On nonindexical contextualism

MacFarlane distinguishes “context sensitivity” from “indexicality,” and argues that “nonindexical contextualism” has significant advantages over the standard indexical form. MacFarlane’s substantive thesis is that the extension of an expression may depend on an epistemic standard variable even though its content does not. Focusing on ‘knows,’ I will argue against the possibility of extension dependence without content dependence when factors such as meaning, time, and world are held constant, and show that MacFarlane’s nonindexical contextualism provides no advantages over indexical contextualism. The discussion will shed light on the definition of indexicals as well as the meaning of ‘knows,’ and highlight important constraints on the way meaning can be represented in semantics.     

A New Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial Methodology for Latent Category Identification

We introduce a new statistical procedure for the identification of unobserved categories that vary between individuals and in which objects may span multiple categories. This procedure can be used to analyze data from a proposed sorting task in which individuals may simultaneously assign objects to multiple piles. The results of a synthetic example and a consumer psychology study involving categories of restaurant brands illustrate how the application of the proposed methodology to the new sorting task can account for a variety of categorization phenomena including multiple category memberships and for heterogeneity through individual differences in the saliency of latent category structures.     

Metaxological ‘Yes’ and Existential ‘No’: William Desmond and Atheism

This article explores and critically assesses the metaxological account of a philosophy of God professed by William Desmond. Postmodern reflection on the philosophy of God has a tendency to focus on the 'signs' of God and urges for a passive acceptance of these signs. Desmond argues, contrary to this tendency, for a mindful togetherness of philosophical activity and religious passivity. After exploring Desmond's thought on this topic, I move to assess his 'metaxological yes' to God as the agapeic origin from an existential point of view. Initially it seems that his 'yes' is somewhat strained as it burdens itself with an excessive task of having faith into something that is beyond determination. I illustrate this insight by referring to Friedrich Nietzsche’s 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra.' Nietzsche's existential 'No' toward transcendence is a consequence of a mindful confrontation with the excesses as play.     

The last moments of life: Learning to cope

A large portion of youthful death in this country is caused by the intentional self‐destructive behavior of individuals who experience helplessness, alienation, loneliness, who suffer from social neglect, and who react to the loss of significant others. Analysts of youthful suicide view such events as being associated with attempts to cope with stress and crisis. This article describes those social forces that shaped the acts of suicide and provides a partial explanation for suicidal behavior among young people. As a strategy employed by the victims to cope with problems in living, suicide is, the author suggests, a plausible response to stress prompted in part by a fatalistic attitude.     

Family measurement techniques: The family health scales (fhs): Review and critique

Abstract

Kinston, Loader and Miller (1987) have developed the Family Health Scale (FHS), a research instrument designed to assess a family's level of overall functioning based upon the clinical observation of family interaction. The authors state that the FHS is primarily a research tool, allowing its users to test hypotheses about family dysfunction, to examine changes in the family longitudinally, and to categorize families by “degree of disturbance.” While not its principal use, the scale is also thought to have teaching utility.     

Scared stiff: The influence of anxiety on the perception of action capabilities

Influences on the perception of affordances (i.e., opportunities for actions) have been primarily studied by manipulating the functional morphology of the body. However, affordances are not just determined by the functional morphology of the perceiver, but also by the physiological state of the perceiver. States of anxiety have been shown to lead to marked changes in individuals’ physiological state and their behaviour. To assess the influence of emotional state on affordance perception, the perception of action capabilities in near space was examined after participants completed an anxiety-provoking task. Anxiety was induced immediately prior to tasks that assessed participants' perceived reaching ability in Experiment 1, grasping ability in Experiment 2, and the ability to pass their hands through apertures in Experiment 3. Results indicated that those participants who experienced changes in anxiety underestimated their reaching, grasping, and passing ability compared to non-anxious participants. In other words, anxious participants were more conservative in their estimations of their action capabilities. These results suggest that anxiety influences the perception for affordances in near space and are consistent with the notion that anxiety induces withdrawal behaviours.