Coordinating perspectives: De se and taste attitudes in communication

The received picture of linguistic communication understands communication as the transmission of information from speaker's head to hearer's head. This picture is in conflict with the attractive Lewisian view of belief as self-location, which is motivated by de se attitudes – first-personal attitudes about oneself – as well as attitudes about subjective matters such as personal taste. In this paper, I provide a solution to the conflict that reconciles these views. I argue for an account of mental attitudes and communication on which mental content and speech act content is understood as sets of multicentered worlds – roughly, possible worlds ‘centered’ on a sequence of individuals at a time. I develop a Stalnakerian model of communication based on multicentered worlds content, and I provide a suitable semantics for personal pronouns and predicates of personal taste. The resulting picture is one on which the point of conversation is the coordination of individual perspectives.     

God,Truth and Mathematics in Nineteenth-century England

In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke created a special epistemological category for mathematical and religious knowing. This category of knowledge was quickly brushed to the side in the French Enlightenment, but the English preserved it well into the nineteenth century. This article considers the ways that the neo-Lockian joining of mathematics and theology fundamentally affected both mathematical and theological thinking in the first half of the English nineteenth century. It argues that these developments set the stage for the post-Darwinian conflicts between science—including mathematics—and religion.     

MOTIVES FOR PHILOSOPHIZING DEBUNKING AND WITTGENSTEIN'S PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS

Abstract: In this article I contest a reading of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations —a reading of it as debunking philosophy. I concede that such a reading is not groundless, but I show why it is nonetheless mistaken. To do so, I distinguish two different ways of viewing Philosophical Investigations and its concern with philosophical problems, an External View and an Internal View. On the External View, readers of the book are taken to know ahead of time what philosophical problems are. On the Internal View, readers are not taken to know this ahead of time: the task of the book is to disclose what philosophical problems are, to show them coming into being. One thing disclosed is our participatory role in philosophical problems coming to be. Learning about the nature of philosophical problems is thus learning about our own nature; metaphilosophical knowledge is in part self-knowledge. If the Internal View is correct (as I believe it is), then Philosophical Investigations does not debunk philosophy but provides a different conception of philosophy and the philosopher's task.     

The effects of books and gender constancy development on kindergarten children's sex-role attitudes

The effects of symbolic models and level of gender understanding on children's sex-role attitudes was investigated. Kindergarten boys and girls heard and discussed books whose characters depicted either traditional or nontraditional sex-role behaviors. Attitudes toward males and females were measured before and after the picture book treatment. When the study began, children were screened for gender understanding so that half were able to make other-gender constancy judgments, and half were not able to make other-gender constancy judgments. Prior to the treatment, boys and children who had attained gender constancy were slightly negative toward males and neutral toward females, whereas girls and children who had not attained gender constancy were very negative toward males and very positive toward females. Exposure to traditional books had the effect of enhancing attitudes toward males and decreasing attitudes toward females. Exposure to nontraditional books had the opposite effect of decreasing attitudes toward males and enhancing attitudes toward females. The effects of the picture book treatment on attitudes toward females were more pronounced for children who had attained other-gender constancy. Implications for social learning and cognitive-developmental theories of sex-role development are discussed.     

Inference processes in learning well-defined concepts

In an adaptation of usual experimental techniques for studying the performance of a subject who has to discover a well-defined concept, two theories were independently tested. It was found that Bourne's set of inference operations (Bourne 1974; Salatas and Bourne 1974) predicted fairly well the relative difficulty for the connectives studied (inclusive disjunctive, alternative denial, joint denial, exclusive, exclusive disjunctive) for a stimulus population based on three-valued dimensions but not for a four-valued stimulus population. Reaction times gathered after the subject made no further classification errors fitted the decision-tree structures developed by Hunt et al. (1966). Inspection of the hypotheses subjects made about the rule, revealed two possible major reasoning obstacles: the introduction of a negative attribute and the notion of exception i.e. when the assignment of an attribute in one class depends on another attribute whereas in another class it does not.     

Return of fear: The role of inhibition

In a previous study investigating the relationship between subjective, physiological and behavioural changes during treatment of specific phobias, a marked between-session increase was found in subjective fear after high, but not after low intensity phobic stimulation although the groups showed similar fear ratings and heart rates immediately after treatment (Grey et al, 1979). It was hypothesized that the high intensity stimulation led to ‘treatment fatigue’; a state of deactivation, the recovery from which led to a return of fear.In this study high intensity in vivo stimulation was used for the treatment of phobic subjects under conditions of distributed and massed practice. No differences emerged between treatment conditions. A small group of Ss with a conspicuously high heart rate (mean level 120 bpm) when rating zero fear, showed a significant increase in fear after one week's interval, although they had shown similar improvement to the Ss during treatment. Subjects in both treatment conditions showed lower heart rate at all post-treatment assessments than pre-treatment. The high initial heart rate Ss continued to have higher heart rate than other Ss throughout the experiment, although they showed a decrease after treatment. It was only these Ss with desynchronously high heart rate, i.e. high heart rate with zero fear ratings, who suffered a return of fear, whereas high heart rate during high fear did not predict either response to treatment or return of fear. A further finding was a lack of correlation between the behavioural and physiological indices of fear, namely, between distance and heart rate at high levels of fear.     

Spiral aftereffect duration as a correlate of impulsiveness

In a correlational analysis impulsiveness (Imp), assessed by means of a questionnaire concerned with speed of judgment and decision making, was found to be negatively related to spiral aftereffect (SAE) duration. However, this relationship was present only in a sample of subjects with high neuroticism scores. In this group SAE duration was also positively related to debilitating anxiety. A parallel was seen between Imp and Heymans' “Secondary function,” a personality dimension which was similarly operationalized in a visual aftereffect experiment. Some other SAE correlates are also discussed.     

Evaluating ecological,behavioral, and process consultation interventions

The present study evaluated the differential effectiveness of conceptually distinct consultation programs (ecological, behavioral, and process) in inner-city elementary schools. Program children, evidencing acting-out problems, were monitored through baseline, treatment, and follow-up phases, using an observational format incorporating behavioral, process, and ecological dimensions. Significant reductions in observed and rated behavioral problems occurred only in classes provided behavioral consultation. Significant increases in achievement scores were noted for children provided process consultation. Few consistent changes were noted for those in the ecological and control classes. The teachers rated the behavioral and process consultation approaches as most beneficial and helpful.