John Rogers – An Appreciation

[John Rogers retired as Editor of the BJHP in March 2011. We are delighted to publish this specially commissioned appreciation of John's work by Sarah Hutton, who has been on the Editorial Board since the founding of the journal in 1993 and who was Chair of the British Society for the History of Philosophy from 1998 to 2004. (Ed.)]     

Bodily movement – The fundamental dimensions

Bodily movement has become an interesting topic in recent philosophy, both in analytic and phenomenological versions. Philosophy from Descartes to Kant defined the human being as a mental subject in a material body. This mechanistic attitude toward the body still lingers on in many studies of motor learning and control. The article shows how alternative philosophical views can give a better understanding of bodily movement. The article starts with Heidegger's contribution to overcoming the subject-object dichotomy and his new understanding of the primacy of the practical involvement with the surrounding world. Heidegger, however, in many ways neglected the role of the human body. Merleau-Ponty took a huge step forward when he focused on the bodily intentionality of our interaction with the world. The next step was taken by Samuel Todes who presented a better understanding of how we are bodily oriented in space. After having seen how the body is oriented outward towards the environment it is proper that the final part of this article goes inward toward the role of bodily awareness and the role of proprioception in human movement. The goal of the presentation is to contribute to a better understanding of what goes on in sport. The article therefore uses examples from sport, especially football, to show the relevance of the new insights for sport studies.     

The Barbour – Smith – Gilkey Paradox: Historical Relativity in Natural Science and Historical Religion

This paper is about the relation of historical relativity and religious certainty. To live in history and to live with historical relativity is to admit that we are subject to the limitations of creaturehood: we know right and wrong, truth and falsity, relative to our own time and place, history and culture, but we do not know any truth or right that is non-relative to time and place. The differences between historical and naturalistic discourses of explanation are radical, and usually overlooked by scientists.     

Subjectivist – observing and objective – participant perspectives on the world: Kant,aquinas and quantum mechanics

Theological thinking is influenced by perspectives on the relation of scientific knowledge to reality. Two paradigms for understanding the nature of human knowledge are considered in relation to quantum mechanics: the subjective-observing perspective of Kant, and the objective-participant perspective of Thomas Aquinas. I discuss whether quantum mechanics necessarily implies a subject centered perspective on reality, and argue, with reference to d'Espagnat's notion of veiled reality, that quantum non-separability challenges this view. I then explore whether the objective-participant perspective of Thomas Aquinas provides a more fruitful context for understanding quantum mechanics. I discuss quantum measurement in terms of the transition from potentiality to actuality, and knowledge as the latent intelligibility of the world realized. However, the negative nature of our knowledge of quantum non-separability also challenges this perspective. Our theological thinking in response to quantum knowledge must therefore proceed tentatively, balancing a via positiva, with a via negativa.     

Emotional expressions during early infant – father conversations

The present longitudinal and naturalistic study aimed to investigate fathers' and infants' facial expressions of emotions during paternal infant-directed speech. The microanalysis of infant and paternal facial expressions of emotion in the course of the naturalistic interactions of 11 infant – father dyads, from the 2nd to the 6th month, provided evidence that: (a) fathers and infants match their emotional states and attune their emotional intensity; (b) infants seem to match paternal facial emotional expressions more than vice versa; (c) the prevailing emotional states of each partner remain constant in the beginning and at the end of speech; and (d) the developmental trajectories of infant interest and paternal pleasure change significantly across the age range of 2 – 6 months and they seem to follow similar courses. These results are interpreted within the frame of the theory of innate intersubjectivity.     

Skultety's Categories of Competition – A Competing Conceptualisation?

A recent article in this journal attempts to link categories of sport competition to appropriate psychologies of participants in the different sorts of competition. It criticises accounts of competition which understand it in relation to a very restricted range of psychologies because the purposes and psychologies with which people enter and engage in competition vary enormously. So, taking as a starting point a consensus view among sport philosophers of the key conditions governing competition, work is undertaken to identify fundamental distinctions drawing from the conditions, which are said to result in a fourfold typology of competitions. The final step is to suggest psychologies most suited to the components of the typology. My article examines this project and produces reasons to doubt its success.     

Explanations of interindividual – intergroup discontinuity: A review of the evidence

The authors review and evaluate various explanations for the tendency of intergroup relations to be more competitive, or less cooperative, than interindividual relations (the discontinuity effect). They distinguish between two general perspectives, each comprising a set of explanations for the discontinuity effect. The fear and greed perspective assumes that intergroup relations are characterised by greater fear and greed than are interindividual relations. The group decision-making perspective assumes a crucial role for group discussion in facilitating rational comprehension of mixed-motive situations. In general, explanations from the fear and greed perspective were found to be more consistent with the empirical record than explanations from the group decision-making perspective. The authors propose that a complete understanding of the discontinuity effect is yet to be achieved.     

Edward Said (1935 – 2003): His relevance to psychotherapy

Abstract

This paper is an appreciation of the work of the late Edward Said, the distinguished Palestinian-American academic. By looking at three key themes within his thinking, I argue for the relevance of his work to the psychotherapist and for how much it has to offer in conceptualizing social and personal identity.     

Bringing culture to the nation: Hebraism, Yiddishism, and the dilemmas of Jewish cultural formation in Russia and Ukraine, 1917–1919

Focusing on the pivotal 1917–1919 conjuncture in Russia and Ukraine, this paper analyzes the efforts of the divided Jewish nationalist intelligentsia to disseminate new forms of Jewish culture to a mass audience, the reception of these efforts in the former Tsarist empire’s variegated Jewish population, and the intelligentsia’s parallel exploration of other forms of cultural formation less dependent on popular support. Comparing the cultural programs of Hebraism and Yiddishism, it demonstrates important parallels in their cultural visions and highlights their shared belief in the possibility of implanting a secularist, aestheticist intelligentsia culture in the whole of “the nation.” The paper reconstructs both substantial forms of popular openness to this culture and its sociocultural weaknesses. Finally, it examines experiments made by the intelligentsia with alternative routes to cultural transformation: suppression of popular culture, non-market cultural arrangements, cultural revolution through education, and the uses of the state. The paper seeks a fuller understanding both of the roots of interwar cultural programs in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and of the Jewish nationalist intelligentsia’s underlying conception of “culture,” its own authority, and the evolving relationship between these conceptions and the realities of East European Jewish social, cultural, and political life from the 1890s onward.     

Gingerbread Nuts and Pebbles: Frege and the Neo-Kantians – Two Recently Discovered Documents

We present and discuss two recently discovered pieces of correspondence by Frege: a postcard to Heinrich Rickert dated 1 July 1911 and a letter to Hinrich Knittermeyer dated 25 October 1912. The documents and their historical context shed new light on Frege's relation to the Neo-Kantians.     

Dual realities – The search for meaning: Psychodynamic therapy with physically ill people

Abstract

We summarize Kohut's (1971) bi-polar self which enables counsellors to understand and treat narcissistic behaviours and narcissistic personality disorders in a psychoanalytic framework. After Patton and Meara (1992), we describe Kohut's formulations regarding self-development and disorders of self and how such formulations inform critical components of psychoanalytic counselling with particular emphasis on the explicit and implicit strategies and characteristics the counsellor brings to the process. Finally, we suggest that a promising arena for future theorizing and applications of Kohut's ideas is consultation with parents, teachers and other community leaders to help prevent or remedy psychological self-injuries with systemic interventions outside short-term counselling or long-term therapy.

We have suggested that Kohut's self psychology is a good vehicle for understanding what brings a client to counselling: namely, disorders of the self or self-injury. We review strategies and ‘ways of being’ a counsellor must bring to and offer in the counselling encounter if the work is to succeed. We also examine implicit qualities (beyond the achievement of a mature bipolar self) we believe a counsellor or any facilitator must have if counselling or other helping relationships are to be effective. We purpose further conversations and empirical analyses which specifically and conceptually link critical components of psychoanalytic counselling to self psychology and to essential counsellor traits or virtues that seem intrinsic to good counselling practice.     

The ‘frame’ as a container for the erotic transference – A case study

Abstract

This paper discusses various aspects of the psychotherapeutic frame, and explores the importance of maintaining the boundaries of the frame especially when an erotic transferential relationship is present. Many now agree that erotic transference and counter-transference occur in most therapeutic relationships, and yet it is something that therapists often struggle to work with effectively. The author acknowledges her own difficulties in working with erotic transferences and demonstrates why the adherence to the frame is especially significant in these circumstances. A case study is used to illustrate the difficulties of working with the erotic transference within the constructs of a frame and short-term therapy, and how the author's own counter-transference affected the therapy as well as how this was dealt with in supervision.     

The children of perestroika: Two sociologists on religion and Russian society, 1991 – 2006

Abstract

This paper examines the role of religion in identity formation and political development in postsoviet Armenia. It argues that the equation of Armenian identity with membership in the Armenian Apostolic Church contributes to an atmosphere of intolerance toward ethnic and religious minorities and inhibits the development of pluralism. This underdevelopment of a democratic culture therefore leads to weak opposition movements and delayed democratic consolidation. This paper is based primarily on interviews conducted in Armenia in 2005 with individuals in the religious and civil society sectors, but also draws upon evidence from published materials which demonstrate attitudes toward minorities in Armenian society.     

Good Athlete – Bad Athlete? on the ‘Role-Model Argument’ for Banning Performance-Enhancing Drugs

The paper critically discusses a role-model argument (RMA) in favour of banning performance-enhancing drugs in sport. The argument concludes that athletes should be banned from using performance-enhancing drugs because if they are allowed to use such drugs they will encourage, or cause, youngsters who look up to them to use drugs in a way that would be harmful. In Section 2 the structure of the argument and some versions of it are presented. In Section 3 a critical discussion of RMA is presented. It is argued that we should be reluctant to accept the argument as it stands for at least three reasons: (i) it rests on an unsupported empirical claim; (ii) it also makes a false empirical claim; and (iii) the normative premise of the argument is too demanding morally. Further objections to the RMA are also discussed, but argued to be beside the point     

Kullback–Leibler Information and Its Applications in Multi-Dimensional Adaptive Testing

This paper first discusses the relationship between Kullback–Leibler information (KL) and Fisher information in the context of multi-dimensional item response theory and is further interpreted for the two-dimensional case, from a geometric perspective. This explication should allow for a better understanding of the various item selection methods in multi-dimensional adaptive tests (MAT) which are based on these two information measures. The KL information index (KI) method is then discussed and two theorems are derived to quantify the relationship between KI and item parameters. Due to the fact that most of the existing item selection algorithms for MAT bear severe computational complexity, which substantially lowers the applicability of MAT, two versions of simplified KL index (SKI), built from the analytical results, are proposed to mimic the behavior of KI, while reducing the overall computational intensity.     

Mother – infant group psychotherapy as an intensive treatment in early interaction among mothers with substance abuse problems

In this article we present a novel method of outpatient care: brief, dynamic mother – infant group psychotherapy with mothers who have substance use problems. In this therapy, substance abuse treatment is part of mental health and parenting interventions. The focus is on preventing disturbance in the mother – infant relationship in this high-risk group. The clinical material is taken from 16 mother – infant dyads from six psychotherapy groups, which met weekly over six months from pregnancy to post-partum. The therapy process consists of 20 – 24 three-hour sessions. The basis of the therapy is to offer mothers experience of care, which they, in turn, can give to their infants. In this paper we analyse the core therapeutic elements that may contribute to better mothering and child development. They involve: the group providing a symbolic maternal lap, and the meeting of the mothers' and the infants' needs. It is hoped that this may offer the mothers a new experience within which to reappraise their early memories. This may help prevent them from projecting traumatic past experiences onto their infants. Our analyses show that in the therapy, mothers, feeling safe within the group, gradually experienced pleasure with their infants and their peers. These effects, according to the mothers, were the most noticeable. Brief dynamic mother – infant group psychotherapy seems to be a promising form of treatment for those substance-abusing women able to commit to outpatient care and examine the causes of their drug dependence. The groups may also be used as a diagnostic tool to detect problems in early mother-baby interaction.     

Impact de la Loi no 2019-222 du 23 mars 2019 de programmation 2018–2022 et de réforme pour la justice sur l’office du médecin légiste

The new provisions of the article 60 of the French Code of Criminal Procedure now authorize the medical examiners to seal the samples taken during an autopsy or a medical examination. The result will be a new organization of the work of forensic doctors that the 2010s reform did not integrate. In addition, the presence of judicial police officers during the autopsies will probably have to be rethought. Moreover, the article 163 of the same code has not been amended, giving more competence to qualified persons than to experts appointed by an investigating judge.     

Our world is more than physics: a constructive – critical comment on the current science and theology debate

“Critical realism” is one of the most important positions in the current science and theology debate. An analysis of its origin and meaning leads to the question if this position mostly propagated by physicist-theologians could miss an intrinsic feature of the personal dimension of reality. A deeper meaning of the personal dimension sets human science apart. Taking into account social science's insight that persons responsible for their conclusions and actions drive the process of science, the moral dimension of science has to be emphasized. To integrate these aspects into a coherent position, a more differentiated epistemological model is needed. The solution proposed in this paper is to modify critical realism to constructive-critical realism. Theologically interpreted, constructive-critical realism remembers humankind's purpose to shape nature in cooperation with God and with the means of culture toward increasing realization of freedom in relationship. The argument is widely influenced by an analysis of the works of John Polkinghorne.