Tractarian objects and logical categories

It has been much debated whether Tractarian objects are what Russell would have called particulars or whether they include also properties and relations. This paper claims that the debate is misguided: there is no logical category such that Wittgenstein intended the reader of the Tractatus to understand his objects either as providing examples of or as not providing examples of that category. This is not to say that Wittgenstein set himself against the very idea of a logical category: quite the contrary. However, where Russell presents his logical variety of particulars and the various types of universal, and Frege presents his of objects and the various types of function, Wittgenstein denies the propriety of such a priori expositions. Wittgenstein envisages a variety of logical types of entity but insists that the nature of these types is something to be discovered only through analysis. This research was conducted whilst holding a Jacobsen Research Fellowship at the University of London.     

CRITICAL REMARKS ON THE COGNITIVE SCIENCE OF RELIGION

Cognitive explanations of religious beliefs propose an evolutionary past in which humans had to possess certain cognitive adaptations to survive. The aim of this article is to show that some cognitive accounts may overvalue the putative role of cognition. One such cognitive idea is an assumption that cognition has been evolutionarily shaped only, or most importantly, in the Pleistocene. This idea seems common among writers on the cognitive science of religion (CSR), but is mistaken. Cognition has been shaped throughout evolution. Another idea is that components of religion could not have been produced by natural selection (the hypothesis that religion is a by-product). But the article suggests that there are some domains in the field of religion and religious components that could be acquired and transmitted despite or even against alleged cognitive biases. The aim of this article is to argue for an extended approach that combines a cognitive account with functional naturalistic approaches, including an adaptationist one. Such distinction could imply that cognition is not functional. Obviously, this is not the case since cognition is the process of knowing, and surely knowledge is functional. However, the main argument for such a distinction lies in the key idea of the cognitive account that as far as cognition is functional and adaptive, religious components are not. Functionalism or “adaptivism” concerning cognition contradicts functionalism concerning religion. Numbers of scholars who consider themselves part of CSR seem also to consider both cognition and religion adaptive. However, in regard to components of religion, their adaptive, functional power is only secondary. The article concludes that the study of religion—as the study of cultural evolution in general—should include a pluralistic methodology combining cognitive and evolutionary accounts with the specificity of cultural evolution.     

内容和形式对毒品成瘾者条件推理的影响

本研究通过比较推理内容与推理形式对毒品成瘾者推理成绩的影响,以探究影响毒品成瘾者能力成绩的主要内在机制。实验采用了2(四卡片形式vs选择项形式)×2(描述性规则vs社会契约规则)混合设计,以240名男性戒毒人员为研究对象,考察他们在不同推理内容与不同推理形式下的条件推理作业成绩。结果发现:(1)就规则内容来看,描述性规则内容在选择项形式上的得分好于四卡片形式,社会契约规则内容在两种呈现形式下的成绩没有显著差异;(2)就规则呈现形式来看,四卡片形式下的描述性规则得分显著地低于社会契约规则得分; 选择项形式下两类规则内容得分无显著差异。结果表明:毒品成瘾者的条件推理行为既受到推理内容的影响,也受到逻辑规则呈现形式的影响。     

编制中国人个性测量表(CPAI)的意义与程序

从1990年开始中国科学院心理研究所与香港中文大学心理系合作,编制“中国人个性测量表”(CPAI)。编制方法严格按照个性测验编制程序进行。共分四个步骤,一、建立正常与病态个性量表的框架。二、构成量表的项目。三、测量表的最后确定。四、量表的标准化工作。编制出的测量表共包括22个正常个性量表,12个病态个性量表及2个效度量表,共510个项目。经实践检验与统计分析,证明该测量表具有一定的信度与效度。     

Effects of angularity of the figures with sharp and round corners on visual evoked potentials

Following a study in which equilateral triangles elicited larger visual evoked potentials (VEPs) than either squares or circles, we examined the effect of single-line angular figures with a sharp or a round corner at angles of 45°, 90°, 135° or 180°. VEPs were recorded monopolarly at four locations on the midline of scalp for 10 subjects, while the figure was tachiscopically presented to the lower visual field. Subtracted waves were obtained between figure and control (blank) conditions. N1 (peak latency 135–142 ms) and P2 (235–237 ms) waves were identifiable. N1 amplitude tended to decrease as a function of angularity, irrespective of orientation (angle pointing up or down). The effect of the sharpness/roundness of the corner was much smaller than that of its angularity. These findings suggest that the greater VEP response with triangles than with squares and circles may be attributable to the acute angularity of triangles. Related cortical processes and VEP components are also discussed.     

Approximated adjusted fractional Bayes factors: A general method for testing informative hypotheses

Informative hypotheses are increasingly being used in psychological sciences because they adequately capture researchers’ theories and expectations. In the Bayesian framework, the evaluation of informative hypotheses often makes use of default Bayes factors such as the fractional Bayes factor. This paper approximates and adjusts the fractional Bayes factor such that it can be used to evaluate informative hypotheses in general statistical models. In the fractional Bayes factor a fraction parameter must be specified which controls the amount of information in the data used for specifying an implicit prior. The remaining fraction is used for testing the informative hypotheses. We discuss different choices of this parameter and present a scheme for setting it. Furthermore, a software package is described which computes the approximated adjusted fractional Bayes factor. Using this software package, psychological researchers can evaluate informative hypotheses by means of Bayes factors in an easy manner. Two empirical examples are used to illustrate the procedure.     

Odysseans of the Twenty-First Century

In his book Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies—and What It Means to Be Human (2005), author-journalist Joel Garreau identifies four technologies whose synergistic activity may transform humankind into a state transcending present human nature: genetic, robotic, information, and nano (GRIN) technologies. If the GRIN technologies follow Moore's Law, as information technology has done for the past four decades, Homo sapiens and human society may be unimaginably different before the middle of this century. But among scientists, futurists, and other pundits there is no agreement on the nature and ramifications of this transformation. Based on dozens of interviews, Garreau sees three possible scenarios for our species. The Heaven Scenario foresees enhanced bodies and minds in a disease-free world, perhaps even immortality; the Hell Scenario warns of losing our identity as a biological entity and perhaps the demise of liberal democracy; the Prevail Scenario predicts that we will muddle through the GRIN technology revolution basically intact, as we have prevailed during past technological upheavals. In this review, these scenarios are examined in the context of Kuhn's “normal” versus “extraordinary” science and in the context of current understanding about gene function.     

Colateralization of Broca's area and the visual word form area in left-handers: fMRI evidence

Language production has been found to be lateralized in the left hemisphere (LH) for 95% of right-handed people and about 75% of left-handers. The prevalence of atypical right hemispheric (RH) or bilateral lateralization for reading and colateralization of production with word reading laterality has never been tested in a large sample. In this study, we scanned 57 left-handers who had previously been identified as being clearly left (N = 30), bilateral (N = 7) or clearly right (N = 20) dominant for speech on the basis of fMRI activity in the inferior frontal gyrus (pars opercularis/pars triangularis) during a silent word generation task. They were asked to perform a lexical decision task, in which words were contrasted against checkerboards, to test the lateralization of reading in the ventral occipitotemporal region. Lateralization indices for both tasks correlated significantly (r = 0.59). The majority of subjects showed most activity during lexical decision in the hemisphere that was identified as their word production dominant hemisphere. However, more than half of the sample (N = 31) had bilateral activity for the lexical decision task without a clear dominant role for either the LH or RH, and three showed a crossed frontotemporal lateralization pattern. These findings have consequences for neurobiological models relating phonological and orthographic processes, and for lateralization measurements for clinical purposes.     

Redeeming the penultimate: discipleship and Church in the thought of Søren Kierkegaard and Dietrich Bonhoeffer

There are striking parallels between the theologies of discipleship advanced by the Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard and the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer's notion of ‘costly grace’ closely resembles Kierkegaard's critique of the misuse of the Pauline-Lutheran doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone. After the publication of Cost of Discipleship, however, Bonhoeffer's view of discipleship moves in a different direction from that of Kierkegaard. Whereas Kierkegaard takes discipleship to mean that the Christian must be in irrevocable conflict with the world, Bonhoeffer sees discipleship as living in the world and cultivating a ‘worldly holiness’. This article tracks the reasons why their initially similar theologies of discipleship result in Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer developing different understandings of Christian discipleship and church. The discussion is organised around the distinction Bonhoeffer makes in his Ethics between the ‘ultimate’ and the ‘penultimate’. Kierkegaard emphasises the ultimate to such an extent that the penultimate is virtually eliminated and the Christian disciple is called upon to live in a state of constant eschatological opposition to the world. For Bonhoeffer on the other hand the penultimate is not to be condemned but to be transformed in the light of the ultimate. The article argues that the differing notions of discipleship advanced by Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer arise from the different political contexts in which they were living and writing. Whereas Kierkegaard's historical situation prompted him to affirm the ultimate by confronting his contemporaries with New Testament Christianity's radical opposition to the world, Bonhoeffer's resistance to the Nazi régime prompted him to reflect on how the ultimate can be integrated into the penultimate and how the Christian disciple can engage with the world without being of the world.     

论“敬畏自然”的正当性

"敬畏自然"是人类对自然及其规律产生的一种包含着各种心理成分在内的、复杂的、形上的终极体验。当代人类社会需要"敬畏自然"。"敬畏自然"的正当性可以从定义澄清、科学祛魅、道德养成三个层面加以证明。科学认知、哲学反思和审美体验是当代人获得"敬畏自然"体验的三种主要途径。倡导"敬畏自然"有助于环境道德水平的提升,推动环保事业的发展。