The Predictive Power of Horney’s Psychoanalytic Approach: An Empirical Study

This study investigated the construct validity of a measure of Karen Horneys (1945) psychoanalytic theory that postulated three neurotic trends: compliant, aggressive, and detached. Her theory was operationalized by the Horney-Coolidge Type Indicator (HCTI). One hundred seventy-two adults completed the HCTI and the short form of the Coolidge Axis II Inventory, a measure of the three DSM-IV personality disorder clusters. Multiple regression and canonical correlation analyses revealed significant and differential patterns of the three HCTI dimensions with the three clusters. Because Paris (1994) has noted that Horneys neurotic trends may today be conceived of as personality disorders, one implication of the present findings is that Horneys dynamic theory can be valid and useful in the general understanding of personality disorders from a cluster perspective.     

The European ‘We’: From Citizenship Policy to the Role of Education

This article sheds light on the European Union’s policy on citizenship; on the collective dimension of this policy, its ‘we’. It is argued that the inclusive, identity-constituting forces prominent in EU policy on European citizenship serve as a basis for the exclusion of people, which is illustrated by the recent expulsion of Romani from France. Based on a reading of Derrida, the twofold aim of this article is to reformulate the concept of a European citizenship ‘we’ and secondly, to outline some implications of this reframing as concerns the role of education in the formation of citizens.     

The Role of Teacher Cognition and Behavior in Children’s Peer Relations

This study explored the role of the classroom teacher in peers’ evaluations of liking and disliking of their classmates. Teacher cognitions about children (teacher liking of students, teacher attributions for aggressive student behavior) and teacher behavior toward children (positive, corrective/negative) were examined as mediators in the link between children’s own behavior (aggression, prosocial behavior) and peer liking and disliking. Participants were 127 second-graders in 12 classrooms (64 males, 63 females). Data on child behavior were collected through peer and teacher report, data on teacher cognitions about children were collected through self report, data on teacher behavior toward children were collected through naturalistic classroom observations, and data on peer liking and disliking were collected through peer nominations. Data were analyzed using path analysis. Results indicated that teacher cognitions about children and corrective/negative teacher behavior toward children mediated the relations between aggressive and prosocial child behavior and peer disliking.     

Oedipus goes to the opera: Psychoanalytic inquiry in Enescu’s Œdipe and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex

Abstract

Psychoanalytic inquiry into operas based on the life of Oedipus may provide further knowledge on the Oedipus complex. Therefore, we chose to analyze Enescu’s ?dipe and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. Two distinct methodologies were used in our study. The first explored the concept of free association through musical themes in the operas. The second involved the comparative study of the Oedipus myth in order to provide a deeper understanding of Oedipus’s character. We observed that Oedipus displayed symptoms of his complex through the traits of aggressiveness and arrogance. Moreover, we noticed that Oedipus was compelled by the necessity of finding out who his real parents were and by unconsciously accomplishing the prophecy. Oedipus assumed the responsibility to free the Thebans from plague. Yet, it was too late, for the feared part of the prophecy was already accomplished. He provided a wrong answer to the Sphinx and then received the most severe punishment, one that would have ostracism as its outcome. It was, however, not too late for Oedipus to finally discover who his real parents were. Nevertheless, afraid of losing his place as King of Thebes, he investigated the plague’s causes. This resulted in his aggression as he resisted discovering “where babies come from.”     

Constitutional Democracy in the Age of Populisms: A Commentary to Mark Tushnet’s Populist Constitutional Law

Res Publica - This contribution aims at discussing constitutional democracy in the age of populisms, by explaining how populist movements oppose liberal-democratic constitutionalism and by...     

Survey of Confucius’s Approach to Expediency

Confucius held that expediency means adjusting to changing circumstances, not necessarily going along with or against anything, having a sense of propriety about times and measures, and doing things in their proper time and manner. However, expediency does not mean doing whatever one likes without any principle; instead, it means taking benevolence and righteousness as criteria and acting accordingly. In Confucius’s opinion, one should cultivate benevolence internally and act with righteousness externally, weigh importance and unimportance, measure advantages and disadvantages, and not “set the mind either for anything, or against anything,” pursuing “what the heart desires, without transgressing what is right.” In this way, he would keep to benevolence without deviating from it, act expediently without despising any principles, and attain a dialectical unification of expediency and principles.     

Fromm’s ethic of solidarity and the potential for critical communitarianism

It can be (and has been) claimed that one of the central thematic concerns in Erich Fromm’s immense body of critical work is the exposition of a new “radical” humanist ethic, based upon the normative foundations of human solidarity/relatedness and love. The role of community in this ethic is vital, as Fromm argues for the existence of an intrinsically human need for belonging and communion. According to Fromm, the breakdown of traditional societies in modernity and the adoption of strong anti-traditionalist paradigms in both liberalism and Marxism has paradoxically led to the desire in the contemporary individual to “escape” this freedom, too often resulting in an uncritical adoption of what Eric Hobsbawm calls “invented traditions” in order to rediscover a shared sense of humankind. This article therefore contends that 1) Fromm advocates a form of “critical communitarianism”; and 2) that critical communitarianism can provide a strong foundation for an ethical confrontation with neoliberal modernity, and thereby a reconsidered form of community through human solidarity.     

Fromm’s understanding of the Buddhist philosophical theory and psychoanalysis: From the phenomenal ego to the authentic being1

Abstract

Erich Fromm was one of the first psychoanalytic thinkers who was genuinely interested in Asian philosophies. In the first part of this article, I will show Fromm’s imago of Buddhism as a radical, nontheistic, and ethical philosophy “without God.” I will argue that Fromm made an important difference between the phenomenal ego and being that proves crucial for his understanding of psychoanalysis and his critique of modern society. I will also explore Fromm’s synthesis of Buddhist philosophy and psychoanalysis, and show the similarities and differences between them.     

An Ecological Approach to Explaining Women’s Adjustment in the Initial Stage of Marriage

In this study, we focused on marital adjustment among a sample of 101 Israeli women who had been married up to 3 years and did not have children. We examined the contribution of variables from three ecological systems to marital adjustment: the ontogenic system (attachment dimensions, and women’s perceptions of differentiation in the family of origin); the microsystem (strategies for resolving marital conflicts); and the exosystem (characteristics of the husband’s employment). The findings revealed that the higher the women’s levels in the two dimensions of attachment, the lower their levels of marital adjustment. By contrast, the more the women used conflict resolution strategies of integration, concession, and compromise, the higher their levels of marital adjustment. Conflict resolution strategies mediated the effects of attachment avoidance and family differentiation on marital adjustment. To conclude, we offer practical recommendations for identifying couples at risk in the first stage of marital life, and for professional interventions to improve marital adjustment at that stage.     

A Teacher Requiring a Discriminating Approach: The Jews in Martin Luther’s Theology

This article considers how Martin Luther’s attitude to the Jews is related to his theology. Focusing on justification, Christology, Old Testament hermeneutics, ecclesiology, and the two-kingdom notion, the article aims at understanding more precisely the theological motives behind Luther’s attitude to Jews, at finding out whether questionable features of his theology surfaced in this, and at assessing what the price would be of possible changes in the theological view of Judaism for the whole of Lutheran theology.     

Mengzi’s Externalist Solution to the Role Dilemma

The role dilemma raises a problem for role ethic interpretations of Confucianism. The dilemma arises from the conflict between the demands and obligations of Humaneness and the demands and obligations of roles one occupies. Favoring the demands of Humaneness (i.e. externalism) undermines a role ethic because roles and role-obligations no longer ground the ethic. However, favoring social role-obligations (i.e. internalism) permits immoral and unjust role-obligations and allows for uncharitable readings of Confucianism.

This paper examines how Mengzi resolves the dilemma. I argue that Mengzi’s account of human nature privileges the demands of Humaneness; social roles are central but defeasible in light of Humaneness. I briefly discuss a prominent articulation of Confucian role ethics as well as the role dilemma. Then, after considering the technical resources within the Mengzi, I argue that Mengzi espouses an externalism about roles. Finally, I explore the relationship between Mengzi’s externalism and role ethics.     

The Duty of Memory Revisited: Ricoeur’s Contribution to a Crisis in French Historiography

The relationship between memory and history, which has preoccupied historiography and the philosophy of history since the middle of the nineteenth century, took a particular course in France at the end of the millennium. The forms this relationship took in this particular context have been the subject of heated debate around whether the reconstruction of the past should bear the sign of a moral imperative or, on the contrary, it should be kept away from any moral conditioning. To address this question and underline its particular relevance to the present, I will revisit a significant debate, based around Paul Ricoeur’s interpretation of the duty of memory developed in his book Memory, History, Forgetting. I will do this by means of a three-step approach. First, a short introduction will provide several guidelines for understanding the issues at stake in the debate in which Ricoeur was caught and explanations regarding the significance of the main notions around which the discussions took place, i.e., the duty and work of memory. Second, I will identify how historical debates, political decisions and civic concerns about the past gradually coagulated into two different “camps” in France during the 1980s and 1990s, i.e., the advocates of memory against those of history, foreshadowing the emergence of a historiographical crisis, the stakes of which I will analyse in detail. Finally, I will show how Ricoeur’s solution to this debate, i.e., an incomplete dialectic between the duty and the work of memory, developed on the horizon of justice, continues to have relevance for the present, being an innovative form of “defatalizing” the past.

     

Knowing One’s Own Self: An Analysis of Vivekananda’s Approach to One’s Identity

A successful declaration of one’s identity in saying “ahaṃ Brahmāsmi” is a result of knowing one’s own self as indistinguishable from Brahman. The non-difference between oneself and the Brahman is one’s true identity, and it goes without saying, knowledge of one’s true identity constitutes the correct knowing of one’s own self. That the said non-difference is upheld by vedānta, and we need to put this ideal non-difference into practice is the crux of Vivekananda’s practical vedānta. Vivekananda gives certain reasons for the practicability of vedānta. This paper’s part I is an exposition of Vivekananda’s practical vedānta, focussing on those reasons for practical vedānta and orienting each towards an analytical understanding. In part II, a linguistic analysis of Vivekananda’s approach to one’s identity has been carried out after introducing J. Hintikka’s interpretation of Descartes’ “I think, therefore, I am” and G. Misra’s interpretation of sat (existence, reality or being) cit (consciousness, knowledge or cognition) ānanda (bliss, intense happiness or felicity). The latter’s interpretation displays a positivist’s linguistic analysis of vedānta, whereas the former’s does a speech act theorist’s analysis of Descartes’ cogito principle. The present analysis indicates that practical vedānta can be read in the light of analytic philosophy and Vivekananda’s approach to one’s identity can be understood in terms of speech acts.

     

Situating Maimonides’s Approach to the Oral Torah in Its Andalusian Context

Maimonides’s readers have long recognized that his presentation of the Oral Torah differed markedly from that of the Baghdadi geonim, particularly Sa‘adya Gaon. Maimonides did not cite any precedent for his disagreements with the geonim. Recent studies, however, have called attention to Andalusian sources that prefigure and parallel Maimonidean claims, suggesting that his views, at least in part, drew on earlier Andalusian thought. This article argues that a uniquely Andalusian understanding of the talmudic adage “A sage is superior to a prophet,” first found in the writings of Isaac Ibn Ghiyāth, demonstrates that Andalusian Rabbanite culture had long approached the Oral Torah differently than did the geonim of Baghdad. After identifying a number of Andalusian antecedents for Maimonides’s approach to the Oral Torah, this article explores possible motives for the divergent pictures of revelation put forward by Rabbanites in Baghdad and Andalusia. It is suggested that the impact of Andalusian Maliki jurists helps explain the divergent positions of Baghdadi and Andalusian Rabbanites.     

The Relevance of Martha C. Nussbaum’s Human Rights Capabilities Approach for Today’s Psychoanalytic Inquiry

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -