Gijsbert van den Brink and Marcel Sarot (eds.), Understanding the Attributes of God [Contributions to Philosophical Theology,volume 1]

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Why Philosophy Abides for Aquinas

In Truth in Aquinas Catherine Pickstock and John Milbank continue Radical Orthodoxy's 'reinterpretation' of the history of philosophy and theology by evaluating philosophy as metaphysics so that 'metaphysics collapses into sacra doctrina ' in Thomas Aquinas. Their strategy for saving Aquinas from Heideggerian 'onto-theology' is the opposite of that Jean-Luc Marion who in 'Saint Thomas d'Aquin et l'onto-théo-logie' keeps philosophy and metaphysics distinct from sacred teaching. The article examines some of the questions involved by reconsidering the nature of philosophy as textual commentary in late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. It goes on to examine what Aquinas means by 'the truth of things', and concludes by looking at how he treats the aspects of metaphysics and the relation of metaphysics and sacra doctrina . Hankey judges that Marion is right on this question. The author suggests that what is involved with Milbank and Pickstock is not a reinterpretation of Aquinas. What they have written depends on mistakes and misrepresentations of basic points in his teaching, e.g, participation, intellectual intuition and abstractions, God's being and his existence in things, with the result that Thomas looks more like Descartes or Spinoza than himself.     

Visual and Auditory Message Framing Effects on Tobacco Smoking1

Persuasive health messages can be framed to emphasize the benefits of adopting a health behavior (gains) or the risks of not adopting it (losses). This study examined the effects of message framing on beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors relevant to cigarette smoking. In video presentations about tobacco smoking, visual images and auditory voiceover content were framed either as gains or losses, yielding 4 message conditions. Undergraduates (N= 437) attending a public university in New England were assigned randomly to view one of these messages. Gain‐framed messages about smoking in visual and auditory modalities shifted smoking‐related beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in the direction of avoidance and cessation. Health‐communication experts, when promoting prevention behaviors like smoking avoidance or cessation, may wish to diverge from the tradition of using loss‐framed messages and fear appeals in this domain, and instead consider using gain‐framed appeals that present the advantages of not smoking.     

Evidence for an anaphoric mechanism within syntactic processing: Some reference relations defy semantic and pragmatic constraints

In three experiments, we examined an interaction between the pronounthey and syntactic analysis. Experiment 1 demonstrates thatthey can slow reading times tois when this verb is visually presented immediately after a sentence fragment ending with an ambiguous expression such asflying kites. This effect seems to involve a coreference assignment linkingthey and the ambiguous expression that influences the syntactic analysis of the latter. Experiments 2 and 3 show that this effect can operate even when coreference betweenthey and the ambiguous expression is implausible. These results support a modular theory of comprehension that includes structurally oriented reference processes with access to some, but not all, of the listener’s knowledge relevant to coreference.     

EVALUATION OF A TRAINING MANUAL FOR THE ACQUISITION OF BEHAVIORAL ASSESSMENT INTERVIEWING SKILLS

Two procedures were used to teach behavioral assessment interviewing skills: a training manual and one-to-one instruction that included modeling, rehearsal, and feedback. Two graduate students and two advanced undergraduates were trained with each procedure. Interviewing skills were recorded in simulated assessment interviews conducted by each student across baseline and treatment conditions. Each training procedure was evaluated in a multiple baseline across students design. The results showed that both procedures were effective for training behavioral interviewing skills, with all students reaching a level of 90%-100% correct responding. Finally, a group of experts in behavior analysis rated each interviewing skill as relevant to the conduct of an assessment interview and a group of behavioral clinicians socially validated the outcomes of the two procedures.     

Synthesized clustering: A method for amalgamating alternative clustering bases with differential weighting of variables

In the application of clustering methods to real world data sets, two problems frequently arise: (a) how can the various contributory variables in a specific battery be weighted so as to enhance some cluster structure that may be present, and (b) how can various alternative batteries be combined to produce a single clustering that best incorporates each contributory set. A new method is proposed (SYNCLUS, SYNthesizedCLUStering) for dealing with these two problems.We wish to thank Anne Freeny and Deborah Art for their computer assistance, and Ed Fowlkes for his helpful technical discussion. We would also like to acknowledge the insightful and helpful comments from the editor and reviewers.     

Health counseling competencies needed by the minister

The purpose of this study was to characterize current health counseling practices of the Church of Christ minister and to identify areas of needed health counseling competencies which should be addressed during professional preparation of the minister. The subjects who made up the sample for this study came from the population of active local ministers of the Churches of Christ who resided in the states of Arkansas, California, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.Specifically, it was found that the Church of Christ minister is most frequently called upon to offer counsel in the health-related areas of marital problems, patient counseling, death education, alcohol problems, drug use or abuse, and aging, respectively. It was also found that the majority of the ministers surveyed felt that their training for the ministry had not adequately prepared them to offer health counsel. The majority of the sample indicated that all health topics listed on the questionnaire should be required during initial preparation for the ministry. Other findings were also noted.     

Technical flaws in the coherence theory

Conclusion We have argued that Lehrer's definitions of coherence and justification have serious technical defects. As a result, the definition of justification is both too weak and too strong. We have suggested solutions for some of the problems, but others seem irremediable. We would also argue more generally that if coherence is anything like what Lehrer's theory says it is, then coherence is neither necessary nor sufficient for justification. While our current objections are directed at the letter of Lehrer's theory, other criticisms can be aimed at its very spirit. We would argue that coherence is unnecessary for justification because of the existence of basic beliefs, those about self-presenting states (I have a tingling sensation in my leg) or self-evident truths (All men are men). Such beliefs may be justified even though there are no other propositions in the subject's acceptance system that makes them more probable than competitors. Coherence is, moreover, insufficient for justification, because it ignores the inferential structure of the subject's acceptance system, and requires no justification of any kind for the subject's acceptance system itself. But we must develop these more fundamental objections on another occasion.     

Gender differences in distributive justice preferences: The impact of domain

Past research has found that distributive justice preferences vary markedly both as a function of gender of allocator and the domain in which outcomes or rewards are allocated (e.g., relationships vs. work contexts). This study examined the interaction of these two factors in determining distributive justice preferences. Subjects were asked to fill out two scales designed to assess the degree to which their general distributive preferences in work contexts and in relationships were benevolent (prefer inputs to exceed outcomes), equity sensitive (prefer outcome/input ratios to be equal), or entitled (prefer outcomes to exceed inputs). Results revealed that women's preferences were significantly more benevolent (or less entitled) than men's in work domains, but that men's and women's distributive preferences did not differ significantly in relationships. In addition, both sexes indicated significantly more entitled preferences in work domains than in relationships, but the difference between domains was much greater for men than for women. These results suggest that, when considering issues of justice, men make a greater distinction between domains than do women, and that previously observed gender differences in distributive justice preferences may be specific to the work domain.