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.     

Understanding ‘relevance’ in psychology

Since the 1970s, psychologists around the world have questioned the ‘social relevance’ of psychology in their societies. Curiously, the matter of ‘social relevance’ is under-theorized in the discipline, a state of affairs this paper attempts to correct. First, it describes how disagreements about psychology's cognitive interest – and subject matter – create an environment in which accusations of ‘social irrelevance’ can flourish. Second, it asserts that applied psychology's reliance on basic psychology for its scientific authority makes debates about ‘social relevance’ inevitable. And third, it claims that the discipline's longstanding antithesis to the social domain leaves it vulnerable to these debates – particularly in recent decades that have witnessed rapid social change. The paper reflects further on the rise of ‘market relevance’ in the global academy and its significance for psychology today.     

Adam Smith,Ethicist

This essay argues that Adam Smith's political economy is premised upon a moral anthropology, and that greater attention to Smith from religious ethicists may both improve Smith scholarship and deepen dialogue on economic themes within the field of religious ethics. It does so first by surveying common readings of Smith and noting that engagement of his work within religious ethics and theology tends to rely on misconceptions prevalent in these readings. It then outlines the moral psychology that links Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations and explains the importance of this moral psychology for Smith's ambivalent analysis of commercial society. Reflecting on the case of Smith's work, it concludes by arguing that attention from religious ethicists may also improve contemporary political economic debates, given that they are often premised upon latent assumptions about moral anthropology.     

Health Care Reform: What History Doesn’t Teach

The paper begins by tracing the historical development of American medicine as practice, profession, and industry from the eighteenth century to the present. This historical outline emphasizes shifting conceptions of physicians and physician ethics. It lays the basis for showing, in the second section, how contemporary controversies about the physician’s role in managed care take root in medicine’s past. In the final two sections, I revisit both the historical analysis and its application to contemporary debates. I argue that historical narratives can function as “master narratives” that suppress or leave out historical facts. I bring to the surface what is covered up by the master narrative approach, and show its relevance to contemporary ethical debates. I conclude by proposing that preserving the integrity of medicine will require modifying the master narratives we tell about physicians. The integrity of medicine also offers new perspectives for thinking about managed care and the broader topic of health care reform.     

Methodological concerns in the psychology of religion: Continuities,losses and transforming perspectives

This article seeks solutions to what has recently been called the ‘crisis' in the psychology of religion by returning to the programs of its founding fathers. It explores some of the methodological debates that followed the translation of William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience into German. More was at stake than the commonly drawn distinction between empirical and hermeneutical approaches to religion, or between quantitative and qualitative methods. What was at stake was the need for another kind of psychology in general. This article pays special attention to Wilhelm Wundt's fundamental criticism of James and of others in the psychology of religion. Despite the problems inherent in both James' and Wundt's aborted general psychology programs, each nonetheless contains approaches that may yet serve as an impetus to contemporary research on religion. Contemporary developments in cultural psychology in particular complement current research in the psychology of religion.     

Wishful Thinking and the Unconscious: A Reply to Gouws

Abstract

This paper argues against the view that the Freudian unconscious can be understood as an extension of ordinary belief-desire psychology. The paper argues that Freud’s picture of the mind challenges the paradigm of folk psychology, as it is understood by much contemporary philosophy of psychology and cognitive science. The dynamic unconscious postulated by psychoanalysis operates according to rules and principles that are distinct in kind from those rules that organise rational and conscious thought. Psychoanalysis offers us a radical reconception of our ordinary way of thinking about our own minds.     

Spirituality,Gendered Subjectivities,and Education in Preadolescents: Canadian preadolescents' reflections on gender-roles and their sense of self

'Adolescents' spirituality' has emerged as a lively focus for discussion and research amongst both academics and practitioners. Yet remarkably little reference has been made to conceptions of the child provided by developmental educational psychology. To gain a holistic perspective of how preadolescents construct their sense of self, cultural meanings of sexuality and spirituality must also be examined. How do adolescents make the connections among a sense of body, self, and soul? What is the role of education? To address these issues, this paper draws on recent research that explored the connections between the self-concepts of Canadian preadolescents (9-12 year-olds) and their perceptions of their gender-role orientation. This paper undertakes an 'excavation' of psychocultural approaches to gender and language, and the mixed messages about early adolescent spirituality and gendered selves implicit in the respective understandings of psychological development. The examination of these theories unearths many points of resonance with contemporary debates about our expectations of the nature of spirituality and sexuality in preadolescence, and our interventions for its nurture. The paper examines gendered perceptions of femininity and masculinity in Canadian preadolescents and how these perceptions influence their self-worth or overall well-being. It focuses on the links between spirituality and gendered perceptions and understandings of emotions and self. The final section discusses the socio-educational implications of the research findings within the context of holistic education. In this way, dialogue with a psychocultural and holistic approach to psychology and education offers valuable additional vocabulary and grammar with which to tackle these challenges.     

Choosing and refusing: doxastic voluntarism and folk psychology

A standard view in contemporary philosophy is that belief is involuntary, either as a matter of conceptual necessity or as a contingent fact of human psychology. We present seven experiments on patterns in ordinary folk-psychological judgments about belief. The results provide strong evidence that voluntary belief is conceptually possible and, granted minimal charitable assumptions about folk-psychological competence, provide some evidence that voluntary belief is psychologically possible. We also consider two hypotheses in an attempt to understand why many philosophers have been tempted to view belief as involuntary: that belief is a prototype concept and that belief is a dual character concept. Altogether, our findings contribute to longstanding philosophical debates about the relationship between the will and the intellect, while also advancing scientific understanding of important social judgments.     

Spanning our differences: moral psychology,physician beliefs,and the practice of medicine

Moral pluralism is the norm in contemporary society. Even the best philosophical arguments rarely persuade moral opponents who differ at a foundational level. This has been vividly illustrated in contemporary debates in bioethics surrounding contentious issues such as abortion and euthanasia. It is readily apparent that bioethics discourse lacks an empirical explanation for the broad differences about various topics in bioethics and health policy. In recent years, social and cognitive psychology has generated novel approaches for defining basic differences in moral intuitions generally. We propose that if empirical research using social intuitionist theory explains why people disagree with one another over moral issues, then the results of such research might help people debate their moral differences in a more constructive and civil manner. We illustrate the utility of social intuitionism with data from a national physician survey.     

A Concise History of Chinese Psychology of Religion

The history of religious thought and the history of human thought are closely interrelated, so the study of Chinese psychology of religion should pay attention to the study of Chinese history. In this paper, we summarize the history of Han Chinese psychology of religion in three stages from the perspectives of the history of Chinese thought, the history of Chinese religion, and the history of Chinese psychology. In the accumulation stage during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, debates about “human nature” were central to a psychology of religion. We hope that this will be helpful for the further study of Chinese psychology of religion.     

Toward a Psychology of Religion, Spirituality, Meaning-Search, and Aging: Past Research and a Practical Application

The current work is a combined review of several major theoretical issues in religious gerontology and of related research findings. It is intended to briefly inform, rather than to serve as a comprehensive review of the literature. The current author's primary goals are to put-forth points of information about contemporary terminology, to conceptualize motives for meaning-search at any age, to synthesize a few major findings and associated flaws in the research, and to describe a practical approach to the psychology of religion and spirituality (i.e., coping outcomes research). Within the current work, the reader is directed to sources of extensive reviews of data and of broader theoretical debates.     

A WAY FORWARD FOR SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH ON SCIENCE AND RELIGION: A REVIEW AND A RIFF

John Evans’s new book Morals Not Knowledge pushes scholars to rethink contemporary debates about religion and science by moving past the rhetoric of societal elites to examine the perspectives of everyday Americans, identifying the moral conflicts at the heart of debates. We review Evans’s key contributions while also extending and challenging his arguments, urging consideration of how renewed moral debates might be informed by a broader set of U.S. “publics.” Drawing on empirical research, we highlight four sets of voices that are missing from Evans’s analysis. Specifically, we highlight the voices of racial and ethnic minorities, religious communities (as opposed to individuals), members of minority religious traditions, and everyday religious scientists. Through doing so we offer avenues for future research on these diverse publics that will help facilitate a broader set of better and more informed debates about moral conflict between religious and scientific communities.     

Bridging worlds: participatory thinking in Jungian context

Introducing the ‘participatory’ paradigm associated with the work of transpersonalists Richard Tarnas and Jorge Ferrer, the author outlines an approach to Jung's archetypal thinking that might offer a more adequate basis in which to ground a non‐reductive approach to practice. In order to demonstrate the relevance of this outlook at the present time, the author begins by examining recent debates concerning the nature of ‘truth’ in the clinical setting. Reflecting on the difficulties analysts face in attempting to maintain professional authority without falling into an implicit authoritarianism, it is argued that any approach to therapy seeking to orient itself towards ‘the unconscious’ must posit the challenges of pluralism as a central concern for practice. With reference to the relationship between analytical psychology and the psychoanalytic mainstream, attention is drawn to the theoretical problems raised by the relational commitment to constructivist epistemologies, and a consequent tendency towards biological reductionism. Turning to the Jungian literature, similar tensions are observed at play in the present state of analytical psychology. Drawing attention to the process‐oriented qualities of Jung's work, it is suggested that the speculative nature of Jung's psychology offers a more adequate basis for contemporary practice than might be assumed.     

Methodological concerns in the psychology of religion: Continuities, losses and transforming perspectives

This article seeks solutions to what has recently been called the ‘crisis’ in the psychology of religion by returning to the programs of its founding fathers. It explores some of the methodological debates that followed the translation of William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience into German. More was at stake than the commonly drawn distinction between empirical and hermeneutical approaches to religion, or between quantitative and qualitative methods. What was at stake was the need for another kind of psychology in general. This article pays special attention to Wilhelm Wundt's fundamental criticism of James and of others in the psychology of religion. Despite the problems inherent in both James' and Wundt's aborted general psychology programs, each nonetheless contains approaches that may yet serve as an impetus to contemporary research on religion. Contemporary developments in cultural psychology in particular complement current research in the psychology of religion.     

Patterns of continuity: a dynamic model for conceptualizing the stability of individual differences in psychological constructs across the life course

In contemporary psychology there is debate over whether individual differences in psychological constructs are stable over extended periods of time. The authors argue that it is impossible to resolve such debates unless researchers focus on patterns of stability and the developmental mechanisms that may give rise to them. To facilitate this shift in emphasis, they describe a formal model that integrates 3 developmental processes: stochastic-contextual processes, person-environment transactions, and developmental constancies. The theoretical and mathematical analyses indicate that this model makes novel predictions about the way in which test-retest correlations are structured across a wide range of ages and test-retest intervals. The authors illustrate the utility of the model by comparing its predictions against meta-analytic data on Neuroticism. The discussion emphasizes the value of focusing on patterns of continuity, not only as phenomena to be explained but as data capable of clarifying the developmental processes underlying stability and change for a variety of psychological constructs.     

Virtues as Qualities of Character

Over the last two decades, a growing philosophical literature has subjected virtue ethics to empirical evaluation. Drawing on results in social psychology, a number of critics have argued that virtue ethics depends upon false presuppositions about the cross-situational consistency of psychological traits. Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue has been a prime target for the situationist critics. This essay assesses the situationist critique of MacIntyre’s account of virtue. It argues that MacIntyre’s social teleological account of virtue is not what his situationist critics take it to be. Virtues, for MacIntyre, are not reducible to psychological traits. They are qualities of one’s socially constituted character, and their intelligibility as virtues derives from their role in the narrative of one’s life. Recognizing this both clarifies and complicates debates about the implication of situationist social psychology for virtue ethics. It also grants a new significance to MacIntyre’s attention to the socio-historical context of virtue, a significance that should be especially interesting to religious ethicists.     

Expanding the discussion: Revision of the fundamental assumptions framing the study of the neural correlates of consciousness

The way one asks a question is shaped by a-priori assumptions and constrains the range of possible answers. We identify and test the assumptions underlying contemporary debates, models, and methodology in the study of the neural correlates of consciousness, which was framed by Crick and Koch’s seminal paper (1990). These premises create a sequential and passive conception of conscious perception: it is considered the product of resolved information processing by unconscious mechanisms, produced by a singular event in time and place representing the moment of entry. The conscious percept produced is then automatically retained to be utilized by post-conscious mechanisms. Major debates in the field, such as concern the moment of entry, the all-or-none vs graded nature, and report vs no-report paradigms, are driven by the consensus on these assumptions. We show how removing these assumptions can resolve some of the debates and challenges and prompt additional questions. The potential non-sequential nature of perception suggests new ways of thinking about consciousness as a dynamic and dispersed process, and in turn about the relationship between conscious and unconscious perception. Moreover, it allows us to present a parsimonious account for conscious perception while addressing more aspects of the phenomenon.