The development of organized rehearsal

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the development or organization strategies in rehearsal processes. First-grade (age 7 years), third-grade (age 9 years), and fifth-grade (age 11 years) children were exposed to a memory task which involved multiple overt rehearsal and recall phases. The children were either free to rehearse any words from a taxonomically structured list or they were taught to rehearse in categories. The recall phase was either free or categorically cued. The number of repetitions in rehearsal increased only as a function of age. All of the independent variables facilitated the amount of organized rehearsal and the amount of retention. Children at all ages were able to maximize the relative amount of organized rehearsal when rehearsal was cued. The correlational analysis of the dependent variables indicated that for young children the quantity of rehearsal was linked to retention, but for older children the quality of rehearsal was related to retention. The results were interpreted as demonstrating the bases for production inefficiencies.     

On Art and Intention

The author discusses a puzzle about the place of intention in art, a puzzle first articulated by Richard Wollheim in his well-known lecture 'On Drawing an Object'. The puzzle arises if we try to hold jointly three commonly-held claims, viz. (1) Art is intentional; (2) The artist, in making a work of art, needs to observe what he has done, in order to know what he has done; (3) A necessary condition of intentional action is that when an agent acts intentionally then he knows what he is (intentionally) doing without observation, or any need for it. Prima facie it would appear that we cannot hold all these claims together.
The author spells out the problem, discusses Wollheim's own solution to it (which he rejects) and seeks to dispel the puzzle by closer attention to intention and action in relation to artistic production.     

II. The comparability of the WISC-R and WAIS among 16-year-old EMR children

Thirty 16-year-old EMR children were administered the WAIS and WISC-R in counterbalance order to determine the comparability of the two assessment instruments. The WAIS was found to yield significantly higher Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQ scores. The comparisons of corresponding subtests indicate that all WAIS subtests were significantly higher than the WISC-R except Picture Completion. Correlations between corresponding WAIS and WISC-R IQ scales and subtests, however, were significant. The results suggest differences between the two instruments among children of subnormal intelligence, thus presenting the possibility that a child may be differentially classified based on the selection of the intelligence test.     

The I Ching and the psyche-body connection

Carl G. Jung's fateful meeting with Richard Wilhelm in 1929 has helped to build a bridge of depth psychological understanding between the East and the West. When Jung emerged from his 'confrontation with the unconscious', he felt validated by Wilhelm in his discovery of the healing power of medieval alchemical symbolism for the European psyche. Analytical psychology however offers a scientific, psychological understanding of Chinese wisdom as contained in the I Ching and Taoist alchemy. The Taoist alchemical tradition (also known as the Inner Elixir tradition of which 'The Secret of the Golden Flower' is a sample text) is based on the premise that psychological experience of the Tao can be achieved through mental and physiological means such as breathing and meditative techniques, gymnastics, dietary regimens such as fasting, consumption of medicinal herbs and minerals, and special sexual practices. This tradition incorporates the I Ching and traditional Chinese medicine in the alchemical opus. Taoist alchemy assumes the primacy of the physical body in the process of self-realization. The psychological and cosmic forces of the trigrams of the I Ching are stored in the internal organs of the body and are the basic material for the experience of Tao. The internal organs are the foundation of the material and subtle bodies and through cultivation, the body becomes spiritualized as the spirits are embodied. The body as a reflection of the entire cosmos becomes the residence of the gods. The realization of a new consciousness is symbolized by the hexagram Fu, meaning rebirth. The Chinese notion of Tao coincides with Jung's postulation of the unus mundus, the unity of existence which underlies the duality of psyche and matter, the psycho-physical background of existence. In this light, in the world of inner experience, East and West follow similar paths symbolically.     

Outgrowing representationalism: Semantic remarks on Tracy Llanera's Richard Rorty: Outgrowing modern nihilism

This article provides a semantic reading of Tracy Llanera's brilliant book Richard Rorty: Outgrowing Modern Nihilism. Llanera is reframing the debate of how to react to the malaise of modern nihilism by proposing a change of metaphor: instead of trying to “overcome” nihilism, we should try to “outgrow” nihilism. This article invites Llanera to shed more light on her project with respect to the semantic categories of realism and representationalism, and with respect to the growing field of conceptual engineering. Can Llanera's project be fruitfully understood as engineering the concepts of “transcendence” and “redemption”? How much of the project hangs on the idea that language does not represent but is rather a tool that helps us fulfill our varying needs? How neat is the entanglement of semantic and existential meaning?     

ON WEAK POSTPOSITIVISM: AHISTORICAL REJECTIONS OF THE VIEW FROM NOWHERE

Abstract: Postpositivists have lately joined post‐Husserlians in arguing that the deepest problem with Descartes' legacy is that it fosters the objectivist illusion that philosophers might actually come to think “from Nowhere,” or at least that they can self‐consciously choose whatever presuppositions they do accept. Yet this argument is easier to express than to incorporate into one's own thinking. It is perfectly possible to oppose the View from Nowhere, and even to criticize others for failing to understand its impossibility, and still do so … as if from Nowhere. This article is concerned with such compromised opposition—that is, with critics who reject, in ahistorical terms and from an ahistorical standpoint, an ahistorical conception of philosophy. It focuses on two figures from the empiricist‐positivist side of the Cartesian legacy, Rorty and Taylor, but their story is in important ways typical. Though their criticisms are certainly more radical and considerably more successful than those of many of their analytic colleagues, each retains in his own thinking more of the ahistorical or standpointless ideal than he realizes.     

Selling Yourself: Titmuss's Argument Against a Market in Blood

This article defends Richard Titmuss's argument, and PeterSinger's sympathetic support for it, against orthodoxphilosophical criticism. The article specifies thesense in which a market in blood is ``dehumanising' ashaving to do with a loss of ``imagined community' orsocial ``integration', and not with a loss of valued or``deeper' liberty. It separates two ``domino arguments'– the ``contamination of meaning' argument and the``erosion of motivation' argument which support, indifferent but interrelated ways, the claim that amarket in blood is ``imperialistic.' Concentrating onthe first domino argument the article considers theview that monetary and non-monetary meanings of thesame good can co-exist given the robustness of certainkinds of relationship and joint undertakings withinwhich gifts can figure. It argues that societalrelationships are vulnerable or permeable to theeffects of the market in a way that those constitutiveof the personal sphere are not.General, more broadly political questions remainunanswered but the core of Titmuss's original andchallenging argument remains and can be presented ina defensible form.     

Richard Hooker’s ‘labour’ on behalf of the puritan conscience

Abstract

Although Hooker’s Lawes contains no discussion of conscience, the text is concerned with effecting the puritan conscience in leading nonconformists to understand and obey the ordinances of the Elizabethan Church of England. Through close reading of Hooker’s textual performance, the essay demonstrates how his argumentation strategy defines the conscience to satisfy his polemical goals. In his exploration of the potential of reason to resolve doubts, Hooker designs his discourse to persuade the puritan of how unwise it is to plead conscience as the basis for disobedience. The text’s purpose is to convince puritans to ‘better frame them selves’ and surrender to the guide. Hooker also indicates ways the conscience, standing before public exposure, can know it is following God’s will. This essay suggests how Hooker manipulates his opponents so that if they are reasonable there is no ‘necessitie’ of disobedience. He exposes nonconformity as hardness of heart and weakness of brain. Importantly, however, Hooker’s text, suspicious of conscience as an inner voice, circumscribes the work of conscience in terms of civil obedience. Thus he argues that his ‘labour’ has produced a public exposition that should persuade puritans to embrace their public responsibilities as citizens.     

Reinforcers,values, and vocational maturity in adults

The purpose of the present study was to test the notion that job reinforcers and occupational values are related to vocational maturity. The importance of 21 reinforcers and 11 values were rated by 207 vocational rehabilitation clients nad 59 graduate students. The dependent measure was the Adult Vocational Maturity Index. Older subjects with more education were more vocationally mature. Those subjects who considered-(a) getting a feeling of accomplishment, (b) doing work without feeling it is morally wrong, (c) having steady employment, (d) independence, (e) opportunity to use special talents, (f) challenge, and (g) self-satisfaction-important, were high in vocational maturity. Subjects who considered such things as-(a) telling other workers what to do, (b) having the position of “somebody” in the community, and (c) prestige-important, were lower in vocational maturity. The data indicated that choice of occupational reinforcers and preferences for specified values are reflected in the individual's “vocational maturity”.