Abstract reasoning and the interpretation of basic conditionals

Studies examining the interpretation that is given to if–then statementstypically use what are referred to as basic conditionals, which give contextless relations between two unrelated concrete terms (If the ball is blue, then the shape is square). However, there is some evidence that basic conditionals require a more abstract form of representation. In order to examine this, we presented participants with truth-table tasks involving either basic conditionals or conditionals referring to imaginary categories (If it is a bori, then it has red wings), and standard conditional inference tasks with abstract and familiar premises. As expected, fewer typical defective conditional interpretations were given to basic conditionals. In addition, partial correlations showed a unique relationship between the interpretation of basic conditionals and abstract inferential reasoning. Results suggest that people process basic conditionals as a form of abstract reasoning, and that the interpretation of conditionals must consider the semantic context.     

解释框架对文化混搭产品评价的影响——比较焦点和解释策略的调节效应

文化混搭产品因涉及到不同国家的文化符号的同时呈现, 可能导致母国文化的完整性与生命力受到威胁, 引发外国文化入侵母国文化的感知进而降低消费者的产品评价。本研究从文化混搭产品的营销传播视角出发, 基于前人的研究基础之上, 探讨了不同信息表述框架策略的采用会如何影响消费者的文化入侵感知进而影响他们对文化混搭产品的评价, 并重点探究了它可能存在的两个边界条件, 即消费者的比较焦点和企业的不同解释策略。两个实验的结果不仅再一次验证了前人所得出的研究结论, 即文化混搭产品采用“外国文化-母国文化”的框架策略时, 会使消费者产生外国文化改变了母国文化的感知, 导致消费者对产品的评价要显著低于采用“母国文化-外国文化”的框架策略, 其中感知文化入侵起着完全中介的作用。更重要的是, 深入揭示出上述的这种不同文化混搭框架效应只有在启动的是消费者的差异性聚焦以及企业采用的是属性解释策略时才存在, 而当启动的是消费者的相似性聚焦以及企业采用关系解释策略时, 这一效应将会消失。本研究不仅深入剖析出了引发消费者对文化混搭现象产生排斥性反应的内在机理, 拓展了前人研究结论的普适性, 也为企业的文化混搭产品的营销推广提供了有用的实践启示。     

Canon,Repetition, and the Opponent

This essay considers two concepts of repetition in thinking about canon, the history of ideas, and the work of an opponent, both real and fantastical. I take up these motifs in a variety of figures and cases, but principally in Søren Kierkegaard’s reading of the biblical Abraham in Fear and Trembling, a text rich in interpretive challenges. How might readers in the humanities contend with interpretive rivals while investing in the power of diverse readings? The argument turns on the relationship between the struggle for self-consciousness, understood through Hegel and Freud as an appointment with otherness, and the work of interpretation, understood as the endeavor to understand others, including other texts, other minds, and one’s own mind. What is the aim of interpretation? How does interpretation fail? To which history of ideas is a reader responsible?     

INTERPRETATION AND THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

We offer a general definition of interpretation based on a naturalized teleology. The definition tests and extends the biosemiotic paradigm by seeking to provide a philosophically robust resource for investigating the possible role of semiosis (processes of representation and interpretation) in biological systems. We show that our definition provides a way of understanding various possible kinds of misinterpretation, illustrate the definition using examples at the cellular and subcellular level, and test the definition by applying it to a potential counterexample. We explain how we propose to use the definition as a way of asking new questions about what distinguishes life from non‐life and of formulating testable hypotheses within the field of origin‐of‐life research. If the definition leads to fruitful new empirical approaches to the scientific problem of the origin of life, it will help to establish biosemiotics as a legitimate philosophical approach in theoretical biology and will thereby support a theological appropriation of the biosemiotic perspective as the basis of a new theology of nature.     

TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF BOUNDARY

Awareness of boundary, both physical and mental, is seen as the beginning of perception. In any account of the world, therefore, boundary must be a ubiquitous component. In sharp contrast, accounts of God within the Christian tradition commonly have proceeded by the affirmation that God is above and beyond boundary as infinite, timeless, and simple. To overcome this “problem of transcendence,” of how such a God can relate to such a world, an eight‐term grammar of boundary is developed to demonstrate how God as Trinity can properly be held to be without boundary yet constitute the ground of a bounded world. This leads to a way of granting theological significance to the origin and development of life. Life is seen to exist in dynamic, intentional relationships between context (“outside”) and intext (“inside”) across permeable boundaries through which an exchange of resources and information takes place for the sake of self‐continuation. Comprehending life's distinctive utilization of boundary in terms of the grammar developed here enables life to be seen not only as a vestige of the Trinity but also, precisely because of this, as a sign and parable of redemption.     

Biased interpretation in perfectionistic concerns: an experimental investigation

Background and objectives: Perfectionism is associated with the development and maintenance of several disorders. Given the importance of perfectionism understanding the biased information processes that underpin it is critical. The present study tested the hypothesis that heightened concern over mistakes subscale scores of the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale are characterized by a tendency to impose emotionally negative interpretations on perfectionism-relevant situations.

Method and design: Seventy-six non-clinical, general population participants’ were presented with interpretations of scenarios where a protagonist was described as achieving well above what was required, but fell short of their own high standard. Using a within-subjects, quasi-experimental design, we assessed interpretations of these scenarios by examining the degree to which participants rated test sentences as being likely implications of the original scenarios.

Results: A generalized linear mixed model revealed higher concern over mistakes scores were associated with an increased tendency to rate negative target test sentences as being similar to the original perfectionism-relevant scenarios, and a reduced tendency to rate positive target test sentences as being similar to these original scenarios.

Conclusions: The findings provide support for the cognitive–behavioral model of perfectionism. These findings support the inclusion of strategies in cognitive–behavioral treatment of perfectionism to reduce interpretation bias.     

SELECTION,INTERPRETATION, AND THE EMERGENCE OF LIVING SYSTEMS

The autocell proposal for the emergence of life and natural selection through the interaction of two reciprocally coupled self‐organizing processes specifically provides a protein‐first model for the origin of life that can be explored by computer simulations and experiment. Beyond the specific proposal it can be considered more generally as a thought experiment in which the principles deduced for the autocell could apply to other possible detailed chemical scenarios of catalytic polymers and protometabolism, including living systems emerging within membranelike barriers. The autocell model allows for the analysis of the emergence of not only agency and purpose but also of interpretation and semiosis as true living systems arise.     

Returning to experience – Dewey’s second mission to China

ABSTRACT

In this essay, as a philosophical exercise in exploring some of the underlying assumptions that serve as an interpretive context for classical Chinese philosophy, I will first follow Dewey’s philosophical turn from a ‘knowledge paradigm’ to an ‘experience paradigm’ in which he seeks to overcome the dualism between subject and object. Secondly, I will interpret Dewey’s Darwinian challenge to the notions of Aristotelian ‘species’ (eidos) and ‘teleology’ (telos) and their ‘universality.’ In so doing, Dewey sought to restore time, change, relationality, and particularity to our philosophical agenda, ideas that are all recommended by the cosmology of the first among the Chinese philosophical canons, the Book of Changes (Yijing易经). And finally, I will try to offer an interpretation of traditional Chinese philosophy as a science in a Deweyan sense.     

Reading minds: Mentalization,irony and literary engagement

The concept of ‘mentalization’ has recently provided a fertile resource for thinking about various issues in psychoanalysis, including attachment, children’s play, personality disorders and the work of interpretation within the analytic setting. Mentalization also provides fruitful ways of thinking about how we read. This paper will suggest that book reading is akin to mind reading: engaging with certain literary texts is akin to understanding the minds of others from the subjective perspective required by mentalization. This way of thinking about literature provides a useful way of understanding its value. The paper will focus specifically on the uses of irony and free indirect speech in Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion. Austen’s use of literary techniques provides a way of understanding the inner lives of her characters via the ironic voice of the implied author, and requires the reader to engage in the kinds of understanding and insight required for mentalization.