Pessimism

The problem of pessimism is the secular analogue to the evidential problem of evil facing traditional theism. The traditional theist must argue two things: that the evidence shows that this is on balance a good world and that it is the best possible world. Though the secular optimist who advocates any form of secular moral theory need not argue that the current and future world will likely be the best possible world, she nonetheless must argue that were there a clean solution to the problem of current and future suffering in which all sentient life could be instantly and painlessly eliminated, we would have reasons not to employ the clean solution because the future promises to bring on balance a good world in which the evil of human and animal suffering is outweighed by whatever is good in the world. Pessimism is the view that the evidence argues against secular optimism. It is argued here that it is anything but clear that secular optimism is warranted when viewed from an impersonal point of view. The problem is then evaluated from the personal point of view in which a form of personal optimism is defended even in the face of impersonal pessimism.     

Speaking for Ourselves: Feminist Methods and Community Psychology

Although feminist and community psychology share a number of epistemological and methodological perspectives that guide their respective theories and research practices, it has been argued that community psychology has not fully integrated a feminist perspective into the discipline. This paper examines how community psychology and feminist research methods might combine to help us better understand women's experiences without essentializing or universalizing those experiences. The authors offer a series of suggested directions for feminist research that may also prove promising for community psychology. Particular attention is paid to feminist social constructionist approaches insofar as they address the complex relationship between epistemology and methodology.     

AJCP as a Vehicle for Improving Community Life: An Historic–Analytic Review of the Journal’s Contents

The current article is an analysis of the research represented in American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP) from 1993 to 1998, including a comparison to two previously published analytic reviews by Lounsbury et al. (J. W. Lounsbury, D. S. Leader, E. P. Meares, & M. P. Cook, 1980) and Speer et al. (P. Speer, A. Dey, P. Griggs, C. Gibson, B. Lubin, & J. Hughey, 1992), respectively. Observed trends are examined with references to major epistemological frameworks and methods used to define community psychology. Four guiding principles were examined to determine the representation of the epistemological frameworks of the articles published in the journal. The frameworks include social action, human diversity and cultural relativity, person–environmental fit, and methodological procedures. The results document the transition of community psychology from its early beginnings to an independent field conducting research consistent with the values articulated at the Swampscott Conference. This paper also comments on how well, after three decades of publication, the journal has served as a vehicle for improving community life.     

评发生认识论的"反省抽象"范畴

论文分析了皮亚杰发生认识论中“反省抽象”范畴的发展脉络、主要内涵及其与某些相关概念(如概括化、平衡化、矛盾与否定的构造、意识化与觉知等)的联系。作者认为：反省抽象不仅体现皮亚杰的独创性．而且也是发生认识沦中最为核心和最为重要的概念。它合理地解释了知识创新的源泉,使发生认识论的逻辑一数学范畴研究及认知发展一般规律的研究奠基于科学认识论之上。作者主张应准确继承皮亚杰的学术遗产,深化对认知发展机制的探索。     

Argumentation and Evidence

This essay explores the role of informal logicand its application in the context of currentdebates regarding evidence-based medicine. This aim is achieved through a discussion ofthe goals and objectives of evidence-basedmedicine and a review of the criticisms raisedagainst evidence-based medicine. Thecontributions to informal logic by StephenToulmin and Douglas Walton are explicated andtheir relevance for evidence-based medicine isdiscussed in relation to a common clinicalscenario: hypertension management. This essayconcludes with a discussion on the relationshipbetween clinical reasoning, rationality, andevidence. It is argued that informal logic hasthe virtue of bringing explicitness to the roleof evidence in clinical reasoning, and bringssensitivity to understanding the role ofdialogical context in the need for evidence inclinical decision making.     

The ‘Medical Body’ As Philosophy's Arena

Medicine, as Byron Good argues, reconstitutes thehuman body of our daily experience as a medical body,unfamiliar outside medicine. This reconstitution can be seen intwo ways: (i) as a salutary reminder of the extent to which thereality even of the human body is constructed; and (ii) as anarena for what Stephen Toulmin distinguishes as theintersection of natural science and history, in which many ofphilosophy's traditional (and traditionally abstract) questionsare given concrete and urgent form.This paper begins by examining a number of dualities between themedical body and the body familiar in daily experience. Toulmin's epistemological analysis of clinical medicine ascombining both universal and existential knowledge is thenconsidered. Their expression, in terms of attention,respectively, to natural science and to personal history, isexplored through the epistemological contrasts between themedical body and the familiar body, noting the traditionalphilosophical questions which they in turn illustrate.     

From Neo-Kantianism to Logicism: Vvedenskij's Mature Years

In the first two decades of the century Vvedenskij developed and defended what he took to be an original argument in support of the impossibility of metaphysical knowledge. This argument, which he hailed as a proof, involved an examination of the four laws of thought alone. As it made no appeal to the highly technical analyses found in Kant's first Critique, Vvedenskij considered it to be more efficient and thereby effective than Kant's own arguments. Although Vvedenskij's estimation of his accomplishment actually increased with the passage of time, the proof rested on highly dubious assumptions.     

Quantitative Anatomy: Power Beyond the Images

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a frontiermedical technology that, in contrast to the othercomputer-assisted technologies providing anatomicalpictures, produces functional images. I argue that PETalso opens up an avenue for shifting from images (asa tool for representation of biomedical data) back toanalysis of measurements (as a tool for quantificationof physiology). Admittedly, quantification of functionrequires structural constraints. I coined the emerginginterpretational framework quantitative anatomyin an attempt to conceptualize the PET merger betweenmeasuring and imaging, the two competing meansmedicine uses to examine the human body. Anatomyjustifies interpretations that fit the existingknowledge of a larger clinical audience, whilestatistical data possess an unexplored potential tointroduce mathematical rigor in the evaluation offunction, but are still a black box for the majorityof clinicians. This epistemological change is beingcarried out by PET users in action as well as indiscourse.     

Virtue and the Good Life in the Early Confucian Tradition

This essay examines the role of virtue and the status of non‐moral goods in conceptions of the good human life through an exploration of the thought of Confucius and Mencius. Both Confucius and Mencius lived in quite similar worlds, but their conceptualizations of the world differed from each another. This difference led them to hold different views on the role of virtue and the status of non‐moral goods. On the one hand, Confucius highlighted the self‐sufficiency of virtue, but he acknowledged and appreciated the intrinsic and instrumental value of non‐moral goods. On the other hand, while Mencius underscored the role of virtue as the best means to the best ends, he tried to depreciate the value of non‐moral goods. As a consequence, even though their conceptions of the good life were essentially predicated on virtue, they parted company concerning the status of non‐moral goods in human life.