当代生态危机的认识论根源及出路

对自然的数学化必然导致人类对自然的对象化思维,从而把自然当作可以加以征服和驾驭的对象物;近代以来科学技术的成功运用更是助长了人类对自然的狂妄,误认为以人类有限的智慧能认识自然的无限奥秘。这是造成当代全球性生态危机的认识论根源。因此,为了走出当代生态危机,人类必须深刻认识到自己认识的有限性,找回“有学识的无知”,从而对无限的终极实在保持应有的敬畏之感。     

Comparative Religious Ethics Among the Ruins

This is a response to the recent essay by Elizabeth M. Bucar and Aaron Stalnaker on “Comparative Religious Ethics as a Field of Study.” I clarify my earlier positions on method and virtue in comparative religious ethics and try to respond to some of the issues that Bucar and Stalnaker raise in regard to my arguments specifically and the field more generally. I argue that while we need not measure the practical impact of scholarly work in comparative religious ethics purely in terms of political or social action, I nevertheless worry that defining the goals of comparative inquiry in terms of the production of bewilderment, intellectual vertigo, or skeptical questions can lead to impressionistic or therapeutic methodological norms. In a similar vein, I refine my earlier position on externalism that acknowledges the impossibility of a purely externalist approach but also notes the desirability of coming to understand others “in their own terms” prior to engaging in the process of transmutation. I also question Bucar and Stalnaker's pessimism about the potential of producing “rigorously convincing ethical theory from the lived experience of regular folk,” suggesting that perhaps we are working with different conceptions of the sociology of knowledge. Finally, I consider whether we are currently in the midst of an epistemological crisis and conclude with some reflections on the rationality of the craft of comparative religious ethics.     

Robustness of the cognitive gains in 7-month-old bilingual infants: A close multi-center replication of Kovács and Mehler (2009)

We present an exact replication of Experiment 2 from Kovács and Mehler's 2009 study, which showed that 7-month-old infants who are raised bilingually exhibit a cognitive advantage. In the experiment, a sound cue, following an AAB or ABB pattern, predicted the appearance of a visual stimulus on the screen. The stimulus appeared on one side of the screen for nine trials and then switched to the other side. In the original experiment, both mono- and bilingual infants anticipated where the visual stimulus would appear during pre-switch trials. However, during post-switch trials, only bilingual children anticipated that the stimulus would appear on the other side of the screen. The authors took this as evidence of a cognitive advantage. Using the exact same materials in combination with novel analysis techniques (Bayesian analyses, mixed effects modeling and cluster based permutation analyses), we assessed the robustness of these findings in four babylabs (N = 98). Our results did not replicate the original findings: although anticipatory looks increased slightly during post-switch trials for both groups, bilingual infants were not better switchers than monolingual infants. After the original experiment, we presented additional trials to examine whether infants associated sound patterns with cued locations, for which we did not find any evidence either. The results highlight the importance of multicenter replications and more fine-grained statistical analyses to better understand child development.

Highlights

• We carried out an exact replication across four baby labs of the high-impact study by Kovács and Mehler (2009).
• We did not replicate the findings of the original study, calling into question the robustness of the claim that bilingual infants have enhanced cognitive abilities.
• After the original experiment, we presented additional trials to examine whether infants correctly associated sound patterns with cued locations, for which we did not find any evidence.
• The use of novel analysis techniques (Bayesian analyses, mixed effects modeling and cluster based permutation analyses) allowed us to draw better-informed conclusions.

     

The corona crisis unmasks prevailing social ideologies

This essay contrasts two visions of selfhood: the buffered, autonomous self, and the flexible, resonant self. The autonomous self, while robustly assertive and active, seeks to insulate itself from threats, thereby robbing it of vital connections to other selves and to nature. The resonant self, in contrast, risks more by standing in fluid relationships of resonance and dissonance with its social and natural environments. While the two stand in tension, a baptismal theology entails both elements of a sheltered self and a resonant self that remains flexible and responsive to the ups and downs of human experience. Conversely, even a secular-minded person will have access to important zones of resonance.     

Implementation of a brief early intervention in times of socio-economic crisis: effects on parental stress

The paper investigates the effect of brief early intervention on parental stress in the midst of a socio-economic crisis, such as the one that struck Greece in the past decade. During this period, a psychoanalytically oriented prevention programme with parents and their infants/young children, named ‘Early Intervention Programme’, was designed and implemented in the Department of Child Psychiatry at ‘Aghia Sophia’ Children’s Hospital in Athens, Greece. The families that attended the programme were asked to participate in a research study regarding its effectiveness; data were collected from 102 mothers and 73 fathers. This paper presents the statistical findings regarding parental stress, mainly because it is a factor that has systematically been shown to negatively influence several aspects of a child’s development, but also because our hypothesis was that parental stress would be influenced by the negative external conditions. The results showed that both mothers’ and fathers’ stress levels were high before their participation to the programme (with fathers’ Total Stress scores falling within the clinical range), while they decreased to a statistically significant level after the completion of the programme. These findings are discussed in conjunction with some illustrative clinical material. Based on these, it is argued that the implementation of a psychoanalytically oriented brief early intervention programme with parents and infants/young children can alleviate parental stress, and thus support the parental capacity to efficiently deal with the high demands of early development, even in periods of economic crisis where the tensions for young parents are significant and the available mental health resources are scarce.     

Ad hominem rhetoric in scientific psychology

Ad hominem discourse is largely prohibited in scientific journals. Historically, this prohibition restricted the dissemination of ad hominem discussion, but during the last decade, blogs and social media platforms became popular among researchers. With the use of social media now entrenched among researchers, there are important questions about the role of ad hominems. Ad hominems and other forms of strong criticism became particularly evident in online discussions associated with the recent replication crisis in psychology. Here, these discussions, and a few incidences of ad hominems in journal articles, are situated in the broader history of science. It is argued that explicit codes of conduct should be considered to curb certain kinds of ad hominem comments in certain fora, but that some ad hominem discussions have an important role to play in a healthier science.