A Jewish Modified Divine Command Theory

We claim that divine command metaethicists have not thought through the nature of the expression of divine love with sufficient rigor. We argue, against prior divine command theories, that the radical difference between God and the natural world means that grounding divine command in divine love can only ground a formal claim of the divine on the human; recipients of revelation must construct particular commands out of this formal claim. While some metaethicists might respond to us by claiming that this account leads to an inability to judge between better and worse constructions of the commanded life, we propose that an analysis of the human response to divine love—theological eros—can be the basis for an articulation of a philosophical theology (in our case, negative theology) that can guide the religious believer toward generating particular principles for ethical action that are grounded in an account of divine action. By linking divine command to imitatio Dei, the believer can have confidence that her imitative acts of God are not inaccurate constructions of the commanded life.     

Representante-representativo,représentant-représentation,ideational representative: Which one is a Freudian concept? On the translation of Vorstellungsrepräsentanz in Spanish,French and English1

The Freudian expression Vorstellungsrepräsentanz ( Freud, 1915b, 1915c ), which is rendered in the Standard Edition as ideational representative, is commonly translated in Spanish as representante-representativo and in French as représentant-représentation, among other renderings. An interdisciplinary conceptual inquiry, which applies linguistic semantics to the evaluation of the available Spanish and French renderings, concludes that this compound expression should be translated in these languages as representante ideativo and représentant idéatif, respectively, renderings which happen to correspond to Strachey’s translation into English in the SE. In contrast to most Spanish and French translations, this proposal conforms to the semantic principle of compositionality. On the one hand, it provides a suitable translation of the two parts of the compound. Thus it renders Vorstellung as idea, with the classical meaning of image or mental representation, which can be traced back to Hume’s empiricist philosophy, and it renders Repräsentanz as representative, with the meaning of delegate. On the other hand, its linguistic form preserves the attributive meaning relationship which exists between both concepts in the original German expression. Against the background of these semantic considerations, a theoretical question concerning Freudian metapsychology is discussed: the drive has a psychic representative, but is there a (mental) representation of the drive?     

PROCESS ECOLOGY: STEPPING STONES TO BIOSEMIOSIS

Many in science are disposed not to take biosemiotics seriously, dismissing it as too anthropomorphic. Furthermore, biosemiotic apologetics are cast in top‐down fashion, thereby adding to widespread skepticism. An effective response might be to approach biosemiotics from the bottom up, but the foundational assumptions that support Enlightenment science make that avenue impossible. Considerations from ecosystem studies reveal, however, that those conventional assumptions, although once possessing great utilitarian value, have come to impede deeper understanding of living systems because they implicitly depict the evolution of the universe backward. Ecological dynamics suggests instead a smaller set of countervailing postulates that allows evolution to play forward and sets the stage for tripartite causalities, signs, and interpreters—the key elements of biosemiosis—to emerge naturally out of the interaction of chance with configurations of autocatalytic processes. Biosemiosis thereby appears as a fully legitimate outgrowth of the new metaphysic and shows promise for becoming the supervenient focus of a deeper perspective on the phenomenon of life.     

A case study investigating the role of the anterior temporal lobes in general semantics and semantics specific to persons,emotions and social conceptual knowledge

The role of the anterior temporal lobes (ATLs) in semantic representation remains still much debated. Long thought to support domain-general semantic processing, recent accounts have alternatively suggested that they may be preferentially involved in the processing of person-related semantic knowledge. Several studies have supported such a distinction, but few have either examined both types of semantic processing together, or considered the role of potentially important confounding variables. Here, we address these issues by investigating both domain-general and person-specific semantic processing in a patient with focal ATL damage. The patient presents with dense anterograde and retrograde amnesia. Performance was impaired on tests of general semantic knowledge, but most striking deficits were for person-related semantics, including recognition and identification, knowledge of emotions and social conceptual knowledge. This unique case provides compelling evidence that, in addition to the role in general semantic knowledge, the ATLs are critical for person-related semantics.     

Attentional disengagement from negative natural sounds for high-anxious individuals

Background and objectives: Previous studies have not consistently concluded whether high-anxious persons exhibit attentional bias towards negative natural auditory stimuli. The present study explores whether auditory negative stimuli could induce attentional bias to negative sounds in real life and investigates the exact nature of these biases using an emotional spatial cueing task.

Design: Experimental study with a mixed factorial design.

Method: We created two groups according to the state-trait anxiety scale, namely high and low trait anxiety. Participants (N?=?68 undergraduate students) were required to respond to an auditory target after receiving a negative (aversive sounds from natural life) or neutral auditory stimuli.

Results: A 2 (Validity: valid/invalid)?×?2 (Cue Valence: negative/neutral)?×?2 (Anxiety Group: LA/HA) repeated-measures ANOVA on reaction times revealed that participants with high trait anxiety exhibited slower reaction times in invalid trials following negative cues than following neutral cues. Higher levels of trait anxiety were associated with more difficult attentional disengagement from negative auditory information.

Conclusions: The results demonstrate that impaired attentional disengagement was one of the mechanisms by which high-anxious participants exhibited auditory attentional bias to natural negative information.     

Butler Interprets Aquinas

This essay examines whether the Catholic magisterium's use of Aquinas to condemn homosexual acts is actually Thomistic. Rather than being aligned with the magisterium, Aquinas advances a moral epistemology better illuminated by the work of philosopher Judith Butler. Deploying Butler as a means of immanent critique, I show how magisterial attempts to argue against lesbian and gay sex fail on their own terms. Reading Aquinas alongside Butler shows us why we need not choose between fidelity to Thomistic natural law and affirmation of lesbians and gays.     

PALEY'S iPOD: THE COGNITIVE BASIS OF THE DESIGN ARGUMENT WITHIN NATURAL THEOLOGY

The argument from design stands as one of the most intuitively compelling arguments for the existence of a divine Creator. Yet, for many scientists and philosophers, Hume's critique and Darwin's theory of natural selection have definitely undermined the idea that we can draw any analogy from design in artifacts to design in nature. Here, we examine empirical studies from developmental and experimental psychology to investigate the cognitive basis of the design argument. From this it becomes clear that humans spontaneously discern purpose in nature. When constructed theologically and philosophically correctly, the design argument is not presented as conclusive evidence for God's existence but rather as an abductive, probabilistic argument. We examine the cognitive basis of probabilistic judgments in relationship to natural theology. Placing emphasis on how people assess improbable events, we clarify the intuitive appeal of Paley's watch analogy. We conclude that the reason why some scientists find the design argument compelling and others do not lies not in any intrinsic differences in assessing design in nature but rather in the prior probability they place on complexity being produced by chance events or by a Creator. This difference provides atheists and theists with a rational basis for disagreement.