The science of language and the evolution of mind: Max Müller's quarrel with Darwinism

For Darwinism to succeed as a general theory of the development of life, it had to account for at least the rudiments of all human characteristics. Thus Darwin and his colleague G. J. Romanes had to make "mental evolution" the basis for scientific psychology. F. Max Müller, Oxford's professor of comparative philology, drew on Kant's work, Romantic Naturphilosophie, and his views on the history of language and the relation of language to thought to maintain that language showed a difference not in degree but in kind between man and the lower primates. In his debate with Romanes, he argued that the study of language, not Darwinist natural history, should be the basis for a science of human psychology. However, the two authors had such different definitions of the key terms in their discussion that their differences were not only unresolved but irresolvable.     

Jan Amos Comenius’s Trinitarian and Conciliar Vision of a United Europe: Christ as the Universal ‘Centre of Security’

This article explores Jan Amos Comenius’s vision of a Christian united Europe and its connection to his theological programme of reform. This is manifest first of all in his linguistic projects, in which he sought to break down the language barriers separating Christians both from each other and from the mission field of the New World, but it came to fruition especially in his comprehensive reform project of pansophia, especially as this was represented in his massive Consultatio catholica. For it is here that Comenius expands on his dream of a union of nations under one Christian religion. In this, Christ who transcends time and space, uniting in himself all the diverse aspirations of the nations, is revealed as the global ‘centre of security.’ Importantly, Comenius’s expression of this is profoundly indebted to Nicholas of Cusa and the article concludes by highlighting Comenius’s own Trinitarian and conciliar vision of Christian Europe.     

Psychology between science and common sense: William James and the problems of psychological language in the Principles

The suspicion that language can become an obstacle to human knowledge is not new in the Western intellectual tradition. Following the empiricist legacy, many authors have suggested the perils and pitfalls of common sense language for science. Applied to psychology, this leads to the issue of the reliability of psychological language for scientific psychology. William James, in his Principles of Psychology, was one of the first psychologists to address this problem explicitly. The goal of this paper is to situate his position and contrast it with contemporary debates over the status of folk psychology. The results indicate that James conceived of common sense psychology in a very complex manner, and pointed to a kind of illusion that remains ignored in the current literature, with negative consequences for psychology. I conclude by suggesting the relevance of James for contemporary debates in theoretical and philosophical psychology.     

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.     

Explaining inconsistencies in Shakespeare's character Henry V on the basis of the emotional undertones of his speeches

Shakespeare's character Henry V is infamous, among 20th-century analysts of drama, for his inconsistent disposition. Some analysts highlight this character's reformation and others his Machiavellian tendency to moderate his disposition in tune with changing situations. The Dictionary of Affect in Language (Whissell, 2009) was used to score the emotional undertones of words in Henry V's dialogue. Analyses of these undertones, described in terms of Pleasantness and Activation, demonstrated that the character Henry V was, in overall terms, emotionally average, that there was minimal evidence of growth or reform in him across time, and that situational factors (e.g., revelry, kingship, courtship, battle) were associated with the dramatic changes in his speeches. The character employed more passive language in private and personal situations and more active language in his (public) royal role. Four categories of Henry V's speeches (Condescension, Control, Self-definition, and the Courtship of Good Opinion), represented in both public and private discourse, reflected increasing pleasantness in emotional undertones.     

Language and cognition-Kurt Goldstein's theory of semantics

Kurt Goldstein is regarded as one of the major proponents of the holistic movement at the beginning of the 20th century. He rejected the strong localization hypothesis in the field of aphasiology and attempted to link language disturbances to an underlying general intellectual impairment. Goldstein's criticism was based on his subtle symptomatology, his organismic biology, and his philosophical reflections. In his concept of abstract attitude Goldstein searched for a general psychological function that might explain a variety of aphasic symptoms. Abstract attitude bridges the gap between cognitive and linguistic structures. According to Goldstein, it is the basis for words to have a meaning, to be employed in a categorical sense. Since amnesic aphasics are confined to a concrete attitude, their words have lost their representational function. Although Goldstein's concept of abstract attitude is no longer used in scientific discourse, it is analyzed for its heuristic value. It led Goldstein to questions about the relation between cognition and language and to fragments of a semantic theory.     

“SERVING GOD,FATHERLAND, AND LANGUAGE”: ALCOVER,CATALAN, AND SCIENCE

This article intends to contribute to the science–religion historiography with two topics—philology and the construction of national identities—that can help provide a more complex picture of the relations between science and religion. We use the life and work of the Mallorcan Catholic priest Antoni Maria Alcover (1862–1932) as a case study that puts language, linguistics, and nationalism on the board of science and religion studies. Alcover was the main driving force of the Catalan Dictionary, a collective enterprise that set out to inventory the complete oral and literary lexicon of this language, and which mobilized thousands of people, many of which were clergymen, from all over the Catalan‐speaking territories. In the article, we will explore Alcover's education; the way he established a link between language, religion, and fatherland; the shaping of his identity as a philologist in the image mainly of new German notions and practices; as well as his role in the institutionalization process of the Catalan language as a scientific language, as a language for science and for religion.     

Rebuilding the tower of Babel: a revised nomenclature for the study of suicide and suicidal behaviors. Part 2: Suicide-related ideations, communications, and behaviors

A revised and refined version of the O'Carroll et al. (1996) nomenclature for suicidology is presented, with a focus on suicide‐related ideations, communications, and behaviors. The hope is that this refinement will result in the development of operational definitions and field testing of this nomenclature in clinical and research settings. This revision would not have been possible without the international collaboration and dialogue addressing the nomenclature of suicidology since the O'Carroll et al. nomenclature appeared in 1996. Although it is doubtful that we will ever be able to construct universally unambiguous criteria to comprehensively characterize suicidal behaviors (and, overall, firmly establish the intention behind them), for scientific clarity it would be highly desirable that the set of definitions and the associated terminology be explicit and generalizable. De Leo, Burgis, Bertolote, Kerkhof, & Bille‐Brahe, 2006 , p. 5)     

EVOLUTIONARY THEORY AND THEOLOGY: A MUTUALLY ILLUMINATIVE DIALOGUE

Scientific perspectives often are perceived to challenge biblically based cosmologies and theologies. Arthur Peacocke, biochemist and theologian, recognized that this challenge actually represents an opportunity for Christian theology to reenvision and reinterpret its traditions in ways that take into account scientific theories of evolution. In the course of his career, Peacocke offered a new paradigm for the dialogue between theology and science. This paper explores his proposals, in particular his theories of language, the God‐world relation, and the nature of God, and exemplifies the impact these proposals had on his theological insights.     

Against Thatcherite Linguistics: Rule‐following,Speech Communities,and Biolanguage

According to Chomsky and his followers, language as a biological phenomenon is a property of individual minds and brains; its status as a social phenomenon is merely epiphenomenal and not a proper object of scientific study. On a rival view, the individual's biological capacity for language cannot be properly understood in isolation from the linguistic environment, which it both depends on for its operation and—in collaboration with other speakers—builds and shapes for future generations. I argue here for the rival view by demonstrating firstly its greater consonance with several themes in current biological theory, and secondly its ability to answer two well‐known philosophical challenges to generative linguistics due to Quine and Kripke.     

Jung and Pauli

In his early theories of the structure of the psyche, psychic energy and psychodynamics, Jung was influenced by William James's understanding of the complementary insights of depth psychology and the discoveries of subatomic physics, and his concept of field in physics and the study of the subconscious. In his relationship with Freud, Jung initially struggled with a sexually-based drive theory. But he gradually came to conceive libido as a quantitative concept, a psychic analogue of physical energy. In their own languages, both C. G. Jung and Nobel physicist Wolfgang Pauli explored the evolution of scientific thought from the naive insights about process in alchemy through Newtonian causality, space-time theories of relativity to quantum mechanics. Jung had access to thirteen hundred of Pauli's dreams. The first four hundred were basis for his research into alchemical symbolism in a modern psyche. In a later collaboration, Pauli supported Jung's synchronicity principle as scientific, and Jung fostered Pauli's understanding of the archetypal and collective factors in the psyche. They each explored the interconnections between the energies of psyche and matter, and the possibilities of acausal order and synchronicity. Pauli's ground-breaking discoveries gave scientific demonstration of alchemical intuitions. Through him, alchemical and archetypal insights entered the discourse of physics. Through Jung, the apprehensions of microphysics entered our psychological language and thought.     

Louis Couturat,modern logic,and the international auxiliary language

ABSTRACT

To some extent, the early twentieth century revival of universal languages was the work of logicians and mathematicians. Pioneers of modern logic such as Frege, Russell and Peano wanted to overcome the diversity and deficiencies of natural languages. Through the rigour of formal logic, they aimed at providing scientific thinking with a reliable medium free from the ambiguity and inconsistencies of ordinary language. This article shows some interconnections between modern logic and the search for a common tongue that would unite scientists and people of all nations. The French mathematician and philosopher Louis Couturat is a key figure in understanding the interplay between these two movements. Through his work in composing the Ido language as an alternative to Esperanto, Couturat gave a new life to the Leibnizian idea of a universal characteristics. In addition, his multifaceted work provides a valuable insight into some political implications of early analytic philosophy.     

On the Thinking Brains and Tinkering with the Scientific Models

The paper aims to provide a detailed assessment of Tim Crane’s recent invocation of the notion of scientific models in the way of dealing with the issue of the brain’s representational states. In this paper, I assess Crane’s proposal under a charitable and a less charitable reading. I argue that Crane’s use of scientific models is at best (i.e. under a charitable reading) compatible with his expression of psychological realism. However, Crane’s use of model-based strategy by no means underlay, support, or strengthen his psychological realism. Rather, traditional reasons from the metaphysics of mind, acting quite separately from empirical scientific reasons, must be used to support this realism, and Crane has merely removed the threat posed to these metaphysical arguments by the existence of the so-called mereological fallacy in empirical neuroscience. Therefore, while he has saved the neuroscientific language from philosophical attack, he has perhaps even strengthened the divide between neuroscience and philosophy. I conclude the paper by outlining the sketch of a broadbrush scientifically informed strategy for defending psychological realism.     

INAUGURATING POSTCRITICAL PHILOSOPHY: A POLANYIAN MEDITATION ON CREATION AND CONVERSION IN AUGUSTINE'S CONFESSIONS

Abstract. Michael Polanyi names Augustine as inaugurates of his "postcritical"philosophy. To understand what this means by exploring creation in the Confessions will clarify complex problems in Augustine and articulate theological implications in Polanyi. Specifically, it will show why an autobiographical account of conversion ends speaking of creation; how creation can thus be understood as "personal" language; how creation can be recovered in a time preoccupied with conversion; how conversion and creation are linked with incarnation, hermeneutics, and confessional rhetoric; and it will suggest a contemporary use of creation language that connects the scientific and the religious.     

Resolute ignorance on race and Rushton

I review Rushton’s research on the evolutionary divergence of the three major human lineages. His life-history theory predicts, and his multiple analyses document, a consistent three-way patterning of mean differences among blacks, whites, and East Asians on coevolved sets of morphological, physiological, developmental, psychological, and behavioral traits. I then analyze a typical example of how critics evaluate his work, including the rate at which they cast his scientific hypotheses, methods and conclusions in politically charged language. The set of articles in question, although authored by well-known academics and appearing in a major, peer-reviewed journal, illustrate how mob science works to “discredit” valid research and enforce collective ignorance about entire bodies of evidence. Rushton is a scholar and gentleman but it appears that his critics often act like neither.     

Schizophrenia as split personality/Jekyll and Hyde: the origins of the informal usage in the English language

The entry into the English language of the informal usage of schizophrenia as split personality/Jekyll and Hyde is traced and commented upon. The metaphor of split personality is followed from Eugene Bleuler via his translators and the wider psychiatric community into the present day. It, and to a lesser extent the Jekyll-Hyde personality, is found to be as much a product of the psychological professions as a product of lay misinterpretation. The informal definition of schizophrenia as split personality has outlived the scientific theory with which it was initially associated.     

Thomas Kuhn‘s Latest Notion of Incommensurability

To correct the misconception that incommensurability implies incomparability, Kuhn lately develops a new interpretation of incommensurability. This includes a linguistic theory of scientific revolutions (the theory of kinds), a cognitive exploration of the language learning process (the analogy of bilingualism), and an epistemological discussion on the rationality of scientific development (the evolutionary epistemology). My focus in this paper is to review Kuhn's effort in eliminating relativism, highlighting both the insights and the difficulties of his new version of incommensurability . Finally I suggest that some of Kuhn's difficulties can be overcome by adopting a concept of rationality that filly appreciates the important role of instruments in the development of science. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Cerebral Anesthetization for Localization of Speech: The Contribution of W. James Gardner

In 1949, the neurologist Juhn Wada reported the first use of a new procedure for determining the localization of speech and language in neurological patients: examination of the effects on speech and language after injecting a barbiturate, sodium amytal, into the internal carotid artery of each hemisphere in succession. By the 1960s, Wada'sIntracarotid Amobarbital Procedure,orIAP,had become the method of choice for identifying the speech-dominant side in one kind of neurological patient, persons with epilepsy who are candidates for surgical resection, and it remains so today. In 1941, however, an American neurosurgeon, W. James Gardner, reported his use of a different anesthetization procedure for speech localization in neurological patients. Instead of injecting sodium amytal through the blood supply, as in the IAP, Gardner injected procaine hydrochloride directly into cortical tissue. In this paper, we provide a brief biography of Gardner. We then discuss his method of cortical anesthetization, the theoretical and empirical background guiding his use of this method and his choice of patients, and, finally, the fate of Gardner's method within the scientific community.     

G. Stanley Hall, a man of many words: The role of reading, speaking, and writing in his psychological work

The place of G. Stanley Hall within the history of psychology is both assured and problematic. While he is credited with significant contributions, those contributions are predominantly institutional rather than intellectual or scientific in nature. Further compounding the issue is the fact that those who focus on the development of psychology qua science have emphasized psychology's increasing reliance on empirical observations, its use of quantitative measures, and its subordination of language to objective referents. This has obscured the significance of Hall's work, including his massive, two-volume Adolescence (1904), which is typically criticized for falling short in these regards. A more accurate appreciation can be gained through understanding his intentions and the practices of reading, speaking, and writing that were associated with them.