Beyond the Tools of the Trade: Heidegger and the Intelligibility of Everyday Things

In everyday life, we constantly encounter and deal with useful things without pausing to inquire about the sources of their intelligibility. In Div. I of Being and Time, Heidegger undertakes just such an inquiry. According to a common reading of Heidegger's analysis, the intelligibility of our everyday encounters and dealings with useful things is ultimately constituted by practical self‐understandings (such as being a gardener, shoemaker, teacher, mother, musician, or philosopher). In this paper, I argue that while such practical self‐understandings may be sufficient to constitute the intelligibility of the tools and equipment specific to many practices, these “tools of the trade” are only a small portion of the things we encounter, use, and deal with on a daily basis. Practical self‐understandings cannot similarly account for the intelligibility of the more mundane things—like toothbrushes and sidewalks—used in everyday life. I consider whether an anonymous self‐understanding as “one,” “anyone,” or “no one in particular” —das Man—might play this intelligibility‐constituting role. In examining this possibility, another type of self‐understanding comes to light: cultural identities. I show that the cultural identities into which we are “thrown,” rather than practical identities or das Man, constitute the intelligibility of the abundance of mundane things that fill our everyday lives. Finally, I spell out how this finding bears on our understanding of Heidegger's notion of authenticity.     

Escalation of Commitment: The Effect of Number and Attractiveness of Available Investment Alternatives

Purpose  

The purpose of this study was to examine the hypothesis that decision difficulty increases the likelihood of commitment to a failing project (escalation). The hypothesis was based on findings regarding status quo bias. Three aspects of decision difficulty were tested: equivalence of options, option set size and attractiveness structure of the alternatives.     

Obsessive-compulsive disorder patients display enhanced latent inhibition on a visual search task

Latent inhibition (LI) is a phenomenon that reflects the ability to ignore irrelevant stimuli. LI is attenuated in some schizophrenic patient groups and in high schizotypal normal participants. One study has found enhanced LI in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD [Swerdlow, N. R., Hartston, H. J., & Hartman, P. L., 1999. Enhanced visual latent inhibition in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Biological Psychiatry, 45, 482-488]). The present experiment replicated this finding using a within-subject visual search LI task, with OCD patients displaying more LI than healthy controls. The contrasting LI effects in schizophrenia and OCD are discussed in terms of how these groups differentially process relevant and irrelevant stimuli, and how that outcome affects subsequent behavior.     

From emotional intelligence to intelligent choice of partner

The authors examined interpersonal correlates of emotional intelligence (EI) in a sample of individuals with a history of depression. The authors focused on potentially adaptive relationship dynamics associated with EI that may help protect these vulnerable individuals from further distress. Participants with high EI, as measured with the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, saw their partners as less hostile, critical, and rejecting in their support styles than did participants with low EI. Partners' own reports mostly corroborated these findings. Unexpectedly, although partners of high EI participants reported offering less active and directive support than did partners of low EI participants, high EI participants perceived their partners as more supportive than did low EI participants. Partners of emotionally intelligent participants also reported being more conscientious and open to experiences, offering some evidence of the stress-buffering hypothesis associated with higher EI.