“It is not a something,but not a nothing either!”—McDowell on Wittgenstein

This paper corrects a mistake in John McDowell’s influential reading of Wittgenstein’s attack on the idea of private sensations. McDowell rightly identifies a primary target of Wittgenstein’s attack to be the Myth of the Given. But he also suggests that Wittgenstein, in the ferocity of his battles with this myth, sometimes goes into overkill, which manifests itself in seemingly behavioristic denials about sensations. But this criticism of Wittgenstein is a mistake. The mistake is made over two important but notoriously difficult sections in the so-called Private Language Argument, namely §304 and §293 of the Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein, maximally charitably read, commits no overkill in these two sections. This correction strengthens McDowell’s overall reading, but it is only a first step toward fully bringing out the deep but obscurely expressed insights in §304 and §293, the full treatment of which must await another occasion.     

Intentionality and partial belief

Suppose we wish to provide a naturalistic account of intentionality. Like several other philosophers, we focus on the intentionality of belief, hoping that we may later supplement our account to accommodate other intentional states like desires and fears. Now suppose that we also take partial beliefs or credences seriously. In cashing out our favoured theory of intentionality, we may for the sake of simplicity talk as if belief is merely binary or all-or-nothing. But we should be able to supplement or modify our account to accommodate credences. I shall argue, however, that it is difficult to do so with respect to certain causal or teleological theories of intentionality-in particular, those advanced by the likes of Stalnaker (Inquiry, 1984) and Millikan (J Philos 86:281–297, 1989). I shall first show that such theories are tailor-made to account for the intentionality of binary beliefs. Then I shall argue that it is hard to extend or supplement such theories to accommodate credences. Finally, I shall offer some natural ways of modifying the theories that involve an appeal to objective probabilities. But unfortunately, such modifications face problems.     

西夏全真教佚词十一首考释

编号俄A20V的黑水城出土的全真教佚词,杂汇了释、道、禅三家经义的内容;本卷所存的内容,不少是释、道、儒家经义的糅合;佚词的语言词汇高度因袭、逼似重阳及七子的作品;词中还有一些可以联系全真七子的线索;同卷的《亡牛偈》,也是十一首佚词为全真七子作品的有利旁证。故而,它们既非西夏人的作品,亦非宋人的作品,更非13世纪中期元人的作品,它们是秦渡镇分手之后,马钰较为早期的作品。词作对于全真教在西夏、马钰、金元词的研究,均有重要的文献价值。     

“官场迷信”呼唤理论发展

近年来,我国出现了严重的官场迷信现象,这与我们党的宗旨是格格不入的,对于社会主义事业有着严重的危害,很多文章对此做出了谴责,并提出了种种解决方法。然而,其中一个重要的解决方法并没有被提及,这就是理论发展。我们知道,马克思主义既是严整的科学理论, 又是崇高的价值追求,这两者是内在统一的。作为     

From Wittgenstein’s N-operator to a New Notation for Some Decidable Modal Logics

Wittgenstein’s N-operator is a ‘primitive sign’ which shows every complex proposition is the result of the truth-functional combination of a finite number of component propositions, and thus provides a mechanical method to determine logical truth. The N-operator can be interpreted as a generalized Sheffer stroke. In this paper, I introduce a new ‘primitive sign’ that is a hybrid of generalized Sheffer stroke and modality, and give a uniform expression for modal formulas. The general form of modal formula in the new notation is [A₀···A_n?1; B₀···B_m?1], which is semantically equivalent to ¬A₀∨···∨¬ A_n?1∨? (¬B₀∨···∨¬B_m?1). Based on this new notation, I propose several analytic axiomatic systems for some decidable modal logics. Every axiom of these analytic systems is an ‘Atomic-Sheffer’, which is the result of the combination of a finite number of component propositions. The inferential rules are analytic in that the set of elementary propositions that are combined in the premiss overlaps the set of elementary propositions combined in the conclusion, in virtue of which every complex proposition can be reduced to an ‘Atomic-Sheffer’ at the ultimate level. The analytic modal systems have the same classical inferential rules. Different modal systems can be built by adding special modal inferential rules. In an analytic system for modal logic L, valid formulas on L-models can be proved by a purely mechanical method.     

Customer-Initiated Support and Employees’ Proactive Customer Service Performance: A Multilevel Examination of Proactive Motivation as the Mediator

Drawing on the proactive motivation model and theories of motivation, the current study examined customer-initiated support as an antecedent of employees’ proactive customer service performance (PCSP) and investigated the mediating role of proactive motivations and the moderating role of serving culture. We conducted two multilevel studies to test the proposed hypotheses. In study 1, we collected diary data from 158 nurses across 10 working days, and results showed that the relationship between nurses’ daily experience of customer-initiated support and their PCSP was mediated by self-efficacy, work meaning, and positive affect. In study 2, we collected multilevel multi-source data from 373 nurses nested within 80 units and found that nurses’ experience of customer-initiated support was positively related to their supervisor-rated PCSP via role-breadth self-efficacy and work meaning, but not through positive affect. Further, team-level serving culture strengthened the positive relationship between customer-initiated support and role-breadth self-efficacy. These findings shed light on understanding the effect of customer-initiated support as an external factor on prompting service employees’ proactive behaviors, potential motivational mediators to explain the underlying mechanisms, and potential boundary conditions inside of service organizations to strengthen the positive effects of customer-initiated support.