Freedom, Equality, Minarets

This paper discusses the Swiss minaret ban as a threat to equal citizenship rather than a threat to freedom of religion. The main argument of the paper is that cultural differences can threaten the fair value of equal political participation rights as well as socio-economic ones. These differences are morally troubling despite legitimate emphasis on the need for a shared (political) culture. To ensure that the state treats its citizens as equals with regard to cultural differences requires a form of liberal neutrality which consists of two elements. Equal citizenship requires, first, justificatory neutrality in deciding which matters are legitimate concerns for legislation. It requires also—as a second safeguard—institutional arrangements which ensure that in the process of implementing justificatory neutral decisions the interests of all affected citizens receive a fair hearing. This means that the factors which tend to undermine the equal standing of citizens in society should be counteracted.     

Knowledge-How,Abilities, and Questions

The debate about the nature of knowledge-how is standardly thought to be divided between intellectualist views, which take knowledge-how to be a kind of propositional knowledge, and anti-intellectualist views, which take knowledge-how to be a kind of ability. In this paper, I explore a compromise position—the interrogative capacity view—which claims that knowing how to do something is a certain kind of ability to generate answers to the question of how to do it. This view combines the intellectualist thesis that knowledge-how is a relation to a set of propositions with the anti-intellectualist thesis that knowledge-how is a kind of ability. I argue that this view combines the positive features of both intellectualism and anti-intellectualism.     

Physicalism, Nothing Buttery, and Supervenience

I consider the position (which I call'the triad') according to which physicalism is a reductive claim which is capturable in terms of the idea (the ' nothing buttery ' idea) that there is nothing but/nothing over and above the physical, an idea which, in its turn, is meant to be capturable in terms of a determinate form of supervenience . (Physicalism is then meant to be capturable in terms of the form of supervenience in question.) I argue that there is a tension in the triad. The notion of 'nothing buttery' required has features which can't be captured by the supervenience of the triad. Hence, one cannot have both physicalism as nothing-buttery-reductive and physicalism as supervenience of the kind in question. If one wants to hold onto the idea of physicalism as nothing-buttery-reductive, one must be prepared to identify physicalism with a much stronger claim than one might have originally thought, a claim that can't be captured by the supervenience of the triad.     

Psychology,Religion, and Spirituality

This study focused on the relation between the manner in which pray-ers perceive God (God concept) and their tendencies to choose various prayer types. A sample of 114 Jewish Israeli religious men responded to multidimensional measures of God concept (Benevolent, Evaluation, Omniness, Guiding, and Deisticness) and of prayer type (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication, Reception). Canonical correlation analysis uncovered a significant canonical model. Two canonical functions, explaining a total of 36.5% of the variance, were selected for interpretation. Function 1 indicated a perception of God as a benevolent and guiding God together with supplicative prayer. Function 2 indicated a perception of God as a meaningful and close God with active thanksgiving prayer. These results provide support for the notion that the manner in which an individual perceives God and the manner in which that individual chooses to pray to God are indeed related.     

KILLING, SELF-DEFENSE, AND BAD LUCK

This essay argues on behalf of a hybrid theory for an ethics of self-defense understood as the Forfeiture-Partiality Theory. The theory weds the idea that a malicious attacker forfeits the right to life to the idea that we are permitted to prefer one's life to another's in cases of involuntary harm or threat. The theory is meant to capture our intuitions both about instances in which we can draw a moral asymmetry between attacker and victim and cases in which we cannot. I develop the theory by attending to instances of intentional, villainous harm and instances of involuntary danger—the latter of which are a matter of bad luck. I call some bad luck cases "Interpersonal Lottery Conflicts." These cases refer to potentially lethal conflicts into which parties are thrown as victims of circumstance. Although neither party has a moral advantage over another, that fact does not preclude permissible self-defense.     

Disability, Minority, and Difference

In this paper I develop a characterization of disability according to which disability is in no way a sub-optimal feature. I argue, however, that this conception of disability is compatible with the idea that having a disability is, at least in a restricted sense, a harm. I then go on to argue that construing disability in this way avoids many of the common objections levelled at accounts which claim that disability is not a negative feature.     

Realization, Micro-Realization, and Coincidence

Let thin properties be properties shared by coincident entities, e.g., a person and her body, and thick properties ones that are not shared. Thick properties entail sortal properties, e.g., being a person, and the associated persistence conditions. On the first account of realization defined here, the realized property and its realizers will belong to the same individual. This restricts the physical realizers of mental properties, which are thick, to thick physical properties. We also need a sense in which mental properties can be realized in thin physical properties shared by a person and her body. Defining this in turn requires defining a sense in which the instantiations of sortal properties and of thick properties are realized in micro-structural states of affairs. A fourth notion of realization is needed to allow for the possibility of coincident entities that share a sortal property, e.g., coincident persons.     

Bohm,Spin, and the Bell Inequalities

In this paper I discuss how Bohm's interpretation models spin measurements and how the two ways in which spin is a contextual property pertains to the Kochen-Specker theorem. I then present locality principles from which a Bell Inequality can be derived, and I identify which of the locality principles Bohm's interpretation violates at which times. I also present reasons why the spin vector should not be attributed to the Bohmian particles.     

Agency,Signification, and Temporality

This paper examines the temporality of agency in Judith Butler's and Saba Mahmood's writing. I argue that Mahmood moves away from a performative understanding of agency, which focuses on relations of signification, to a corporeal understanding, which focuses on desire and sensation. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze's reading of Henri Bergson, I show how this move involves a changed model of becoming: whereas Butler imagines movement as a series of discontinuous beings, in Mahmood's case, we get an understanding of becoming.     

On Toleration,Charity, and Epistemic Fallibilism

In this paper I examine some presuppositions of toleration and pluralism and explore two models, viz., a deontological and a consequentialist model, respectively, which could support the view that rational agents should act in a tolerant way. Against the background which is offered by the first model, I give two arguments in favor of the view that people are better off and more rational if they act in a tolerant way. The first argument draws upon a principle of charity which is usually applied in philosophy of mind and philosophy of language, but which could, equally well, work with regard to foundational issues in ethics and philosophy of action. The second argument is built upon the epistemic principle of fallibilism and it is meant to show that acting in a tolerant way is the rational thing to do from this perspective.     

Myths,metaphors, and mentors

This article begins with a discussion of myths as visions that transform life. The primary myth is that of death and rebirth. Metaphors are images which illumine our myths. Therapists are thus both scientists and poets. The process of being a mentor occurs in a variety of relationships. Our search is for an understanding of this process which then transcends the positions of master and disciple. Mentors need to have a sufficient degree of self-transcendence to enable the focus to be on the person's own unique vision. Mentors light sparks which ignite our myths and metaphors and thereby expand our understanding of ourselves. Mentors become catalysts for our growth and thereby facilitate the process of transformation.The author would like to express his gratitude to Anne Nelson, who helped with editing this article.     

Ability,motivation, and speed

The relations between ability, motivation, and speed in a mental task are represented by a psychometric surface. Ability of a subject is defined as the degree of difficulty for which the probability is 1/2 that he will complete the task in infinite time. Motivation affects the rate at which mental work is done, but not the altitude of performance. Suggestions towards experimental work are made.     

Monologs,Dialogues, Bodies,Words, Silence,Photographs, Death

ABSTRACT

An examination of a clinical case in which severe demands on the analyst were made to bear silence and trauma unprocessable by the analysand. This discussion draws on the work of Coltart and Ferenczi to consider the demands of such work on the analyst. Intergenerational transmissions of trauma are also considered in the understanding of this case.     

Shame,Death, and Dying

This paper deals with the influence of shame on the way in which Western society, particularly North America, is coping with death and dying. From being a familiar event, death and dying have become a shameful aspect of life. Thus, this paper provides some understanding of this important transformation, and it challenges some of our present attitudes regarding death and dying. These human experiences are not the ultimate manifestation of a failure, either from a personal or a medical perspective, but the only way through which human beings acquire the fullness of life, as Christian faith reveals.     

Rationalism, Naturalism, And Methodological Principles

The nature of the distinction between rational andnon-rational accounts of the development of science isanalyzed. These two kinds of accounts differ mostlyin the status which they give to methodologicalprinciples. It is shown that there are severaldimensions with respect to which the status of suchprinciples can resemble more or less the kind ofstatus that a paradigmatic rational account would givethem. It is concluded that, under the most plausibledefinitions of a rational account, the extent to whicha philosophical account of scientific change isrational is a matter of degree, and that there is nosuch clear distinction between the two kinds ofaccounts which some supporters of rational and ofnon-rational accounts have assumed to exist.     

Supervision-competence, confidence, accountability

The need for a shared understanding of the tasks and purposes of supervision for the emerging professions of counselling and psychotherapy is presented Progress to date is reviewed, including a brief account of the initiatives taken by the British Association for Counselling. Taking one definition of the supervision task, its implications are explored and contrasted to other possible definitions. It is suggested that working with trainee counsellors calls for some agreed skills which may not be within the accustomed repertoire of all 'schools of counselling', and a plea is made for group supervision which actively engages all participants. The implications of the ideas in the article for supervisor development and counsellor training are examined.     

Witnessing, wonder, and hope

This article is based on a keynote address I gave in South Africa at the Eighth International Conference of The South African Association of Marital and Family Therapy. The phenomenon of witnessing is explored in a number of contexts, and a distinction is made between witnessing with and without awareness, and from an empowered or a disempowered position. I propose that the African philosophy of ubuntu--the emphasis of which is on the self in community, in contrast to the Western emphasis on the individual--may be a better fit for my view of hope, which, I propose, is not just a feeling but, rather, something people do.     

Husserl,Phenomenology, and Foundationalism

Husserl is often taken, and not without reason, to endorse the view that phenomenology's task is to provide the “absolute foundation” of human knowledge. In this paper, I will argue that the most natural interpretation of this view, namely that all human knowledge depends for its justification, at least in part, on phenomenological knowledge, is philosophically untenable. I will also present evidence that Husserl himself held no such view, and will argue that Dan Zahavi and John Drummond, though reaching the same conclusion, reach it for the wrong reasons. In the process, I will also defend a brand of epistemological externalism according to which knowledge does not depend upon knowing the epistemic principles under which one's knowledge falls, and argue that Husserl himself held such a view. I conclude with a discussion of a few of the ways in which phenomenology positively contributes to human knowledge.