Augustine’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Confessions</Emphasis>: The Story of a Divided Self and the Process of Its Unification

This article takes up William James’ observation that Saint Augustine is “a classic example” of the discordant personality or divided self, and employs E. R. Dodd’s equally classic (1927–28) article on Augustine’s “spiritual maladjustment” to explore the psychological bases, especially parental, for Augustine’s discordant personality, and to evaluate the effectiveness of Augustine’s efforts to overcome the discordancy through a personal religious conversion.     

William James, Mind-Cure, and the Religion of Healthy-Mindedness

At the turn of the twentieth century, the mind-cure movement emphasized the healing power of positive emotions and beliefs. William James defended mind-cure during the Massachusetts legislature's debates on licensing physicians in 1894 and 1898. In The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) he used the movement's therapeutic claims to illustrate the typically American, practical turn of the religion of healthy-mindedness. Varieties sympathetically surveys mind-cure literature, but also criticizes healthy-minded religion for its limited range and refusal to confront tragedy and radical evil. Many of today's mind/body therapies continue the mind-cure tradition and retain the limitations that James noted.     

论威廉·詹姆斯对胡塞尔现象学的影响

詹姆斯在描述宗教经验时所采用的现象学方法;对心理主义的的拒斥;在诸如意识流、意向性、实在、自我等具体内容上在现象学领域所做的虽是无意但却是开创性的探索都表明詹姆斯的哲学思想对胡塞尔现象学有启发和影响的意义。     

Self‐focused attention and social anxiety

Cognitive models propose that self‐focused attention (SFA) interacts with fear of negative evaluation to maintain social anxiety. Thus, the effect of SFA on anxiety would be expected to be specific to those with existing social concerns. However, much research suggests that the effect of SFA on anxiety occurs across anxiety levels. Manipulations of attention focus have been criticised for (1) lack of ecological validity and (2) eliciting fear of negative evaluation directly. The present study examined the role of SFA in social anxiety using an ecologically valid procedure that did not elicit fear of negative evaluation directly. Self‐reported anxiety was assessed among high and low socially anxious individuals under conditions of SFA or external‐focused attention. The manipulation successfully altered focus of attention but did not directly affect fear of negative evaluation or self‐reported anxiety. Taken together with the findings of previous studies, the results suggest that focusing on internal physiological states per se does not increase self‐reported social anxiety, and that self‐focus that does not have an explicitly evaluative dimension does not elicit social anxiety. The findings have implications for approaches to reducing social anxiety through reducing SFA.     

James’s theory of emotion and affective turn in psychology / La teoría de las emociones de James y el giro afectivo en psicología

Using William James’s classical theory of the emotions, this article discusses the way the relationship between cognition and emotion are predominantly explained and operationalized in contemporary psychology and neuroscience research. Specific aspects of James’s theory are reconstructed, connecting his more general philosophical framework with arguments about the relationship between subjective experience and the process of corporal change. A review published in the journal Cognition & Emotion (C&E) (2001–11) concludes that almost all its literature is based on the idea of interaction between two different processes, while James suggests that the process of experience is one and the same. Dialogue between these two scenarios facilitates the identification of current research potentialities in terms of mixed-method studies and with emphasis on the temporality of action, overall physiological change, and uniqueness of experience.     

Psychological and Religious Perspectives on Emotion

This article is devoted to examining theoretical issues on the interface of the psychology of religion and the psychology of emotion, something which recently has been surprisingly neglected. The broad range of psychological components involved in emotion, and the importance of emotional processes in religion, make it a particularly relevant area of general psychology as far as religion is concerned. The first issue to be examined is the centrality of emotion (or feeling ) in religion and the extent to which religion can be conceptualized as a kind of emotional state—an idea that can be found in different forms in Schleiermacher and James. Though both psychology and emotion are now seen as less private than previously supposed, the analogy remains potentially fruitful. The second issue arises from the notable tendency in the psychology of emotion to see emotion as functional, even rational, rather than disruptive. The view of Averill is endorsed that emotions can be psychologically creative when used appropriately. This leads to a review of attitudes toward emotional aspects of religion and religious attitudes to everyday emotions, where a positive but discriminating approach to emotions seems appropriate.     

Reviews

Vital Dust: Life as a Cosmic Imperative edited by Christian De Duve
The Good Life and the Human Good edited by Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred D. Miller, and Jeffrey Paul
Pragmatism and Pluralism: John Dewey's Significance for Theology edited by Jerome Paul Soneson
A Sense of the Divine: The Natural Environment from a Theocentric Perspective edited by James M. Gustafson
Galileo: For Copernicanism and for the Church edited by Annibale Fantoli     

Mystical Experience: Unveiling the Veiled

Mystical experience is not unusual. Nearly half of all Americans report having had one or more mystical experiences. The author looks at how these experiences are moments of knowing—Do they unveil what is hidden?—and at how pastoral theologians and clinicians may help others come to understand their experience. Some thoughts on what this area of study may contribute to pastoral theology and pastoral counseling are also provided.     

詹姆斯心理学的现象学阐释

必须从詹姆斯的人格和他的思想作为整体及其统一性的背景出发,才能有效地理解詹姆斯心理学的真髓。詹姆斯思想的内核是彻底经验主义。他以彻底经验主义为基础的心理学思考,与胡塞尔的现象学思考作为思想态度是同质的,因而表现出明确的现象学特征。文章指出了对詹姆斯心理学进行现象学阐释的根据,并结合心理学史探讨了詹姆斯的思想方法对心理学作为整体而言的理论意义。     

Was William James a Patient at McLean Hospital for the Mentally Ill?

Rumors that William James was a patient at McLean Asylum near Boston have persisted for several decades. I focus on the reasons why the question has been so difficult to answer in any definitive way; assess the evidence presented in support of the rumors; note that two different periods in James’s life (late twenties and early sixties) have been judged the most likely; and explore the diagnostic question as well: If he was in fact a patient, for what was he being treated? I also discuss evidence that his younger brother Robertson was a patient at McLean and consider the bearing of this evidence on the question of whether William James was a patient at McLean and on the diagnostic issue.     

Self as a second-order object: Reinterpreting the Jamesian “Me”

Existing definitions of the self can be lumped into three groups: self as self-reflectivity, self as self-concept, and self as the individual. This article traces current disagreements over the definition of the self to a crucial ambiguity in William James's original delineation of the “Me.” Implicit in James's delineation was a distinction between first-order objects and second-order objects: while first-order objects are things as they are, independent of the perception of a knowing subject, second-order objects are things as perceived by a knowing subject. This article makes this distinction explicit and argues that the self is a second-order object associated with the first-person or “emic” perspective. Defined as the empirical existence of the individual (first order) perceived by the individual as “me” or “mine” (second order), the self is distinguished from the “I” which is the mental capacity for self-reflection; the self-concept which is the mental representation of the individual's existence; and the individual which is the empirical referent of the self-concept. As a second-order object, the “Me,” i.e., the self, is the unity of the existence and perception of the individual.     

The Significance and Research Methods of Enhancing Studies on William James’s Philosophy

William James is one of the first philosophers with significant international influence in the history of American philosophy. James played an extremely important role in the emergence and development of American pragmatism, striving to show cultural self-confidence and pursuing the localization as well as independence of philosophy in the development of America. It is of great importance to further study James’s philosophy in the context of contemporary academics. Academia should value the collection, editing, translation and research of the philosophical classics of James and important literatures, pay attention to the clues of development and academic trends of the important concepts and ideas of James’s pragmatism philosophy, and rethink the status and influence of James’s philosophy in modern Western philosophy, trying to carry out comparative studies between James’s philosophy and traditional Chinese philosophy.     

"气":一种古老的刚美意蕴

“刚美”是张玉能先生近几年提出的一个美学范畴。本文对中国古典美学范畴“气”的历史渊流、审美特质等进行了比较详细的探讨和总结,指出了自从“气”取得美学上的主体意义之始,就已经显示出一种标举阳刚之美的审美倾向,或者说,阳刚就成为“气”范畴的美学特征;从而证明了“气”范畴充满了刚美的特质,具有丰富的刚美意蕴,因此它属于刚美范畴。     

论威廉詹姆斯的心理学科学观

威廉?詹姆斯（William James, 1842-1910）被誉为“美国心理学之父”,他强烈反对当时学院派实验心理学家的小心理学观,在心理学史上第一次对他以前的心理学思想进行了整合,建构了一种整合的心理学科学观。他认为心理学既具有自然科学的性质,又具有人文科学的性质,这种科学观坚持心理学的人学性质,是一种“大心理学观”。詹姆斯的心理学科学观是解决当前心理学问题不可或缺的思想资源,对当前心理学研究工作具有重要的借鉴意义。