WHAT IS “MYTHIC REALITY”?

Abstract. The topic of the March 2011 symposium in Zygon is “The Mythic Reality of the Autonomous Individual.” Yet few of the contributors even discuss “mythic reality.” Of the ones who do, most cavalierly use “myth” dismissively, as simply a false belief. Rather than reconciling myth with reality, they oppose myth to reality. Their view of myth is by no means unfamiliar or unwarranted, but they need to recognize other views of myth and to defend their own. Above all, they need to appreciate the grip that any belief aptly labelled myth has—a grip that holds at least as much for a false belief as for a true one.     

Effects of differential rates of alternative reinforcement on resurgence of human behavior

Despite the success of exposure‐based psychotherapies in anxiety treatment, relapse remains problematic. Resurgence, the return of previously eliminated behavior following the elimination of an alternative source of reinforcement, is a promising model of operant relapse. Nonhuman resurgence research has shown that higher rates of alternative reinforcement result in faster, more comprehensive suppression of target behavior, but also in greater resurgence when alternative reinforcement is eliminated. This study investigated rich and lean rates of alternative reinforcement on response suppression and resurgence in typically developing humans. In Phase 1, three groups (Rich, n = 18; Lean, n = 18; Control, n = 10) acquired the target response. In Phase 2, target responding was extinguished and alternative reinforcement delivered on RI 1 s, RI 3 s, and extinction schedules, respectively. Resurgence was assessed during Phase 3 under extinction conditions for all groups. Target responding was suppressed most thoroughly in Rich and partially in Lean. Target responding resurged in the Rich and Lean groups, but not in the Control group. Between groups, resurgence was more pronounced in the Rich group than the Lean and Control groups. Clinical implications of these findings, including care on the part of clinicians when identifying alternative sources of reinforcement, are discussed.     

False Memories,Negative Affects,and Psychic Reality: The Role of Extra‐Clinical Data in Psychoanalysis1

Psychoanalysis as a treatment originated in the idea that neurosis is related to the ways in which individual psychic reality departs from actuality. Psychic reality includes memories, beliefs and their associated affects and fantasies connected with an individual's experience of the inner and outer world. The psychoanalytic determination of what meaningful memories or beliefs are inaccurate, distorted or false ordinarily relies upon principles of intra‐clinical validation. By itself, however, intra‐clinical validation is subject to limitations and pitfalls that conviction alone about what is actual cannot circumvent. Despite this fact, there are remarkably few analytic case reports demonstrating false or signifi cantly distorted memories through the use of data obtained from outside the consulting room. This paucity of reports may be related, at least in part, to the belief that the use of extra‐clinical data is essentially unanalytic or supports resistance. Based on the views that (a) psychic reality cannot be regarded as exclusively subjective or objective but is inherently both; and that (b) a goal of analysis is to achieve a different, acceptable and more accurate view of reality, the authors report a clinical case involving a confi rmably false pivotal memory and its associated negative affects. They discuss theoretical and technical considerations in utilizing extra‐clinical data during the treatment process.     

Regional Patterns of Religious Affiliation and Availability of Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs) retain an enduring popularity in spite of the fact that there is poor evidence of their efficacy. Public attraction toward CAM may be based, in part, on a public appetite for mysticism; in many countries, increases in interest in CAM may in turn result from decreasing social acceptance of participation in formal religions. The present study examined patterns of CAM availability and self-declared religious affiliation across 30 geographical regions in Ireland. After controlling for differences in population, the data show a statistically significant inverse correlation between CAM availability and religious affiliation. Implications are discussed. Brian M. Hughes is Lecturer in Psychology at the National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland     

Frankfurt-Type Examples, Obligation, and Responsibility

I examine John Martin Fischer's attempt to block an argument for the conclusion that without alternative possibilities, morally deontic judgments (judgments of moral right, wrong, and obligation) cannot be true. I then criticize a recent attempt to sustain the principle that an agent is morally blameworthy for performing an action only if this action is morally wrong. I conclude with discussing Fisher's view that even if causal determinism undermines morally deontic judgments, it still leaves room for other significant moral assessments including assessments of moral blameworthiness.     

Selfless Self-Love

This paper challenges the idea that there is a natural opposition between self-interest and morality. It does by developing an account of self-love according to which we can have self-regarding reasons that (1) differ substantially from the standard conception of self-interest and that (2) share enough crucial features with moral reasons to count as morally respectable.The argument involves three steps. The first step concentrates on the idea of a moral point of view as a means to distinguish between reasons that could be morally respectable and those we have reason to distrust as not morally respectable. The second step discusses Harry Frankfurt's work on love, in order to develop an attitude of selfless love as a source of morally respectable reasons. The third step introduces the idea of an alternative of oneself to show that selfless self-love is a coherent conception of an attitude that provides one with self-regarding and self-grounded reasons that are also morally respectable.     

Working with Fischer and Ravizza’s Account of Moral Responsibility

This paper examines the account of guidance control given in Fischer and Ravizza's book, Responsibility and Control, with the aim of revising it so as to make it a better account of what needs to be added to having alternatives open to yield a specification of the control condition for responsibility that will be acceptable to an adherent of the principle that one is responsible for something only if one could have avoided it.     

Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? Reality Dating Television Programs, Attitudes Toward Sex, and Sexual Behaviors

Past research has revealed associations between television viewing and sexual attitudes and behaviors. We examined a burgeoning new television genre, reality dating programs (RDPs). Undergraduate students (ages 18–24) reported their overall television viewing, their RDP viewing, and their involvement with RDPs (watching in order to learn and watching in order to be entertained). They also completed measures of attitudes toward sex, dating, and relationships, and answered questions about sexual behavior. Most participants were occasional or frequent viewers of at least one RDP. Men reported using RDPs for learning more than did women; there was no gender difference in use of RDPs for entertainment. Total amount of RDP viewing was positively correlated, for both men and women, with adversarial sexual beliefs, endorsement of a sexual double standard, and the beliefs that men are sex-driven, that appearance is important in dating, and that dating is a game. In all cases, however, these relationships were partially or totally mediated through viewer involvement. Men and women who watched RDPs tended to be less sexually experienced; there were few other correlations with sexual behaviors.     

人类文明审美化道路之寓言 --以《神话研究》中普罗米修斯"神话创作"为例的述评

在布鲁门贝格看来,神话创作是推动文明发展的一个充分条件。它的充分性体现于它出于文化目的论的内在要求——征服现实绝对主义。这是神话创作性的合法性。惟其充分性而非必要性,对文明的书写只能是一种审美神话的寓言。这是神话创作的非法性。因此,审美神话的寓言式书写困境承诺斯替主义二元论而来,在西方审美思想史上绵延不绝的普罗米修斯神话创作中见出。在通盘重构西方审美思想史之后,布氏提出了令人不安的审美神话之后的解释学问题。