Freedom,emotion, and self‐subsistence

A set of basic static predicates, ‘in itself, ‘existing through itself, ‘free’, and others are taken to be (at least) extensionally equivalent, and some consequences are drawn in Parts A and ? of the paper. Part C introduces adequate causation and adequate conceiving as extensionally equivalent. The dynamism or activism of Spinoza is reflected in the reconstruction by equating action with causing, passion (passive emotion) with being caused. The relation between conceiving (understanding) and causing is narrowed down by introducing grasping (λαμβ?νω) as a basic epistemological term. Part D, ‘The road to freedom through active emotion’, introduces a system of grading with respect to the distinctions introduced in the foregoing, including ‘being in itself, ‘freedom’, etc. Active emotions are seen to represent transitions to a higher degree of freedom, the stronger and more active ones being the more conducive to rapid increase in degree of freedom. Elementary parts of the calculus of predicates are used in order to facilitate the survey of conceptual relations and to prove some theorems.     

No‐self,real self,ignorance and self‐deception: Does self‐deception require a self?

In this paper I dispute Eliot Deutsch's claim [See Deutsch, Eliot (1996) Self‐deception: a comparative study, in: Roger T. Ames and Wimal Dissanayake (Eds) Self and Deception: a cross‐cultural enquiry (Albany, State University of New York Press), pp. 315–326] that examining self‐deception from the perspective of non‐Western traditions (i.e. how it is understood in those cultures) can help us to better understand the nature of the phenomenon in one's own culture. Although the claim appears to be uncontrover‐sial and perhaps even self‐evident, I shall argue that it is fundamentally mistaken. What is important about both the claim and my critical assessment of it is not what it tells us about self‐deception. I shall show that it tells us little about self‐deception; that Deutsch confuses ignorance with self‐deception; and that he straightforwardly equivocates on the concept. Instead, what is interesting is what Deutsch's treatment of self‐deception in comparative perspective can tell us about comparative philosophy. The significance of what follows in this paper is less about self‐deception than it is about comparative philosophy.     

The role of imagination,rule‐operations,and atmosphere in Wittgenstein's language‐games

Wittgenstein argues that understanding a language consists of mastery of techniques for playing language‐games rather than some sort of mental state or episode such as mental imagery, rule invocation, or atmosphere investing our experience of words. His elimination of the three mentalistic alternatives presupposes the peculiar distinction, or its virtual lack, between speaker and listener presupposed by his positive claim, instead of establishing the latter. This paper vindicates the episodic nature of certain types of understanding, and gives each of his three alternatives a suitably qualified role therein, by drawing the distinctions in a less biassed way.     

Gender,profession, and non‐conformal religiosity

Possible relations between gender, profession and non‐conformal religiosity are discussed, and patterns of religiosity are analysed among Danes in the social, educational, and health care (SEH) professions with a view to clarifying the role of gender versus that of profession in propagating non‐conformal religiosity. The data were taken from an interview study of the Danish Baha'i community and from the Danish part of the European Values Study (EVS). The conversion accounts of SEH professionals among the Danish Baha'is indicate a specific religious socialization in the SEH professional environment. The EVS data demonstrate that non‐conformal religiosity is much more prevalent among SEH professionals than among the rest of the population. Three to five times as many practised meditation, yoga, or healing, and belief in reincarnation was also more widespread. Regarding these indicators of non‐conformal religiosity, no differences were found between men and women in the SEH professions. For persons not in the SEH professions, indicators of both conformal and non‐conformal religiosity showed a higher prevalence among women than among men. This corroborates the hypothesis that the female‐dominated SEH professional environment exerts a strong socialization to non‐conformal religiosity, a socialization that may outweigh the general effect of gender.     

The creative thinking,environmental frustration,and self‐concept of left‐ and right‐handers

Abstract:

Left‐ (n = 12) and right‐handed (n = 12) college students were compared on creative thinking, environmental frustration, and self‐concept. It was hypothesized that because left‐handers regularly encounter equipment designed for right hand use, these individuals must use creative thinking to successfully interact with the environment. Results indicated that on the Environmental Frustration Questionnaire, left‐handers indicated significantly greater frustration with two of the six categories of objects, namely household tools (p < .005) and classroom desks (p < .005). On the Verbal and Figural Forms of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, lefthanders scored significantly higher on the figural elaboration measure (p < .05). Finally, the hypothesis that handedness plays a larger role in the self‐concept of left‐handers than right‐handers was confirmed. Left‐handers were significantly more likely than right‐handers to mention their handedness when asked to describe themselves (p < .05).     

Efforts to Christianize Europe, 400‐2000

In previous work I have demonstrated that, claims by the secularization faithful to the contrary, religious participation in most of Europe did not decline in modern times, having never been very high. In this essay I attempt to explain why. Why did earlier efforts to Christianize Europe fail? In conclusion I assess present American missionary efforts to convert Europe.     

Self‐Consciousness,Normativity and Abysmal Freedom

This article critically examines Christine Korsgaard's claim in her Tanner Lectures to find in self‐consciousness itself the norms that would answer our need for practical reasons, insofar as that need is constituted through our capacity for reflection. It shows that the way in which Korsgaard sees “the need for a reason” as arising out of self‐consciousness implies a dilemma: on the one hand, we want as the ultimate source of our reasons an authority of which we cannot coherently demand legitimation in turn; on the other, our freedom demands that nothing count for us as a reason except insofar as it is in turn endorsed in reflection. Relying on resources drawn from the tradition of reflection, this paper argues that Korsgaard's attempt to resolve this tension is unsuccessful and appeals, in response to this failure, to faith in the authority of our reasons in the absence of foundational justification of them.     

Creativity,chaos, and self‐renewal in human systems

The research findings from the psychology of creativity are shown to be of considerable relevance to the study of self‐organization and self‐renewal in human systems. The characteristics of the creative person, and the nature of the creative process, particularly as they have been elaborated by Barron, are shown to be remarkably congruent with recent findings and theoretical elaborations by Abraham, Jantsch, Laszlo, Prigogine, and others in the fields of evolutionary and chaos theory. The broader social implications of chaos and evolutionary theories are fleshed out through an understanding of their characteristics in creative human systems.     

Identification of scientists making long‐term,high‐impact contributions,with notes on their methods of working

A two decade (1958–1978) study was made of 40 male scientists, including four Nobel Prize winners. Multiple psychological tests were administered, along with interviews and analysis of publication rates and citations. The data yielded two factors that had very high predictive ability for identifying long‐term, high‐impact investigators: a series of five or more high‐impact papers published by the age of 45 accompanied by simultaneous involvement in research in several areas. Scientists meeting these criteria all went on to produce high‐impact papers into their late‐50s and 60s, whereas the other scientists in the study did not. Other factors, such as number of publications, membership in the National Academy of Sciences, and the award of a Nobel Prize were not significantly predictive of continued impact. Thus, previous impact should not be used as a basis for further funding independent of other measures. Methods of working peculiar to long‐term, high‐impact individuals, such as frequent changes in the focus of their research, working on several problems simultaneously, and abhorrence of administrative duties, are also examined in light of Gruber's concept of networks of enterprise. The common preconceptions that a scientist's best work is done by the age of 40 and that productivity and creativity decline necessarily thereafter are shown to be common but unnecessary concomitants of aging. Possible reasons for exceptional cases are discussed.     

Inter‐confessional relations in nineteenth‐century Syria: Damascus,Homs and Hama compared

This article examines relations between Muslims and Christians in Syria during the later Ottoman period in light of social science literature on ethnicity and ethnic conflict. It argues that the social science literature illuminates the historiography of this question by bringing to the fore historians’ underlying assumptions about religion and ethnicity. By comparing three Syrian towns with contrasting histories of inter‐communal relations, the article argues that religious consciousness in Syria ought not to be understood in strictly primordialist terms. Rather, a more circumstantialist approach is needed where specific conditions transform an otherwise unproblematic situation of religious diversity into one of inter‐confessional hatred and strife.     

Systems evolution,structures of long‐waves,and systems management

By classifying the evolution of systems into inter‐level evolution and intra‐level evolution and dividing the intra‐level evolution into four stages which are interrelated but quite different from each other, we discuss structures of several typical systems long‐waves, and strategies of systems management.     

Critical issues in Muslim‐Christian relations: Theoretical,practical, dialogical,scholarly

In treating some critical issues in Muslim‐Christian relations at present and in the near future I would like to say something on the basis of what may be qualified as ‘critical realism’ on the one hand and ‘constructive partnership’ on the other. My purpose here is to identify some issues with which we have to cope when we want to improve relations between Muslims and Christians for times to come.     

Christianity,Personality and Concern about Environmental Pollution among 13‐ to 15‐year‐olds

A sample of 20,968 Year 9 and Year 10 pupils provided information about their concern regarding environmental pollution, belief in God, church attendance, prayer, and view on creationism. They also completed the short form Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The data demonstrate that (after taking into account sex, age and personality) belief in God, church attendance and personal prayer are all significant predictors of greater environmental concern. After taking these religious factors into account, however, creationist beliefs are irrelevant to environmental concern. These findings are discussed against the background of theory which criticises the Christian tradition for promoting environmental exploitation rather than environmental concern.     

The breadth and boundaries of a self‐psychological immersion in shame a one‐and‐a‐half‐person perspective

Shame colors other feelings and perceptions about the self. From reflections about his own personal experiences and observations regarding a particular manic‐depressive patient, the author discusses the evolution of his current clinical and theoretical understanding of shame. The framework of analytic self psychology is offered as a particularly useful perspective from which to consider shame, with its emphasis on the concept of selfobject to account both for shame's development (through selfobject misattunement and unresponsive‐ness) and for its amelioration (through empathic mirroring, idealization, and twinning). A developmental sequence for shame is advanced reflecting limitations in selfobject responsiveness, and problems are noted in the ability of current self psychology theory to fully account for the alleviation of shame. The self plays its part in the construction of those selfobjects needed to ease shame, representing the “one‐and‐a‐half‐person psychology”; of the paper's subtitle. Finally, the important role of countertransference shame is considered through a clinical example of therapist disclosure of his own shame to his patient, utilized in order to repair an interrupted kinship selfobject transference.     

The dream between “here‐and‐now” and “there‐and‐then”

The analysand recounts his/her dream now, and here, in the setting. Though a dream may be recounted repeatedly, the human situation in which the recounting takes place is unrepeatable. Each moment of the analytic relationship is unique, and the recounting is essentially relational. Even if the dreamer were to read from a written text, his/her voice and non‐verbal aspects would render the communication unique. Not only the recounting but also the content recounted may present relational aspects, manifest or latent, but of a relational nature different from that of the session “here‐ and‐now”. The dream dreamt belongs to the “there‐and‐then”, and its analysis, like every analysis, implies an objectification. The analyst reacts to the recounted dream, trying to objectify it in its “there‐and‐then” and also inviting the dreamer to a common task. Working on the manifest content, free associations and interpretations of symbols, they voyage through the time and space of the analysand's life. The recounted dream involves the “here‐and‐now” of the session and asks to be meaningful as a cue in the analytic dialogue (what is the meaning of recounting this dream at this moment). At the same time it refers back to the dream dreamt, to a “there‐and‐then” which, if it is not to remain “an unopened letter”, must be received as an enigmatic challenge and a window on the unconscious, open and ready to close. Thinking of an opening of the dreamer's unconscious the analyst may find himself/herself faced with an opening of his/her own unconscious.     

Short‐term and working memory: Past,progress, and prospects

Abstract

The role of current personal experience in understanding of word meaning was investigated in a patient, WM, who suffers from semantic dementia. The study was prompted by the observation that WM, despite being severely impaired on formal tests of word comprehension and naming, retained a range of vocabulary pertaining to her daily life. If autobiographical experience has a general facilitatory effect, then this should affect which concepts are retained and which lost, but not influence the quality of that conceptual knowledge. Conversely, if personal autobiography has a direct role in investing concepts with meaning, then WM's understanding of nominal terms that she uses spontaneously in conversation ought not to be normal, but should be constrained by the autobiographical context in which she uses those terms. WM could define nouns and noun phrases drawn from her conversational vocabulary, but her definitions had a markedly autobiographical quality. Moreover, WM was extremely impaired in her ability to define new noun phrases, constructed by combining words from her conversational vocabulary (e.g. “dog licence”, constructed from “driving licence” and “dog” “oil field” constructed from “oil” and “field”). It was concluded that WM does not have normal conceptual understanding of nouns and noun phrases that she uses appropriately in conversation. Her understanding is narrow and autobiographically constrained. The findings, which suggest an interactive relationship between autobiographical and semantic memory, have implications for understanding of the progressive breakdown of semantic knowledge.     

Hailing Zenobia: Anti‐Judaism,trinitarianism, and John Henry Newman

John Henry Newman's early nineteenth‐century monograph The Arians of the Fourth Century iterates and intensifies the anti‐Jewish rhetoric already conveyed by the Nicene trinitarian theology inaugurated by Athanasius of Alexandria in the fourth century. Invoking philosopher Judith Butler's analysis of the performative power of ‘hate speech’ not only to injure, but also to interpellate subjects who may be heard to ‘talk back’, the present article seeks to surface the subversive potentialities contained not only within Newman's text (read in its immediate historical context), but also within trinitarian discourse more generally. Zenobia, third‐century ruler of Palmyra, reviled by Newman as both a ‘Judaizer’ and an ancestor of ‘Arianism’ (i.e. anti‐trinitarian theology), serves in this article (as in Newman's text) as the privileged figure for an interpellated subject, at once ‘Jewish’ and ‘feminine’ (thus seductively ‘oriental'), that may be heard to give voice to the ‘insurrectionary’ counter‐speech harbored within the very discourse of Christian orthodoxy that seeks to suppress it.