Desiring to Understand

Jennifer Uleman on the phenomenology and reality of reason

'The Heart Wants What the Heart Wants': Thinking Occupy Wall Street

My remarks at Dec 2011 APA panel, "Occupy Philosophy!

What to Study at College and Why

Op-ed on value of majoring in one of the traditional liberal arts

Occupy Philosophy!

Report on Dec 2011 APA Panel, "Occupy Philosophy!

Dispatch from Occupy Wall Street

A dispatch from Zuccotti Park about what being there was like, about the signs I liked (and those I didn't), and about Occupy's importance

No King and No Torture: Kant on Suicide and Law

AbstractKant’s most canonical argument against suicide, the universal law argument, is widely dismissed. This paper attempts to save it, showing that a suicide maxim, universalized, undermines all bases for practical law, resisting both the non-negotiable value of free rational willing and the ordinary array of sensuous commitments that inform prudential incentives. Suicide therefore undermines moral law-governed community as a whole, threatening ‘savage disorder’. In pursuing this argument, I propose a non-teleological and non-theoretical nature – a ‘practical nature’ or moral law governed whole – the realization of which morality demands.</jats:p

Activation is not always inference: Word-based priming in spontaneous trait inferences

People infer, without any intention or awareness, personality traits about actors enacting diagnostic behaviors. This phenomenon is known as spontaneous trait inferences (STIs). The activation of a trait is considered to be a true inference when it results from processing the meaning of the whole behavioral description. However, a trait can also become activated due to intra-lexical associations with individual words in the description. Here, we suggest a method to distinguish the two sources of activation and explore the influence that word-based priming has on some of the most popular paradigms used to study STIs. Results show that in the probe recognition task, word-based priming plays a considerable role and can, in the absence of an appropriate control, mimic spontaneous trait inference occurrence. However, in the false recognition task and in the explicit trait judgment task, the role of this spurious activation is negligible and the real trait inference can be easily detected.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Psychopathology symptoms in a sample of female cosmetic surgery patients

Objective: During the past decades, cosmetic surgery has become increasingly popular. People with certain psychopathology disorders, for example, body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), are dissatisfied with their physical appearance, and a significant number try to receive cosmetic medical treatment for their complaints. It seems relatively easy for them to receive this type of surgery, despite the fact that it has no or even adverse effects on the symptoms. The present study aimed to investigate the psychological condition and especially the presence of psychopathological symptoms such as BDD in cosmetic surgery patients. Methods: Questionnaires about body image dissatisfaction, symptoms of BDD and psychopathology in general and satisfaction about surgery were sent to patients who had been treated in a large cosmetic surgery clinic. Results: Of the patients who replied, 86% were pleased with the outcome of the cosmetic procedure. Further, 21-59% of these former patients scored higher on questionnaires of body image dissatisfaction and psychopathological symptoms than a norm group from the general population. When differentiating the group on the basis of BDD symptomatology, it appeared that the high BDD symptomatic group displayed significantly worse outcome on all measurements. That is, high BDD symptomatic patients were more dissatisfied about the result of surgery, exhibited higher levels of psychopathology, and had lower self-esteem than the low symptomatic BDD patients. Conclusion: These findings clearly suggest that the evaluation of the psychological condition and motivation of the candidate patient might be a valuable addition to the standard procedure in cosmetic medical treatment settings