Between Wonder and Doubt: Psychoanalysis in the Goal-Free Zone

This paper examines the experiential dimensions of wonder and doubt as one way to articulate the creative and growth-promoting tensions between the medical/scientific model and the spiritual/mystical model. Both forms of experience, it is argued, function as necessary elements in a psychotherapy that integrates psychoanalysis and spiritual praxes. Fundamental differences between the medical/scientific model and the spiritual/mystical models are examined. The notion of the gap serves to illustrate these diametrically opposed, albeit compatible and necessary, points of view. The multifaceted layers of movement between Buddhism and psychoanalysis typify interacting dynamics between the two disciplines and provide a focal point for discussion. The paper then explores parallels between the Zen Buddhist notion of Satori as explicated in the writings of D. T. Suzuki and Wilfred Bion's notion of O. Theoretical aspects of the discussion provide a backdrop for exploring clinical experience regarding the relationship between acceptance and change, the clinical relevance of the Buddhist notions of gaining idea and basic goodness. The author also explores relationships between presence as actuality and ideal; knowing and not knowing; wonder and doubt. Clinical material supports the theoretical aspects of the discussion.     

Variations in Figurative Language Use as a Function of Mode of Communication

Various studies have demonstrated that the mode by which people communicate affects the content of their messages. The present study examines the ways in which one aspect of language use, namely figurative language, differs as a function of mode of communication. Subjects worked together in pairs to build a small household appliance, with an expert directing a novice in the construction. Subjects communicated in one of four modes: full copresence, separated by a screen, through an intercom system, or through e-mail. Differences between modes were found on a number of measures of figurative language types, including what the author has described as interrogative analogies. These differences are discussed in terms of costs, constraints, and affordances associated with different media, and the role figurative language plays in communication.     

Remarks on the Modal Logic of Henry Bradford Smith

H. B. Smith, Professor of Philosophy at the influential Pennsylvania School was (roughly) a contemporary of C. I. Lewis who was similarly interested in a proper account of implication. His research also led him into the study of modal logic but in a different direction than Lewis was led. His account of modal logic does not lend itself as readily as Lewis' to the received possible worlds semantics, so that the Smith approach was a casualty rather than a beneficiary of the renewed interest in modality. In this essay we present some of the main points of the Smith approach, in a new guise.     

The Fear of Happiness Anthropological Motives

Anthropologies are different – but Man has seldom been defined as a creature of happiness. Especially in German philosophy there has been a deep scepticism against happiness, most famously in Schopenhauer's pessimistic world view, but also in the desperate visions and in the heroic cynicism following from them in Nietzsche's philosophy. Although Kant and Hegel – influenced by liberal (English) thoughts – have not under estimated the happiness of the single individual, the majority of philosophers – particularly the representatives of Philosophical Anthropology in the 20th century (Scheler, Plessner and Gehlen) – remained (as will be examined in this essay in more detail) sceptical about happiness as fulfilment. In this topos there is also an evident emotion against mass society and a cultural-critical aversion to the eudaimonia of consumerism. In this way, from the point of view of the educated elites, happiness in modern times can only be found in social and intellectual distance, e.g. in the security of contemplation (especially after fascism with its promises of an activism bringing happiness). The dominant element seems to be a philosophical fear of happiness, of decadence and of happy nivellement. Even Goethe had seen Dr. Faustus losing his life and eternal salvation when he was thinking of the moment as so beautiful that it should remain so forever. But in spite of all these attitudes and modes of sceptical thinking, it may be neither naïve nor uncritical to concur with Blaise Pascal: That pleasure is good and suffering bad does not need further evidence. The heart feels it.     

A Field Guide to Cinetherapy: On Celluloid Psychoanalysis and Its Practitioners

This paper addresses the strange bedfellowship between psychoanalysis and cinema since the century's turn. Its specific focus is the idiosyncratic psychoanalysis/psychotherapy practised in mainstream cinema and television. Cinetherapists have consistently fallen into one of three categories: Dr. Dippy, a focus of derision, weirder than his patients; Dr. Evil, Hollywood's psychiatric version of the mad, bad scientist; and the unfailingly benevolent, self-sacrificing Dr. Wonderful. The prevalence of these stereotypes has waxed and waned according to shifting cultural circumstances. The study concludes with reflections on the possible impact, deleterious or otherwise, of distorted filmic images of the impossible profession.     

Exploitation via labour power in Marx

Marx's account of capitalist exploitation is undermined by inter-related confusions surrounding the notion of labour power. These confusions relate to [i] what labour power is, [ii] what happens to labour power in the labour market, and [iii] what the epistemic status of labour power is (the issue of appearance and reality). The central theses of the paper are [a] that property ownership is the wrong model for understanding the exploitation of labour, and [b] that the concept of exploitation is linked more fruitfully to a conception of distributive injustice than to Marx's theory of surplus value.     

Legal Practices and the Reason of the Law

Legal argumentation, like argumentation generally, occurs against a background of shared understanding and competence. This view, inspired by Kuhn's understanding of scientific reasoning, is in stark contrast to more traditional rule-following accounts of legal argumentation. Below I consider reasons to reject the more traditional view of legal reasoning in favor of a roughly Kuhnian account of legal reasoning and conclude by raising skeptical questions about the cogency of legal reasoning when the tacitly accepted background conditions that make it possible are not critically examined.     

The Power to Feel Fear and The One to Feel Happiness are the Same

The centre of Adorno's Critical Theory is occupied by the theme of happiness. He speaks of the impaired life, of the unjustness of society, of murderous prejudices, of the atrocities in history, of the dissonance in art, of the unhappy consciousness, because something better can only be described from a point of opposition. Happiness cannot be objectified as possession, it always needs to be experienced subjectively, somatically. (With happiness it is like with truth: One does not have it, one is in it.) Happiness cannot be prescribed and ordered; nothing can be done to guarantee happiness. (Happiness goes beyond doing.) Happiness (like fear) has to do with being open to experience which can overwhelm the self. Sexual and aesthetical experience are models for such overwhelming happiness. The sensation of happiness always is very personal, but in this experience the individual leaves its particularity behind. One has to differentiate between goal and object: Happiness may be a goal, but not it itself, only what obstructs it, can be an object of Critical Theory.     

Two Kinds of Organic Unity

This paper distinguishes two interpretations of G. E. Moore's principle of organic unities, which says that the intrinsic value of a whole need not equal the sum of the intrinsic values its parts would have outside it. A holistic interpretation, which was Moore's own, says that parts retain their values when they enter a whole but that there can be an additional value in the whole as a whole that must be added to them. The conditionality interpretation, which has been defended by Korsgaard, says that parts can change their values when they enter wholes, so no additional value is needed. The paper shows that the two interpretations, which differ on such apparently important issues as the nature of intrinsic value, can always yield the same conclusions about the overall value in a state of affairs, so there is in that sense nothing to choose between them. At the same time, though, the differences between the interpretations make sometimes one and sometimes the other more appropriate for expressing a given evaluative view. In this last connection the paper considers views about beauty, posthumous achievement, vices of disproportion, deserved and compassionate pain, and undeserved and malicious pleasure.     

Moral Responsibility, Determinism, and the Ability to do Otherwise

In his classic paper, The Principle of Alternate Possibilities, Harry Frankfurt presented counterexamples to the principle named in his title: A person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise. He went on to argue that the falsity of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP) implied that the debate between the compatibilists and the incompatibilists (as regards determinism and the ability to do otherwise) did not have the significance that both parties had attributed to it -- since moral responsibility could exist even if no one was able to do otherwise. I have argued that even if PAP is false, there are other principles that imply that moral responsibility entails the ability to do otherwise, and that these principles are immune to Frankfurt-style counterexamples. Frankfurt has attempted to show that my arguments for this conclusion fail. This paper is a rejoinder to that reply; I argue that he has failed to show this.     

Idealizations and Concretizations in Laws and Explanations in Physics

The paper tries to provide an alternative to Hempel’s approach to scientific laws and scientific explanation as given in his D-N model. It starts with a brief exposition of the main characteristics of Hempel’s approach to deductive explanations based on universal scientific laws and analyzes the problems and paradoxes inherent in this approach. By way of solution, it analyzes the scientific laws and explanations in classical mechanics and then reconstructs the corresponding models of explanation, as well as the types of scientific laws appearing in it. Finally, it compares this reconstruction with the approaches of J. Woodward and C. Hitchcock, C. Liu and with the views of M. Thalos on analytic mechanics.

Higher and Lower Pleasures – Doubts on Justification

According to the discontinuity view we can have a (lower) pleasure which, no matter how often a certain unit of it is added to itself, cannot become greater in value than a unit of another (higher) pleasure. All recent adherents of this view seem to rely basically on the same sort of reasoning which is referred to here as the preference test. This article presents three arguments, each of which indicates that the inference from the preference test to the discontinuity view is not conclusive.     

A closer look at moral dilemmas: Latent dimensions of morality and the difference between trolley and footbridge dilemmas

Although a distinction between moral-personal and moral-impersonal dilemmas (Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001 Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M. and Cohen, J. D. 2001. An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgement. Science, 293: 2105–2108. doi:10.1126/science.1062872.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) has been widely accepted as an explanation for a difference between the trolley and footbridge dilemmas (Thomson, 1985 Thomson, J. J. 1985. “The trolley problem”. In Ethics: Problems and principles, Edited by: Fischer, J. M. and Ravizza, M. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.  [Google Scholar]), its psychometric properties remain a mystery. In this study 219 participants completed 62 moral dilemma tasks used in Greene et al. (2001 Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M. and Cohen, J. D. 2001. An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgement. Science, 293: 2105–2108. doi:10.1126/science.1062872.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and the correlation structure among the dilemmas was analysed through factor analysis and structural equation modelling. Findings suggest that, first, moral-personal dilemmas are composed of one factor, indicating that the assumption in Greene et al. (2001 Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M. and Cohen, J. D. 2001. An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgement. Science, 293: 2105–2108. doi:10.1126/science.1062872.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) was supported. Second, moral-impersonal dilemmas are explained by two factors that reflect procedural and consequential aspects of decision making. Third, the trolley and footbridge dilemmas fall under the same factor category; therefore the difference between the two dilemmas cannot be attributed to emotional involvement. Additionally, the results of the structural equation modelling suggest that they differ in the engagement of rational processing.     

The application of the satir model of family therapy to the families in Hong Kong: A personal reflection

Practitioners in Hong Kong have shown an increasing interest in various family therapy approaches since the 1980s. This paper offers a critique of the major concepts and techniques of the Satir model applied to families in Hong Kong. Cultural considerations are examined in relation to the family structure and hierarchy, the Chinese self and self-esteem, communication patterns, and family rules. Implications for the application of the Satir model of family therapy in Hong Kong are discussed.     

Revisiting the metacontrast dissociation: Comparing sensitivity across different measures and tasks

In the metacontrast dissociation procedure, presenting a masked shape prime prior to a visible shape target leads to reaction-time effects of the prime in an indirect measure, although participants cannot consciously detect prime shapes in a direct measure (Klotz & Neumann, 1999 Klotz, W. and Neumann, O. 1999. Motor activation without conscious discrimination in metacontrast masking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 25: 976–992.  [Google Scholar]). This has been taken as evidence for the processing of unconscious input. The results of the present metacontrast dissociation study indicate that although participants are unable to consciously report the shape of the prime, they can consciously perceive motion between masked primes and visible targets in a hybrid direct/indirect measure (Experiments 1 and 3). This indicates that former tests did not provide an exhaustive measure for residual conscious perception of the prime in the metacontrast dissociation procedure. Further tests, however, reveal that residual motion perception cannot account for performance in the indirect measure (Experiments 2 and 3). Although the results thus leave the conception of processing of unconscious input intact, they may prompt a revision of its criteria.     

Perceptions of Dating Violence Following a Sexualor Nonsexual Betrayal of Trust: Effects of Gender, Sexism, Acceptance of Rape Myths, and Vengeance Motivation

College womens (N = 220) and mens (N = 208) perceptions of violence following a betrayal by a romantic partner were studied in an independent groups design that varied gender of the participant, type of betrayal (sexual or nonsexual), and gender of the betrayed individual. Participants read one of four brief vignettes in which the betrayed person slapped his/her partner and made his/her lip bleed. Justification of this action was rated on 10 items. Factor analysis of these items indicated the presence of three factors for men and four for women. Both men and women indicated that hitting the partner, getting even, and being angry were more justifiable following a sexual betrayal. The hitting of a male partner by a betrayed woman was perceived as more justified than the hitting of a female partner by a betrayed man. In absolute terms, hitting and getting even by both women and men were generally viewed as unjustifiable, whereas being angry was viewed as justifiable. For both women and men, scores on the Vengeance Scale (Stuckless & Goranson, 1992) and Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1995) were related to getting even. For men, the Hostile Sexism Scale (Glick & Fiske, 2001) was related to getting even or being angry and breaking up. Results indicated that perceptions of reactions to betrayal are related to type of betrayal and to the dispositional characteristics of the perceiver.     

A cross-cultural study of hindsight bias and conditional probabilistic reasoning

Hindsight bias is a mistaken belief that one could have predicted a given outcome once the outcome is known. Choi and Nisbett (2000 Choi, I. and Nisbett, R. E. 2000. Cultural psychology of surprise: Holistic theories and recognition of contradiction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79: 890–905. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) reported that Koreans showed stronger hindsight bias than Americans, and explained the results using the distinction between analytic cognition (Westerners) and holistic cognition (Easterners). The purpose of the present study was to see whether hindsight bias is stronger among Easterners than among Westerners using a probability judgement task, and to test an “explicit–implicit” hypothesis and a “rule-dialectics” hypothesis. We predicted that the implicit process is more active among Easterners to generate hindsight bias, and that Easterners are more dialectical thinkers, whereas Westerners are more rule-based thinkers. French, British, Japanese, and Korean participants were asked to make probabilistic judgements in a Good Samaritan scenario (Experiment 1) and in a scenario including conditional probabilistic judgement (Experiment 2). In both Experiments, we presume that the implicit revision of causal models is made just by being given unexpected outcome information, and that explicit revision is made by being asked to point out possible factors for an unexpected outcome. In the results Easterners showed greater hindsight bias generally and it was greater in the Good Samaritan scenario. We conclude that the reason why hindsight bias was lower among Westerners is primarily that they tried to follow a rule to suppress the bias.     

Consciousness,Vorticity, and Dipoles

As spin is a fundamental feature of the universe, preliminary evidence suggests that its study could help in understanding consciousness. Research detailed in this article further develops the author's work in Keen (2005) Keen, J. 2005. Consciousness, intent, and the structure of the universe, Canada: Trafford. Available at http://www.trafford.com/robots/04-2320.html [Google Scholar]. The findings demonstrate that rotating objects generate fields that are also associated with mind-generated fields. Numerous quantitative properties of these fields generated by rotation are shown to be very different to fields associated with static objects. Dipole antenna radiation patterns are also discovered. The conclusions suggest that vorticity is not only involved in consciousness, but also has wider implications in understanding our universe, and therefore the subject warrants further research.     

Autonomy gone awry: a cross-cultural study of parents’ experiences in neonatal intensive care units

This paper examines parents experiences of medical decision-making and coping with having a critically ill baby in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) from a cross-cultural perspective (France vs. U.S.A.). Though parents experiences in the NICU were very similar despite cultural and institutional differences, each system addresses their needs in a different way. Interviews with parents show that French parents expressed overall higher satisfaction with the care of their babies and were better able to cope with the loss of their child than American parents. Central to the French parents perception of autonomy and their sense of satisfaction were the strong doctor–patient relationship, the emphasis on medical certainty in prognosis versus uncertainty in the American context, and the sentimental work" provided by the team. The American setting, characterized by respect for parental autonomy, did not necessarily translate into full parental involvement in decision-making, and it limited the rapport between doctors and parents to the extent of parental isolation. This empirical comparative approach fosters a much-needed critique of philosophical principles by underscoring, from the parents perspective, the lack of emotional work" involved in the practice of autonomy in the American unit compared to the paternalistic European context. Beyond theoretical and ethical arguments, we must reconsider the practice of autonomy in particularly stressful situations by providing more specific means to cope, translating the impersonal language of rights" and decision-making into trusting, caring relationships, and sharing the responsibility for making tragic choices.