Bion’s discovery of alpha function: Thinking under fire on the battlefield and in the consulting room

This paper has traced Bion’s discovery of alpha function and its subsequent elaboration. His traumatic experiences as a young tank commander in World War I (overlaid on, and intertwined with, childhood conflicts) gave him firsthand exposure to very painful emotions that tested his capacity to manage. Later, in the 1950s, after his analysis with Melanie Klein and marriage to Francesca Bion, he undertook the analysis of psychotic patients and learned how they disassembled their ability to know reality as a defense against unbearable emotional truths in their lives. This led Bion to identify an aspect of dreaming that was necessary in order for reality experience to be given personal meaning so that one may learn from experience. Simultaneous with working out this new theory of dreaming, Bion also revisited his World War I experiences that had remained undigested and all these elements coalesced into a selected fact – his discovery of alpha function. In subsequent writings, Bion explored the constituent factors of alpha function, including the container/contained relationship, the PS?D balance, reverie, tolerated doubt and other factors which I have termed the ‘Constellation for Thinking’.     

Is Putnam's Causal Theory of Meaning Compatible with Internal Realism?

Putnam originally developed his causal theory of meaning in order to support scientific realism and reject the notion of incommensurability. Later he gave up this position and adopted instead what he called ‘internal realism’, but apparently without changing his mind on topics related to his former philosophy of language. The question must arise whether internal realism, which actually is a species of antirealism, is compatible with the causal theory of meaning. In giving an answer I begin with an analysis of the content and metaphysical background of scientific realism. I show that it presupposes metaphysical realism and that Putnam's philosophical conversion is due to his becoming aware of the latter's incoherence. After giving a brief sketch of internal realism I conclude by arguing that within this new theoretical framework the causal theory of meaning loses its force as a weapon against incommensurability. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Love and Lust Revisited: intentionality, homosexuality and moral education

ABSTRACT In his book Sexual Desire , Roger Scruton wrongly maintains that human sexual experience is essentially intentional. His thesis depends on his highly revisionary definitions of 'sexual arousal' and 'sexual desire', the artificial nature of which I expose and criticise.
He admits that homosexual desire is capable of the same kind of intentionality as heterosexual desire, and is therefore not intrinsically obscene or perverted, but he advances reasons why homosexuality is morally different from heterosexuality and is therefore an object of disapproval. His arguments presuppose 'an impassable moral divide' between the sexes and are, on his own admission, not very cogent.
Since he allows that homosexual desire is a natural and spontaneous phenomenon and also proposes that moral education should guide us towards a state in which our sexuality is entirely integrated within a life of personal affection and responsibility, consistency requires that he adopt a sexual ideology which does not discriminate against homosexuality. For homosexuals are unlikely to achieve the 'sexual integrity' which Scruton advocates (and which I endorse) if they are constantly encouraged to disparage their own sexual nature and if social institutions make no positive provision for them.     

NON-DISCURSIVE EXPRESSIVE ELEMENTS AND THEIR ROLE IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF MEANING IN THE ANALYTICAL SITUATION

The author discusses the role of non‐discursive expressive elements in the construction of the analytical situation, using three examples to illustrate the problems with which he is concerned. His claim is that the issue in question necessarily involves the subject of affects, and he proceeds to discuss the difficulties associated with this subject. In addition, he considers the contributions of Green and Imbasciati, and Kleinian developments of this theme, including also the contributions of Bion—in particular the latter's theories concerning thought, in which emotion comes to assume an essential place in the origin of thinking. The author resumes the discussion by taking up his clinical examples, using them to put forward the view that non‐discursive expressive elements may well play a decisive role in the construction of meaning in the analytical situation. He suggests also that the meaning of an emotional experience may be thought of as a construction contributed to by a number of symbolic forms which both interfere with and interact with the symbolic system of language. Following examination of his third example, the author reflects on ‘musicality’, a notion sometimes referred to informally in clinical data in connection with the ‘emotional climate’ of the session. He proposes that the complex problem of meaning in music be extended to cover the construction of meaning in the psychoanalytic setting, and in so doing returns to ideas put forward by Suzanne Langer. His underlying view here is that essential elements of the musical phenomenon and essential elements of particular forms of emotional life give rise to the same emotional matrices—perhaps to what Meltzer calls ‘musical deep grammar’. Finally, the author considers various symbolic forms that contribute to the particular configuration of analytical situations, suggesting that the mental condition of ‘free‐floating attention’ requires the broad availability to the analyst's mind of a multiplicity of symbolic forms, his conversion of these into new expressions of meaning, and the possibility of their verbal communication by him to the patient.     

Hamlet: plea for a measure of normality

The author first considers issues in psychoanalytic interpretations of literary characters, especially the question of treating the character as fiction (the aesthetic illusion) or as a real person. The position he adopts is to interpret Hamlet as a potential person, created by Shakespeare and an expression of Shakespeare’s actual – and intuitive – view of man.

With a synopsis of the tragedy and the context of its creation as background, the author then reflects on questions concerning the play. How does Shakespeare present the characters? Is Hamlet’s madness pretended or real? Which conflicts does he handle in the course of the play? Has Oedipal dynamics a role as motivational factor in his mind?

Hamlet is irrational, impulsive, emotional, inhibited, brooding, suspicious, revengeful, condemning and much more. But, in the view of the author, he is all this in a human, ‘normal’ way. There is nothing convincingly pathological or constricted in his character. ‘Un-normal’ is his intelligence and his wit. Hamlet – an intelligent, reflected, resourceful prince in late Renaissance – who has wrestle with a madhouse of political intrigues, family murders and deceitful friends.

Hamlet in Shakespeare’s text – a fairly normal person in quite a mad world.     

The relation between evil and transcendence: new possibilities?

Evil has always been a main interest in the field of philosophy and, lately, in the field of ethics – in both continental and analytic traditions – the idea of evil seems to be making a comeback. The propensity in philosophy is to understand evil in radical immanent terms. Lars Svendsen, in A Philosophy of Evil, argues for example that evil is about inter-human relationships, not about a transcendent, supernatural force. Emmanuel Levinas, on the other hand, describes evil as something that cannot be integrated into the world, something that is always on the outside: the radical Other. Furthermore, evil appears to us as something chaotic, defying comprehension. Does this mean evil is something transcendent? In this article I will analyse the concept of evil in terms of the typology of transcendence that was developed by Wessel Stoker. I will argue that there are, within the (post-) modern discourse, and due to new developments in the understanding of transcendence, new nuanced possibilities of thinking about evil and its relation to transcendence – especially to ‘transcendence as alterity’. Traces of this kind of understanding of evil will be indicated in Paul Ricoeur's view of evil. This notion of evil may enhance our ethical responsibility towards it.     

From Freud’s dream-work to Bion’s work of dreaming: The changing conception of dreaming in psychoanalytic theory

Bion moved psychoanalytic theory from Freud's theory of dream-work to a concept of dreaming in which dreaming is the central aspect of all emotional functioning. In this paper, I first review historical, theoretical, and clinical aspects of dreaming as seen by Freud and Bion. I then propose two interconnected ideas that I believe reflect Bion’s split from Freud regarding the understanding of dreaming. Bion believed that all dreams are psychological works in progress and at one point suggested that all dreams contain elements that are akin to visual hallucinations. I explore and elaborate Bion’s ideas that all dreams contain aspects of emotional experience that are too disturbing to be dreamt, and that, in analysis, the patient brings a dream with the hope of receiving the analyst’s help in completing the unconscious work that was entirely or partially too disturbing for the patient to dream on his own. Freud views dreams as mental phenomena with which to understand how the mind functions, but believes that dreams are solely the ‘guardians of sleep,’ and not, in themselves, vehicles for unconscious psychological work and growth until they are interpreted by the analyst. Bion extends Freud's ideas, but also departs from Freud and re-conceives of dreaming as synonymous with unconscious emotional thinking – a process that continues both while we are awake and while we are asleep. From another somewhat puzzling perspective, he views dreams solely as manifestations of what the dreamer is unable to think.     

Humor and the Rebellious Spirit of the Early Adolescent Boy

In my companion article on the making of the reliably religious boy (D. Capps, 2006c) I presented my argument that, whereas the younger boy of three to five is becoming religious as a result of his emotional separation from his mother, the early adolescent boy (age 11–14) has become reliably religious in that he has developed a religious habit of mind, a habit reflected in his embrace of the religions of honor and hope. I presented myself as a case study in this regard. I noted, however, that there is a third form of religion, that of humor, and that it relativizes—and thereby preserves—the religions of honor and hope. I also noted that religion and spirituality are capable of being differentiated. I suggested that my own spirituality took the form of rebellion and that this spirit of rebellion fueled and was fueled by the religion of humor. Employing Freud’s writings on humor, I explain in this article how this works.     

Virtual reflection: Antoine Arnauld on Descartes' concept of conscientia

ABSTRACT

Although Descartes has often been portrayed as the father of the modern concept of mind, his approach to consciousness is notoriously problematic. What makes it particularly hard to assess his role in the development of the theories of consciousness is the difficulty of clarifying the kind of consciousness he might have in mind when using the associated Latin terms (conscius, cogitatio, conscium esse, etc.). In this article, I analyse Antoine Arnauld’s early interpretation of the passages in Descartes that refer to the issue of consciousness. I argue for two separate but interconnected claims. Firstly, I show that when Arnauld sets out to make a case for Descartes’ concept of cogitatio, he reads the central passages in light of some scholastic theories of cognition, in particular, the concept of ‘reflexio virtualis’ which, far from being a Cartesian invention, comes from the late scholastic discourse. Secondly, I argue that by talking about virtual reflection Arnauld provides an interpretation of Descartes’ views in terms of the intrinsic structure of the first-order thought – a reading which is still plausible, even by our contemporary standards.     

Positive skeptical theism and the problem of divine deception

In a recent article, Erik Wielenberg has argued that positive skeptical theism fails to circumvent his new argument from apparent gratuitous evil. Wielenberg’s new argument focuses on apparently gratuitous suffering and abandonment, and he argues that negative skeptical theistic responses fail to respond to the challenge posed by these apparent gratuitous evils due to the parent–child analogy often invoked by theists. The greatest challenge to his view, he admits, is positive skeptical theism. To stave off this potential problem with his argument, he maintains that positive skeptical theism entails divine deception, which creates insuperable problems for traditional theism. This essay shows that Wielenberg is mistaken. Although positive skeptical theism claims that we should expect the appearance of gratuitous evil (when there is no actual gratuitous evil) given Christian theism, this does not entail divine deception. I maintain that God is not a deceiver on positive skeptical theism because God does not meet two requirements to be a deceiver: (1) God does not intend to cause people to believe any false propositions and (2) God does not provide evidence for someone to justifiably believe a false proposition. Consequently, Wielenberg’s new argument from evil fails and positive skeptical theism remains a viable response to the evidential argument from evil.     

Conscious inhibitions: Freud,anti-Semitism,and Hobbesian imagination

This work aims to portray the effects of Freud’s anxiety about anti-Semitic violence on his political theory and metapsychology. Taking as its entry point Freud’s reorientation of anti-Semitism as aggressive action, I argue that Freud’s fear of the violent mob can be located in three interconnected dimensions of his work, all deeply informed by Hobbesian imagination. First, Freud accepted a Hobbesian vision of social antagonism into his political theory; second, he formulated a deeper, more efficient defence mechanism against mob violence with his notion of psychical guilt; third, Freud’s fears penetrated his metapsychology. Suffering from anti-Semitism, Freud was not only quick to accept a Hobbesian perspective – he also reconstructed it to a degree that radically changed its meaning. Freud’s third and most pervasive manoeuvre destabilized one of Hobbes’s fundamental theoretical tenets by suggesting that the Hobbesian State of Nature is inherently a non-human reality.     

The traumatic roots of containment: the evolution of Bion's metapsychology

W. R. Bion wrote repeatedly about his World War I experiences as a tank officer, thus engaging in historicizing a traumatic emotional experience. A close reading of the many layers in these writings suggests that the war experiences influenced the metapsychology he created. The author argues that haunting questions regarding the ability of the mind to survive trauma led Bion to elaborate on the process of containing emotional experience, and hence to address the lack of an intricate theory of thinking in psychoanalytic metapsychology and to offer a vision of a mind struggling to survive, culminating in the growth of a postmodern consciousness.     

Emotional Disorder

In this paper I aim to provide a characterisation of emotional disorder. I begin by criticising the thought that an agent can be judged to be experiencing an emotional disorder if his emotion causes him some type of harm. This then leads me to develop the claim that emotional disorder relates to sufficiently inappropriate emotion, where (sufficiently) inappropriate emotion relates to emotion that fails to be (sufficiently) responsive to the agent's beliefs and/or desires. Finally, I conclude the paper by suggesting that if an essentially non‐cognitivist conception of emotion is accepted then – on the characterisation of emotional disorder that I defend – there may exist strong grounds for thinking that cognitive therapy will be an inappropriate form of treatment in cases of emotional disorder.¹     

‘In human shape to become the very beast!’ – Henry More on animals

ABSTRACT

Animals – both tame and wild, as metaphors and as real presences – populate many of More’s works. In this essay, I show that, from the early Psychodia Platonica to the Divine Dialogues, animals are at the core of key metaphysical issues that reverberate on the levels of psychology and ethics. In particular I discuss three main aspects: (1) the role of animals in More’s critique of atheism, both as safeguard for the body–soul interaction and as proofs of divine providence in nature; (2) the problem of evil in the universe, and how to justify the existence of ‘evil’ animals in particular; (3) the differentiation between animals and humans, especially on the basis of their respective possibility of attaining happiness. In all three cases, I argue that More attempts to ‘tame’ the nature of animals, and yet that he is aware that ‘animality’ remains partly untamed.     

CHARLES LYELL,UNIFORMITARIANISM, AND INTERPRETIVE PRINCIPLES

I examine the development of Charles Lyell's principle of uniformity and its influence on the development of modern geology and biology and argue that distinguishing between philosophical starting points and empirical findings is essential for clarity in the discussion between science and religion. First, I explore Lyell's arguments against catastrophism and how these were both empirically and religiously motivated. I then consider how David Hume's empiricism, theory of causation, and rejection of miracles influenced Lyell. Using these insights, Lyell formulated his principle of uniformity, which he believed was based on current empirical findings, and rejected explanatory hypotheses that used the biblical Flood or other catastrophist accounts as violations of uniform causation and introductions of theological concepts into empirical science. I next examine the influence of Lyell's principle on Charles Darwin. Although Lyell opposed Darwinism for most of his life, Darwin relied heavily on Lyell, as is evidenced by references throughout The Origin of Species. I contend that the most important aspect of Lyell's principle for Darwin is that it makes natural evil (the struggle for survival) a process that has always been occurring rather than something introduced after the Fall as recorded in Genesis. Finally, I discuss the role that uniformity plays for Lyell, Darwin, and modern science as an interpretive principle rather than as an inference from empirical data, and I conclude by noting that keeping the distinction in mind between interpretive principles and empirical findings will help clarify debates between science and religion.     

The enduring significance of Christos Yannaras: some further works in translation

The Greek philosopher and theologian Christos Yannaras is becoming better known in the English-speaking world with the publication of an increasing number of his works in English translation. With the help of Wittgenstein and Heidegger, Yannaras articulates an ontological (as opposed to an ontic) version of Being based on relation. Beings exist not as ontic entities but only with reference to the person. Relation actually constitutes existents. Our fulfilment as human beings lies in our ascending from the mode of nature, which is bound by necessity, to a mode of existence characterised by self-transcending referentiality or love. Two obstacles are considered: the problem of evil and the ‘religionisation’ of Christianity. The fundamental problem of evil is that it renders human life without meaning. There are, however, no rational explanations of evil. The only reply lies beyond language, in faith/trust, self-transcendence and self-offering. A religionised version of Christianity transforms faith into an ideology which holds out salvation as a reward for the individual. The Church – the ecclesial event – is not a collection of individuals seeking their own salvation but a community of people called to struggle together to attain true existence, to pass from the finite mode of nature to that mode which knows no limitations of decay and death. An intellectualist approach to philosophy does not help us to achieve this goal. For philosophy is not simply an exercise in thinking but the struggle to attain existential freedom. Such freedom is transformatory, referential and ek-static.     

Courting the Enemy: McMahan on the Unity of Mind

Abstract

Jeff McMahan has recently developed the embodied mind theory of identity in place of the other standing theories, which he examines and consequently rejects. This paper examines the performance of his theory on cases of commissurotomy or the split-brain syndrome. Available experimental data concerning these cases seem to suggest that a single mind can divide into two independent streams in ways that are incompatible with our intuitive notion of mind. This phenomenon poses unique problems for McMahan's theory that we are essentially minds. I attempt to use his considered response to these cases as a weapon against his own embodied mind theory by highlighting some of the tensions in McMahan's response. In particular, I argue that in reaching his conclusion McMahan admits to something quite contrary to the very spirit of his own theory and that it is a powerful point in its support that one of the theories McMahan rejects can deal very well with these cases.     

Speaking Your Mind: Large Inarticulateness Constitutional and Circumstantial

When someone is asked to speak his mind, it is sometimes possible for him to furnish what his utterance appears to have omitted. In such cases we might say that he had a mind to speak. Sometimes, however, the opposite is true. Asked to speak his mind, our speaker finds that he has no mind to speak. When it is possible to speak one's mind and when not is largely determined by the kinds of beings we are and by the kinds of resources we are able to draw upon. In either case, not speaking one's mind is leaving something out whose articulation would or could matter for the purposes for which one was speaking in the first place. Inarticulation is no fleetingly contingent and peripheral phenomenon in human thinking and discourse. It is a substantial and dominant commonplace. In Part One I attempt to say something about what it is about the human agent that makes inarticulateness so rife. In Part Two, I consider various strategies for making the unarticulated explicit, and certain constraints on such processes. I shall suggest, among other things, that standard treatments of enthymematic reconstruction are fundamentally misconceived.     

Reply to Nadler: Spinoza and the metaphysics of suicide

Steven Nadler has argued that Spinoza can, should, and does allow for the possibility of suicide committed as a free and rational action. Given that the conatus is a striving for perfection, Nadler argues, there are cases in which reason guides a person to end her life based on the principle of preferring the lesser evil. If so, Spinoza’s disparaging statements about suicide are intended to apply only to some cases, whereas in others (such as the case of Seneca) he would grant that suicide is dictated by reason. Here, I object to Nadler’s interpretation by showing that it conflicts with Spinoza’s metaphysical psychology. Even given Nadler’s interpretation of the conatus doctrine, the possibility that reason could guide a person to commit suicide is incompatible with the conatus of the mind. Spinoza holds that the mind cannot contain an adequate idea ‘that excludes the existence of our body’ (E3p10). Yet, as I argue, in order for reason to guide a person voluntarily to end her life, she would need to have an adequate idea representing her death – an idea that excludes the existence of her body. For this reason, Spinoza's system rules out the possibility of rational suicide.