‘Necessity’ and ‘provability’ in the later wittgenstein

I present a new interpretation of Wittgenstein's later philosophy of logic and mathematics. This interpretation, like others, emphasizes Wittgenstein's attempt to reconcile platonistic and constructivistic approaches. But, unlike other interpretations, mine explains that attempt in terms of Wittgenstein's position about the relations between our concepts of necessity and provability. If what I say here is correct, then we can rescue Wittgenstein from the charge of naive relativism. For his relativism extends only to provability, and not to necessity.     

How Does Self-Complexity of Identity Moderate the Relationship between Strain and Crime?

Studies are inconclusive as to which characteristics exacerbate or inhibit criminal reactions to strain. This study examines how self-complexity of identity conditions the relationship between strain and crime. Those who are lower in self-complexity, or those with few overlapping identities, should be more likely to respond to strain with crime than those who are higher in self-complexity. This proposition was tested through analyzing a cross-sectional survey of 357 undergraduates at a Southeastern university. Strong support was found for the conditioning effect of self-complexity on serious crime while partial support was found for this effect on property crime.     

Parental Attitudes,Beliefs, and Responses to Childhood Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: The Parental Attitudes and Behaviors Scale

ABSTRACT

This paper documents preliminary examination of the factor structure and psychometric properties of the Parental Attitudes and Behaviors Scale (PABS), an OCD-specific measure of parental attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral strategies related to childhood OCD. Employing a sample of 123 youth (mean age = 11.7; 59% male, 79% Caucasian) diagnosed with OCD in an outpatient child anxiety clinic, we used exploratory factor analysis to produce a 3-factor solution representing the following domains of parental responses to childhood OCD: accommodation, empowerment, and hostility/blame. These scales demonstrated adequate internal consistency and concurrent validity, providing preliminary evidence for the psychometric integrity of the PABS.     

Adult Psychological Distress and Self-Worth Following Child Verbal Abuse

Despite the proliferation of child maltreatment research over the last 30 years, there remains a dearth of research examining the long-term effects of child psychological maltreatment (CPM), particularly child verbal abuse (CVA). Using a college sample of 173 participants from a Southeastern university, this study examined the role of gender and perpetrator relationship in predicting psychological distress and self-worth of adults exposed to CVA. Maternal CVA emerged as a significant predictor of lower levels of self-worth in adult daughters and sons as well as greater psychological distress in adult daughters. Paternal CVA did not emerge as a significant predictor of greater psychological distress or lower levels of self-worth in either adult daughters or sons.     

Empathic accuracy and accommodative behavior among newly married couples

An established method for assessing empathic accuracy was used to examine the consequences of accurate understanding during the early years of marriage. Structural equation modeling analyses simultaneously examined within–individual and across–partner associations among variables (actor effects and partner effects). During the first year of marriage, actor effects and partner effects were observed for two presumed consequences of empathic accuracy—accommodative behavior and couple well–being. Actor effects, partner effects, or both were observed for three possible determinants of empathic accuracy—commitment level, partner perspective–taking, and psychological femininity. Levels of empathic accuracy reliably declined following the first year of marriage, as did the strength of the above–noted associations with empathic accuracy.     

Perceived rationality,morality, and power of social choice as a function of interdependence structure and social value orientation

The present study examines how individuals with different social value orientations (i.e. prosocial, individualistic, and competitive) construe the rationality, morality, and power of choices in four distinct interdependence structures which systematically differ in the motives that could underlie the most prosocial or least aggressive choice: (a) altruism only, (b) altruism and cooperation, (c) altruism, cooperation, and individualism, and (d) altruism, cooperation, individualism, and competition. Results revealed that rationality ratings, and to a lesser degree morality and power ratings, increased most when the motives that could underlie a choice were part of the perceiver's social value orientation. Overall, the pattern of rationality ratings provided reasonable support for the Goal Prescribes Rationality Principle. Ratings of morality and power suggested a corresponding Goal Prescribes Morality/Power Principle (for prosocials and individualists), but revealed only mixed support for the Might Over Morality Hypothesis. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Impact of health beliefs, quality of life, and the physician-patient relationship on the treatment intentions of inflammatory bowel disease patients.

The research tested a model of treatment decision making in chronic illness that includes health beliefs, quality of life, and relationship with the physician (shared or not). Inflammatory bowel disease patients (N = 218) reported on their physician-patient relationship, general and disease-specific quality of life, and intentions to take a drug, for which perceived benefits and costs were manipulated. For more symptomatic patients, both costs and benefits predicted intentions; however, for less symptomatic patients, costs played a more important role. Physician recommendation predicted intention primarily among those who shared a decision-making relationship with their physician. Overall, the model accounted for 57.8% of the variance in medication-taking intention. Findings suggest that an integrative consideration of relationship factors, health beliefs, and health status may help explain treatment intentions among the chronically ill.     

Migratory Emotions: The Murder of Jean Charles de Menezes

What does it mean to have empathy within a late capitalist world? What does it mean to practise solidarity in a time of common sense individualism? In this piece, I reflect upon the deeply tragic case of Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian immigrant who was brutally murdered by the British police in the wake of the London bombing. Drawing upon concepts from psychoanalysis and critical psychology, I discuss the affective and emotive nature of the case. I argue that the case offers insight into the irrational nature of `terror' used to explain state-led violence in a time of mass Islamophobic paranoia. I further argue that the emotive nature of the political is consistently disavowed in order to consolidate the face of the nation state as a white, western, masculinist, rational one. Finally, I offer thoughts on what this case might tell us about the interrelationship between discourses of `race,' racism, and citizenship within our contemporary political moment. Rather than being used to support succinct political and theoretical categories of identity politics, the death of Jean Charles de Menezes is an example of the urgent necessity for solidarity to be formed between marginalized bodies. The persistence of state-led murders, justified and legislated by the newest `N word' of the decade – `terrorist' – requires theoretical endeavours that transcend disciplinary boundaries and political action that transcends bodies.     

Locke's Reply to the Skeptic

Given his representationalism how can Locke claim we have sensitive knowledge of the external world? We can see the skeptic as asking two different questions: how we can know the existence of external things, or more specifically how we can know inferentially of the existence of external things. Locke's account of sensitive knowledge, a form of non‐inferential knowledge, answers the first question. All we can achieve by inference is highly probable judgment. Because Locke's theory of knowledge includes both first order psychological and second order normative conditions, sensitive knowledge can be non‐inferential and less certain than intuitive and demonstrative knowledge.