Truth As,At Most,One

Michel Foucault's Force of Flight: Toward an Ethics of Thought By James W. Bernauer Humanities Press International, 1990. Pp. 261. ISBN 0–391–03740–4. $15.00 pbk.

Hipparchia's Choice, An Essay Concerning Women, Philosophy, Etc. By Michèle Le Doeuff, translated by Trista Selous Basil Blackwell, 1991. Pp. vii + 364. ISBN 0–631–17639‐X. £45.

Psychology Edited by Stephen Everson Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. 269. ISBN 0–521–35338–6. £32.50.

On the Nature and Existence of God By Richard M. Gale Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. 422. ISBN 0–521–40300–6. £35.

The Good Polity: Normative Analysis of the State Edited by Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit Basil Blackwell, 1989, pbk 1991. Pp. vii + 207. ISBN 0–631–18088–5. £14.95 pbk.

Language, Saussure and Wittgenstein: How to play games with words By Roy Harris Routledge, 1988, pbk 1990. Pp. xv +136. ISBN 0–415–05225–4. £9.99 pbk.

Plausible Worlds: Possibility and Understanding in History and the Social Sciences By Geoffrey Hawthorn Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xiii + 192. ISBN 0–521–40359–6. £27.50.

Freedom, Truth and History: An Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy By Stephen Houlgate Routledge, 1991. Pp. 288. ISBN 0–415–06658–1. £35.

Locke on Money. Volumes I and II By Patrick Hyde Kelly Clarendon Press, 1991. Vol. 1 Pp. xv + 342. ISBN 0–19–82456–7. £50.00 Vol. II Pp. vii + 322. ISBN 0–19–824837–7 £45.00.

L'Union substantielle. I. Blondel et Leibniz By Marc Leclerc Culture et Vérité, 1991. Pp. v + 415. ISBN 2–87299–014–3.

Plato's Parmenides By C. C. Meinwald Oxford University Press, 1991. Pp. 192. ISBN 0–1–506445–3. £27.50.

Idee und Weltwille: Schopenhauer als Kritiker Hegels By Alfred Schmidt Carl Hanser Verlag, 1988. Pp. 175. ISBN 3–446–15161–3.     

Engineering academic performance with selective retrieval: the benefits of implied ability

Research on retrieval fluency suggests that, under different recall constraints, recalling past failures might be as effective as past successes for engineering task performance. In the current study, students recalling three instances of academic success correctly answered more items on a knowledge task than those recalling nine instances. Other students, asked to recall nine instances of failure, answered more items correctly than those recalling three failures and more than those recalling nine successes. This pattern was partially mediated by the assessments of one's ability as compared with other students. The results are interpreted as extending previous research in retrieval fluency by suggesting that the ease of retrieving task‐related instances informs individuals about their comparative ability that, in turn, influences performance.     

Creativity and Cultural Production: A Study of Contemporary Western Popular Music Songwriting

The contemporary Western popular music industry tends to work within a paradigm of creativity that runs counter to current academic research. This research into creativity can be categorized as falling along a continuum from individual to contextual responsibility and ranges across a number of disciplines including psychology, sociology, linguistics, philosophy, and communication and media studies. However, it is the contention of this article that it is the systems model of creativity in particular, partially coupled with the similarly complex approach to cultural production presented by Pierre Bourdieu, which provides the most useful working platform to investigate the idea of creativity. Through the use of an ethnographic research methodology, this article investigates the systems model of creativity as it applies to contemporary Western popular music songwriting. It concludes that a contemporary Western songwriter's ability to make choices, and therefore be creative, is both circumscribed and facilitated by his or her knowledge of the domain of contemporary Western popular music and his or her access to, and knowledge of, the field that holds this knowledge that allows the conclusion, at the more philosophical level, that these ideas can also be presented as an account of the interdependence of agency and structure within the workings of the creative system.     

Subclinical delusional ideation and a self‐reference bias in everyday reasoning

Previous studies (e.g. Moller & Husby, 2000 ; Blackwood et al., 2004 ) have revealed that delusional thinking is accompanied by an exaggerated focus upon the self and upon stimuli that are perceived to be related to the self. The objective was to examine whether those high in subclinical delusional ideation exhibit a heightened tendency for self‐reference. Using a mixed design, healthy individuals, classified into high‐ and low‐scoring groups on the Peters et al. Delusions Inventory ( Peters, Day, & Garety, 1996 ), were compared on everyday reasoning tasks across three experiments. High‐PDI scorers, in contrast to the low‐PDI group, rated self‐referent objections to everyday arguments as stronger than other‐referent objections and formulated more self‐referent assertion‐based objections to everyday arguments. The findings support the notion that subclinical delusional ideation is linked to a self‐reference bias, which is evident in the sort of everyday thinking that people engage in when forming or evaluating their beliefs and which may contribute to delusion formation.     

The role of perceived control in overcoming defensive self-evaluation

Two experiments investigated how perceived control over one’s abilities and one’s perceived standing on these abilities affect feedback seeking. Two aspects of perceived control were studied: Experiment 1 focused on perceived control over the expression of one’s ability in performance, whereas Experiment 2 focused on perceived changeability of the ability itself. The results of the two experiments showed that to the extent that participants’ perceived ability was low, both aspects of perceived control increased interest in negative feedback—feedback that diagnoses weaknesses—and decreased interest in positive feedback—feedback that diagnoses strengths. Mediation analyses showed that the effects of perceived ability and perceived control on feedback seeking were mediated by the subjective informational value of the feedback as well as its esteem-related affective value. These results were interpreted as evidence for pragmatic feedback seeking—a process that flexibly integrates immediate emotional value and long-term usefulness of self-relevant information.     

Physical Attractiveness,Altruism and Cooperation in an Ultimatum Game

Explaining cooperative tendencies through an evolutionary lens has been problematic for theorists. Traditional explanations derive from theories of reciprocity, biological markets, and more recently via partner choice and sexual selection. The sexual selection hypothesis has been tested within game-theoretic frameworks gaining empirical support in explaining the evolution of altruism. Males have been found to be more altruistic towards attractive females. However, previous research has predominantly adopted a design where participants are not engaging with ‘real people’. Instead, participants make decisions when viewing images or hypothetical scenarios without visual cues. The present study aimed to investigate the sexual selection hypothesis using a face-to-face game theoretic framework. One hundred and thirty-eight participants played a 2-round ultimatum game with chocolate coins as the monetary incentive. We find, that physical attractiveness had no influence on generosity and cooperation when participants play a face-to-face ultimatum game. Instead, proposers were fair when allocating stakes, offering an average of half the endowment to responders. This study refutes the link between the sexual selection hypothesis and generosity when playing economic games with real people. Fairness appeared to drive generosity and cooperation.     

Connecting the Dots: Stages of Implementation,Wraparound Fidelity and Youth Outcomes

Several necessary system and organizational support conditions for wraparound have been identified (Walker et al. 2003). Yet, the relationship between these necessary system level conditions and wraparound fidelity has only recently begun to be examined. Similarly, few studies have included a measure of wraparound fidelity when examining the relationship between wraparound implementation and youth outcomes. The statewide implementation of a wraparound demonstration grant offers the opportunity to explore these relationships and to identify factors that predict improvement in functioning for youth receiving wraparound. Findings suggest that significant relationships exist between (1) the stage of development of necessary support conditions for wraparound and wraparound fidelity and (2) wraparound fidelity and improvement in youth outcomes. Specific elements of wraparound (i.e., outcomes based and community based) and baseline needs and strengths (e.g., high levels of anxiety and conduct issues, poor functioning at home and in school, judgment, and risks) were found to predict a reduction in youth needs. Other unexpected relationships between youth outcomes and the cultural competence element of wraparound and being multi-racial were also discovered. These findings reinforce the importance of supporting high fidelity wraparound for youth and their families in a recovery focused behavioral health system.     

How the Dead Live

This paper maintains (following Yougrau 1987; 2000 and Hinchliff 1996) that the dead and other former existents count as examples of non-existent objects. If the dead number among the things there are, a further question arises: what is it to be dead—how should the state of being dead be characterised? It is argued that this state should be characterised negatively: the dead are not persons, philosophers etc. They lack any of the (intrinsic) qualities they had while they lived. The only facts involving the dead are facts about the relations they stand in—including the relations they bear to the qualities they formerly instantiated, and the intentional relations they stand in to us. Given an appropriate conception of qualities the dead can be said to be quality-less objects: bare particulars. The ‘Bare Particular Theory’ of individuals, it is argued, is coherent if and only if it concedes that the bare particulars it allows for don’t exist. The account of the dead and other former existents as bare particulars does justice to the misfortune of death, and points the way to a general theory of nonexistent objects.     

Effects of attitude action identification on congruence between attitudes and behavioral intentions toward social groups

Attitude Representation Theory (ART) holds that attitude-relevant responses are informed by mental representations of the attitude object, which include the individual's actions toward that object. Action Identification Theory (AIT) holds that the same action can be identified at multiple levels. Individuals who identify their actions at lower levels have less flexibility in how they perform the action, and thus enact the action less consistently. An integration of ART and AIT suggested that individuals who spontaneously (Experiment 1) or through manipulation (Experiments 2 and 3) identify their attitude-relevant actions toward a social group at lower levels might display less attitude-intention congruence than would individuals who identify their attitude-relevant actions at higher levels. ART and AIT are discussed as having links with each other and with other theories of attitude and judgment processes.