A Wittgensteinian Philosophy of Religion – or A Philosophy of Wittgensteinian Religion?

I evaluate the plausibility of how broadly 'Wittgensteinian' approaches to the philosophy of religion: looking in the first half of the essay at the account such approaches give of the meaning of religious utterances, and in the second half at the account given of the required justification for believing such utterances. As regards the meaning of religious utterances I distinguish weak and strong Wittgensteinian theses, supporting the former but refuting the latter. Turning to Wittgensteinian approaches to the justification of religious beliefs I argue that although some beliefs are 'groundless' in a way that makes them an unquestionable feature of our conceptual landscape, anything as interesting as a religious belief can not be 'groundless' in the relevant sense (of being invulnerable to attack). Finally I argue that only Wittgensteinian approaches can capture the meaning and justificatory requirements of religious beliefs for a minority of 'believers': but that this minority is important.     

What Facilitates Cultural Entrepreneurship? – A Study of Indian Cultural Entrepreneurs

The importance of a ‘cultural industry’ to a national economy and the development of a “creative society” has grown increasingly. However, research on cultural entrepreneurship is in its early stages and is yet to catch the attention of mainstream entrepreneurship and creativity scholars. In this article the objective is to enhance our knowledge and understanding of the key aspects that cultural entrepreneurs find facilitating their entrepreneurship. Studying Indian cultural entrepreneurs and applying a qualitative method, this paper identifies seven such aspects: cultural value creation, intrinsic motivation and external recognition, minimized risk, contextual understanding, innovation and learning, perseverance and ethical pursuit of cultural activity, and social networks.     

Freud's “A Case of Successful Treatment by Hypnotism (1892–1893)”: An Uncommon Therapy?

Freud's first reported successful treatment by hypnosis included suggestions that have much in common with some recent developments in family systems therapy. The case is discussed within the context of the evolution of psychoanalytic and family systems theories with the view that intrapsychic and contextual forces are not mutually exclusive. The author agrees with Haley in his recent book, Uncommon Therapy, regarding the value of viewing psychiatric symptoms as manifestations of a disturbance in family relations, occurring especially at transitional stages of family development. However, the emphasis on behavior change and symptom removal restricts the potentiality of the family approach to that of psychoanalysis in 1895, when it was a naive, simplistic, and mechanistic therapy.     

Modern health worries – the dark side of spirituality?

Modern health worries (MHWs) are widespread in modern societies. MHWs were connected to both negative and positive psychological characteristics in previous studies. The study aimed to investigate the relationships among intuitive‐experiential information processing style, spirituality, MHWs, and psychological well‐being. Members of the Hungarian Skeptic Society (N = 128), individuals committed to astrology (N = 601), and people from a non‐representative community sample (N = 554) completed questionnaires assessing intuitive‐experiential information processing style, spirituality, modern health worries (MHWs), and psychological well‐being. Astrologers showed higher levels of spirituality, intuitive‐experiential thinking, and modern health worries than individuals from the community sample; and skeptics scored even lower than the latter group with respect to all three constructs. Within the community sample, medium level connections between measures of spirituality and the experiential thinking style, and weak to medium level correlations between spirituality and MHWs were found. The connection between MHWs and experiential thinking style was completely mediated by spirituality. Individuals with higher levels of spirituality are particularly vulnerable to overgeneralized messages on health related risks. Official communication of potential risks based on rational scientific reasoning is not appropriate to persuade them as it has no impact on the intuitive‐experiential system.     

Becoming a high‐fidelity – super – imitator: what are the contributions of social and individual learning?

In contrast to other primates, human children's imitation performance goes from low to high fidelity soon after infancy. Are such changes associated with the development of other forms of learning? We addressed this question by testing 215 children (26–59 months) on two social conditions (imitation, emulation) – involving a demonstration – and two asocial conditions (trial‐and‐error, recall) – involving individual learning – using two touchscreen tasks. The tasks required responding to either three different pictures in a specific picture order (Cognitive: Airplane→Ball→Cow) or three identical pictures in a specific spatial order (Motor‐Spatial: Up→Down→Right). There were age‐related improvements across all conditions and imitation, emulation and recall performance were significantly better than trial‐and‐error learning. Generalized linear models demonstrated that motor‐spatial imitation fidelity was associated with age and motor‐spatial emulation performance, but cognitive imitation fidelity was only associated with age. While this study provides evidence for multiple imitation mechanisms, the development of one of those mechanisms – motor‐spatial imitation – may be bootstrapped by the development of another social learning skill – motor‐spatial emulation. Together, these findings provide important clues about the development of imitation, which is arguably a distinctive feature of the human species.     

Karl Barth and the concursus Dei – A Chalcedonianism Too Far?

Abstract:  This article considers the account in the work of Karl Barth of the concursus Dei – that part of the doctrine of providence which deals with the fatherly lordship of God as it accompanies the free activity of the creature. In recent Barth literature, the term 'Chalcedonian' has regularly been used to describe Barth's construal of the concursus Dei , on the basis of the christocentric derivation of his doctrine of providence. Nevertheless, this article suggests that this particular use of christological vocabulary is unhelpful, and concludes that, on historical, material and methodological grounds, the term 'Chalcedonian' in this context should be avoided.     

‘Who is my Jung?’ The progressive,though sometimes ambivalent,expansion of Jung's idea of the collective unconscious: from an ‘unconscious humanity’ to – in all but name – the soul of the world

This paper discusses Jung's idea of myth as a projection of the collective unconscious, suggesting that the term ‘projection’ separates human beings from nature, withdrawing nature's life into humanity. Jung's discovery of a realm independent of consciousness – in conversations with his soul in The Red Book, and in synchronicity, began a dialogue which finally brought him, through the Alchemical Mercurius, closer to the idea of a world‐soul.     

Is Scripture the Origin of Halakhah? – Jacob Neusner The Talmud: Law,Theology, Narrative: A Sourcebook – Jacob Neusner Theology of Normative Judaism: A Source Book – Jacob Neusner The Vitality of Rabbinic Imagination: The Mishnah against the Bible and Qumran – Jacob Neusner

Book reviewed: Is Scripture the Origin of Halakhah? , Jacob Neusner, University Press of America 2005 (0‐7618‐3117‐7), xiv + 217 pp., pb $34.00 The Talmud: Law, Theology, Narrative: A Sourcebook , Jacob Neusner, University Press of America 2005 (0‐7618‐3115‐0), xxxiv + 251 pp., pb $39.00 Theology of Normative Judaism: A Source Book , Jacob Neusner, University Press of America 2005 (0‐7618‐3116‐9), vi + 156 pp., pb $26.00 The Vitality of Rabbinic Imagination: The Mishnah against the Bible and Qumran , Jacob Neusner, University Press of America 2005 (0‐7618‐3118‐5), xxxiv + 226 pp., pb $35.00     

‘Kierkegaard’: A Reasonable Fideist?

The task I set myself is to identify whether Climacus is an extreme or moderate fideist, and to go on to evaluate how convincing or persuasive I find Climacus' position. Separating metaphysical and epistemological fideism, I spend the first section of the article denying that Climacus is a 'metaphysical fideist'. This involves looking at the notion of 'truth as subjectivity'. I will claim that in expounding this notorious maxim Climacus can be seen as expressing something almost trivially obvious and/or something substantially wrong. I will further argue that even the obvious version of the maxim needs to be heavily qualified before it can be a sufficient account of 'religious truth'.
In the second section of the article I argue that Climacus should be understood as a moderate fideist, who considers that reason should assent to its own limitations. Although I will approve of reason-exhausting projects, I will complain that the paradox which is supposed to so exhaust my reason does not perplex me in the relevant sense.     

Personality out of proportion?

The field of personality assessment has evolved the normative practice of centering scores on their means, evaluating associations among measures with Pearson correlations, and using factor analytic methods to reduce redundancy and provide putative explanatory variables. At least some of these explanatory variables, or factors, have become well-known elements in trait theories of personality structure (e.g., the Five-factor model). Hofstee and Ten Berge (2004/this issue) suggest an alternative set of procedures arising from treating the midpoints of bipolar rating scales as true zero points. These procedures lead to a very different view of personality structure in which one factor provides a nearly sufficient summary of personality judgments. I scrutinize the methodological choices implied by these procedures here. This evaluation leads to the conclusion that Hofstee and Ten Berge provide methods and results that cannot serve to replace normative practice and well-known findings but do provide insight into important questions not typically addressed by personality assessors.     

Will Capitalists Live Happily Ever After? – Political Myth: On the Use and Abuse of Biblical Themes – By Roland Boer

What would our world be like if all oppositions to capitalism were to be removed? The author describes a doomsday scenario instead of everlasting plenitude if capitalists have their ways. This conclusion comes from the author's masterful discussion of political myth and analysis of the narrative of Genesis to Joshua as a political myth. The narrative of the Hexateuch constructs and at the same time punishes all sorts of rebels who oppose the theocratic state it wishes to establish. But myth is uncanny in that the rebellion hides what it fears the most, the impossibility of such a state to come true, and needs what it desires to annihilate in order to persist as an unfulfilled fantasy that powers a political movement. The author argues that some politicians in Australia and the USA are abusing the logic of the political myth of the Hexateuch in order to support their capitalistic agendas and, therefore, the Left must tell the ending of the capitalist fantasy of endless production and expansion in order to reveal its contradictions.