task). The degree of emotionality of these two decision strategies (intuitive vs. deliberate) was compared using changes in electrodermal activity (EDA) and the reaction time (RT) effect of an affective priming paradigm as primary measurements. Based on a valence‐arousal model, our results revealed that intuitive and deliberate judgments do not differ as to their emotional valence but that they do differ in emotional arousal. Most notably, sympathetic activation during intuitive judgments was significantly lower compared to sympathetic activation during deliberate judgments. Our results reflect that a relaxed state of mind—manifested in low sympathetic activity—could underlie the holistic processing that is assumed to facilitate the proliferation of semantic associations during coherence judgments. This suggests that coherence judgments made under an (instructed) intuitive decision mode have a specific psychophysiological signature and that arousal is the differentiating component between intuitive and deliberate decision strategies. © 2016 The Authors Journal of Behavioral Decision Making Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Mental rotation of letters, pictures, and three-dimensional objects in German dyslexic children.

This study examines mental rotation ability in children with developmental dyslexia. Prior investigations have yielded equivocal results that might be due to differences in stimulus material and testing formats employed. Whereas some investigators found dyslexic readers to be impaired in mental rotation, others did not report any performance differences or even superior spatial performance for dyslexia. Here, we report a comparison of mental rotation for letters, three-dimensional figures sensu Shepard and Metzler, and colored pictures of animals or humans in second-grade German dyslexic readers. Findings indicate that dyslexic readers are impaired in mental rotation for all three kinds of stimuli. Effects of general intelligence were controlled. Furthermore, dyslexic children were deficient in other spatial abilities like identifying letters or forms among distracters. These results are discussed with respect to the hypotheses of a developmental dysfunction of the parietal cortex or a subtle anomaly in cerebellar function in dyslexic readers.     

The mediating and moderating effects of differentiation of self on body mass index and depressive symptomatology among an American college sample

Differentiation of self – a core construct of Bowen's (Bowen, M. (1978). Family therapy in clinical practice. New York: Jason Aronson) family systems theory – was examined as a possible predictor of psychological health and physical health and as a mediator and moderator of the relation between overall functioning and psychological health and physical health. A total of 818 American college students participated (mean age?=?23.72, SD?=?4.79) in this study. Differentiation of self was correlated and was predictive of psychological health, as measured by the Beck depression inventory, and physical health, as measured by body mass index (BMI). A multivariate multiple regression model revealed that differentiation of self partially mediated the effects of overall functioning on depressive symptomatology and on BMI. Results from a hierarchical regression model showed that differentiation of self moderated the relation between overall functioning and depressive symptomatology but did not moderate the relation between overall functioning and BMI. Taken together, these preliminary findings provide initial evidence of the importance of the associations between family systemic factors (differentiation of self) and psychological and physical health factors among American college populations.     

The role of strategies in deciding advantageously in ambiguous and risky situations

In decision situations of everyday life, the potential positive or negative consequences of a decision are often specified and the associated probabilities are known or they are principally calculable ("decisions under risk"). On the basis of correlations reported in patient studies, it has been recently proposed that decisions under risk involve strategic components, i.e. calculation of the risk, as well as emotional processes, i.e. processing feedback from previous decisions. However, the potential impact of calculative strategies on decision-making under risk has not been investigated systematically, so far. In the current study, we examined 42 healthy subjects (21 females) with the Game of Dice Task measuring decisions under risk, and a questionnaire assessing strategy application in items comparable to the choices in the Game of Dice Task. In addition, the subjects performed the Iowa Gambling Task, examining decision-making under ambiguity, and a neuropsychological test battery focusing on executive functions. Results indicate that deciding advantageously in a decision-making task with explicit and stable rules is linked to applying calculative strategies. In contrast, individuals who decide intuitively prefer risky or disadvantageous choices in the Game of Dice Task. Applying calculative strategies was correlated with executive functions but not with performance on the Iowa Gambling Task. The results support the view that calculative processes and strategies may improve decision-making under explicit risk conditions.