Norms,Rules and Steadfast Love: Towards an Inclusive Theology of Intimacy

Abstract

This article argues that defenders of the traditional view that marriage is the necessary condition for sexual experience generally make two important mistakes. First, they underestimate how open to emergent forms marriage actually is. And second, they confuse marriage as a norm for sexual expression with marriage as a rule. This article attempts a simple clarification of this basic distinction and, in so doing, is able to throw considerable fresh light on the place of marriage in the Christian understanding of sexuality. First, there will be some reminders about how adaptable the institution of marriage has actually been and may continue to be. Second, attempts will be made to explain the differences between a norm and a rule. Finally some possibilities and consequences arising from this distinction will be explored. These will provide some promptings towards what is called here ‘an inclusive theology of intimacy’. Radical Christians are cautioned regarding their peremptory search for alternatives to marriage. People inside and outside the churches who reject marriage may be rejecting versions of it which, while undoubtedly historical, simply do not bring to light the possibilities released by what might be called ‘the marital norm’.     

The Scandal of Reason: A Critical Theory of Political Judgment

Abstract

Carruthers argues that knowledge of our own propositional attitudes is achieved by the same mechanism used to attain knowledge of other people’s minds. This seems incompatible with ‘privileged access’ – the idea that we have more reliable beliefs about our own mental states, regardless of the mechanism. At one point Carruthers seems to suggest he may be able to maintain privileged access, because we have additional sensory information in our own case. We raise a number of worries for this suggestion, concluding that Carruthers’s new theory cannot clearly preserve the superior reliability of our beliefs about our own attitudes.     

On the Meaning of Being Real: Fantasy and ‘the Real’ in Personal Identity-Formation

Abstract

With the help of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, this article addresses certain perplexities concerning personal identity that emerge from different kinds of interpersonal encounters. Lacan’s notion of the ‘fundamental fantasy’ incorporates the insight that phantasmic projections (of both self and other) form the basis of personal identity and interpersonal relations are a complex interplay between such projections. Nevertheless, in face of disconcerting pretence phenomena, the notion of a real self plays a profoundly important part in interpersonal relations. To call some phantasmic projections ‘pretensions’ or ‘delusions’ is simultaneously to admit that some must, by contrast, embody or express a real self. Lacan’s paradoxical answer to the question of whether the fundamental fantasy embodies the real self is ‘yes and no’. To explain this, I unpack the notion of the fundamental fantasy insofar as it is construed as the basis upon which we construct a complex identity (a semblance) imperfectly shielded from the traumatic Real. I offer an indirect account of the Real, via a critique of Rowlands on absurdity. I then sketch the developmental formation of a complex semblance, guided at its core by the fundamental fantasy, which structures the comportment of the self with a three-fold other. While the fundamental fantasy forms the core of a person’s identity and might be named the basis of the real self, Lacan warns that one must traverse it to acknowledge the Real in oneself. I elaborate on this via Derrida’s conception of the parergon. My aim is to demonstrate the irreducible complexity of identity formation and to show that to be real is to accept the uncertainty associated with acknowledging the Real in me that exceeds both my pretensions and the phantasmic reality that structures my identity.     

Semantics and the sacred

ABSTRACT

This article looks at four different scholarly perspectives on ‘sacred’ – the ineffable sacred, the experienced sacred, the polarized sacred and the contextualized sacred – in order to draw out their implicit presuppositions about meaning. The first two stances presuppose that meaning depends on what bits of language are about (referentialism), and the other two stances presuppose that meaning depends on relations between bits of language (holism). The article concludes three things: these prominent views of ‘sacred’ rest on usually implicit or unrecognized assumptions about the nature of meaning; some of those assumptions explain why certain theories are contentious and problematic and others ground more promising and productive approaches.     

Li in East Asian Buddhism: One Approach from Plato's Parmenides

In Plato's Parmenides, Socrates proposes a ‘Day’ analogy to express one possible model of part/whole relations. His analogy is swiftly rejected and replaced with another analogy, that of the ‘Sail’. In this paper, it is argued that there is a profound difference between these two analogies and that the ‘Day’ represents a distinct way to think about part/whole relations. This way of thinking, I argue, is the standard way of thinking in East Asian Buddhism. Plato's ‘Day’ analogy can then be used to illuminate the meaning of an opaque but very important concept in East Asian Buddhism: li, which in this paper is developed as a modal concept of ‘Wholeness’.     

Representation,Presentation and the Epistemic Role of Perceptual Experience

Abstract

In this paper I argue that the representational theory of perception, on which the world is represented as being a certain way in perceptual experience, cannot explain how there can be a genuinely epistemic connection between experience and belief. I try to show that we are positively required to deny that perceptual consciousness is contentful if we want to make its fitness for epistemic duties intelligible. (So versions of the representational theory on which experience has a merely causal purchase on belief are not considered.) But my aim is not just negative. I try to defeat representationalism in such a way as to motivate a robustly presentational theory of perception. According to such a theory, perceptions are relations not between a subject and a content but between a subject and an ordinary object (such that if the relation holds at t, an appropriate subject and object must exist at t, and the object must be presented to the subject). I end by sketching an account of perceptual experience that is meant to show that, contrary to a very popular misconception, there is a way to conceive perceptual consciousness as relational and presentational (not intentional and representational) that does not succumb to the celebrated ‘myth of the Given’.     

Faith and the practising analyst

Abstract: In this brief essay, I reflect on three questions: What is ‘faith’ in a modern and post‐modern cultural context? Do I, a Jungian analyst, have ‘faith’ or do I not? Does having ‘faith’ or not make a difference in the practice of analysis? I make reference to Jung's understanding of ‘faith’ and his frequent disclaimers about making metaphysical claims. I conclude that a post‐credal ‘faith’ is possible for contemporary Jungian analysts, that I do have such a faith personally, and that in my experience this makes a significant difference in analytic practice at least with some patients. Traditional faith statements must be translated into depth psychological terms, however, in order for them to be applicable in post‐modern, multicultural contexts.     

The concept of ‘mine‘ 1

Misunderstanding of the word mine and its shifting relations to ‘pro‐attitudes’ inspired much of Aristotle's attack on collectivism at Politics 1261B 15ff. Similar misunderstandings contribute to certain criticisms leveled by modern conservatives like Goldwater against ‘welfarism’, they presuppose confused psychological and ethical doctrines. Thus semantically necessary truths may be misconstrued as entailing contingent propositions about political and economic arrangements. Different confusions about mine and ‘pro‐attitudes’ lend a correspondingly specious aura of certainty to some Platonic and Marxist claims. The ownership model of mine impedes our understanding of men.     

Sartre and the Doctors

Abstract

This paper considers how the experience of illness fits within Sartre’s account of embodiment in Being and Nothingness. Sartre makes some remarks about illness, but does not develop a full account. I show that the anti‐naturalistic ontological framework in which Sartre’s discussion of the body is placed, which opposes my ‘being‐for‐Others’ to my ‘being‐for‐myself’, imposes a revisionary account of illness, and how Sartre’s model of interpersonal relations affects his view of doctors, and their role in the illness experience. I note and discuss the connection Sartre draws between illness and bad faith. I also point out that recent phenomenologically inspired criticisms of the medical establishment that draw on Sartre’s account of the body are limited by their failure to engage with Sartre’s ontology.     

Homosexuality and the Bible or Queer Reading? A Response to Martti Nissinen

Abstract

This article offers a response to Martti Nissinen's important text Homoeroticism in the Biblical World. Although Nissinen's research is historical, his analysis of ancient practices is offered as a contribution to contemporary debates on homosexuality within the Church. A powerful case is made that attitudes towards gender relations in the ancient world were governed by assumptions concerning the proper relations between active, ‘penetrating’, social superiors and passive, ‘penetrated’, inferiors. The disjunction between this worldview and contemporary contexts and concepts is demonstrated, thus problematizing the notion that contemporary practices can be predicated upon ‘biblical’ norms.

Despite its significance Nissinen's work cannot be straightforwardly appropriated as a helpful contribution to debate. The very act of constructing a canon of biblical references to homosexuality is problematic. It positions homosexuality once again as the object of research—that which is silent while spoken about. This, in turn, disguises the assumption that there is an unproblematic continuum in heterosexual relations that endures over time and does not require similar interrogation. Heteronormativity is thus actively sustained. There is a need to go beyond even the apparently progressive forms of biblical scholarship currently being pursued by Nissinen and others in order to develop a ‘queer commentary’ on the Bible. This will denaturalize the very concepts male, female and homosexual through which our relations with the text are currently constructed.     

Spinoza on the Conditions that Nominally Define the Human Condition

ABSTRACT

In ‘Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,’ Harry Frankfurt argues that a successful analysis of the concept ‘human’ must reveal something that distinguishes humans from non-humans, as well as indicate something informative about ‘those attributes [of ourselves] which are the subject of our most humane concern.’ In this paper, I present an analysis of Spinoza’s concept of ‘human’ as it is employed within his Ethics. I show that Spinoza’s concept of ‘human’ satisfies Frankfurt’s desiderata because I show that Spinoza’s concept of ‘human’ is, at core, a version of Frankfurt’s own. I argue that Spinoza’s account of human bondage and human freedom indicate that Spinoza sees humans as beings that possess higher-order volitions, and that comments Spinoza makes throughout his corpus shows that he views beings that lack higher order desires to be, in an important sense, non-human. The analysis here sheds light upon the community of entities that Spinoza’s Ethics is written for, as well as upon issues concerning the nature of Spinoza’s Free Man.     

On Recanati’s Mental Files

Abstract

In his book Mental Files (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), Francois Recanati develops a theory of mind and language based on the idea that Fregean senses should be identified with ‘mental files’, mental representations whose primary function is to store information about objects. I discuss three aspects of Recanati’s book. The first concerns his use of acquaintance relations in individuating mental files, and what this means for ‘file dynamics’. The second concerns his comments on a theory that I have elsewhere advocated, the ‘sequenced worlds’ or ‘multi-centered worlds’ theory. The third concerns how the mental file approach handles non-doxastic attitudes like imagining.     

Governing Islam in French cities: defining ‘acceptable’ public religiosity through municipal consultative bodies

ABSTRACT

In recent years, European states have institutionalised relations with Islamic groups in the form of national Islam councils. Similarly, municipalities have set up more or less comparable bodies to address issues related to urban religious diversity. However, rather than being restricted to Muslim representatives, municipal consultative bodies usually incorporate a variety of religious actors. This contribution analyses three such bodies in the French cities of Rennes, Bordeaux, and Toulouse. Adopting a governance perspective and drawing on qualitative fieldwork, I argue that by providing concrete advice on how to address religious issues, these bodies define what are considered ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ public religious expressions, ultimately influencing normative ideas about laïcité. Moreover, I argue that the history of relationships between religious and municipal authorities and the political culture of the cities, among other factors, shape these local processes, thereby emphasising the distinct role of cities and urban actors in governing religion.     

Quitting smoking: The importance of non-smoker identity in predicting smoking behaviour and responses to a smoking ban

Objective: We examined how ‘smoker’ and ‘non-smoker’ self- and group-identities and socio-economic status (SES) may predict smoking behaviour and responses to antismoking measures (i.e. the Dutch smoking ban in hospitality venues). We validated a measure of responses to the smoking ban.

Design: Longitudinal online survey study with one-year follow-up (N = 623 at T1 in 2011; N = 188 at T2 in 2012) among daily smokers.

Main outcome measures: Intention to quit, quit attempts and ‘rejecting’, ‘victimizing’, ‘socially conscious smoking’ and ‘active quitting’ responses to the smoking ban.

Results: Non-smoker identities are more important than smoker identities in predicting intention to quit, quit attempts and responses to the smoking ban, even when controlling for other important predictors such as nicotine dependence. Smokers with stronger non-smoker identities had stronger intentions to quit, were more likely to attempt to quit between measurements, and showed less negative and more positive responses to the smoking ban. The association between non-smoker self-identity and intention to quit was stronger among smokers with lower than higher SES.

Conclusion: Antismoking measures might be more effective if they would focus also on the identity of smokers, and help smokers to increase identification with non-smoking and non-smokers.     

Conceptualizing the ‘female’ soul – a study in Plato and Proclus

ABSTRACT

Within the Platonic (or Neoplatonic) dualistic conception of body and soul the difference between maleness and femaleness might appear to be a difference which only concerns the body, that is a difference which is not essential for determining who (or what) a certain human is. One might argue that, since humans are essentially their souls and souls are genderless, men and women are essentially equal. As my paper shows, though, Plato's and Proclus’ writings set out two ways of conceptualizing human souls themselves as ‘sexed’ and of doing this in a way that female souls are determined to be inferior to male souls. By Plato's account, souls are indeed genderless in terms of their essence, but they attain maleness through virtuous and femaleness through vicious activities. Proclus, by contrast, conceptualizes souls as essentially ‘male’ or ‘female’. A soul in whose essence the Different predominates is female, while a soul in whose substance the Same predominates is male. And since the attainment and preservation of virtue depend on the strength of the Same, female souls are not vicious by Proclus’ account, but they bear a higher risk of becoming vicious.     

Against Propositionalism

‘Propositionalism’ is the widely held view that all intentional mental relations—all intentional attitudes—are relations to propositions or something proposition‐like. Paradigmatically, to think about the mountain is ipso facto to think that it is F, for some predicate ‘F’. It seems, however, many intentional attitudes are not relations to propositions at all: Mary contemplates Jonah, adores New York, misses Athens, mourns her brother. I argue, following Brentano, Husserl, Church and Montague among others, that the way things seem is the way they are, and that propositionalism must be abandoned.     

Marriage—and its alternatives: An Anglican perspective,yesterday and today

This article looks first at how the institution of marriage has been, and currently is, understood by Anglican Christians, with a particular focus on the Church of England. It contrasts the ‘older’ understanding of marriage, as expressed in the Book of Common Prayer, with more contemporary liturgies. It then seeks to explore whether this clear development during the last 100 years in the understanding of marriage means that there is scope for opening up discussion about alternatives to marriage such as intentional singleness, cohabitation and same-sex relationships. Particular attention is given to the discussion at the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops, meeting in 1998, and to a key Church of England report, Issues in Human Sexuality.     

The Pope,the gays and the Dutch: Dutch secular responses to Pope Benedict XVI when homosexuality seems at stake

This article provides a critical discourse analysis of Dutch perceptions of, and responses to, papal utterances that were perceived to be (primarily) about homosexuality. It looks not only at secular conceptions of religion, in which the Pope’s views on homosexuality are taken as exemplary of the irrationality and libido dominandi of religion, but also at certain postsecular uses of religion to rebuke the Pope. It explains Pope Benedict’s (perceived) obsession with homosexuality by locating it in the context of a Vatican discourse against ‘gender ideology’, whereas it explains the Dutch media’s preoccupation with homosexuality by explaining that the papal pronouncements are seen as a threat to the international role of the Netherlands as a moral guide and, more precisely, a threat to what the Dutch see as their moral ‘export product’: ‘gay marriage’.     

Men’s strategies for preserving emotional well-being in advanced prostate cancer: An interpretative phenomenological analysis

Objective: This study explores men with advanced prostate cancers’ own practices for promoting and maintaining emotional well-being using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.

Design: Five men with advanced prostate cancer participated in face-to-face, semi-structured, in-depth interviews.

Results: Within rich narratives of lost and regained well-being, two super-ordinate themes emerged – ‘living with an imminent and uncertain death’ and ‘holding on to life.’ Well-being was threatened by reduced sense of the future, isolation and uncertainty. Yet, the men pursued well-being by managing their emotions, striving for the future whilst enjoying life in the present, taking care of their families and renegotiating purpose. Running through participant’s accounts was a preference for taking action and problem-solving. Sense of purpose, social connectedness, and life engagement were revealed as concepts central to improving well-being, indicating areas which practitioners could explore with men to help them re-establish personal goals and life purpose.

Conclusions: The findings also add weight to the evidence base for the potential value of psychological interventions such as cognitive behaviour therapy and mindfulness in men with prostate cancer.