Animals,humans and x-men: Human uniqueness and the meaning of personhood

Research in animal intelligence suggests to some that humans are different only in degree from animals, possibly eroding the traditional theological doctrine of the imago dei. In this paper, several critical boundary areas between humans and animals are examined for scientific evidence about human distinctiveness. These include communication and language capacity, cultural creativity, spirituality, and ethical capacity. Chimpanzee language studies and research in Neanderthal mentality are examined as the closest known natural approximations to human communication and intelligence. The implications of the findings are explored in relation to human culture, ethics, and spirituality in a context consistent with evolutionary continuity. Aspects of human uniqueness are apparent, can be fruitfully encompassed in the idea of personhood, and are coherent with Trinitarian theology's anthropological focus.     

Split Self Affairs and Their Treatment

SUMMARY

The Split Self Affair is a long-term serious relationship. The split being played out in the affair reflects an internal split between doing things “right” and the emotional self. Treatment for those involved centers on understanding the origins of the internal split and on reclaiming the neglected emotional self. Long term individual therapy is the treatment of choice, augmented by other modalities.     

好人也会做坏事:有限道德视角下的不道德行为

有限道德是指个体在道德判断中固有的局限性,表现在人们外在行为与内在道德观的悖离,它导致无意识的道德偏差.有限道德弥补了理性道德模型在不道德行为解释力上的缺陷.该视角下的不道德行为主要包括:内隐偏见、内群体互惠、沽名钓誉、利益冲突和漠视未来.关于有限道德存有4种理论解释:自利性动机、双重自我、道德褪色和框架效应.未来有关道德决策和不道德行为的研究,需要延伸到有限理性与无意识层面.     

Individual differences in conditional reasoning: A dual-process account

Dual-process theories of conditional reasoning predict that relationships among four basic logical forms, and to intellectual ability and thinking predictions, are most evident when conflict arises between experiential and analytic processing (e.g., Stanovich & West, ). To test these predictions, 210 undergraduates were presented with conditionals for which the consequents were either weakly or strongly associated with alternative antecedents (i.e., WA and SA problems, respectively). Consistent with predictions, modus ponens inferences were not related to inferences on the uncertain forms (affirmation of the consequent, denial of the antecedent). On WA problems, modus tollens, affirmation of the consequent, and denial of the antecedent were related to each other and to verbal ability. Modus ponens was linked to verbal ability only when disabling conditions were activated. In accord with the predictions of Stanovich and West (), on most problems, thinking dispositions predicted variance in inferences independently from verbal ability. We argue that a largely automatic experiential processing system governs performance on modus ponens, unless disablers are activated. Consciously controlled analytic processing predominates on the uncertain forms and, under some conditions, on modus tollens.     

Fast and frugal versus regression models of human judgement

Following Brunswik (1952), social judgement theorists have long relied on regression models to describe both an individual's judgements and the environment about which such judgements are made. However, social judgement theory is not synonymous with these compensatory, static, structural models. We compared the characterisations of physicians' judgements using a regression model with that of a non-compensatory process model (called fast and frugal). We found that both models fit the data equally well. Both models suggest that physicians use few cues, that they disagree among themselves, and that their stated cue use is discrepant with the models' stated cue use. However, the fast and frugal model is easier to convey to physicians and is also more psychologically plausible. Implications for how social judgement theorists conceptualise the process of vicarious functioning are discussed.     

Temporal information and children's and adults' causal inferences

Three experiments examined whether children and adults would use temporal information as a cue to the causal structure of a three-variable system, and also whether their judgements about the effects of interventions on the system would be affected by the temporal properties of the event sequence. Participants were shown a system in which two events B and C occurred either simultaneously (synchronous condition) or in a temporal sequence (sequential condition) following an initial event A. The causal judgements of adults and 6–7-year-olds differed between the conditions, but this was not the case for 4-year-olds' judgements. However, unlike those of adults, 6–7-year-olds' intervention judgements were not affected by condition, and causal and intervention judgements were not reliably consistent in this age group. The findings support the claim that temporal information provides an important cue to causal structure, at least in older children. However, they raise important issues about the relationship between causal and intervention judgements.     

The Judaic foundations of rational–emotive behavioural therapy

This paper will explore the connections between rabbinical Judaism, rational–emotive behavioural therapy (REBT), and related forms of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). Seven main themes are identified. Both the Judaic tradition and REBT/CBT emphasised that honest and accurate self-understanding are the keys to self-improvement; that the intellect is capable of directing the emotional faculties; that an individual's overt behaviours and actions can influence his thoughts and emotions; that one should cultivate self-sufficiency and acceptance of one's circumstances; that all individuals have intrinsic and unalienable value as human beings; that happiness and unhappiness are internally caused; and finally, that immediate gratification is ultimately not reliable a source of self-fulfilment.     

Reasons of love: an introduction

One of the main reasons for philosophers to have embraced Humean constructivism rather than Kantian constructivism is a negative one: they believe that in the end Kantian constructivism is an unstable position. Their idea is that the Kantian constructivist can either choose to hold on to the idea of categorical reasons for action but in that case she has to be prepared to commit to (robust) moral realism (which both Humean and Kantian constructivists reject) or alternatively, she might reject (robust) moral realism but in that case she has to give up on the idea of categoricity. The aim of this paper is to defend Kantian constructivism against Humean constructivism and more specifically against recent objections raised by Sharon Street. I will do so by arguing that Kantian constructivism follows from formal, normative commitments that pertain to instrumental reasoning that Humean constructivists like Sharon Street themselves accept. More specifically I will argue that categorical reasons for action follow from applying the principle of instrumental rationality to the first-person perspective of an agent, provided that there are certain necessary means for action in general. From this follows, I will argue, that Humean constructivists should either become Kantian constructivists or that they have to become sceptics about normativity.     

Educated intuitions. Automaticity and rationality in moral judgement

Moral judgements are based on automatic processes. Moral judgements are based on reason. In this paper, I argue that both of these claims are true, and show how they can be reconciled. Neither the automaticity of moral judgement nor the post hoc nature of conscious moral reasoning pose a threat to rationalist models of moral cognition. The relation moral reasoning bears to our moral judgements is not primarily mediated by episodes of conscious reasoning, but by the acquisition, formation and maintenance – in short: education – of our moral intuitions.     

几何图形类比推理的ERP研究

该研究以几何图形作为实验材料,测定14名硕士研究生在完成两种类比推理任务（大小变化和颜色变化）和其基线任务时的事件相关电位（ERP）,探讨类比推理过程的脑内时程动态变化。研究发现,两种推理任务所诱发的波形基本一致,而推理任务与其基线任务之间的ERP波形存在显著差异,两种基线任务之间的ERP波形也存在显著差异;类比推理的加工过程是有阶段性的,即编码潍断、映射、得出结论,研究结果进一步支持了Sternberg的成分理论;推断和映射这两个类比推理所特有的加工阶段都有其对应的脑机制,图式推断阶段主要激活的是前额皮层和双侧的顶叶皮层,类比映射和调整阶段主要激活的是左半球的颞叶、额叶和中央顶。