Murray Sidman and Patient H. M.: The role of behavior analysis in the emergence of collaborative modern neuroscience

The intersection of the lives of 2 essential individuals in science, behavior analyst Murray Sidman (1923-2019), and Henry G. Molaison also known as Patient H.M. (1926-2008), warrants examination as it highlights the role of behavior analysis and other disciplines in the emergence of modern neuroscience and a collaborative approach to science. This paper describes the historical context and content of two publications by Sidman in which Molaison served as a research participant. The goal of the present paper is to emphasize this little-known facet of Sidman's rich career and to highlight the pioneering role of behavior analysis, and particularly the work of Murray Sidman, in the emergence of collaborative modern neuroscience.     

Modern Settlements in Special Needs Education: Segregated Versus Inclusive Education

In the history of special needs education, the distinction between human nature and its social environment has been a controversial matter. The controversy regards whether special needs are primarily caused by the child's psycho-medical body or by cultural concepts of normality and deviance. Settlements of this controversy govern whether the pupil or the educational institution becomes the main point of intervention. In Denmark, the particularities of settlements can be identified by juxtaposing the introduction of intelligence testing in the 1930s with the contemporary policy agenda of inclusion. With intelligence testing, special needs education was to service children whose needs were seen as part of their human nature. Inclusion, in turn, assumes special needs to be stigmatizing cultural labels that need to be abandoned by changing school cultures. Drawing on actor-network theory we can approach such settlements as a product of a modern division between human nature and social environment. Although both these settlements depend on a distinction between human nature and social environment, this distinction generates practical tensions for each settlement.     

Mechanism and materialism in early modern German philosophy

ABSTRACT

The paper focuses on the gradual separation between materialism and mechanism in early modern German philosophy. In Germany the distinction between the two concepts, originally introduced by Leibniz, was definitively stated by Wolff who was the first to provide a definition of the new philosophical term Materialismus, and of the related philosophical sect. In the first part I describe the initial identification of mechanism and materialism in German philosophy between the last decades of the seventeenth century and 1720. Mechanism is here mostly conceived within a monistic metaphysics of body, which refers mainly to Hobbes and to some (unfaithful) interpretations of Spinoza’s pantheism. This tight connection between a mechanical explanation of nature and the Deus sive natura issue leads to a negative judgement on mechanism and its materialistic implications, both charged with a form of more or less explicit atheism. In the second part I describe the gradual emancipation in Germany of mechanism from materialism according to the distinction between a ‘good’ and a ‘bad’ materialism. In the third and final part, I sketch the first appearances of the entry ‘materialism’ in the philosophical encyclopaedias of early modern Germany, pointing out the by-then clear distinction between this metaphysical issue and the mechanical claim.     

现代舞训练与弦乐训练对脑灰质体积的差异影响

目前舞蹈与音乐两种训练对脑灰质结构影响的差异尚不明确。本研究利用基于体素的形态学分析方法(voxel-based morphometry, VBM), 比较现代舞训练被试、弦乐训练被试与对照组被试的脑结构磁共振数据。结果表明现代舞训练组在涉及感觉运动控制的皮层、皮层下结构及小脑多个区域出现灰质体积的显著增加与减少; 弦乐训练组则在与音乐训练直接相关的听-动-读皮层出现灰质体积的显著增加。这一发现提示现代舞训练可能系统性地影响广泛脑区的灰质结构, 弦乐训练可能局部地改变了具体功能脑区的灰质结构, 两种训练对脑灰质结构的影响模式存在差异。     

Tragic Dilemmas and the Priority of the Moral

My purpose in this paper is to argue that we are not vulnerableto inescapable wrongdoing occasioned by tragic dilemmas. I directmy argument to those who are most inclined to accept tragicdilemmas: those of broadly Nietzschean inclination who reject``modern moral philosophy' in favor of the ethical ideas of theclassical Greeks. Two important features of their project are todeny the usefulness of the ``moral/nonmoral distinction,' and todeny that what are usually classified as moral reasons always oreven characteristically ``trump' nonmoral reasons in anadmirable agent's deliberations.I show critics of modern moral philosophy such as BernardWilliams that their acceptance of tragic dilemmas underminestheir project of denying the moral/nonmoral distinction and thepriority of moral reasons. The possibility of tragic dilemmasrequires an account of practical deliberation in which moralreasons appear as already in-force obligations, with blame andguilt ready to be invoked, while nonmoral reasons appear as merereasons. This makes moral reasons importantly different fromnonmoral reasons in how they achieve their deliberative weight,and also makes them characteristically weightier. Thus,accommodating tragic dilemmas reinforces the moral/nonmoraldistinction and the priority of moral reasons, the very thingsthese critics want to deny. By accepting the possibility oftragic dilemmas, these critics are undermining their own project.The standard normative theories are dead set against tragicdilemmas, and the critics of modern moral philosophy shouldreject tragic dilemmas for the good of their project. Thus we allshould reject tragic dilemmas.     

现代医学模式与口腔修复设计

现代医学模式要求口腔修复在恢复患者口腔正常生理功能的基础上 ,还要满足患者心理的需要。口腔修复设计在口腔修复过程中起着至关重要的作用。口腔修复医生必须综合考虑口腔修复设计的各个要素 ,包括患者因素、医疗机构因素、医务人员因素 ,并正确处理这些要素之间的关系 ,才能为患者做出修复体的最佳设计     

中国化:我国心理学的挑战与机遇

现代主流心理学的源头主要是西方传统文化背景下的近代科学 ,其学科危机亦主要是由于盲目借鉴西方近代科学的人性观以及方法论所致。我国心理学要想摆脱这样的困境 ,就必须加强文化分析的方法 ,从中国传统文化中吸取有价值的思想 ,开辟一条新的发展道路 ,即心理学的中国化之路。这样 ,我国的心理学便能在东西方两大文化的浇灌下健康发展     

后现代心理学与现代心理学的对话

当现代心理学正身处众多困境时,后现代心理学者们从新的视角和观点对其展开了攻势,因此在这近十多年里,西方心理学界充满了激烈辩论的声音。文章总结了西方心理学界围绕着后现代心理学这个话题展开的各种对话,包括心理学的认识论、研究性质、研究方法以及后现代心理学的价值等各个方面的讨论。作者在梳理这些对话的同时,对二者的观点进行了论述,其目的是为了更加深入地了解后现代心理学和现代心理学的理论建构,从而推进心理学科的深入研究。     

Trouble with Korean Confucianism: Scholar-Official Between Ideal and Reality

This essay attempts a philosophical reflection of the Confucian ideal of “scholar-official” in Joseon Korea’s neo-Confucian context. It explores why this noble ideal of a Confucian public being had to suffer many moral-political problems in reality. It argues first that because the institution of Confucian scholar-official was actually a modus-operandi compromise between Confucianism and Legalism, the Confucian scholar-officials were torn between their ethical commitment to Confucianism and their political commitment to the state; and second, that because the Cheng-Zhu neo-Confucianism vigorously imported and indigenized by Joseon Koreans exalted the family over the state, Joseon neo-Confucian scholar-officials were torn between two competing moral obligations, filiality and loyalty. The essay concludes by discussing whether, given the problems with which the ideal of the Confucian scholar-official was frequently entangled, liberal individualism should be pursued as its normative alternative.     

道学话语的形成、发展与转折——以宋代"定性说"的展开为中心

The formation of the discourse of Neo-Confucianism¹ in the Song period was a result of the interactions between many social and cultural trends. In the development of the Neo-Confucian discourse, the Cheng brothers (Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi) played key roles with their charismatic thoughts and impelling personalities, while Zhu Xi pushed Neo-Confucian thought and discourse to a pinnacle with his broad knowledge and precise reasoning. In the warm discussions and debates between different schools and thoughts, the Neo-Confucian discourse proceeded towards completion and perfection, and evolved as contemporary topics and thinking modes changed. The essay argues that “ding xing 定性 (stilling the nature)” was an important Neo-Confucian topic during the Song period. The doctrine of “stilling the nature” involves much central Neo-Confucian discourse such as the definition of xing 性 (human nature), the interior and exterior aspects of human nature, nature and qing 情 (feelings, sentiments), nature and xin 心 (mind, heart), nature and ren 仁 (benevolence, humanity, humaneness) and yi 义 (righteousness), nature and shi 事 (affair) or wu 物 (thing, object), the practice of preservation and cultivation, etc. Therefore, an examination of the formation, development and evolution of Neo-Confucianism is of great importance to the study of its early history. __________ Translated by Liu Huawei from Zhexue yanjiu 哲学研究 (Philosophical Researches), 2008, (1): 47–55