The Fear of Death

Taking a somewhat indirect route that includes some autobiographical reflection, I address three questions. One is what it might mean to say, with Socrates, that philosophy is "studying for death". The second is why Christians should fear death at all, if the good of Heaven is really what they believe is beyond it. The third is the question what difference it makes to your philosophical view of death if you are a believer.     

Perspectives on multisensory experience and cognitive development in infants with cochlear implants

Infants learn about their environment through sensory exploration, acquiring knowledge that is important for cognitive development. However, little is known about the sensory exploration of infants with profound hearing loss before or after they receive cochlear implants. This paper reviews aspects of sensory perception and cognitive development in hearing infants, discusses the implications of delayed access to auditory information for multisensory perception and cognitive development in infants who use cochlear implants, and suggests several new directions for research addressing multisensory exploration and cognitive development in infants with cochlear implants.     

Feelings of control: Contingency determines experience of action

The experience of causation is a pervasive product of the human mind. Moreover, the experience of causing an event alters subjective time: actions are perceived as temporally shifted towards their effects [Haggard, P., Clark, S., & Kalogeras, J. (2002). Voluntary action and conscious awareness. Nature Neuroscience, 5(4), 382-385]. This temporal shift depends partly on advance prediction of the effects of action, and partly on inferential “postdictive” explanations of sensory effects of action. We investigated whether a single factor of statistical contingency could explain both these aspects of causal experience. We studied the time at which people perceived a simple manual action to occur, when statistical contingency indicated a causal relation between action and effect, and when no such relation was indicated. Both predictive and inferential “postdictive” shifts in the time of action depended on strong contingency between action and effect. The experience of agency involves a process of causal learning based on statistical contingency.     

Experiencing gay affirmative therapy: An exploration of clients' views of what is helpful

Gay affirmative therapy is a counselling approach that emphasises an affirming, non‐pathologising approach to therapeutic work with lesbian, gay and bisexual clients. In this study, lesbian and gay clients who had experienced counselling that they defined as affirming identified what they perceived to have been helpful. Questionnaires and interviews were used to collect the views of a sample of lesbian, gay and bisexual informants. The material gathered was analysed using a grounded theory approach, which generated six main categories: communicating a non‐pathologising perspective on homosexuality; the counselling relationship; the counselling space; what the counsellor brought to the relationship; humanity; and the counsellor adopting a holistic approach. Some of these identified affirming elements are unique to gay affirmative therapy and cannot be attributed to other factors. The possible significance of the findings for practitioners is discussed.     

Narrating the negative consequences of elder care and familial obligation in Atlantic Canada

At a time when renewed emphasis is being placed on the role of the family in providing care for elderly people, shifts in family structures and the demographic profile of societies such as Atlantic Canada are impacting on community structures foundational to familial caregiving practices. Research shows that family members who attempt to provide familial care without adequate support risk negative health and interpersonal consequences. Hence many find it necessary to reflect upon their familial obligations. This article investigates the storytelling processes through which caregivers, aged between 45 and 55 years (N = 26), make sense of their efforts to provide care. We explore the ways in which participants in four focus groups and 12 interviews refer to negative consequences of caring in order to navigate dilemmas arising from their enactment of familial obligations in the absence of adequate support. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lay rationalism and inconsistency between predicted experience and decision

Decision‐makers are sometimes depicted as impulsive and overly influenced by ‘hot’, affective factors. The present research suggests that decision‐makers may be too ‘cold’ and overly focus on rationalistic attributes, such as economic values, quantitative specifications, and functions. In support of this proposition, we find a systematic inconsistency between predicted experience and decision. That is, people are more likely to favor a rationalistically‐superior option when they make a decision than when they predict experience. We discuss how this work contributes to research on predicted and decision utilities; we also discuss when decision‐makers overweight hot factors and when they overweight cold factors. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Body as the Ground of Religion, Science, and Self

The human body is both religious subject and scientific object, the manifest locus of both religious gnosis and secular cognition. Embodiment provides the basis for a rich cross–fertilization between cognitive science and comparative religion, but cognitive studies must return to their empiricist scientific roots by reembodying subjectivity, thus spanning the natural bridge between the two fields. Referencing the ritual centrality and cognitive content of the body, I suggest a materialist but nonreductionist construct of the self as a substantial cognitive embodiment that embraces not just perception and cognition, mind and spirit, but the forceful physicality of the moving body. Proprioception of the body's moving mass constitutes a mode of knowing that resonates strongly with the experience of self, not only across religious traditions but also within the physical sciences. By way of illustration, two directions are suggested in which a construct of the self as a substantial cognitive embodiment might lead us: first, a body–based interpretation of the Islamic myth of Adam and Iblis that reveals an internal substantiality as constitutive of the divinely imaged Self, and second, a new, religious direction for human evolutionary theory based on the implications of an embodied intentionality.     

Negotiation for Starting Salary: Antecedents and Outcomes Among Recent College Graduates

Recent college graduates were surveyed to explore factors associated with both negotiation propensity as well as success in raising initial salary offers through negotiation. The average payoff associated with negotiation was over $1,500, while the offers of those who did not negotiate increased negligibly. Applicants given the option to present their salary needs negotiated at higher rates than those who were not, and individuals who had prior work experience were more likely to receive this option. Women were no less likely to engage in negotiation than men, and experienced similar success as a result of their efforts.     

Skills Training for Spouses of Patients with Alzheimer's Disease: Outcomes of an Intervention Study

The effects of a 12-week intervention on a patient-focused skills training group and a caregiver-focused skills training group were compared with those on a control group that received comparable attention, but no training. Intervention effects were monitored at the completion of the treatment phase and at 3- and 6-months postintervention. Treatment implementation was documented in a comprehensive fashion to ensure replicability. Both training groups acquired skills that enabled them to improve targeted behaviors (patient problem behaviors and caregiver mood, respectively). Weaker effects were found for more distal outcomes, such as depression, perceived stress, caregiver strain, and self-efficacy.     

KINDS AND CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE: IS THERE ANYTHING THAT IT IS LIKE TO BE SOMETHING?

Abstract: In this article I distinguish the notion of there being something it is like to be a certain kind of creature from that of there being something it is like to have a certain kind of experience. Work on consciousness has typically dealt with the latter while employing the language of the former. I propose several ways of analyzing what it is like to be a certain kind of creature and find problems with them all. The upshot is that even if there is something it is like to have certain kinds of experience, it does not follow that there is anything it is like to be a certain kind of creature. Skepticism about the existence of something that it is like to be an F is recommended.