Developing a Buddhist approach to pastoral care: a peacemaker's view

As the United States becomes a more multicultural and multireligious society, the ranks of healthcare chaplains are no longer being limited solely to Judeo-Christian clerics. In an effort to increase interfaith understanding and ecumenical awareness, the author presents one model of healthcare chaplaincy that derives itself from a Buddhist perspective and how he uses it in his daily work at a large medical center in the United States.     

Phillips and Eternal Life: A Response to Haldane

This paper responds to John Haldane's recent criticisms of D. Z. Phillips’ treatment of the Christian belief in eternal life. I argue that Haldane's attempt to show that Phillips only partially elucidates, and hence misrepresents, this belief is unsuccessful, the biblical and theological passages cited by Haldane being amenable to elucidation in terms of which Phillips would have approved. Haldane makes three points to support his main claim, and I argue that none of these has significant force against Phillips’ position unless we presuppose the truth of some realist account of meaning, which Phillips would, of course, reject.     

How do highly proficient bilinguals control their lexicalization process? Inhibitory and language-specific selection mechanisms are both functional

The authors report 4 experiments exploring the language-switching performance of highly proficient bilinguals in a picture-naming task. In Experiment 1, they tested the impact of language similarity and age of 2nd language acquisition on the language-switching performance of highly proficient bilinguals. Experiments 2, 3, and 4 assessed the performance of highly proficient bilinguals in language-switching contexts involving (a) the 2nd language (L2) and the L3 of the bilinguals, (b) the L3 and the L4, and (c) the L1 and a recently learned new language. Highly proficient bilinguals showed symmetrical switching costs regardless of the age at which the L2 was learned and of the similarities of the 2 languages and asymmetrical switching costs when 1 of the languages involved in the switching task was very weak (an L4 or a recently learned language). The theoretical implications of these results for the attentional mechanisms used by highly proficient bilinguals to control their lexicalization process are discussed.     

A Critical Examination of the Handbook of Industrial,Work and Organizational Psychology by N. Anderson,D.S. Ones,H.K. Sinangil and C. Viswesvaran (eds)*

Books reviewed: N. Anderson, D.S. Ones, H.K. Sinangil and C. Viswesvaran, Handbook of Industrial, Work and Organizational Psychology     

‘Aloneness’ and the problem of realism in classical Sākhya and yoga

The concept of kaivalya (literally, ‘aloneness’) is of crucial importance to the systems of classical Indian philosophy known as Sākhya and Yoga. Indeed, kaivalya is the supreme soteriological goal to which these systems are directed. Various statements concerning this final goal appear in the classical texts—namely, the Sākhyakārikā and Yogasūtra—and yet there is no consensus within modern scholarship about how the concept is to be interpreted. More specifically, there appears to be a great deal of confusion over the implications of kaivalya for the existence of the empirical world. In this article I discuss the principal difficulties encountered by existing interpretations of kaivalya, and propose that these difficulties result from an unwarranted assumption that Sākhya and Yoga take a realist view with regard to the empirical world. I further propose that these difficulties can, in large part, be overcome when the assumption of realism is set aside.     

Connecting Dempster–Shafer Belief Functions with Likelihood-based Inference

The Dempster–Shafer approach to expressing beliefabout a parameter in a statistical model is notconsistent with the likelihood principle. Thisinconsistency has been recognized for some time, andmanifests itself as a non-commutativity, in which theorder of operations (combining belief, combininglikelihood) makes a difference. It is proposed herethat requiring the expression of belief to be committed to the model (and to certain of itssubmodels) makes likelihood inference very nearly aspecial case of the Dempster–Shafer theory.     

Epicurus,Death, and the Wrongness of Killing

This article questions the assumption, held by several philosophers, that the Epicurean argument for death's being “nothing to us” must be fallacious since its acceptance would undermine the principle that killing is (in general) wrong. Two possible strategies are considered, which the Epicurean-sympathizer might deploy in order to show that the non-badness of death (for the person who dies) is compatible with killing's being wrong. One of these is unsuccessful; the other is more promising. It involves arguing that the wrongness of killing is a “basic moral certainty” and hence requires no underpinning by the judgement that death is bad. Problems for this proposal, and possible responses to those problems, are considered. Though the strategy is not decisive, it is deemed to be one that the Epicurean could plausibly adopt.     

Beyond “Beyond A- and B-time”

This Article critically discusses Clifford Williams’ claim that the A-theory and B-theory of time are indistinguishable. I examine three considerations adduced by Williams to support his claim that the concept of time essentially includes transition as well as extension, and argue that, despite its prima facie plausibility, the claim has not been adequately justified. Williams therefore begs the question against the B-theorist, who denies that transition is essential. By Williams’ own lights, he ought to deny that the B-theory is a (realist) theory of time; and thus his claim that A-time and B-time do not differ significantly should be rejected.