Collingwood and Ryle on the Concept of Mind

Abstract

This paper argues that Collingwood's philosophy of mind offers an interesting and compelling account of the nature of the mind and of the irreducibility of the mental, an account whose viability and relevance to contemporary debates ought to be given serious consideration. I suggest that the reason why Collingwood's contribution to the philosophy of mind has been neglected is due to the fact that his philosophy of mind is widely, even if mistakenly, regarded as the target of Ryle's attacks on the dogma of the ghost in the machine and proceed to undermine the assumption that Collingwood is a twentieth century adherent of the dogma.     

The imbibing idiot bias: Consuming alcohol can be hazardous to your (perceived) intelligence

Alcohol consumption and cognitive impairment frequently co-occur. We propose that the relationship is so familiar that exposure to alcohol cues primes expectations of cognitive impairment. Across five studies, we find that in the absence of any evidence of reduced cognitive performance, people who hold an alcoholic beverage are perceived to be less intelligent than those who do not, a mistake we term the imbibing idiot bias. In fact, merely priming observers with alcohol cues causes them to judge targets who hold no beverage at all as less intelligent. The bias is not driven by a belief that less intelligent people are more likely to consume alcohol. We find that the bias may be costly in professional settings. Job candidates who ordered wine during an interview held over dinner were viewed as less intelligent and less hireable than candidates who ordered soda. However, prospective candidates believe that ordering wine rather than soda will help them appear more intelligent.     

Structuring of Early Reaching Movements: A Longitudinal Study

Reaches, performed by 5 infants, recorded at 19 weeks of age and every third week thereafter until 31 weeks of age, were studied quantitatively. Earlier findings about action units were confirmed. At all ages studied, movements were structured into phases of acceleration and deceleration. Reaching trajectories were found to be relatively straight within these units and to change direction between them. It was also found that at all ages, there was generally one dominating transport unit in each reach. The structuring of reaching movements changed in four important ways during the period studied. First, the sequential structuring became more systematic with age, with the dominating transport unit beginning the movement. Second, the duration of the transport unit became longer and covered a larger proportion of the approach. Third, the number of action units decreased with age, approaching the two-phase structure of adult reaching. Finally, reaching trajectories became straighter with age.     

‘If I knew where the enemy,or even Germany was,we could have fired in that direction’: Bion's experience of war

The role of a child psychotherapist's gender is not often considered in terms of treatment outcome. This paper discusses how aspects of being a male child psychotherapist influenced the successful treatment of a very young boy with Asperger's Syndrome. The paper highlights how the nature of his very early relationship with his mother and the absence of his father were the basis of his difficulties resulting in that diagnosis. It shows that his desire to seize the opportunity of working with a male enabled him to understand his feelings about his father, why it was so difficult to want to be with him and not his mother, and why he could not be without her.

Le rôle joué par le sexe du psychothérapeute d'enfants dans les effets du traitement est rarement pris en compte. Dans cet article, l'auteur montre qu'à un certain niveau le fait d'être un psychothérapeute homme eut une influence sur la réussite de la thérapie d'un très jeune garçon présentant un syndrome d'Asperger. Selon l'auteur, la nature de la relation précoce entre ce petit garçon et sa mère, ainsi que l'absence de son père, étaient à l'origine des difficultés qui conduisirent à ce diagnostic. Il montre que le désir de l'enfant de se saisir de l'occasion ainsi offerte de travailler avec un homme lui permit de comprendre trois éléments essentiels : ses sentiments à l'égard de son père, la raison pour laquelle il lui était tellement difficile de vouloir être avec lui plutôt que de rester avec sa mère, et ce qui faisait qu'il ne pouvait pas se passer de celle-ci.

Die Rolle des Geschlechts des Kindertherapeuten wird nicht oft bezüglich des Behandlungsergebnis in Betracht bezogen. Dieser Artikel diskutiert, wie Aspekte dessen, ein männlicher Kindertherapeut zu sein, die erfolgreiche Behandlung eines sehr kleinen Jungen mit Asperger Syndrom beeinflussten. Der Artikel unterstreicht, wie die Art seiner frühen Beziehung zu seiner Mutter und die Abwesenheit seines Vaters die Grundlage seiner Schwierigkeiten bildeten, die zu dieser Diagnose führten. Es zeigt, dass sein Wunsch, die Gelegenheit zu ergreifen, mit einem Mann zu arbeiten, ihm ermöglichte, seine Gefühle seinem Vater gegenüber zu verstehen, warum es so schwierig war, mit ihm und nicht seiner Mutter sein zu wollen und warum er nicht ohne sie sein konnnte.

Riassunto: Il ruolo che gioca il sesso dello psicoterapeuta infantile non è solitamente considerato in relazione al risultato del trattamento. In questo articolo si discute come il fatto di avere un terapeuta maschile abbia influenzato per certi aspetti il risultato positivo del trattamento di un bambino molto piccolo che soffriva della Sindrome di Asperger. L'articolo illustra come la natura della sua primissima relazione con la madre e l'assenza del padre furono alla base delle sue difficoltà che portarono alla diagnosi. L'articolo mostra come il desiderio del bambino di lavorare con un terapeuta maschile gli ha permesso di capire i suoi sentimenti verso il padre, perché era così difficile voler restare con lui e lo stesso non succedeva con sua madre, e perché non poteva restare senza di lei.     

Children with autism spectrum disorder are more trusting than typically developing children

The current study examined whether children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) had an indiscriminate trust bias whereby they would believe any information provided by an unfamiliar adult with whom they had no interactive history. Young school-aged children with ASD and their age- and ability-matched typically developing (TD) peers participated in a simple hide-and-seek game. In the game, an experimenter with whom the children had no previous interactive history pointed to or left a marker on a box to indicate the whereabouts of a hidden reward. Results showed that although young school-aged ASD children did not blindly trust any information provided by the unfamiliar adult, they appeared to be more trusting in the adult informant than did their age- and ability-matched TD children.     

The dynamics of personality and identity in adolescence

The present paper summarizes some of the key findings on the dynamics of personality and identity in adolescence by the author's research group. With regard to personality, we found evidence for a maturation process in which girls were ahead of boys. Being ahead or lagging behind with regard to this maturation process was found to be associated with internalizing and externalizing problems, respectively. We further identified which specific traits were associated with problem behaviour, and showed that these associations are bidirectional. With regard to identity, we showed that short-term fluctuations affect subsequent levels of identity dimensions. In addition, we uncovered a commitment–reconsideration dynamic that operates on a day-to-day level.     

Negative attitudes towards cyclists influence the acceptance of an in-vehicle cyclist detection system

The shift towards automation and safer vehicles will increasingly involve use of technological advancements such as Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). Nevertheless, these technologies need to meet users’ perceived needs to be effectively implemented and purchased. Based on an updated version of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), this study analyses the main determinants of drivers’ intention to use an ADAS aimed at detecting cyclist and preventing potential collision with them through an auto-braking system. Even if the relevance of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and trust on the acceptance of a new system has been already discussed in literature, we considered the role of an external variable such as attitudes towards cyclists in the prediction of an ADAS aimed to improve the safety of cyclists. We administered a questionnaire measuring negative attitudes towards cyclists, trust, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and the behavioural intention to use the system to 480 Italian drivers. Path analysis using Bayesian estimation showed that perceived usefulness, trust in the system, and negative attitudes towards cyclists have a direct effect on the intention to use the ADAS. Considering the role of attitudes towards other road users in the intention to use new ADAS aimed to improve their safety could foster the user’s acceptance, especially for those people who express a negative representation of cyclists and are even more unlikely to accept the technology.     

Inviting perspective transformation: Sexual history awareness for professional formation

How do we deal with our own sexuality as teachers and as learners in the classroom? As a seminary professor in a mainline Christian context, I find that discussing sexuality increases student discomfort levels by threatening to raise questions about the connections between morality, behavior, and bodies of those in the room – questions we have been culturally trained to avoid. In order to decrease discomfort, many instructors approach sexuality only as content‐based subject matter. Particularly for ministry students, this approach can be a disservice to their discernment process and preparation for future ministry contexts, especially for those in turmoil regarding sexuality‐related issues. By explicitly engaging how personal experience and cultural contexts shape our sexuality, pedagogical models can promote critical self‐reflection and seek perspective transformation, not values change, as a resource for professional sexual ethics training in ministry.     

Communicating intent to develop shared situation awareness and engender trust in human-agent teams

This paper addresses issues related to integrating autonomy-enabled, intelligent agents into collaborative, human-machine teams. Interaction with intelligent machine agents capable of making independent, goal-directed decisions in human-machine teaming operations constitutes a major change from traditional human-machine interaction involving teleoperation. Communicating the machine agent’s intent to human counterparts becomes increasingly important as independent machine decisions become subject to human trust and mental models. The authors present findings from their research that suggest existing user display technologies, tailored with context-specific information and the human’s knowledge level of the machine agent’s decision process, can mitigate misperceptions of the appropriateness of agent behavioral responses. This is important because misperceptions on the part of human team members increases the likelihood of trust degradation and unnecessary interventions, ultimately leading to disuse of the agent. Examples of possible issues associated with communicating agent intent, as well as potential implications for trust calibration are provided.     

Identity Horizons Among Finnish Postsecondary Students: A Comparative Analysis

This article examines the identity horizons of postsecondary students in Finland—a country in which social welfare provisions buffer education-to-work transitions—comparing their identity horizons to those previously reported for U.S. and Japanese students. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed scalar invariance of the Finnish version of the Identity Horizons Scales with the English and Japanese versions. Latent mean comparisons found that Finnish students had the broadest educational and work horizons, and the lowest education-to-work identity anxiety. Finnish men reported lower levels of educational horizons and higher levels of identity anxiety than Finnish women, replicating previous findings. Social class differences were also detected, with higher levels of identity anxiety and narrower educational horizons among those whose parents had no postsecondary education. Based on the apparent impacts on identity development of the different educational policies in the three countries, results are discussed in terms of policy implications supporting more effective education-to-work transitions.