Subjectivity and essential individuality: A dialogue with Peter Van Inwagen and Lynne Baker

Each person is perceived by others and by herself as an individual in a very strong sense, namely as a unique individual. Moreover, this supposed uniqueness is commonly thought of as linked with another character that we tend to attribute to persons (as opposed to stones or chairs and even non-human animals): a kind of depth, hidden to sensory perception, yet in some measure accessible to other means of knowledge. I propose a theory of strong or essential individuality. This theory is introduced by way of a critical discussion of Van Inwagen’s and Baker’s ontologies of persons. Composition Theory and Constitution Theory are shown to be complementary, in their opposite strong and weak points. I argue that both theories have unsatisfactory consequences concerning personal identity, a problem which the proposed theory seems to solve more faithfully both to folk intuitions and the phenomenology of personal life.

中学生的道德情绪内隐观研究

以974名14-18岁的中学生为被试,通过道德情绪的词汇评定和情境评定,考察中学生对典型道德情绪种类和道德情绪典型属性的认识。结果表明,中学生对典型道德情绪的认识涉及情境性、导向性、批评性、赞誉性等多种情绪类别,并在总体上更容易把正性情绪词汇认同为道德情绪。在判断与评价具体情境中的道德情绪过程中,中学生更倾向把无私和有私因素诱发的情绪显著地聚类区分,从而将无私诱因视为其认同道德情绪的典型标准,这种内隐观不受其学段、性别的影响和情绪效价效应的干扰。     

Metaphor and Thinking in Science and Religion

Excerpts from Chapters 1 and 3 of New Maps for Old: Explorations in Science and Religion (Gerhart and Russell 2001) explore the ramifications of metaphoric process for changes in thinking, especially those changes that lead to a new understanding of our world. Examples are provided from science, from religion, and from science and religion together. In excerpts from Chapter 8, a double analogy—theology is to science as science is to mathematics—is proposed for better understanding the contemporary relationship between science and religion. A conservation of epistemological sufficiency is disclosed as one moves from mathematics to empirical science to theology—a move from one discipline to another that involves a sacrifice of one aspect of thought to gain another.     

Changing Worldviews: Responding to Betty Birner and Robert Masson

Worldviews are changed by higher viewpoints that can develop by metaphoric process, the equating of two formerly disparate known concepts. The equating results in a distortion—a tectonic reformation—of the associated fields of meanings that effects a rearrangement of associated concepts leading to new cognitive relations. We comment on reviews of our books Metaphoric Process (1984) and New Maps for Old (2001) by Robert Masson and Betty Birner. Metaphoric process may further understanding of the formation of diverse worldviews and their reconciliation.     

无性生育的伦理考量

从有性生育到无性生育,这是人类生育方式的重大变革。无性生育是从细胞水平上对人类生育方式的干预。无性生育技术的出现及其实验,并不意味“人类的自然生育方式将要终结”,它只是有性生育的必要补充。无性生育技术的滥用和无性生育的泛滥有可能导致人类尊严的彻底丧失和以人的尊严为基础的人类明的倒退。对无性生育技术的研究和应用必须实施社会控制。     

Turning up the volume on the property view of sound

In the present article, I show that sounds are properties that are not physical in a narrow sense. First, I argue that sounds are properties using Moorean-style arguments and defend this property view from various arguments against it that make use of salient disanalogies between sounds and colors. The first disanalogy is that we talk of objects making sounds but not of objects making colors. The second is that we count and quantify over sounds but not colors. The third is that sounds can survive qualitative change in their auditory properties, but colors cannot survive change in their chromatic properties. Next, I provide a taxonomy of property views of sound. As the property view of sound has been so rarely discussed, many of the views available have never been articulated. My taxonomy will articulate these views and how they are related to one another. I taxonomize sounds according to three characteristics: dispositional/non-dispositional, relational/non-relational and reductive/non-reductive. Finally, mirroring a popular argument in the color literature, I argue that physical views in the narrow sense are unable to accommodate the similarity and difference relations in which sounds essentially stand. I end replying to three objections.     

Concurrent variable‐interval variable‐ratio schedules in a dynamic choice environment

Most studies of operant choice have focused on presenting subjects with a fixed pair of schedules across many experimental sessions. Using these methods, studies of concurrent variable‐ interval variable‐ratio schedules helped to evaluate theories of choice. More recently, a growing literature has focused on dynamic choice behavior. Those dynamic choice studies have analyzed behavior on a number of different time scales using concurrent variable‐interval schedules. Following the dynamic choice approach, the present experiment examined performance on concurrent variable‐interval variable‐ratio schedules in a rapidly changing environment. Our objectives were to compare performance on concurrent variable‐interval variable‐ratio schedules with extant data on concurrent variable‐interval variable‐interval schedules using a dynamic choice procedure and to extend earlier work on concurrent variable‐interval variable‐ratio schedules. We analyzed performances at different time scales, finding strong similarities between concurrent variable‐interval variable‐interval and concurrent variable‐interval variable‐ ratio performance within dynamic choice procedures. Time‐based measures revealed almost identical performance in the two procedures compared with response‐based measures, supporting the view that choice is best understood as time allocation. Performance at the smaller time scale of visits accorded with the tendency seen in earlier research toward developing a pattern of strong preference for and long visits to the richer alternative paired with brief “samples” at the leaner alternative (“fix and sample”).     

Rethinking the videogame case: trying and intending

In this paper, I defend the view that a person performs an action A intentionally only if she intends to A against Michael Bratman’s alleged counterexample to it: the videogame case. I object that Bratman is mistaken in assuming that the consistency among an agent’s intentions is about the consistency among intended goals or objectives. Instead, I argue that the real reason why an agent’s intentions need to be consistent with each other is due to the necessity of the compatibility of corresponding efforts of trying. But unfortunately for Bratman, this efforts-based consistency constraint – as a replacement of the objectives-based consistency constraint – cannot save the videogame case.     

书《孟子·离娄·齐人有一妻一妾》章后

《孟子·离娄·齐人有一妻一妾》章是中国最早的人情小说,孟子非常成功地运用了视角转换这一小说技巧,最后点明寓意的一句话对蒲松龄的《聊斋志异》有负面影响。如能与其前一章合读,将会看出孟子发现了人类被偷窥的尴尬处境。历来的学者割裂了此章与前一章的联系,影响了读者对孟子的认识。     

客体投影方式对空间问题解决和再认的影响

通过设置四种实验条件,旨在阐明空间问题解决和再认的水平是如何受到客体不同投影方式的影响。除进一步支持了正投影问题的解决是以一个具有三维结构特性的心理表征为基础而并非是对二维正投影信息进行了充分识别的观点外,研究结果还表明：（１）这个具有客体三维结构特性的心理表征是建构于对正投影问题解决而非轴测投影图的再认过程中;（２）正投影问题解决的复杂性显著地高于轴测投影图问题解决而且一个建构于正投影问题解决中