The Quest for ‘Disenchantment’ and the Modernization of Magic

The initial premise of this article is that the lasting influence of nineteenth-century Protestant liberalism on the modern conceptualization of religion has confined our understanding of a variety of traditions to a narrow evolutionary scope in which purer religious forms in line with scientific rationalism are seen as arising out of earlier impure systems akin to magic. The article presents the instrumentality of the Qur'an as an alternative lens through which to acknowledge what has often been labelled as “magic” in Islam. Recognizing that this modern conceptualization of religion has been appropriated as an ideal by Muslim modernist reformists, the article particularly intends to show that, through the use of this alternative analytical instrument, the modernist project of emancipatory “disenchantment” can be viewed as an instance of the modernization of magic just as easily as it can be seen as religious purification, the intention of this exercise being to further problematize our current distinction between religion and magic.     

The logic of obligation, ‘better’ and ‘worse’

Research for this paper was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, FT-33794. I am grateful to an anonymous referee of this journal for remarks on an earlier version of this paper.     

‘There and then’, ‘here and now’, ‘when and if’: The relationship of present,past and future in the consulting room

This paper revolves around the question of the patient’s inhabiting of time. Where is the main focus of the patient’s indwelling in time – the past, the present or the future – and what are the qualitative aspects of such indwelling? Of equal significance, is the patient able to move freely between past, present and future events and preoccupations and make links between them, or is he or she caught in a ‘time warp’? These questions are explored within a context of both psychodynamic and existential theory, drawing on the one hand on the work of Winnicott, Bick, Bion and Turp and on the other of Heidegger, Van den Berg, Merleau-Ponty, Kemp and Scheffler. The themes addressed are illustrated with clinical examples.     

Adolescents’ Civic Commitments in Stable and Fledgling Democracies: The Role of Family,School, and Community

The authors examined the associations between adolescents’ perceptions of proximal processes in families, schools, and communities and their civic commitments (to the local community, nation, and conventional politics) in stable (Australia, United States) and fledgling (Bulgaria, Hungary) democracies in the mid-1990s. Results of multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) revealed that adolescents in the stable democracies reported higher levels of extracurricular participation, family emphasis on social responsibility, and community social capital compared to peers in the fledgling democracies. Using a multiple group regression approach, the authors found that in both types of polities, community social capital was positively associated with all three civic outcomes and a family ethic of social responsibility was positively associated with commitments to the local community and nation. However, whereas in the stable democracies, a democratic school climate was positively associated with commitments to the community and nation, in the fledgling democracies such school climates were positively associated with commitments to conventional politics.     

The Ways of ‘Being’ and ‘Becoming’ Human

We argue that developing integrative models of psychological phenomenon require dealing simultaneously with information-theoretic and meaning making processes at the individual and group levels. Attempts to fuse these across levels based on intentionality become difficult because phenomena at the lower level organisms are conceptualized employing concrete systems language, while in case of human and social systems both concrete and abstracted systems concepts are used. Intentionality also needs to be looked at as arising out of the processes of both being and becoming. Fusing of psycho-and socio-logics necessarily requires taking into consideration psychological processes and notions of intentionality and future within cultural contexts in a more holistic manner. It is also argued that both at personal and collective levels, human intentionality operate as bounded intentionality alternating between states of being and becoming.     

Affective economies of Beyoglu in Istanbul: The construction of ‘Disgust’ and ‘Fear’ in neoliberalization of nightlife

This study contributes to understanding neoliberalism in Beyoglu, by examining how neoliberal discourses create and circulate normative meanings in nightlife. I suggest that neoliberal discourses and practices inform a value structure in everyday life which identifies subject positions in terms of affiliation and marginalization in Beyoglu's nightlife scene, based on the affective economies of Beyoglu. Affiliation/marginalization distil through moments of contact, imbued with various affective dispositions. I argue that spaces of affiliation shape and are shaped by the affective dispositions of (middle-)classed night-time euphoria. Conforming to norms of desirability, attractiveness and safety, they present a cultural and economic model attuned to neoliberal rationalities. Two dominant stereotypes of ‘undesirability’ emerge in affective terms: (i) those of ‘ineligible’ dispositions which produce emotions of ‘disgust’, and (ii) those of ‘fearful’ bodies constantly moving across the night-time leisure places of Beyoglu. By examining the relationship between neoliberalism and affective economies in Beyoglu's nightlife, this study contributes to research on night-time leisure places, providing insight into linkages between emotional subjectivities and rational thinking.     

Defining ‘Dead’ in Terms of ‘Lives’ and ‘Dies’

What is it for a thing to be dead? Fred Feldman holds, correctly in my view, that a definition of ‘dead’ should leave open both (1) the possibility of things that go directly from being dead to being alive, and (2) the possibility of things that go directly from being alive to being neither alive nor dead, but merely in suspended animation. But if this is right, then surely such a definition should also leave open the possibility of things that go directly from being dead to being neither alive nor dead, but merely in suspended animation. I show that Feldman’s own definition of ‘dead’ (in terms of ‘lives’ and ‘dies’) does not leave this possibility open. I propose a new definition that does.     

The microgeographies of learning bodies and emotions in the ‘classroom-salon’

The role of the body and emotions in the workplace has become a fruitful area for sociological and, increasingly, geographical research over the past decade. This has been given particular emphasis and credence due to the growth of the service sector and its perceived ‘feminisation’, and the proliferation of work that focuses on the ‘improvement’ of bodies, most especially female bodies. This literature, though, has focused, as it suggests, on the processes of working and the geographies of the workplace, with those of training largely overlooked. Yet, given the emphasis on training for work and up-skilling in neoliberal economies, the sites and spaces of training warrant further attention. Here we focus on mothers engaged in training for massage and reflexology in the West London area, and draw together notions of body work and emotional labour to examine how bodies and emotions are learned and experienced through the microgeographies of the ‘classroom-salon’. In particular, the paper explores how the transformative space of the ‘classroom-salon’ is used to teach skills perceived simultaneously as natural and technical and how these link to perceived gender and maternal identities that extend beyond the classroom.     

The Role of ‘Peace of Mind’ and ‘Meaningfulness’ as Psychological Concepts in Explaining Subjective Well-being

Journal of Happiness Studies - Although extensive research has been conducted to explain what contributes to subjective wellbeing, still a substantial part of its variance remains unexplained. This...     

The autonomous chooser and ‘Reforms’ in education

In recent educational reforms in New Zealand, a central assumption has been the existence of a free and autonomous chooser acting as a consumer of education. The present paper examines and critiques this notion of autonomy, as developed within liberal theory. Both Foucault and Lyotard provide materials for this critique of such a self, a self independent of the laws and principles of a community.     

The dual role of ‘emergence’ in the philosophy of mind and in cognitive science

The concept of emergence is widely used in both the philosophy of mind and in cognitive science. In the philosophy of mind it serves to refer to seemingly irreducible phenomena, in cognitive science it is often used to refer to phenomena not explicitly programmed. There is no unique concept of emergence available that serves both purposes.     

Fear of ‘failure’ and ‘tissue damage’ in police recruits,constables, sergeants and senior officers

This study investigates the effects of occupational experiences on the pattern of fears among groups of British male police officers. Two categories of fears were studied: (1) fear of failure and negative evaluation; (2) fear of tissue damage and bodily harm. The former was expected to increase with police experience and seniority, whereas the latter should decrease due to greater exposure in vivo and limited opportunities for avoidance behaviour. The Ss comprised 72 police recruits, 62 constables, 30 sergeants and 93 senior officers. The hypotheses were confirmed, suggesting clear group differences among police officers in the pattern of fears which was related to police experience and seniority. The Fear scores were found to correlate significantly with neuroticism as measured by the EPQ.     

The ‘Sweet Singers’ of Israel: Prophecy,Antinomianism and Worship in Restoration England

Abstract

This paper will examine the forgotten Restoration sect known as the ‘Sweet Singers of Israel,’ regularly listed alongside Ranters, Muggletonians, Quakers and Anabaptists as dangerous enthusiasts in early Enlightenment England. Although the sources for its history are limited, I argue that the sect is worth rescuing from obscurity because it illustrates the continuity of an antinomian tradition in England after the Restoration, and indicates that music in worship was used as an expression of radical Christian liberty. Known for matching religious lyrics to secular ballad-tunes, and bawdy words to psalm settings, the Sweet Singers tested the boundaries between the spheres of the sacred and profane and sought to demonstrate that God was ‘all in all.’ Proposed here is that the Sweet Singers, with their extempore, prophetic verse and musical experiments, offer an insight into the creativity and volatility of this formative period in English church music.     

‘The Echo of a Thought in Sight’: Property Perception,Universals and Wittgenstein

Contemporary philosophers of perception, even those with otherwise widely differing beliefs, often hold that universals enter into the content of perceptual experience. This doctrine can even be seen as a trivial inference from the observation that we observe properties – ways that things are – as well as things. I argue that the inference is not trivial but can and should be resisted. Ordinary property perception does not involve awareness of universals. But there are visual (and aural) experiences which do involve determinate universals: following Wittgenstein, I call these ‘aspect experiences’. The common view of perceptual content effectively conflates aspect experiences with mere property perceptions. Wittgenstein’s later writings on the philosophy of psychology provide an alternative way to think about both aspects and properties. It also forms a contrast with Wittgenstein’s own early treatment of perception in the Tractatus, the doctrine of which is much closer to the contemporary norm among philosophers of perception. In seeing how Wittgenstein moved away from his early view, we can see how we might move away from that norm.     

The role of ability in creative ‘incubation’

While many people report interruptions from problem-solving to be beneficial for the creative process (‘incubation’), experimental demonstration of the phenomenon has been difficult. Factors that might lead to incubation effects are discussed and implemented in a study in which 80 university students solved word-association problems under continous work or interrupted conditions. The interruptions involved work on other problems, other problems plus periods of conversation or other problems plus work on an unrelated mental rotation task. The results showed the incubation phenomenon in one condition and, most importantly, the ability level of the Ss for the task involved determined whether incubation would occur. High-ability Ss benefited from the interruptioninvolving the rotations task, while low-ability Ss did not show any incubation effects. Comparisons to previous studies and suggestions for future research are made throughout.