Sexual Violence Victimization and Associations with Health in a Community Sample of African American Women

Limited information exists on the relationship between sexual violence victimization and health among African American women. Using data from a community sample of African American women, we examine the association between current health and lifetime experiences of sexual violence. In-person interviews were completed in 2010. Among interviewees, 53.7% of women reported rape victimization and 44.8% reported sexual coercion in their lifetime. Victims of rape or sexual coercion were significantly more likely to report depression and posttraumatic stress disorder during their lifetime. Among victims whose first unwanted sexual experience was rape or sexual coercion, perpetrators were mostly acquaintances and intimate partners, and over one third were injured and needed services. More attention is needed on the health needs of African American women and their association to victimization status.     

Phillips and realists on religious beliefs and the fruits thereof

This article addresses some issues concerning the relation between religious beliefs and the fruits of those beliefs, where ‘fruits’ implies certain relevant forms of behaviour and affective attitudes. My primary aim is to elucidate the dispute between D. Z. Phillips and theological realists, emphasizing the extent to which this dispute is symptomatic of a deeper disagreement over how words acquire their meanings. In the course of doing so, I highlight an important difference between two alternative realist claims, exemplified by Trigg and Hick respectively, and draw attention to an infelicity in Phillips’ way of presenting his case.     

Fighting like a girl fighting like a guy: gender identity, ideology, and girls at early adolescence

In this chapter we explore the phenomenon of "girls fighting like guys" by listening to adolescent girls' justification for physical fighting with other girls. We argue that physical girlfighting is a particular kind of gendered performance--a performance of identity that expresses, at least in part, an answer to the question, "Who am I?"--that both perpetuates and challenges the usual notions of masculinity and femininity and the differential power associated with these discourses. We present a sociocultural approach to identity that we believe not only holds promise for helping us to understand girl-fighting behavior but also highlights the clear interrelationship between social identity and personal identity. We conclude by highlighting several implications of this analysis for those who work with girls (and boys) in educational and clinical settings.     

Retributive karma and the problem of blaming the victim

A defining feature of retributive conceptions of karma is their regarding of suffering or misfortune as consequent upon sins committed in previous lives. Some critical non-believers in karma take offence at this view, considering it to involve unjustly blaming the victim. Defenders of the view demur, and argue that a belief in retributive karma in fact provides a motivation for benevolent action. This article elucidates the debate, showing that its depth is such that it is best characterized as a disagreement in form of life (in Wittgenstein’s sense) rather than as a disagreement in opinions. Also briefly discussed is an example of a non-retributive form that belief in karma and reincarnation can take.     

Anticipating Annihilation

According to Epicureans, anticipating one's own annihilation ought not to be a frightening experience. Non‐existence precludes the possibility of sensation, and hence annihilation can be neither pleasant nor unpleasant. And that which cannot be felt is unworthy of fear. Certain objectors to this claim have asserted that one's own annihilation really is a terrifying prospect. Against this assertion, I argue that those who make it are guilty of precisely the kind of confusion that Epicurus and his disciples alert us to, namely that of projecting ourselves into the thought of our own non‐existence. A further objection to Epicureanism involves the claim that, since the fear of death is merely the converse of the love of life, the one cannot be extinguished without inevitably extinguishing the other (to inevitably disastrous effect). I argue that this objection relies upon an exaggeration of thanatological fear's power and an unduly pessimistic assessment of human reason's capacity to positively modify emotional states and dispositions. I conclude that neither of the objections considered here has vindicated the fear and anxiety commonly associated with anticipating one's annihilation, and that the Epicurean attempt to deflate these debilitating emotions remains valid.     

Attachment dimensions in adolescence: an adaptation of the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA) into Basque / Dimensiones del apego en la adolescencia: adaptación al euskera del Inventario de Apego de Progenitores y Pares (IPPA)

Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop a short Basque version of the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA), as well as to test its factor structure and analyse other psychometric properties. Two studies were carried out. In the first study a confirmatory factor analysis conducted on a sample of 1037 adolescents did not show an optimal model fit of the three-dimensional structure of the original instrument. A subsequent analysis of principal components revealed a one-dimensional structure. The analysis of items led to the elaboration of short forms. In the second study, carried out on another sample of 2129 adolescents, the one-dimensional structure was confirmed, further external validity evidence was provided, and good reliability indices were obtained. A single dimension is concluded, attachment security, as well as the validity and reliability of the short forms of the IPPA in Basque scales.     

Harry Silverstein’s Four‐Dimensionalism and the Purported Evil of Death

Abstract

Amongst those views sometimes attributed to the later Wittgenstein are included both a deflationary theory of truth, as well as a non-factualism about certain regions of discourse. Evidence in favor of the former attribution, it is thought, can be found in Wittgenstein’s apparent affirmation of the basic definitional equivalence of ‘p’ is true and p in §136 of his Philosophical Investigations. Evidence in favor of the latter attribution, it might then be presumed, can be found in the context of the so-called ‘private language argument’, wherein Wittgenstein provides an expressivist treatment of first-person present tense sensation utterances. In this paper, by contrast, I will argue that Wittgenstein’s later philosophy is best understood as endorsing neither a non-factualism about sensation utterances, nor a deflationism about truth. Wittgenstein should instead be understood as offering a ‘mixed’ view of sensation utterances according to which some while not others are apt for expressivist treatment. Moreover, he should be thought of as identifying truth-conditions with semantic ‘correctness-conditions’, and thus truth with semantic ‘assertibility’.