道德概念净脏隐喻映射的偏向性

基于概念隐喻理论探讨道德概念净脏隐喻映射的偏向性。实验一考察洁净和肮脏启动对中性刺激道德判断的影响,实验二考察道德和不道德启动对中性刺激净脏判断的影响。结果发现:(1)洁净和肮脏启动下被试对中性刺激的道德判断差异不显著;(2)道德词和不道德词启动下被试对中性刺激的净脏判断差异显著,相比不道德词启动,道德词启动下被试更倾向于对中性刺激作洁净判断。研究结果说明,道德概念净脏隐喻映射存在偏向性,从道德概念目标域到净脏始源域的隐喻映射力量更强。     

Transdisciplinarity and Conceptual Change

This article tenders an inaugural discussion of how conceptual change theory can contribute to deeper understandings of what is conceptually involved when people attempt (or succeed) to transition from multi- and interdisciplinarity to transdisciplinarity. After explaining the nuances of Newtonian thinking (framed as formal rather than postformal thinking), the article shares a comparison of multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinarity along four dimensions. Special attention is given to Nicolescuian transdisciplinarity, an approach predicated on the new sciences of quantum physics, chaos theory, and living systems theory (rather than Newtonian and Cartesian thinking). Nicolescuian transdisciplinarity is a new methodology for creating knowledge and it comprises three axioms: multiple Levels of Reality and the Hidden Third; the Logic of the Inclusive Middle; and, knowledge as complex, emergent, and embodied. The discussion then turns to an overview of three basic approaches to conceptual change theory: knowledge as theory, knowledge as elements, and knowledge as context. The author then applies conceptual change theory to understand what is involved in moving toward transdisciplinary thinking, including four elements necessary for conceptual change to occur (intelligibility, plausibility, fruitfulness, and dissatisfaction with existing conceptualizations and mental models). The article concludes with the idea that transdisciplinary thinking is a form of postformal thinking (especially paradigmatic order thinking) and suggests that future conceptual shifts toward transdisciplinarity involve achieving a transdisciplinary conceptual tipping point.     

A Strawsonian look at desert

P.F. Strawson famously argued that reactive attitudes and ordinary moral practices justify moral assessments of blame, praise, and punishment. Here we consider whether Strawson's approach can illuminate the concept of desert. After reviewing standard attempts to analyze this concept and finding them lacking, we suggest that to deserve something is to justifiably receive a moral assessment in light of certain criteria – in particular, eligibility criteria (a subject's properties that make the subject principally eligible for moral assessments) and assignment criteria (particulars about the subject, act, and circumstances that justify assessments such as blame in a particular case). Strawson's analysis of the ordinary attitudes and practices of moral assessment hints at these criteria but does not unequivocally ground a notion of desert. Following Strawson's general naturalistic approach, we show that recent psychological research on folk concepts and practices regarding freedom, moral responsibility, and blame illuminates how people actually arrive at moral assessments, thus revealing the very eligibility criteria and assignment criteria we suggest ground a concept of desert. By pushing the Strawsonian line even further than Strawson did, by empirically investigating actual moral practice and folk understandings, we can illuminate desert and lend credence to Strawson's general anti-metaphysical position.     

Why concepts can't be theories

In this paper, I present an alternative argument for Jerry Fodor's recent conclusion that there are currently no tenable theories of concepts in the cognitive sciences and in the philosophy of mind. Briefly, my approach focuses on the ‘theory-theory’ of concepts. I argue that the two ways in which cognitive psychologists have formulated this theory lead to serious difficulties, and that there cannot be, in principle, a third way in which it can be reformulated. Insofar as the ‘theory-theory’ is supposed to replace, and to rectify the problems of, the earlier ‘classical’ and ‘probabilistic’ theories, its failure confirms Fodor's original observation. Since my critique does not rest on controversial philosophical assumptions and is readily available from within the cognitive sciences, it is a stronger argument than Fodor's.     

Emotion-specific load disrupts concomitant affective processing

Findings in the neuroimaging literature suggest that separate brain circuitries are involved when individuals perform emotional compared to nonemotional working memory (WM) tasks. Here we test this hypothesis with behavioural measures. We predicted that the conceptual processing of affect would be disrupted more by concurrent affective than nonaffective load. Participants performed a conceptual task in which they verified affective versus sensory properties of concepts, and a second, concurrent, working memory (n-back) task in which the target stimuli were facial expressions. Results revealed that storing and updating affective (as compared with identity) features of facial expressions altered performance more for affective than for sensory properties of concepts. The findings are supportive of the ideas that affective resources exist and that these resources are specifically used during the processing and representation of affective properties of objects and events.     

A Kantian-Brandomian View of Concepts and The Problem of a Regress of Norms

ABSTRACT

According to the Kantian-Brandomian view of concepts, we can understand concepts in terms of norms or rules that bind those who apply them, and the application of a concept requires that the concept-user be sensitive to the norms governing its application. But this view faces some serious objections. In particular, according to Rosen, Glüer and Wikforss, this view leads to a vicious regress of norms. The purpose of this paper is to defend a version of the Kantian-Brandomian view of concepts against this objection. I argue that we can deal with this problem along the lines of a coherentist account of justification.     

The challenge of cross-cultural quality of life assessment

Abstract

As a result of an increased international cooperation in the health care field, the demand for cross-culturally applicable, patient-oriented instruments to assess the need for and to evaluate the outcome of medical interventions has also grown. However, basic problems exist in assessing health-related quality of life—one of the most prominent outcomes—across cultures. Conceptually it is unclear to which extent the quality of life construct is transferable from one cultural context to another. Methodologically, ways to assess the construct have to be sensitive to different cultures and practically, application of quality of life measures may be difficult. The current paper addresses these issues, presenting the current state of the art in cross-cultural development of health-related quality of life assessment instruments as well as a critical review thereof. Examples are provided from internationally active working groups in terms of the translation, psychometric testing and norming of quality of life questionnaires.     

The spatial mapping of concepts in English and Mandarin

ABSTRACT

English speakers have been shown to map abstract concepts in space, which occurs on both the vertical and horizontal dimensions. For example, words such as God are associated with up and right spatial locations, and words such as Satan with down and left. If the tendency to map concepts in space is a universal property of human cognition, then it is likely that such mappings may be at least partly culturally-specific, since many concepts are themselves language-specific and therefore cultural conventions. Here we investigated whether Mandarin speakers report spatial mapping of concepts, and how these mappings compare with English speakers (i.e. are words with the same meaning associated with the same spatial locations). Across two studies, results showed that both native English and Mandarin speakers reported spatial mapping of concepts, and that the distribution of mappings was highly similar for the two groups. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

Mapping an HIV/STD prevention curriculum for Zambian in-school settings

HIV/AIDS poses grave risk to human development in sub-Saharan Africa. Evidence-based interventions that are rooted in local culture could help efforts to prevent threats to human development from HIV/AIDS. We used concept mapping (Concept System, 2006 ) to construct the components and content of a locally developed HIV/AIDS curriculum for use by secondary schools in Lusaka, Zambia. Participants were school counsellors (n = 14), youth health program officers (n = 7), and regular education teachers (n = 3) from the education, health, and youth development agencies in Lusaka, Zambia (males = 11; females = 13; mean age 38; SD = 15 years). Concept mapping yielded six statement clusters defining preliminary components of a locally grounded in-school HIV/AIDS prevention curriculum and the content items that define these components: (1) life skills education (18 items), (2) sexuality and reproductive health (10 items), (3) treatment, care and support (13 items), (4) counselling (12 items), (5) basic facts about HIV/AIDS (11 items), and (6) dissemination of information about HIV/AIDS (11 items). Zambian locally constructed constructs for an HIV/STD prevention curriculum overlap those promoted by public health programs in the country and internationally.     

Complex demonstratives as quantifiers: objections and replies

In “Complex Demonstratives: A Quantificational Account” (MIT Press 2001) (henceforth CD), I argued that complex demonstratives are quantifiers. Many philosophers had held that demonstratives, both simple and complex, are referring terms. Since the publication of CD various objections to the account of complex demonstratives I defended in it have been raised. In the present work, I lay out these objections and respond to them.