Binary choice reaction time as a criterion of motor equivalence

In a binary choice situation the two alternative movements may vary in the degree in which they are equivalent in respect to controlling processes and/or structures. With a higher degree of motor equivalence a shorter RT is to be expected. A series of five experiments shows that a movement of a finger of one hand has a shorter latency if the alternative movement with the other hand is of the same form than in case of different forms. There is no evidence of corrsponding effect of using the same or different fingers with both hands. These results indicate that programming of the form of a movement is at least partly independent of the muscles involved in movement execution.     

Analytical competence and language impairment in aphasia

Matched groups of Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics, brain-damaged patients without aphasia and chronic schizophrenics were tested in a nonverbal matching task where the subject had to indicate which of two pictures was more closely linked to a clue picture. Eight additional verbal and nonverbal reference tasks were administered. Both aphasic groups performed worse than brain-damaged controls when the identification of individual attributes or actions shared by clue and referent was required, but were unimpaired when the two had a set of referential-situational associations in common. Factor analyses resulted for both groups in two factors, one of which represents general Language Impairment. For the Broca's aphasics this factor was closely related to general organic deficit as measured by the Trail Making Test; for the Wernicke's aphasics it was associated with tasks which might be considered illustrative of analytical competence in isolating and comparing individual features of objects or concepts.     

V.A. Smirnov’s Results in the Field of Modern Formal Logic

This paper is a survey of V.A. Smirnovs main results in modern logic.     

Dreams and COVID-19

This work originates from reflections on the observation of recurring themes in dreams of patients in psychoanalytic treatment during the most restrictive lockdown period in Italy (March - May 2020). The authors focus on the peculiar dialogic state between consciousness and the unconscious that arose following a collective event such as that of the pandemic, which determined the activation of complex personal nuclei, compensatory effects of the unconscious psyche and new perspective functions. These latter aspects are interpreted with reference to the contributions of Erich Neumann, bringing a new psychological vision of the relationship between Man and Nature in relation to catastrophic events.     

Is this a good time? Political activism and other in the temenos

This paper discusses raciality and Africanist culture as elements of the analytical clinical experience. The history of American Jungian psychology, and its relationship with the African diaspora, is reviewed with a perspective that seeks to deepen understanding of racism as an aspect of psychoanalytical institutional life. An attempt to separate political activism from the clinical setting is explored with consideration of the necessary intertwining relationship between socialization, racial identity and racism. Diversity and inclusion are becoming cultural signature markers of clinical work with individuals who have oftentimes, within the psychoanalytical clinical setting, been described due to ethnicity, as other. Political activism such as the Black Lives Matter movement stretches consciousness towards an insistence that blackness matters, skin colour matters and the lives of Africanist individuals matter. This paper reflects on cultural racial identity, the influence of politics on the individual, and the effects of these on the analytical relationship.     

《大戴礼记·易本命》象数发微

本文通过对《大戴礼记·易本命》中一段资料的分析,认为这段资料的言论被置于“易”的境域中,论说者是从易道的高度阐发万物性命之理的,其论说本于古易象数,采用了“义理本于象效”、即“观象系辞”的阐述方式。由此,本文对《易传》“观象系辞”和古籍中“义理本于象数”的学术理路和阐述方式的合理性进行了哲学思考,从“象”的本质入手,给出了其必然理由。     

Primo Levi’s bearing witness and the reinterpreted past: post‐truth and the authoritarian other

The stark realism of Primo Levi’s experiences of the Shoah is considered in light of the current political climate in which the authoritarian other induces a divergence between reality, a state of things as they actually exist or existed, and truth, that which to some extent accords to reality. In this paper I will consider how truth becomes divorced from reality by considering Giegerich’s interpretation of Plato’s Parable of the Cave, arguing that truth is affected by perception and belief. After addressing ‘truth’ in justice, analytic work and the family, the post‐truth phenomenon is discussed and defined as a force erosive to reason and sensibility; its general purpose is to avoid doubt and anxiety. The past is interpreted and re‐interpreted to advance multiple geopolitical interests. Levi warned, in 1976, that the authoritarian state considers it quite permissible to alter the perception of what is true.     

Synchronicity and meaning

It is usually thought that synchronicity, characterised as ‘meaningful coincidence’, is therefore understandable in relation to the concept of ‘meaning’. I will explore the largely unhelpful symbiotic relationship between ‘coincidence’ and ‘meaning’ by comparing synchronicity with synchoricity ‐ coincidence in space rather than time. These two concepts are often mixed together and I will attempt to describe a ‘pure’ synchronicity in order to sharpen our sense of how meaning is felt to arise from coincidence. It will then be suggested that the standard concept of synchronicity is mostly psychologically irrelevant and, when adjusted to remove elements which are explained quite naturally by evolutionary theory, we are left with a concept which has implications both for the metaphysical foundations of Analytical Psychology and the individualistic emphasis one commonly finds in the field.