Contents Volume 117, 2004

Volume Contents

Contents Volume 117, 2004     

On Husserl's Essentialism

Abstract

The present paper argues that Merleau-Ponty’s notion of Flesh/reversibility intellectually is significantly flawed, and leads phenomenology into something of a dead end. This is shown through the following strategy. First Merleau-Ponty’s account of originary perception and his critique of the reflective attitude are expounded. They are shown to culminate in rejection of the subject-object relation as an ontological fundamental in favour of a ‘hyper-reflective method’. A critique of Merleau-Ponty’s position is then offered. It argues that originary perception is not logically prior to reflective thought, and that Merleau-Ponty fails to do justice to the scope of the subject-object relation. Specifically, he overlooks the way in which the relation is the basis of our practical perceptual orientation. It is then shown how this relation actually pervades Merleau-Ponty’s own all-important ‘hyper-reflective’ alternative – the notion of ‘Flesh’. Possible counter-arguments are considered and refuted. The need for a post-analytic phenomenology is posited.     

Psychological States Underlying Excellent Performance in Sport: Toward an Integrated Model of Flow and Clutch States

This study investigated the psychological states underlying excellent performance in 26 athletes (M_age = 29 years, SD = 7.7) across a range of sports (team, net/wall, sprint, endurance, adventure) and standards (world class to recreational). Participants were primarily interviewed on average 4 days after excellent performances. The data were analyzed thematically. Distinct states of flow and clutch were reported, each of which occurred through separate contexts and processes, while athletes also transitioned between states during performance. These findings extend current knowledge of the psychology of excellent performance and are discussed in terms of implications for future research and applied practice.     

Concreteness and word production

Two experiments are reported that investigated the effect of concreteness on the ability to generate words to fit sentence contexts. When participants attempted to retrieve words from dictionary definitions in Experiment 1, abstract words were associated with more omissions and more alternates than were concrete words. These findings are consistent with the view that the semantic–lexical weights in the word production system are weaker for abstract than for concrete words. We found no evidence that greater competition from semantic neighbors was an additional reason why abstract words were harder to produce. Participants also reported more positive tip-of-the-tongue states (TOTs) when attempting to produce abstract words from their definitions, consistent with more phonological retrieval problems for abstract than for concrete words. In Experiment 2, participants attempted to generate words to fit into a sentence that described a specific event. The difference between the numbers of abstract and concrete words recalled was significantly smaller in the event condition than in the definition condition, and evidence no longer emerged of greater phonological retrieval failure for abstract words. Overall, the results are consistent with the view that the semantic–lexical weights, but not the lexical–phonological weights, are weaker for abstract than for concrete words in the word production system.     

Ethics in banking,corporate maturity and faith

It is difficult to understate the impact of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis on entire economies, local communities, families and individuals. The Crisis, and what has followed, provides a window into the behaviour of large corporations and the assumptions underpinning corporate life more generally. This raises issues for the Christian Church and for all faiths seeking a more collective view of our common good and a shared journey. This article evaluates the extent to which anything has been learned since 2008, both within financial services and more widely, and presents ways in which a focus on faith, ethics, culture and community outcomes can be brought to the fore and embedded in businesses and organisations to achieve a longer-term maturity.     

INTUITIONS AND SEMANTIC THEORY

Abstract: While engaged in the analysis of philosophically central concepts, analytic philosophers have traditionally relied extensively on their own intuitions about when such concepts can be correctly applied. Intuitions have, however, come under increasingly critical scrutiny of late, and if they turned out not to be a reliable tool for the proper analysis of our concepts, then a radical reworking of analytic philosophy's methodology would be in order. One influential line of criticism against the use of intuitions argues that they only tell us about our conceptions of things, and not the things themselves. This venerable line of criticism can seem considerably strengthened if one endorses “externalist” accounts of meaning. Nevertheless, the move from semantic externalism to the rejection of intuitions will be shown to be illegitimate if one has a constitutive rather than expressive understanding of the relation between our intuitions and our concepts.     

Assessing the Practicality and Relevance of Adventist Educational Philosophy in a Contemporary Education Paradigm

This article examines the key tenets of contemporary education philosophy and compares it to the principles of the Adventist educational philosophy. The intent is to determine whether Adventist educational philosophy aligns with the demands of contemporary education. In this vein, 10 key principles of contemporary education are first described. Then, the principles of Adventist educational philosophy are articulated and examined to determine if they meet the demands of contemporary education. Finally, the article concludes by looking at the implications of this critical analysis for the current status of Adventist educational philosophy.     

Design and laboratory tests of a long-life FM transmitter for tagging small mammals

Problems involved in developing a long-life FM telemetry transmitter for tagging small mammals are described.