Individualization,singularization and e-ducation (between indifference and responsibility)

It is commonly supposed that acting and judging ought to rest on a community-wide, binding definition of what is right and respectable, that is, a substantial consensus. Such consensus is thought possible only when we engage shared values and criteria, when we use knowledge and abilities appropriated through education. On this view, education deals with the reproduction of consensus and, hence, with the passing on of traditions and norms. On my view, we need to question the framework in which the debate over social erosion takes place. I take a cue from remarks of Hannah Arendt and question the presupposition that acting and judging in a right way requires both common values and the appropriation of what we call knowledge of criteria and principles. I do not suggest that knowledge has nothing to do with acting and judging. Rather, I wish to draw attention to (Arendt's concept of) thinking as a condition for acting and judging. Here, thinking has nothing to do with knowledge or with appropriation. Rather, it has to do with living-together with somebody. Educa-tion for thinking is, then, a public thinking which leads out of the serf and into communal responsibility. On this treatment, the educator is to be a faithful guardian of this calling out into responsibility.     

The anthropological tradition in the philosophy of medicine

The tradition of anthropological medicine in philosophy of medicine is analyzed in relation to the earlier interest in epistemological issues in medicine around the turn of the century as well as to the current interest in medical ethics. It is argued that there is a continuity between epistemological, anthropological and ethical approaches in philosophy of medicine. Three basic ideas of anthropologically-oriented medicine are discussed: the rejection of Cartesian dualism, the notion of medicine as science of the human person, and the necessity of a comprehensive understanding of disease. Next, it is discussed why the anthropological movement has been superseded by the increasing interest in medical ethics. It is concluded that the present-day moral issues cannot be interpreted and resolved without clarification of the underlying anthropological images.     

MISCONCEPTIONS OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Abstract. Scholars in religious studies, or "religionists," often mischaracterize the social-scientific study of religion. They assume that a social-scientific analysis of the origin, function, meaning, or truth of religion either opposes or disregards the believer's analysis, which religionists profess to present and defend. I do not argue that the social sciences analyze religion from the believer's point of view. I argue instead that a social scientific analysis is more akin and germane to the believer's point of view than religionists assume. I single out seven mischaracterizations of the social sciences typically held by religionists.     

SCIENTISM, INTERPRETATION, AND CRITICISM

Abstract. What is the relationship between natural science, social science, and religion? The dominant paradigm in contemporary social science is scientism, the attempt to apply the methods of natural science to the study of society. However, scientism is problematic: it rests on a conception of natural science that cannot be sustained. Natural scientific understanding emerges from an instrumental and objectifying relation to the world; it is oriented toward control and manipulation of the physical world. Social-scientific understanding, by contrast, must begin with a practical and meaningful relation to the world: it is oriented toward the mediation of values and objective possibilities in the social world. Social science is therefore a form of practical reason based on objective claims. But while social-scientific understanding starts with interpretation, its possibilities by no means end there. In particular, by developing abstract and objectified models of society as a system, social science opens existing social organization to critical reflection. Religion, by contrast, is a form of speculative reason about ultimate values, based on subjective claims of religious experience. Social science nevertheless shares with religion an orientation toward values and concern with the “good life.”     

Hoisted by their own petards: Philosophical positions that self-destruct

Philosophers have not resisted temptation to transgress against the logic of their own conceptual structures. Self-undermining position-taking is an occupational hazard. Philosophy stands in need of conceptual therapy.The author describes three conceptions of philosophy: the narcissistic, disputatious, and therapeutic. (i) Narcissistic philosophy is hermetic, believing itself to contain all evidence that can possibly be relevant to it. Philosophy undertaken in this spirit has led to defensive, monadically isolated positions. (ii) Disputatious philosophies are fundamentally question-begging, animated by assumptions that philosophical adversaries reject. (iii) The intention of therapeutic philosophy is to study philosophical positions from the standpoint of their internal consistency, or lack of it. In particular, its interest is in positions that either compel assent, because they cannot be rejected without self-referential inconsistency, or self-destruct because self-referential inconsistency cannot be avoided. The article's focus is on the latter. Several examples of self-undermining positions are drawn from the history of philosophy, exemplifying two main varieties of self-referential inconsistency: pragmatical and projective.     

人际交往能力与生命意义的关系:孤独感和年级的作用

基于存在主义心理学理论,本研究采用人际交往能力问卷、孤独感量表和生命意义量表对福建省三所大学的1476名大一和大二学生进行调查,考察人际交往能力与生命意义的关系,以及孤独感的中介作用和年级的调节作用。结果表明：（1）交往能力和孤独感存在显著的性别差异。男生的交往能力显著高于女生,孤独感显著低于女生;（2）交往能力与孤独感呈显著负相关,与拥有意义和追寻意义均呈显著正相关,而孤独感与它们均呈显著负相关;（3）孤独感在交往能力与拥有生命意义之间的中介作用受到年级的调节。与大二学生相比,大一新生孤独感的中介效应更大。研究结果在一定程度上揭示了交往能力对生命意义的作用过程,为针对性提升大学新生生命意义提供方向指导和实证依据。     

‘Thank God I’m not a Jungian’

This article focuses less on the content of Jung's ideas than on ways in which they act as both invitation and challenge to engage with psyche. It explores the mythic framework of Jung's approach and how this can enable individuals to live in psychological and mundane worlds in which there can be no final certainties. It elaborates three particular aspects of Jung's thinking that I have found personally valuable: his generosity of vision, his insistence that individuals engage for and with themselves rather than relying on someone else's ideas, and his ponderings on the relationship between the individual and the collective. All three aspects seem to be important elements of the work of individuation.     

Effects of achievement contexts on the meaning structure of emotion words

Little is known about the impact of context on the meaning of emotion words. In the present study, we used a semantic profiling instrument (GRID) to investigate features representing five emotion components (appraisal, bodily reaction, expression, action tendencies, and feeling) of 11 emotion words in situational contexts involving success or failure. We compared these to the data from an earlier study in which participants evaluated the typicality of features out of context. Profile analyses identified features for which typicality changed as a function of context for all emotion words, except contentment, with appraisal features being most frequently affected. Those context effects occurred for both hypothesised basic and non-basic emotion words. Moreover, both data sets revealed a four-dimensional structure. The four dimensions were largely similar (valence, power, arousal, and novelty). The results suggest that context may not change the underlying dimensionality but affects facets of the meaning of emotion words.     

年轻男同性恋者自我概念清晰性与生命意义感的关系及作用机制

通过网络抽样法对405名年轻男同性恋者进行问卷调查,考察年轻男同性恋者自我概念清晰性与生命意义感的关系,并探讨内化同性恋嫌恶和应对自我效能感在其间的作用机制。结果表明：（1）年轻男同性恋者自我概念清晰性与生命意义感呈显著正相关。（2）内化同性恋嫌恶、应对自我效能感在自我概念清晰性与生命意义感间起链式中介作用。（3）应对自我效能感在自我概念清晰性与生命意义感间起中介作用。     

Unconscious structural knowledge of form-meaning connections

We investigated the implicit learning of a linguistically relevant variable (animacy) in a natural language context (namely, the relation of forms of determiners to semantics). Trial by trial subjective measures indicated that exposure to a form–animacy regularity led to unconscious knowledge of that regularity. Under the same conditions, people did not learn about another form–meaning regularity when a linguistically arbitrary variable was used instead of animacy (size relative to a dog). Implicit learning is constrained to acquire unconscious knowledge about features with high prior probabilities of being relevant in that domain.