These comments on Cohen’s paper (IJPP, this issue) focus on the question of whether Cohen’s attempt to derive antidotes from incompatible or contradictory philosophical camps— such as Hume’s subjective theory of beauty, on the one hand, and Augustine’s objectivist account—present a fatal problem for Cohen’s LBT. The paper concludes with suggesting a constructive way around the problem.

Pragmatic Tactics in Mediation Mediation is the process by which a neutral third-party works with disputing parties to assist them in reaching an acceptable, voluntary settlement of their dispute. Mediators are often faced with competing demands over and above those of the dispute itself. For example, establishing and maintaining control of the mediation process without appearing to bully the disputants, persuading a party to reexamine it's position without appearing to lose their neutrality, and convincing a party that the present offer (...) of settlement is the best possible, given the circumstances, without appearing to be determined to reach closure at all costs.The present paper examines data from labor, divorce, and community mediations to show how mediators reduce tensions like those mentioned above through various devices such as establishing common ground, reframing the issue, use of metaphorical examples, and reliance on innuendo, ambiguity, and equivocation. (shrink)

This paper argues for an intrinsic connection between Logic-Based Therapy (LBT) and empirical psychology, a connection that suggests the need to employ both philo­sophical and psychological theories in the clinical setting. This link is established by arguing that LBT is conceptually grounded in naturalized epistemology, the view introduced and defended by W. V. O. Quine in the aftermath of his attack on the Analytic-Synthetic dis­tinction. Naturalized epistemology places empirical psychology and logic on the same epis­temic foundation, and, it is argued, (...) it is this foundation that both supports the application of logic in the clinical setting and connects logic to empirical psychology. One consequence of this view is that LBT should be understood as providing a theoretical framework for other forms of philosophical counseling, an idea that establishes the logic-based approach to therapy as the sine qua non of the counseling enterprise. (shrink)