Subjectivity as Encounter: Feminine Ethics in the Work of Bracha Lichtenberg‐Ettinger and Anne Enright

The fragility of the subject is a recurring issue in the work of Anne Enright, one of Ireland's most remarkable and innovative writers. It is this specific interest, together with her attempt to make women into subjects, that inevitably links her work to Bracha Lichtenberg‐Ettinger's theory of the matrixial borderspace, a feminine sphere that coexists with the Lacanian symbolic order and that, even before our entrance into this linguistic system, informs our subjectivity. By turning to a point in time before language—the encounter between “self” and “other” during pregnancy—both Enright and Ettinger test the boundaries of and the gaps within the linguistic system. It is the going before language that ultimately enables both to go beyond some of the most persistent dualisms present within the linguistic system and to create room for an alternative—a feminine—understanding of the ethical relationality between self and other.     

Grounding and anchoring: on the structure of Epstein’s social ontology

Brian Epstein’s The Ant Trap is a praiseworthy addition to literature on social ontology and the philosophy of social sciences. Its central aim is to challenge received views about the social world – views with which social scientists and philosophers have aimed to answer questions about the nature of social science and about those things that social sciences aim to model and explain, like social facts, objects and phenomena. The received views that Epstein critiques deal with these issues in an overly people-centered manner. After all, even though social facts and phenomena clearly involve individual people arranged in certain ways, we must still spell out how people are involved in social facts and phenomena. There are many metaphysical questions about social properties, relations, dependence, constitution, causation, and facts that cannot be answered (for instance) just be looking at individual people alone. In order to answer questions about (e.g.) how one social entity depends for its existence on another, we need different metaphysical tools. Epstein thus holds that social ontological explanations would greatly benefit from making use of the theoretical toolkit that contemporary analytical metaphysics has to offer. He focuses specifically on two metaphysical instruments: grounding and anchoring. This paper examines Epstein’s understanding and use of these tools. I contend that Epstein is exactly right to say that contemporary metaphysics contains many theoretical instruments that can be fruitfully applied to social ontological analyses. However, I am unconvinced that Epstein’s tools achieve what they set out to do. In particular, I will address two issues: (1) How is grounding for Epstein meant to work? (2) Is anchoring distinct from grounding, and a relation that we need in social ontology?     

I need you closer to me: Effects of affiliation goals on perceptions of interpersonal distance

People's perceptions are often distorted in a way that aligns with their desires and goals. We argue that having a goal to affiliate changes the perception of interpersonal distance in a way that may help to fulfil this affiliation goal. As other people are goal‐relevant when having an affiliation goal, we expected that people with affiliation goals would estimate the distance between themselves and another person as smaller than people with no affiliation goals. In two studies, we manipulated affiliation goals by priming participants with affiliation or control words. Our main dependent variable was the estimated interpersonal distance between themselves and the experimenter. Results showed that participants primed with affiliation estimated the interpersonal distance as smaller compared with participants primed with control words. We did not obtain reliable differences between the affiliation and control conditions on other distance and height estimations. Our results suggest that having or not having affiliation goals influences people's perception of the distance between them and other people.     

When majority members exclude ethnic minorities: The impact of shame on the desire to object to immoral acts

In recent years, ethnic minorities have experienced an increase in acts of exclusion. In two studies, we demonstrated how ingroup members' felt shame about such immoral behavior explained their desire to pro‐socially object to this immorality by distancing from the perpetrating ingroup and by wanting to support the affected minorities. We showed how the desire to pro‐socially object varies as a function of national identification. As expected, nationally attached identifiers' felt shame for the immoral behavior was linked with greater willingness to pro‐socially object to it. The opposite pattern was found for nationally glorifying identifiers. In the second study, we found that anger directed at the ingroup partially explained the relationship between group‐based shame and the pro‐social desire to object. The results contribute to the literature on shame and pro‐social motivations by showing that distancing from the perpetrating ingroup can be considered as a pro‐social strategy rather than a defensive one.     

Missionary Discipleship as the Innovation of the Church in Pope Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium

Pope Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium talks about discipleship in a framework of mission and evangelization. Rather than concentrating on the discipleship as such, it uses as a lens the spiritual commitment of conversion to missionary discipleship, challenging all Christians and the whole Church, including institutional structures, to this conversion. In common with the World Council of Churches’ document Together towards Life, Evangelii Gaudium emphasizes a need for Christians to focus on the heart of the Gospel, the love of the trinitarian God, in order to find trustful, dynamic, and transformative mission for the “changing landscapes” of today's global and local phenomena. This article deals with the concept of missionary discipleship in Evangelii Gaudium. To this end it discusses discipleship and its underlying structure of continual conversion as it is represented in both Evangelii Gaudium and the WCC's mission document Together towards Life.     

Effect of training and familiarity on responsiveness to human cues in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris)

Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) seem to possess an evolved competency to follow human-given cues, often out-performing their wild progenitor the wolf (Canis lupus) on cue-following tasks. However, domestication may not be solely responsible for the socio-cognitive skills of dogs, with ontogenetic experience also playing a role. This research evaluated the effects of intensive training on cue-following behaviour using an unreinforced object-choice paradigm. The responses of dogs that were trained to competitive levels were compared to those of pet dogs with only basic training, and dogs living in an animal shelter that demonstrated no or only rudimentary following of basic commands. Using a cue-following task where three types of cues were presented by familiar and unfamiliar human partners, the number of cues followed by each training group were recorded. All dogs found cues where gesture was combined with a congruent head and eye movement easier to follow than either gesture or eye gaze alone. Whether the cue-giver was familiar or not had a significant effect on number of cues followed in homed dogs, and the performance of shelter dogs was comparable to the other groups when faced with an unfamiliar cue-giver. Contrary to predictions, level of training did not improve performance on the cue-following task. This work does provide support for the presence of an evolved adaptation to exploit social cues provided by humans that can be augmented by familiarity with the cue giver. However, additional joint activity as experienced in an intensive training regime does not seem to increase accuracy in following human-given cues.     

Statistical Significance of the Contribution of Variables to the PCA solution: An Alternative Permutation Strategy

In this paper, the statistical significance of the contribution of variables to the principal components in principal components analysis (PCA) is assessed nonparametrically by the use of permutation tests. We compare a new strategy to a strategy used in previous research consisting of permuting the columns (variables) of a data matrix independently and concurrently, thus destroying the entire correlational structure of the data. This strategy is considered appropriate for assessing the significance of the PCA solution as a whole, but is not suitable for assessing the significance of the contribution of single variables. Alternatively, we propose a strategy involving permutation of one variable at a time, while keeping the other variables fixed. We compare the two approaches in a simulation study, considering proportions of Type I and Type II error. We use two corrections for multiple testing: the Bonferroni correction and controlling the False Discovery Rate (FDR). To assess the significance of the variance accounted for by the variables, permuting one variable at a time, combined with FDR correction, yields the most favorable results. This optimal strategy is applied to an empirical data set, and results are compared with bootstrap confidence intervals.     

Discrepancies between patients' and partners' perceptions of unsupportive behavior in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

The literature on chronic diseases indicates that partner support, as perceived by patients, contributes to well-being of patients in either a positive or a negative way. Previous studies indicated that patients' and partners' perceptions of unsupportive partner behavior are only moderately related. Our aim was (1) to investigate whether discrepancies between patients' and partners' perceptions of two types of unsupportive partner behavior-overprotection and protective buffering-were associated with the level of distress reported by patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and (2) to evaluate whether the direction of the differences between patients' and partners' perceptions was associated with distress (i.e., whether patient distress was associated with greater patient or greater partner reports of unsupportive partner behavior). A cross-sectional study was performed using the data of a sample of 68 COPD patients and their spouses. Distress was assessed using the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25. Patients' and partners' perceptions of unsupportive partner behavior were assessed with a questionnaire measuring overprotection and protective buffering. Distress was independently associated with patients' perceptions of protective buffering and discrepancies in spouses' perceptions of overprotection. Regarding the direction of the discrepancy, we found that greater partner reports of overprotection as compared with patient reports were related to more distress in COPD patients. Our study showed that patients' distress was associated not only with patients' perceptions, but also with discrepancies between patients' and partners' perceptions of unsupportive partner behavior.     

Understanding consumers' brand‐induced food taste perception: A comparison of ‘brand familiarity’ – and ‘consumer value – brand symbolism (in)congruity’ – accounts

Past research has shown that familiar brands can boost consumers' food taste experiences. On the other hand, more recent evidence suggests that the (in)congruity between consumer values and brand symbolism can affect the food taste perception. This study is the first one to integrate these two accounts into one single conceptual framework and to empirically evaluate their relative roles in explaining consumers' brand‐induced taste perception. Two experiments involving taste trials (blind vs brand‐cued sensory evaluation) were conducted. The first experiment analysed the brand familiarity effect, whereas the second experiment addressed also the taste perception of yogurts with differing brand symbolism amongst food consumers with distinct value orientations to find support for the (in)congruity effects. This research implies that congruity is not responsible for enhancing consumers' taste perception beyond the level that is produced by the brand familiarity. In contrast, the incongruity effect appears capable of neutralising the brand familiarity effect. Therefore, these two explanations may operate independently. More generally, this study speaks for the importance of incorporating consumer value – brand symbolism incongruity mechanism into food consumption studies; even owners' of strong food brands cannot trust the ability of their brands to boost a consumer's taste experience if there is no correspondence between his or her central values and brand symbolism. Thus, an objectively better taste is not necessarily decisive; satisfactory sensory quality can suffice if it is coupled with imaginative and daring brand marketing that delivers unique emotional and functional benefits for well‐defined food consumer target segments. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fixing pornography’s illocutionary force: Which context matters?

Philosophical Studies - Rae Langton famously argues that pornographic speech illocutionarily subordinates and silences women. Making good this view hinges on identifying the context relevant for...