Emerging from the causal drain

For over 20 years, Jaegwon Kim’s Causal Exclusion Argument has stood as the major hurdle for non-reductive physicalism. If successful, Kim’s argument would show that the high-level properties posited by non-reductive physicalists must either be identical with lower-level physical properties, or else must be causally inert. The most prominent objection to the Causal Exclusion Argument—the so-called Overdetermination Objection—points out that there are some notions of causation that are left untouched by the argument. If causation is simply counterfactual dependence, for example, then the Causal Exclusion Argument fails. Thus, much of the existing debate turns on the issue of which account of causation is appropriate. In this paper, however, I take a bolder approach and argue that Kim’s preferred version of the Causal Exclusion Argument fails no matter what account one gives of causation. Any notion of causation that is strong enough to support the premises of the argument is too strong to play the role required in the logic of the argument. I also consider a second version of the Causal Exclusion Argument, and suggest that although it may avoid the problems of the first version, it begs the question against a particular form of non-reductive physicalism, namely emergentism.     

A Review of: “Potency: Masculine Aggression as a Path to the Soul”

The wisdom of children's literature

The psychological symbiosis of child and adult merged together in a good story is the prima materia moment of the object relations theorist.

The root metaphor is one of finding a path whereby we can establish an ego in the world without developing violent body armor.

New fall releases

Omnibus review

Pushing at the boundaries of reality: the child and the dream

New books and magazines

M.a. and ph.d. programs with degree specialization in depth psychology

The secret world of drawings: healing through art. by gregg furth. boston: sigo press, 1988.

The chiron clinical series dreams in analysis

Spring 49-1989 a journal of archetype and culture

Jungian child psychotherapy: in-dividuation in childhood. edited by mara sidoli and miranda davies. London: karnac, 1988.

Children of psychiatrists and other psychotherapists. by thomas maeder. New york: harper &; row, 1989.

Analytical psychology notes of the seminar given in 1925

C. g. jung and the humanities toward a hermeneutics of culture

The father: mythology and changing roles. by arthur coleman and libby coleman. Wilmette, illinois: chiron publications, 1988.

When you're ready: a woman's healing from childhood physical and sexual abuse by her mother. by kathy evert. Walnut creek, ca: launch press, 1987.

Emotional child abuse: the family curse. by joel covitz. Boston: sigo press, 1986.

Inscapes of the child's world: jungian counseling hi schools and clinics. by john allan. Spring publications, 1988.

The plural psyche. by andrew samuels. London: routledge, 1989.     

Comparative concepts

Comparative concepts such as greener than or higher than are ways of ordering objects. They are fundamental to our grasp of gradable concepts, that is, the type of meanings expressed by gradable general terms, such as ??is green?? or ??is high??, which are embeddable in comparative constructions in natural language. Some comparative concepts seem natural, whereas others seem gerrymandered. The aim of this paper is to outline a theoretical approach to comparative concepts that bears both on the account of naturalness for comparative concepts and on the theory of gradable concepts. The approach is novel in that it carries some basic assumptions from Peter G?rdenfors?? conceptual spaces account of categorical concepts over to comparative concepts. The offered approach is more general than G?rdenfors?? account in that it supplies a framework of graded categorisation that includes his categorisation rule as a limiting case. Importantly, it provides also a new argument for adopting G?rdenfors?? particular model of categorisation.     

The neural correlates of statistical learning in a word segmentation task: An fMRI study

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to assess neural activation as participants learned to segment continuous streams of speech containing syllable sequences varying in their transitional probabilities. Speech streams were presented in four runs, each followed by a behavioral test to measure the extent of learning over time. Behavioral performance indicated that participants could discriminate statistically coherent sequences (words) from less coherent sequences (partwords). Individual rates of learning, defined as the difference in ratings for words and partwords, were used as predictors of neural activation to ask which brain areas showed activity associated with these measures. Results showed significant activity in the pars opercularis and pars triangularis regions of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG). The relationship between these findings and prior work on the neural basis of statistical learning is discussed, and parallels to the frontal/subcortical network involved in other forms of implicit sequence learning are considered.     

Female Patrons of Porn

Although the proportion of women who patronize sexually oriented book-video-novelty stores appears to be growing, little is known about the phenomenon generally or about male–female differences. In the only studies of “female patrons of porn,” both Hefley (2007 Hefley , Kristen . 2007 . “Stigma Management of Male and Female Customers in to Non-Urban Adult Novelty Store.” Deviant Behavior 28 : 79 – 109 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Berkowitz (2006 Berkowitz , Dana . 2006 . “Consuming Eroticism: Gender Performances and Presentations in Pornographic Establishments.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 35 : 583 – 606 . [Google Scholar]) report that half of the customers that they observed entering two stores were women. Compared to men, women were less likely to enter alone. To further investigate this phenomenon, we observed customers entering 33 stores for 162 hours over a two-year period. Whereas the observations of Hefley (2007 Hefley , Kristen . 2007 . “Stigma Management of Male and Female Customers in to Non-Urban Adult Novelty Store.” Deviant Behavior 28 : 79 – 109 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Berkowitz (2006 Berkowitz , Dana . 2006 . “Consuming Eroticism: Gender Performances and Presentations in Pornographic Establishments.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 35 : 583 – 606 . [Google Scholar]) were limited to a few of the busiest hours, our observations span all seven weekdays and all hours. Seventeen percent of the patrons who entered the stores were women. This proportion varied over time and across the 33 stores. Women prefer to shop on weekend evenings in stores that provide visible security.     

Race,sex, and juvenile inmate roles

Mate selection researchers have long assumed that surveyed listings of ''ideal traits'' indicate strong preferences by women for virtuous males. This assumption is contradicted, however, by increasing evidence of sexual abuse in dating relationships and suggests the possibility that the hero-centric Western culture of romance greatly complicates the mating process. A review of literary heroism revealed extraordinary individualism. Notably, George Gordon Byron's protagonists ('Byronic Heroes') are men of stupendous assertiveness and uncertain morality; derivatives abound in contemporary American popular culture. A comparison was made of three typologies; the third, domestic batterers being ''stand-ins'' for abusive dates. Byronic traits were found to much more closely resemble those of batterers than of hypothetical ideal mates. Thus, the development of intense admiration of fictional Byronic Heroes during socialization could lead to an admiration of same traits in encountered males with or even tragic results.     

the gentlemen in the club: a typology of strip club patrons

Research on professional stripping and strippers has traditionally focused on characteristics of strippers, interactional strategies, and normative processes of the stripping environment. Essentially, no previous research has addressed the characteristics or roles of patrons in strip clubs. Drawing on data collected via covert participant observations in two gentlemens clubs in a major Midwestern city, this analysis addresses this gap in the literature. Using dramaturgical analysis, strip clubs and their patrons are assessed with an emphasis on identifying interactional patterns of patrons. Based on patrons individual actions and interactions with dancers, the present study supports the construction of a six-category typology of patrons. Discussion includes analysis of how the homosocial, ultra-masculine context of the setting affects and illuminates patrons motives for frequenting strip clubs, the social commodities provided by strip clubs, and relative power within strip clubs.