Heterogeneity in verbal memory: a marker of preclinical Alzheimer's disease?

Demonstrations of memory changes in those at risk for Alzheimer's disease by the presence of the APOE e4 allele have been inconsistent to date. The present study went beyond traditional analyses of central tendency (i.e., group differences on mean test scores) and also conducted distribution analyses to search for subtle cognitive differences in subgroups of normal-functioning elderly persons with the APOE e4 genotype. The results of the study revealed that (a) the e4 and non-e4 groups failed to differ in terms of their mean scores on tests of memory and verbal skills; and (b) relative to the non-e4 group, the e4 subjects had significantly greater heterogeneity of variance on the memory measures but not on fundamental verbal skills. Logistic regression analyses indicated that the discrepancy in scores on the memory measures was a significant predictor of genotype group membership (82% correct classification rate). Implications of these findings for the detection of a preclinical phase of AD are discussed.     

Do the right thing! Rule finitism, rule scepticism and rule following

Rule following is often made an unnecessary mystery in the philosophy of social science. One form of mystification is the issue of 'rule finitism', which raises the puzzle as to how a learner can possibly extend the rule to applications beyond those examples which have been given as instruction in the rule. Despite the claim that this problem originated in the work of Wittgenstein, it is clear that his philosophical method is designed to evaporate, not perpetuate, such problems. The supposed problem of rule finitism is malformed, deriving from misconceptions about the relation between understanding a rule and making an application of it.     

What is so Good about Moral Freedom?

Many Christian philosophers believe that it is a great good that human beings are free to choose between good and evil, so good indeed that God is justified in putting up with a great many evil choices for the sake of it. But many of the same Christian philosophers also believe that God is essentially good – good in every possible world. Unlike his sinful human creatures, God cannot choose between good and evil. In that sense, he is not 'morallyFree'. It is not easy to see how to fit these two theses into a single coherent package. If moral freedom is such a great good in human beings, why is it not a grave defect in God that he lacks it? And if the lack of moral freedom does not detract in any way from God's greatness, would it not have been better for us not to have it? I develop, but ultimately reject, what I take to be the most initially promising strategy for resolving this dilemma.     

Jung's Erotic Phenomenology: I. A New Translation

In the introduction to The Psychology of the Transference (1946), Carl Jung sketched out a theory of “erotic phenomenology” which condenses his teaching about sexuality and romantic love into a very concise summary. But the meaning of this passage is obscured in the English translation given in the Collected Works of C. G. Jung. I propose here a new translation which makes Jung’s meaning clearer, along with a commentary which explains it in the context of Freudian drive theory and German 19^th century philosophy. Invoking the concepts of instinct, mind, and Eros (both the passion and the divine figure), Jung’s theory says that male sexual desire can be cultivated or repressed in four distinct ways, each associated with a female symbolic figure or anima image: Eve, Helen, Mary and Sophia.     

Ethical Criticism of the Bible: The Case of Divinely Mandated Genocide

Taking as a test case biblical texts in which the God of Israel commands the destruction other nations, the present paper defends the legitimacy and the necessity of ethical criticism of the Bible. It takes issue with the suggestions of several contemporary Christian philosophers who have recently defended the view that (in Israel’s early history) God had good and morally sufficient reasons for commanding genocide.     

Thomas Kuhn's Misunderstood Relation to Kripke-Putnam Essentialism

Kuhn's ‘taxonomic conception’ of natural kinds enables him to defend and re-specify the notion of incommensurability against the idea that it is reference, not meaning/use, that is overwhelmingly important. Kuhn's ghost still lacks any reason to believe that referentialist essentialism undercuts his central arguments in SSR – and indeed, any reason to believe that such essentialism is even coherent, considered as a doctrine about anything remotely resembling our actual science. The actual relation of Kuhn to Kripke-Putnam essentialism, is as follows: Kuhn decisively undermines it – drawing upon the inadequacies of such essentialism when faced with the failure of attempts to instantiate in history or contemporaneously its ‘thought-experiment’ – and leaves the field open instead for his own more ‘realistic’, deflationary way of thinking about the operation of ‘natural kinds’ in science. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.