Joint action, critical to human social interaction and communication, has garnered increasing scholarly attention in many areas of inquiry, yet its development remains little explored. This paper reviews research on the growth of joint action over the first 2 years of life to show how children become progressively more able to engage deliberately, autonomously, and flexibly in joint action with adults and peers. It is suggested that a key mechanism underlying the dramatic changes in joint action over the second year (...) of life is the ability to reflect consciously on oneself and one’s behavior and volition and correspondingly, on the behavior, goals, and intentions of others. (shrink)

Hiram J. McLendon (1919–2000) was an American philosopher who taught at Berkeley, Harvard and New York University. Awarded Harvard’s Sheldon Traveling Fellowship for 1946–47, he studied with Bertrand Russell that year at Trinity College, Cambridge. His assistance with the manuscript of Human Knowledge was acknowledged. His son, James McLendon, accompanied his parents and has kindly permitted this 1956 paper, as sent to Russell, to be published. The incident involving Wittgenstein, Popper and a poker is discussed. Russell’s letters in response (...) (which “delighted” McLendon) follow. The paper is an abbreviated version of a book manuscript entitled “The Philosopher among Professors” that he worked on for many years. He was also then working on a three-volume manuscript on Russell’s philosophic contributions, especially in epistemology, under the title of “Justifying Knowledge” (volume titles: “Revolution and Counterrevolution in Philosophy”, “Beyond the Mythic Way” and “Where Things Are”). Square-bracketed notes are editorial. (shrink)

Cooperative peer play emerges in the second year of life. How applicable is Preston & de Waal's (P&deW's) model to the empathic processes in cooperative play? Empathic responses during peer play are more general than they propose, and more dependent on mental state understanding. Moreover, peer play forces children to reason about others' feelings, possibly serving as a unique mechanism for empathy development.

The empiricist bent of philosophy of science and epistemology over the past four decades has recently been challenged, partly by arguments that exploit the uncertainty about what precisely the given is. It is claimed that this uncertainty stems from the fact that all observation is theory-laden; different "enities" [[sic]] are said to be observed as the theory constituting them is varied. Observations therefore do not test theories. So-called tests are really circular arguments, if they confirm the theory, or question-begging, if (...) they disconfirm it. Such is roughly the line of argument advanced by the new philosophy of science. (shrink)

. The present study applies results and methods of psychobiology to intellectual history. Pascal's syndrome is a depressive neurosis associated with morbid effects of scientific certainty. The syndrome is characterized by self‐mortification and conversion experience that represses distressing certainties. The dynamics of the syndrome are assessed from Blake Pascal's psychosis. The ideation of the syndrome is evaluated by reference to the neurology of altered states of consciousness and the biogenic amine hypothesis of depression and mania. The evaluation yields a description (...) of the relation between psychogenic and biogenic factors in the syndrome's etiology. (shrink)

It will be argued here that Marx returned to Hegel in a Hegelian spirit—with the intention of achieving the sublation of philosophy. The term has the same broad meaning for both thinkers. The abolition of philosophy occurs in a philosophic way only when its negation is shown to follow from its inner tendency. The negative result is therefore also positive; it is the fulfillment of philosophy. This movement occurs in the Hegelian system in the form of the sublation of philosophy (...) to science or absolute knowledge. In Marx it takes the form of the sublation of theory into practice. (shrink)

After years of near total neglect, the problem of childhood obesity is now in the limelight. Terms like “epidemic,” “crisis,” and “emergency” are used frequently when describing the trend. Progress is defined with strong language and fueled by statistics such as the observation that this generation of children will be the first to live shorter lives than their parents. Multi-disciplinary journals such as the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics have dedicated symposiums to the issue, and conferences have been convened (...) not only by health professionals but by government agencies, the food industry, and even professionals who market to children. The seriousness of childhood obesity is no longer in doubt, and finally attention has turned to the more complex question – what must be done? (shrink)

The Samoa Reader is a source book on the most extensive controversy in the history of anthropology, touched off by the publication of Derek Freeman's Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth. Freeman's book purported to refute the most famous writing of the world's most honored and celebrated anthropologist. This book seemed to many to be an attack on liberal values; anthropologists believed that it was a concerted assault on the reliability and conceptual structure of (...) cultural anthropology in the name of 'sociobiology.' The Reader canvasses these and other issues by assembling, in readable form, the most cogent writings to come out of the controversy. This book is based on the study of unpublished sources, some of which are included. (shrink)

This article presents an analysis of one docent's discussion of Michigan history to a group of third-grade children as part of a week-long state-sponsored history program. By analyzing the docent's...