Order,disorder, and the absolute: An experiment in dialogue

The first section of this dialogue is excerpted from an edited conversation between Sean Kelly and the late David Bohm, and focuses on the concepts of order, disorder, and the Absolute. The second section explores these concepts in greater depth, with Bohm maintaining the impossibility of absolute knowledge and the fundamental unintelligibility of the concept of disorder, preferring instead to speak of “orders of infinite degree” which emerge out of an “unknown ground.” Kelly responds by proposing the concept of “absolute knowing” as the cognitive process within which the concepts of order and disorder, the known and the Unknown are seen as dialectically related moments of the Absolute as complex whole. The third section is Edgar Morin's response to the preceding dialogue. He begins by outlining his views on the nature and limits of rationality, maintaining, with Bohm, the superiority of the “negative modality” of speaking about “being” or “reality.” In the second part, however, he proposes the notion of nature as “chaosmos,” which he understands as a creative “dialogic” of order, disorder, and organization.     

The role of cues to differential absolute size in children's transitive inferences

To investigate the role that "nonlogical" cues might play in transitive inference, 6- and 7-year-olds were given a three-term transitive task in which perceptual cues to differential absolute size were either present or absent. Relationships between the taught premises and the relational information that was physically present were manipulated using four basic conditions: "congruent," "inverse," "pretended," or "persuaded." Both age groups showed identical overall premise memory, but the younger group tended to reason more on the basis of the perceptual information rather than on the successfully encoded premise information. Contrasts between the various conditions showed that categorical effects can be circumvented in three-term problems with appropriate controls, that there may be qualitative as well as quantitative differences in transitive inference with age, and that transitive inference is not based solely on memory. The findings also indicate that, although 7-year-olds are competent in "logic-based" transitive inference, they experience great difficulty on tasks involving pretend information.     

Relational and absolute stimulus learning by monkeys in a memory task.

Three experiments showed stimulus control by either the absolute properties of probe stimuli, relational properties of the probe-list relationship, or both in a serial probe recognition memory task in which a four-item memory list was followed by a single probe (test) item. In Experiment 1, 3 rhesus monkeys received 39 to 75 repetitions of the same 24-trial stimulus sequence. Special tests showed stimulus control by the absolute properties of the probe stimuli. Retention of previous relational control was demonstrated by the good transfer (83%) to novel list and probe stimuli at the beginning of Experiment 2. During Experiment 2, control by absolute properties of the probe stimuli gradually reoccurred. Only a small measure of control by list stimuli could be detected or promoted. In Experiment 3, 4 monkeys were shown to have largely lost their ability to perform on the basis of the list-probe relationship, and were performing primarily on the basis of the absolute properties of the probe stimuli. Over the next 15 weeks, these monkeys were transferred to new stimuli at the beginning of each week. Control by the relational aspects of the task gradually returned. As transfer performance increased, control by the absolute properties of the probe stimuli was eliminated. The results are discussed in terms of stimulus control and performance strategies used by the monkeys.     

Measures of response bias at minimum-detectable luminance levels in the pigeon

Using an operant analogue of the yes-no detection task, six pigeons were trained to detect luminance changes under two different reinforcement-scheduling procedures. In the first, an uncontrolled reinforcement-ratio procedure, the relative frequency of food reinforcers obtained for correct detections was free to vary with the birds' behavior as luminance levels were changed. In the second, a controlled reinforcement-ratio procedure, changes in preference could not alter the relative distribution of food reinforcers between the two response alternatives. Extreme response biases developed as luminance was decreased to threshold in the uncontrolled procedure. No progressive changes in response bias as a function of decreasing luminance were seen in the controlled procedure. Absolute thresholds for light intensity were lower in the controlled than in the uncontrolled procedure.     

The realization of absolute beauty: an interpretation of the fairytale Snow White

This paper interprets the fairytale Snow White (Bruder Grimm 1857) in terms of the realization of absolute beauty. Jung's understanding that ‘in myths and fairytales, as in dreams, the soul speaks about itself’ (Jung 1945, para. 400), underpins such an approach. From this perspective a fantasy image is not about us, not about our unconsciousness, but is essentially about itself. The idea of absolute beauty first arises in the Queen's mind as a wish. Despite the Queen's strong desire to be named as the most beautiful person in the world, her mirror reflects that it is actually her daughter Snow White who is the fairest. Snow White might be regarded in the language of Giegerich as her internal other. Effectively they are separated into the Real that conceives the idea of absolute beauty and the Ideal that embodies it. The exchange that takes place between the two – mediated by mirror and window – generates the corpse of surpassing beauty that never decays but lies inaccessible behind the glass coffin. However the loving and penetrating gaze of the Prince, representing masculinity, succeeds in reanimating Snow White. Thus the Prince as the Other that is completely external and unknown to both the Queen and Snow White, specifically to their femininity, facilitates the realization of absolute beauty as the Ideal in the Real.     

THE ESCHATOLOGICAL THEOGONY OF THE GOD WHO MAY BE: EXPLORING THE CONCEPT OF DIVINE PRESENCE IN KEARNEY, HEGEL, AND HEIDEGGER

Abstract: While heightening the nihilistic tension underlying the discourse of Richard Kearney, I highlight the positive contribution his book The God Who May Be makes to the debate concerning the need for a postmodern revitalization of religious symbolism. I argue for three qualifications of Kearney's argument, suggesting, in response to Kearney's exclusionary approach to the God who "neither is nor is not but may be," a God whose possibility for meaningfulness arises as an "eschatological theogony" from out of the chaos (confusion and openness) of contemporary religious symbolism. Arguing that such a radical reenvisioning of God must be tempered and given meaning through reentering and reaffirming onto-theology in a qualified (hermeneutical) sense, I sketch a possible renewal of meaning for the traditional Christian parousia -concept as a hermeneutical circle between Hegel's systematic closure of Western metaphysics and Heidegger's deconstructive appropriation of the hidden possibilities of presence within the onto-theological tradition.     

汉语元音对声调感知边界的影响

本项研究基于现代汉语普通话声调感知具有范畴性这一结论(Wang, 1976), 以普通话中6个单元音(/a//?//F//i//u//y/, 即拼音a、o、e、i、u、ü)阴平(T1)到阳平(T2)调的连续统(continuum)为实验语料, 用专业语音学软件Praat合成连续统语音样本, 对20名平均年龄为22.90岁的普通话母语者进行声调感知实验, 即让被试对所听刺激进行T1或T2的二选一鉴别测试(identification test), 从而探究单元音的内在音高(intrinsic pitch)与声调感知边界(boundary)的关系。本文借鉴Wang (1976)和Peng等(2010)对元音/i/声调连续统的合成方法, 使声调感知研究拓展到普通话中除/i/之外的其他5个单元音, 对以上两项研究起到一定的对照作用。研究发现, 元音会对T1到T2的声调范畴感知边界位置产生影响, 低元音/a/的内在音高较低, 其边界位置亦始终低于其他元音, 且具有显著性差异, 实验结果证明, 内在音高会对感知边界产生影响, 从而支持了Ohala和Eukel (1976)的“舌位拉伸”假说。     

2～11岁儿童问题行为的稳定性与变化

本研究采用追踪研究方法,考察了儿童2岁、4岁、7岁、11岁时内隐问题行为和外显问题行为的稳定性和变化。结果发现,各个年龄阶段,父母报告的问题行为都具有中等程度的相关。儿童的问题行为2岁时最多,此后开始下降,11岁时问题行为最少。儿童的问题行为具有中等程度的连续性,2岁、4岁、7岁、11岁的问题行为之间的相关均非常显著。     

郑玄"爻辰"易例与古代乐律论探析

"爻辰",是东汉易学家郑玄所倡的重要易学条例。"爻辰"说承西汉京房《易》例而立,以乾、坤两卦的十二爻,与子、丑、寅、卯、辰、巳、午、未、申、酉、戌、亥十二辰相值配,并运用十二辰属相及其所值五行、方位、时令、二十八宿等各类物象解《易》,兼有诸多旁涉性的运用,其中,将"爻辰"与十二律吕相值配,乃接绪京房援《易》立律的思想,对后世的相关论说产生较大的影响,是两汉至魏晋隋唐时期音律理论发展、演变过程中重要的一环。本文对"爻辰"与十二律吕相值配的体系进行梳理、探析,探究其学说渊源,并揭示其思想文化的深沉意蕴。