There are Intentionalia of Which it is True that Such Objects Do Not Exist

Abstract

According to Crane’s schematicity thesis (ST) about intentional objects, intentionalia have no particular metaphysical nature qua thought-of entities; moreover, the real metaphysical nature of intentionalia is various, insofar as it is settled independently of the fact that intentionalia are targets of one’s thought. As I will point out, ST has the ontological consequence that the intentionalia that really belong to the general inventory of what there is, the overall domain, are those that fall under a good metaphysical kind, i.e., a kind such that its members figure (for independent reasons) in such an inventory. Negatively put, if there are no things of a certain metaphysical kind, thoughts about things of that kind are not really committed to such things. Pace Crane, however, this does not mean that the intentionalia that are really there are only those that exist. For existence, qua first-order property, is no metaphysical kind. Thus, there may really be intentionalia that do not exist, provided that they belong to good metaphysical kinds.     

Intentional Objects,Pretence, and the Quasi-Relational Nature of Mental Phenomena: A New Look at Brentano on Intentionality

Abstract

Brentano famously changed his mind about intentionality between the 1874 and 1911 editions of Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (PES). The 1911 edition repudiates the 1874 view that to think about something is to stand in a relation to something that is within in the mind, and holds instead that intentionality is only like a relation (it is ‘quasi-relational’). Despite this, Brentano still insists that mental activity involves ‘the reference to something as an object’, much as he did in the 1874 edition of PES. The question is what Brentano might have meant by this, given that he rejects a relational account of intentionality. The present paper suggests an answer. It draws on recent work on pretence theory to provide a model of Brentano’s notion of the quasi-relational nature of mental phenomena, as well as of the notion of mental reference to an object, and argues that the model helps to explain why Brentano might have been able discern a clear continuity between the views of the 1874 and 1911 editions of PES, despite the differences.     

Growing Up with Child Sexual Abuse in an Experimental Commune: Making Sense of Narrative Variation

The legitimacy of adult's accounts of child sexual abuse depends on the consistency of the story they tell about this experience. But there are a variety of influences that conspire to create dynamic variation in retrospective accounts of child sexual abuse. In a study of an experimental New Zealand commune called Centrepoint, participants showed considerable variation in accounting for the child sexual abuse that was known to have occurred there. We used a narrative methodology to show the variation between stories that highlighted abuse and suffering and others that represented an idyllic childhood within which sex between children and adults was normalised. There was also considerable variation within individual participant's accounts. The variation within and between accounts was shaped by features such exposure to contradictory experiences, different social positioning in relation to child sexual abuse, shifts in memory and interpretation over time, differences between insider and outsider perspectives on child sexual activity at the commune and alternative perspectives on victimhood. This research challenges the mythology that accounts of child sexual abuse should be expected to be clear and consistent. Instead, variation should be treated the rule rather than the exception in these accounts. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predicting first intercourse among urban early adolescent girls: The role of emotions

Little is known about how girls perceive their ongoing or future sexual experiences, especially the emotions that they associate with these experiences. This study examined how early adolescent girls characterise first intercourse experiences in terms of positive and negative emotions over a one-year period. A US sample of 162 girls (12–14 years), primarily Latina and Black, completed two interviews one year apart that assessed sexual cognitions, affect, and behaviour. Girls anticipated primarily negative emotions associated with first intercourse, but recalled primarily positive emotions for first and recent intercourse experiences. In addition, girls’ emotion scores proved more useful than two types of cognitions (intentions and perceived readiness) and pre-intercourse sexual experience in predicting transitions to intercourse over the one-year period.     

Retrieval-induced forgetting after trauma: A study with victims of sexual assault

The Retrieval-Induced Forgetting (RIF) paradigm is used to study how the repeated retrieval practice of particular memories impairs the retrieval of related memory traces. A study is reported where this automatic form of forgetting was investigated in a group of sexual-assault victims and a control group. Using a recognition-cued RIF task, the present study examined RIF with neutral, positive, negative and trauma-specific stimuli. Response time data showed that irrespective of previous trauma exposure, a RIF effect was observed for neutral material, but not for emotional material. No differences in RIF between the trauma group and the control group were found. Inconsistencies with previous literature and the implications for emotional memory are discussed.     

Why Young Men in South Africa Plan to Become Teenage Fathers: Implications for the Development of Masculinities within Contexts of Poverty

Drawing on in-depth interviews with young fathers (n=37) aged 14 to 20 in impoverished communities in South Africa, this study focuses on the young men who intentionally planned to have children while still teenagers. It interrogates their reasons for doing so, as well as their responses to their impending fatherhood and reactions after the birth of their child. Reasons such as wish-fulfillment, leaving a legacy, wanting to keep a partner, and wanting to be seen as ‘fashionable’ amongst their peers are discussed. An analysis is provided of the relationship between young fatherhood, poverty and masculinities. Key to the discussion are the interrelated notions of ownership and responsibility, and the ways in which impoverished young men find young fatherhood to be a powerful mediator in contexts where alternative pathways to exhibiting dominant masculinities are scarce.     

History and Analysis of Delayed Discovery Statutes of Limitations in Adult Survivor Litigation

Summary

In this chapter, attorney Mary R. Williams examines how while Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA) cases share many of the types of facts for which delayed discovery, mental incapacity, equitable estoppel and other legal statutes of limitations doctrines were created, the combination of factors of CSA cases, including unusual social dynamics and long-term psychological effects, does not fit exactly with any of these legal doctrines. She explores the historical development of delayed discovery statutes of limitations, evaluates the different types of statutes and case law, and analyzes the problematic use of the concept of repression in legislation. This chapter interprets her ground-breaking state-by-state tabulations of delayed discovery statutes of limitations and reported appellate decisions on limitations in CSA actions, published in this volume as appendices A, B, and C.     

Chisholm's Legacy on Intentionality

Abstract: The problem of intentionality, or how mind and language can take things in the world as “intentional objects,” engaged Chisholm throughout his philosophical career. This essay reviews and discusses his seminal contributions on this problem, from his early work in “Sentences about Believing” and Perceiving during the 1950s to his last and most mature account in The First Person, published in 1981 . Chisholm's final view was that de se reference, or a subject's directly taking himself as an intentional object, is fundamental and primitive, and that all other forms of intentional reference, such as de re and de dicto, can be understood on the basis of de se intentionality. The essay ends with a discussion of the worry that this account might lead to what may be called “intentional solipsism,” the proposition that the self is the only genuine object of intentional reference.     

语言和文化对自我参照条件下提取诱发遗忘的影响——来自汉族人和摩梭人的证据

采用提取诱发遗忘范式考察摩梭人和汉族人在自我参照、母亲参照、姨母参照和他人参照条件下的加工规律, 发现摩梭被试在自我参照、母亲参照、姨母参照条件下都未出现提取诱发遗忘, 而在一般他人参照条件下出现了提取诱发遗忘; 汉族被试在自我参照、母亲参照条件下未出现提取诱发遗忘, 而在姨母参照、他人参照条件下出现了提取诱发遗忘。这表明, 不同的文化和语言影响人的自我构建, 在汉族人的自我结构中包含有母亲, 而摩梭人将母亲、姨母皆作为重要的他人纳入自我建构中, 使得母亲参照和姨母参照产生与自我参照同样的记忆优势。     

Mnemic neglect: Selective amnesia of one’s faults

The mnemic neglect model predicts and accounts for selective memory for social feedback as a function of various feedback properties. At the heart of the model is the mnemic neglect effect (MNE), defined as inferior recall for self-threatening feedback compared to other kinds of feedback. The effect emerges both in mundane realism and minimal feedback settings. The effect is presumed to occur in the service of self-protection motivation. Mnemic neglect is pronounced when the feedback poses high levels of self-threat (i.e., can detect accurately one’s weakness), but is lost when self-threat is averted via a self-affirmation manipulation. Mnemic neglect is caused by self-threatening feedback being processed shallowly and in ways that separate it from stored (positive) self-knowledge. The emergence of mnemic neglect is qualified by situational moderators (extent to which one considers their self-conceptions modifiable, receives feedback from a close source, or is primed with improvement-related constructs) and individual differences moderators (anxiety, dysphoria, or defensive pessimism). Finally, the MNE is present in recall, but absent in recognition. Output interference cannot explain this disparity in results, but an inhibitory repression account (e.g., experiential avoidance) can: Repressors show enhanced mnemic neglect. The findings advance research on memory, motivation, and the self.