Józef Tischner’s epistemology of “political reason” and the “ethics of truth”

Studies in East European Thought - That which connects ethics and epistemology is the concept of truth. The threads concerned with the ethical and epistemological understanding of truth are...     

A comparison of “traditional” and “atypical” workers: Demographic,behavioral, and attitudinal differences

Differences among full-time (n=1066), part-time (n=132), and moonlighting employees (n=153) in a variety of occupations were examined. Moonlighters as compared to full-timers were younger, more frequently male, perceived less educational fit with their main jobs, and were primary wage earners. Full-timers as compared to part-timers were more frequently male, married, and primary wage earners. Part-timers had the greatest turnover, but no differences were detected for other withdrawal behaviors. Part-timers were more satisified with working conditions but were less satisfied with extrinsic rewards and life in general. Moonlighters expressed a stronger work ethic and placed less importance on working conditions.A version of this paper was presented at the 1991 Meetings of the Southwest Division of the Academy of Management in Houston, TX.     

Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok—the inner crypt

This article is an introduction to the central ideas of Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok. The author locates their work in the history of psychoanalytic thought. The Abraham and Torok thinking on trauma, symbol versus anasemia, introjection versus incorporation, endocryptic identification as well as woman's penis envy, are described as theoretical axes around the focal point constituted by the authors' specific concept of introjection; seen as the human mode of appropriation of the external world, which is crucial to the expansion of the ego through symbolization.     

Higher realities and the inner self: One quest? Transcendence and the significance of the body in the new age circuit

Can New Age be religious? In this article it is argued that New Age should not be treated as just one meaning system. It is possible to discern several different meaning systems in the New Age networks, even though they share a common language. Before examining whether these meaning systems are religious or, in other words, whether they contain transcendent elements, the concept of transcendence is ‘de‐christianised’. For it is precisely the Christian interpretation, namely the idea that the transcendent reality has to be ‘outside’, that makes the concept useless for the study of New Age meaning systems. The analysis then shows that sometimes there is a higher reality, and sometimes not. Even in one and the same meaning system this difference can occur, since central notions are interpreted in different ways.     

The Validity of the “Mother” and “Father” Cards of the Rorschach

This article presents analyses on psychometric properties of a recent revision of the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory (SASSI-3). Participants were 772 individuals from a range of clinical settings who were independently diagnosed according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., rev. [DSM-III-R]; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 1987) or DSM-IV (APA, 1994) criteria regarding the presence or absence of a substance-dependence disorder. A development sample (n = 391) was used to formulate SASSI-3 decision rules that yielded 95% agreement with clinical diagnoses of substance dependence. Correspondence with the criterion variable was shown to be 97% in a cross-validation sample (n = 381) from the same clinical settings. Convergent relations were demonstrated with a variety of other indexes of substance misuse, including clinical assessments of substance abuse history, alcohol and drug-related arrests, self-reported use of illicit drugs, and other instruments designed to screen for substance misuse. Further, logistic regression analyses indicated no significant differences in the overall accuracy of the SASSI-3 as a function of respondents' demographic characteristics or clinical ratings of respondents' level of adjustment and functioning (Global Assessment of Functioning ratings; APA, 1987, 1994).     

Nuancing the Healer's art — The epistemology of patient competence

The programmatic thrust of Thomasma and Pellegrino [5] is clarified and underscored and is interpreted as an attempt to introduce a fixed point into the ethical dimension of medicine by specifying some regulative principles for the medical profession. Two important features of this type of enterprise are noted: on the one hand, it may lead the profession to distinguish between technically identical actions on the basis of the normative principles it produces, thus excluding some morally permissible actions as duties constitutive of the art. It is argued that the formulation of the grounds for this ethic given by Thomasma and Pellegrino is insufficient. In order to speak to the clinical situation, medical ethics must not be based on merely the ‘living human body’ alone, but on the patientqua person.     

The Polish Catholic Church’s perception of the processes of EU integration and Europeanisation in the context of traditional norms and values

The Catholic Church has historically played a significant role in the sociocultural and political life of Poland. Its activity was particularly evident and significant during the process of political transformation. Since 1989, however, the sociopolitical conditions have remarkably changed, thereby placing the church in a new, challenging context. Poland’s post-1989 political aspirations (opening to the West in particular) have come to the fore of the public debate, in which the church has actively participated. In this article I aim to analyse the church’s position on the process of EU integration and the Europeanisation of Polish law and culture. The main questions concern the direction of argumentation used by the church’s internal wings and the politicisation of the discourse on the axiological shape of Polish culture and tradition. My analysis embraces the debate surrounding the process of European integration, with special consideration of the church’s internal divisions (between the ‘centre-right’ and ‘radical-right’ in particular) and ideological discrepancies concerning the very idea of integration and the debates on the draft Constitution of the European Union (Constitutional Treaty) and the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of the European Union.     

Hussearle's Representationalism and the “hypothesis of the Background”

John Searle's hypothesis of the Background seems to conflict with his initial representationalism according to which each Intentional state contains a particular content that determines its conditions of satisfaction. In Section I of this essay I expose Searle's initial theory of Intentionality and relate it to Edmund Husserl's earlier phenomenology. In Section II I make it clear that Searle's introduction of the notion of Network, though indispensable, does not, by itself, force us to modify that initial theory. However, a comparison of this notion to the notion of horizon from Husserl's later phenomenology and an interpretation of Husserl's conception of the determinable X as providing a solution to the problem of perceptual misidentification lead me to conclude that in his discussion of 'twin examples' Searle had better modified his initial theory. Finally, I critically examine Searle's claim that anyone who tries seriously to follow out the threads in the Network will eventually reach a bedrock of non-Intentional capacities. In Section III I show in detail, partly in a rather Husserlian vein, that Searle's four official arguments for the Background thesis, though containing some very valuable contributions to a theory of linguistic skills, are not convincing at all if they are to be understood as going beyond the scope of (Hus)Searle's 'content-cum-Network' picture of Intentionality. The upshot of these considerations is that the Background thesis should be read as a thesis concerning the causal neurophysiological preconditions of human Intentionality rather than concerning the logical properties of Intentional states in general. Recently Searle himself has come to the same result, but he does not say for which reasons. The present essay makes it clear why Searle just had to arrive at this important result.     

Brainwashing and the persecution of “cults”

While the presence of authoritarian cults in our midst raises a number of social control and law and order issues, current controversies over cults contain substantial elements of mystification. Brainwashing is an inherently subjective metaphor that is used as a rationale for persecuting unpopular movements and defining religious converts as nonautonomous zombies who can be coerced for therapeutic purposes. While coercive persuasion models do have some heuristic value for the analysis of indoctrination in some authoritarian groups, assumptions regarding the alleged destruction of the free will of converts and the status of authoritarian religiosity as a medical pathology are not warranted.     

Delboeuf “illusions” of circle size induced via photoflash-generated afterimages

Generating an inducing figure by photoflash led to underestimation of the size of a luminous outline test circle in a nonluminous surround. As the afterimage of the inducing circle decayed, judged size of the test circle attained true size. The more intense inducing flash produced a longer lasting perceptible afterimage but no alteration in amount of test-circle underestimation as a function of time. The type of inducing configuration (outer concentric circle, nonconcentric circles, arcs) proved to have no differential effect. In the absence of an inducing figure, subjects make veridical judgments.     

Deafness and immediate memory for pictures: dissociations between "inner speech" and the "inner ear"?

Born-deaf, orally trained youngsters were examined on two tasks of immediate memory for pictures of objects. The aim was to investigate the extent of speech coding for pictures in immediate memory in a developmental context. The deaf, unlike young hearing children, did not use picture-name rhyme spontaneously as a cue to recall in a paired association task. Nevertheless, they were just as sensitive as reading age-matched hearing controls to spoken word length in recalling pictures by name. This might mean that the deaf use articulatory rehearsal in some immediate memory tasks, but this leads to a paradoxical conclusion. What could "inner speech" in the deaf be for, if it fails to affect their "inner ear" by inducing rhyme sensitivity in the paired associate task? This paradox is discussed in relation to distinctions between covert and overt use of memory cues in the paired recall task and to possible sources of the word length effect in young hearing (8-9 years old) and deaf subjects.     

“The end of history ” and the fate of the philosophy of history

The “end of history” by Fukuyama is mainly based on Hegel’s treatise of the end of history and Kojeve’s corresponding interpretation. But Hegel’s “end of history” is a purely philosophical question, i.e., an ontological premise that must be fulfilled to complete “absolute knowledge.” When Kojeve further demonstrates its “universal and homogeneous state,” Fukuyama extends it into a political view: The victory of the Western system of freedom and democracy marks the end of the development of human history and Marxist theory and practice. This is a misunderstanding of Hegel. Marx analyzes, scientifically, the historical limitation of Western capitalism and maintains, by way of a kind of revolutionary teleology, the expectation of and belief in human liberation, which is the highest historical goal. His philosophy of history is hence characterized by theoretical elements from both historical scientificalness and historical teleology.     

Comparison of “rap” groups with traditional group therapy in the treatment of Vietnam combat veterans

An estimated 500,000–700,000 veterans suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder characterized by mental flashbacks of the war, recurrent dreams of the trauma, repetitive, intrusive thoughts of the war, irritability, generalized anxiety and difficulty relating to others. For many years, these individuals went undiagnosed and, except for rap groups, untreated. The rap groups were formed to talk about the war in a general debriefing process during the early 1970s. Rap groups failed to focus on the individual pathology, but, instead, provided a forum to refashion value and meaning in the veterans' lives. Recently, more traditional forms of group therapy have been used to help treat individuals suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder secondary to the Vietnam war. This paper discusses the unique features of traditional group therapy with Vietnam veterans.     

From cognition’s location to the epistemology of its nature

One of the liveliest debates about cognition concerns whether our cognition sometimes extends beyond our brains and bodies. One party says Yes, another No. This paper shows that debate between these parties has been epistemologically confused and requires reorienting. Both parties frequently appeal to empirical considerations and to extra-empirical theoretical virtues to support claims about where cognition is. These things should constrain their claims, but cannot do all the work hoped. This is because of the overlooked fact, uncovered in this paper, that we could never distinguish the rival views empirically or by typical theoretical virtues. I show this by drawing on recent work on testing, predictive accuracy, and theoretical virtues. The recommendation to emerge is that we step back from debate about where cognition is, to the epistemology of what cognition is.     

Erikson's “inner space”: Where art and religion converge

This essay explores ways in which Erik H. Erikson's interests in art and religion converge in his psychology of religion. By associating Erikson'sYoung Man Luther with portraiture and his essays on “womanhood and the inner space” with still life, the author employs artistic genres to resituate the interpretation of Erikson's key texts on religion. By way of Erikson's image of the “inner space,” connections are drawn betweenYoung Man Luther and his essays on womanhood. His late essay on Jesus is also linked to the earlier “inner space” essays, demonstrating that a central feature of Erikson's psychology of religion is its reformulation of traditional psychoanalytic theory of ritual.