On the Rag on Screen: Menarche in Film and Television

The purpose of this essay is to examine film and television representations of menarche from a critical, feminist perspective. A close analysis of scenes about menarche in 3 films and 4 television programs reveals implicit ideological messages of gender difference and gender stereotypes. Although these scenes appear to be positive and powerful challenges to menstrual communication taboos, they ultimately serve to reinforce media stereotypes of gender difference.     

两个世界与历史理念--一种历史观念的考察

两个世界与理性自由的理念构成了古希腊时代以来西方哲学-文化的基本传统和基本精神。这一传统直到马克思哲学产生后才受到了实践批判的深刻挑战。本文对这一历史过程作了概括性考察,认为在两个世界的张力结构与理性自由的基本理念之间存在着深刻的内在关联。本文不同意把持续了数千年之久的这样一种精神传统仅仅批判为唯心主义的简单化做法,认为有必要深入考察这种传统在西方哲学-文化史上的基本意义。在本文看来,两个世界与理性自由的理念在历史的前进发展中不断发生着内容的更新与转换,但只有在马克思唯物史观的实践批判中才得到了彻底的革命性变革。     

Affective Responses, Normative Requirements, and Ethical-Aesthetic Interaction

According to what Robert Stecker dubs the “ethical-aesthetic interaction” thesis, the ethical defects of a literary work can diminish its aesthetic value. Both the thesis and the only prominent argumentative strategy employed to support it the affective response argument have been hotly debated; however, Stecker has recently argued that the failure of the ARA does not undermine the thesis, since the argument “fails to indentify the main reason [the thesis] holds, when it in fact does.” I critically examine Stecker’s objection to the familiar versions of the affective response argument and the line of support for ethical-aesthetic interaction he proposes to install in their place. I conclude that neither is compelling; however, an important insight can be salvaged from his positive proposal, and I argue that the insight does, in fact, point toward a novel defense of the thesis.

The End of the Supersensory World’s Mythology: Marx’s Ontological Revolution and Its Contemporary Significance

The whole of Western metaphysics, particularly Platonism, sets up a partition between the sensory world and the supersensory world, laying the foundation for the mythology of the supersensory world. After Descartes set contemporary metaphysics on its course, Feuerbach became the first to attack the essence of the supersensory world on an ontological level and to transfer the criticism of theology to that of metaphysics in general. While in the final analysis Feuerbach’s criticism fails, Marx’s revolution appeals to the ontological notion of “sensory activity” or “objective activity” (i.e., practice), the core of which rests in piercing and overturning the fundamental framework of contemporary metaphysics—“the immanence of consciousness.” It is this ontological revolution which reveals the camouflage of the supersensory world’s mythology (i.e., ideology) and which simultaneously establishes a solid foundation for the critical analysis of the latter. Marx’s “science of history” is based on this foundation and develops from it.     

Self-Perceived Competence as a Mediator Between Maternal Feedback and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescents

Self-report, other-report, clinical interview, and behavioral observations of evaluative maternal feedback (e.g., positive feedback, criticism), adolescent depressive symptoms, and self-perceived competence were obtained from 72 adolescents and their mothers. Most path analyses supported the hypothesis that adolescent self-perceived competence completely mediates the relation between negative maternal feedback and adolescent depressive symptoms, even after controlling for prior levels of depression. Consistent with Cole's competency-based model of depression (D. A. Cole, 1990), these results suggest that high levels of negative maternal feedback (coupled with low levels of positive feedback) are associated with adolescent negative self-perceptions, which in turn place adolescents at risk for depressive symptoms.     

Parent-Child Interactions in Relation to Critical and Emotionally Overinvolved Expressed Emotion (EE): Is EE a Proxy for Behavior?

Expressed emotion measures, encompassing dimensions of criticism (CRIT), and emotional overinvolvement (EOI) are increasingly being used to assess the parent-child relationship in child clinical populations, despite the lack of studies assessing their validity. We examined the correspondence between CRIT, EOI, and parent-child interactions as observed by neutral coders in a sample of 252 clinic-referred children and adolescents, ages 7-17 years. We found support for the validity of the CRIT code, with high critical parents showing more antagonism, negativity, disgust, harshness, and less responsiveness, compared to parents who scored in the low or borderline ranges. In contrast, none of the observed behaviors were found to correspond with parental EOI, suggesting either that this construct lacks validity with juvenile samples or that behaviors that correspond to EOI are difficult to observe. We conclude that high parental CRIT can be used as an index of problematic parent-child interactions.     

Relative Effects of Three Knowledge of Results Treatments on Coincidence-Anticipation Performance

The relative effects of three knowledge of results (KR) treatments on performance of a complex coincidence-anticipation task requiring speed and accuracy were studied. Male volunteers (n=75) were assigned to one of three treatments: no KR, quantitative KR, or qualitative KR. No significant differences in the performance of treatment groups were found. It was suggested that the task itself may have provided enough information for fairly accurate performance.     

One Play Cannot be Known to Win or Lose a Game: a Fallibilist Account of Game

This paper discusses what it means to be a good sport. It offers an account of sportsmanship rooted in the proper understanding of the limited role each participant plays during a specific sporting contest. It aims at showing that, from a fallibilist perspective, although it may perhaps be logically possible for a single play to win or lose a sporting event, it makes epistemologically no sense to single out a particular game action, moment or decision as the crucial one which determined victory or defeat. Our view, we shall argue, is consistent with the empirical nature of sporting activities. Since there can be no such a thing as a perfect game, and because no single known human mind is in a position to know with any degree of certainty how each act of game-playing relates to the outcome of a whole game, it makes almost no sense to assign whole-game success or failure to single acts of brilliance or failure.     

Towards decompartmentalization

Education can only be effective if interdisciplinary and decompartmentalized. The young must have a scientific culture if they are to adapt to the contemporary world and to its evolution. Teaching science must be a way of training the mind to reasoning, to method, to discernment. Science nevertheless remains but a means, an aid for decision; scientific truth must be made relative by resting upon the history of science.