Naturalism,Experience, and Hume’s ‘Science of Human Nature’

Abstract

A standard interpretation of Hume’s naturalism is that it paved the way for a scientistic and ‘disenchanted’ conception of the world. My aim in this paper is to show that this is a restrictive reading of Hume, and it obscures a different and profitable interpretation of what Humean naturalism amounts to. The standard interpretation implies that Hume’s ‘science of human nature’ was a reductive investigation into our psychology. But, as Hume explains, the subject matter of this science is not restricted to introspectively accessible mental content and incorporates our social nature and interpersonal experience. Illuminating the science of human nature has implications for how we understand what Hume means by ‘experience’ and thus how we understand the context of his epistemological investigations. I examine these in turn and argue overall that Hume’s naturalism and his science of man do not simply anticipate a disenchanted conception of the world.     

Intimate Relationship as Path

SUMMARY

Now that the old external reasons for couples remaining together have broken down “we need to find a new basis for enduring, enriching relationships. Intimate relationships now need to reflect and promote our deeper being” rather than serving some limited role-bound function. We need to understand the ongoing challenges of a relationship as a path that can help us connect more deeply with ourselves, our partner, and life itself.     

TO HAVE DONE (TRULY) WITH METAPHYSICS

One cannot consider the future of continental philosophy without accounting for its specific “hermeneutic situation.” It seems to us that the state of continental philosophy today returns us to metaphysics and to the possibility of truly having done with it. Continental philosophy, in reality, does not cease to live metaphysically, because by asserting the end of metaphysics, it still continues to think according to the topos of the here‐and‐now and the beyond: that which seeks the ruin of the heavens continues to obsess over the heavens; the cult of immanence can only understand itself in opposition to the other world, therefore in constant reference to it; insufficiently radical, the critique, in the words of Karl‐Otto Apel, is but an “inverted metaphysics.” Our inversions of the for and against (the sensible vs. the intelligible, the body vs. the soul, the empirical vs. the transcendental, and more recently, the multiple vs. the one) still belong to the landscape of metaphysics. How do we imagine what comes after metaphysics? Can philosophy think according to a topos other than the one of the world above and the world below? Can it respatialize itself in a new way? Put more precisely, can we accept what science tells us about the world and about humanity in any other way than as the deposing of the other world? Can science provide us with anything other than weapons against metaphysics; in other words, can science give us anything other than metaphysics? As a response to these questions, we imagine an alternative scenario tied to the (scientifically attested) fact of our animal origin. Our animal origin can be, for philosophy and more specifically for phenomenology, the chance for a new beginning. But it can do so only on the condition that it does not follow the current method of evolutionary psychology. If it is true that we can be metaphysicians while being reductionistic, because we thus preserve the “old schema,” then evolutionary psychology is today, in virtue of its very reductionism, one of the more metaphysical currents of thought. Conversely, if phenomenology decides to face the fact of evolution and to confront its estrangement, we think that it possesses all the resources to invent a new intellectual landscape.     

Objects of Heart's Desire

SUMMARY

We enter the world with an expectancy of love and a need to love. That which we love is dictated by our histories and limited by our fears. This paper explains some of the consequences of that for the individual and the couple.     

Specific subtype of fluency disorder affecting French speaking children: A phonological analysis

PurposeClinicians working with fluency disorders sometimes see children whose word repetitions are mostly located at the end of words and do not induce physical tension. Prior studies on the topic have proposed several names for these disfluencies including “end word repetitions”, “final sound repetitions” and “atypical disfluency”. The purpose of this study was to use phonological analysis to explore the patterns of this poorly recognized fluency disorder in order to better understand its specific speech characteristics.MethodsWe analyzed a spontaneous language sample of 8 French speaking children. Audio and video recordings allowed us to study general communication issues as well as linguistic and acoustical data.ResultsWe did not detect speech rupture or coarticulation failures between the syllable onset and rhyme. The problem resides primarily on the rhyme production with a voicing interruption in the middle of the syllable nucleus or a repetition of the rhyme (nucleus alone or nucleus and coda), regardless of the position in the word or phrase.ConclusionThe present study provides data suggesting that there exist major differences in syllable production between the disfluencies produced by our 8 children and stuttered disfluencies. Consequently, we believe that this fluency disorder should be recognized as distinct from stuttering.     

What Malapropisms Mean: A Reply To Donald Davidson

In this paper, I argue against Davidson's (1986) view that our ability to understand malapropisms forces us to re-think the standard construal of literal word meaning as conventional meaning. Specially, I contend that the standard construal is not only intuitive but also well-motivated, for appeal to conventional meaning is necessary to understand why speakers utter the particular words they do. I also contend that, contra Davidson, we can preserve the intuitive distinction between what a speaker means and what his words mean, even while retaining the standard construal of literal word meaning as conventional.     

An Ecological Approach to Modeling Vision: Quantifying Form Perception Using the Circle Map Equation

Abstract

Object perception occurs within a dynamic world, where the environment and the observer (both body and eyes) are continually moving, shifting and changing. We seek to characterize and quantify this process from a perspective accounting for the interconnected system of motion in the environment, the perceiver and the eye, unfolding through time. Specifically, we build a mathematical representation for object perception based off the circle map equation. We describe an interaction between the eyes’ movement and the movement in the world, in order to better understand how those work together to result in perception. Across three experiments, we show that the stability of the relationship between object perception and complex eye movements can be perturbed and will have a predictable response to said perturbations. In so doing, we provide a different context – a dynamical systems framework – under which we can begin to consider the ecological validity of visual perception models, while recognizing the degree to which the visuo-spatial world is continuously being perturbed and disrupted. In fact, we postulate that such perturbations are capitalized on by the perceptual system, contributing to accurate object and motion identification.     

Ecological Representations

Abstract

Representations feature heavily in cognitive science theories about our behavioral repertoire. Their critical feature is its ability to designate (stand in for) spatially or temporally distant properties, so that organizing our behavior with respect to mental/neural representations means organizing our behavior with respect to the otherwise unavailable property they designate. Representations are a powerful tool, but serious problems (grounding, system-detectable error) remain unsolved. Ecological explanations reject representations. However, this has left us without a straightforward vocabulary to engage with “representation-hungry” problems involving spatial or temporal distance, nor the role of the nervous system in cognition. To develop such a vocabulary, here we show that ecological information functions to designate the ecologically scaled dynamical world to an organism. We then show that this designation analysis of information leads to an ecological conceptualization of the neural activity caused by information, and finally we argue these together can support intentional behavior with respect to spatially and temporally distal properties. The way they do so (via designation) does mean information and the related neural activity can be conceptualized as representations; but they do so in a grounded way that remains true to key ecological ontological commitments. We advocate this path for expanding the ecological approach.     

The Family Cycle: Breaking the Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma through Mentalizing

ABSTRACT

In recent years, attachment and mentalization theory have been used to guide and inform clinical work with complex, vulnerable adults and children, who struggle to make sense of their own experience or to understand and reflect upon the thoughts and feelings of others. Traumatized parents often have difficulty reflecting upon their children’s thoughts and feelings, at great cost to the child’s sense of trust and safety in the world. In this paper we describe the use of the Family Cycle a clinical activity designed to promote mentalizing in high-risk parents and children with histories of significant and often chronic developmental trauma – with parents whose children are enrolled in an intensive home visiting program aimed at avoiding psychiatric hospitalization. Our aim is to both help them make meaning of their own histories, and understand how these have, in turn, impacted their children. We first present the Family Cycle activity generally, and then use case material to describe its use with a parent in our program.     

How does knowledge bring one to the state of immortality in early Upaniṣadic philosophy? A new perspective on the ‘Magical’ way of cognition

ABSTRACT

The Upani?adic philosophers believed that acquiring certain knowledge would lead them toward a state of immortality. Merely by obtaining that knowledge, they thought people could surmount the various causes of death of the natural body. How and why did they develop and maintain this belief? To understand this, this article analyzes the difference between our views as modern humans and those of early Upani?adic philosophers, regarding the concepts of knowledge and death. They seem to have believed that knowing a concept meant actualizing that concept in the real world. Therefore, possessing the concept or knowledge of death guaranteed the actualized occurrence of death. This article argues that early Upani?adic philosophers must have thought that replacing the knowledge of death with the true knowledge of immortality would really make people immortal. In other words, to know that one is immortal truly makes one immortal. I also propose a new method of analyzing ancient thoughts.     

The associations between adult attachment,posttraumatic symptoms,and posttraumatic growth

Background and Objectives: Individual differences after trauma vary considerably and can range from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to posttraumatic growth (PTG). Current theoretical models cannot fully explain this variability. Therefore, we integrated attachment theory with Ehlers and Clark's model of PTSD to understand whether attachment style is associated with negative appraisals of a traumatic event(s), posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTS), and PTG. Our aim was to test this integrated model PTSD in an analog sample who had experienced at least one traumatic event. Design: We used structural equation modeling to test the association of adult attachment and posttraumatic cognitions (self and world/others) with PTS and PTG using a cross-sectional, correlational design. Methods: The sample comprised 393 university staff and students (Range_Age= 18–49, 85% females) who completed online measures. Results: Attachment anxiety and negative posttraumatic self-cognitions were positively associated. Negative posttraumatic self-cognitions were positively associated with PTS. Attachment anxiety had an indirect effect (via negative posttraumatic self-cognitions) on PTS, whereas attachment avoidance predicted more negative posttraumatic world cognitions and lower perceived PTG. Conclusions: The study highlights the importance of considering how attachment styles influence posttraumatic emotion regulation and cognitive processing of the trauma to determine posttraumatic mental health.     

Toward a Comprehensive Theology of Divine Action

This paper proposes a fundamental premise for the conversation between science and theology: In our experience of the natural world we encounter an excess of awareness and of meaning that overwhelm our perceptions, language, and thought. We attempt to construct the coherence of our awareness through our science, and we attempt to render it meaningful in our thoughts and language. Metaphor and symbol are primary vehicles for our attempts at meaning. Since its task is to articulate meaning, theology must acknowledge this premise, if it is to engage the sciences adequately.     

Editorial Notice

Abstract

John McDowell has claimed that the rational link between perceptions and empirical judgements allows us to perceive objects as belonging to a wider reality, one which extends beyond the objects perceived. In this way, we can be said to have a perceptual awareness of the world. I argue that McDowell's account of this perceptual awareness does not succeed. His account as it stands does not have the resources to explain how our perceptions can present objects as belonging to a wider reality, regardless of the judgements we make about that reality. I suggest that we can give a better account of this perceptual awareness of the world by appealing to transcendental phenomenology. A phenomenological study of perceptual experiences describes how they are structured by a sense of the perceived objects as belonging to a world containing other objects of possible perception. I shall outline this sense we have of the world, and argue that it allows us to perceive objects as belonging to a wider reality. Transcendental phenomenology can thus help to explain our perceptual awareness of the world.     

Psychoanalysis in the Netherlands during World War II

To understand what happened in the psychoanalytic world in Holland during the German occupation (1940-1945) we must have knowledge of the conflicts within the Dutch Society of Psychoanalysis in the nineteen-thirties. Those conflicts mainly deal with the subject of lay analysis, the compulsory training analysis and in general if compliance with foreign, with IPA rules was advisable. These differences of opinion reached their peak when four Jewish psychoanalysts arrived from Germany in 1933. The Dutch Society broke up in two parts, but was reunited in 1938. During the German occupation the training was finally regulated according to the IPA rules. This lead to a new splitting in the world of Dutch psychoanalysis that has not been healed to date.     

Recovering the context in posttraumatic stress disorder: The psychosocial trauma in victims of political violence and terrorism

Abstract

Throughout history, humans have frequently carried out harmful actions against one another. Often, these actions result in intensive and long lasting pain and suffering. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis has been the theoretical tool used mostly by psychologists to understand the physical, emotional and behavioural symptoms following a traumatic experience. Due to its clinical and medical roots, PTSD diagnosis represents man in a social vacuum, a man without context, and a model of health closely tied to illness. The aim of the paper is to reintroduce the social context of human beings into trauma diagnosis, and to develop a health model that is more focused on well-being than on illness. Both points of view help us to seek a theoretical way for better understanding the psychosocial trauma that result from political violence and terrorism. Psychosocial trauma has definite roots, and destroys our inner world—the world of our most valuable meanings—infects our minds with hate against others, and breaks the social fabric we belong to.     

New nonlinear and dynamic avenues for the study of work and organizational psychology: an introduction to the special issue

ABSTRACT

Nonlinear and dynamic approaches are two main principles of complex systems. The work and organizational psychology field has recently applied these concepts to understand human behaviour at work. In this introductory paper, we describe how human behaviour at work can be understood from a nonlinear and dynamic perspective, developing and applying the advantages of this approach to continue moving beyond the frontiers of our knowledge. We focus on the theoretical, methodological, and epistemological implications of the nonlinear dynamic approach in the field. Then, we present the five papers included in this special issue. These papers have applied nonlinear and dynamic concepts to understand a wide range of phenomena: subordinates-supervisors relationships, team behaviour, deviant workplace behaviour, transformational leadership, and training transfer. Overall, these papers demonstrate the utility of nonlinear dynamics in our field and how we can create more time-sensitive and complex knowledge by paying special attention to when and how phenomena happen and how such phenomena interrelate over time.