Introduction: the human sciences and Cold War America

Studies of the history of the human sciences during the Cold War era have proliferated over the past decade--in JHBS and elsewhere. This special issue focuses on the connections between the behavioral sciences and the culture and politics of the Cold War in the United States. In the recent literature, there is a tendency to identify the Cold War human sciences with two main paradigms: that of psychocultural analysis, on the one hand, and of the systems sciences, on the other. The essays in the special issue both extend understanding of each of these interpretive frameworks and help us to grasp their interconnection.     

Living Out of the Past: Dilthey and Heidegger on Life and History

This essay examines continuities and transformations in Heidegger's appropriation of Dilthey's account of life and the accompanying picture of history between the end of World War One and Being and Time . The essay also judges the cogency of two conclusions that Heidegger draws in that book about history, viz, that historicity qua feature of Dasein's being both underlies objective history and makes the scholarly narration of history possible. Part one describes Dilthey's account of life, Heidegger's criticism that this account objectifies life, and Heidegger's appropriation of those aspects of Dilthey's account - temporality, movement, and wholes - that do not result from objectification. Part two focuses on how Heidegger reworks the idea that life is movement by reconceptualizing movement as a happening (and not a stream) and by replacing Dilthey's lived experiences with actions. Part three examines how Heidegger takes over from Dilthey the idea that something is historical if and only if the past is part of its present, also attending to the type(s) of past that these thinkers consider to be part of life. A final section judges the cogency of the two aforementioned theses, defending the claim that the historicity of life is the condition of the objective nexus of actions and events called history and criticizing the thesis that the historicity of a historian's life makes the writing of history possible.     

JUMPING FROM THE COUCH

This paper addresses two questions: first, how do phantasies work? Second, how do these mental activities affect a person's overall emotional life? The first question tends to be overlooked since those who accept, for example, projective identification as a basic mental activity tend also to treat it as an explanatory primitive. On this view, there is no further question to ask about how projective identification itself works; rather, other psychological and emotional phenomena are explained in terms of it. By contrast, this paper asks, how does projective identification itself work? The aim is not to provide a reductive explanation but to ask how it is that phantasies have the efficacy they have. To that end, one moment in the analysis of the Rat Man is re‐examined. There is then an attempt to show the difficulties involved in weaving an account of phantasy into the broader‐scale interpretation of emotional life.     

THE TRANSNATIONAL CIRCULATION OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS: IMPORTING BEHAVIORALISM IN EUROPEAN POLITICAL SCIENCE (1950–1970)

This article aims to deepen our understanding of the transatlantic circulation of scientific ideas during the Cold War by looking at the importation of behavioralism in European political science. It analyses the social, institutional, and intellectual dynamics that led to the creation, in 1970, of a transnational organization that aimed to promote behavioralism in Europe: the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). Using qualitative material drawn from archives and interviews, the study shows that the creation of the ECPR was the joint product of academic, scientific, and political rivalries. It argues that the founding of the organization served a purpose for several agents (chiefly, academic entrepreneurs and philanthropic foundations) who pursued different strategies in different social fields in the context of the Cold War. More broadly, it suggests that the postwar development of the social sciences and the circulation of scientific ideas are best accounted for by mapping sociological interactions between scientific fields and neighboring social spheres.     

Beyond "objective" and "projective": a logical system for classifying psychological tests: comment on Meyer and Kurtz (2006)

I present a formal system that accounts for the misleading distinction between tests formerly termed objective and projective, duly noted by Meyer and Kurtz (2006). Three principles of Response Rightness, Response Latitude and Stimulus Ambiguity are shown to govern, in combination, the formal operating characteristics of tests, producing inevitable overlap between "objective" and "projective" tests and creating at least three "types" of tests historically regarded as being projective in nature. The system resolves many past issues regarding test classification and can be generalized to include all psychological tests.     

Toward a process-based framework for classifying personality tests: comment on Meyer and Kurtz (2006)

Meyer and Kurtz (2006) argued that the longstanding psychological test labels "objective" and "projective" have outlived their usefulness, and invited further work focusing on alternative terms for these measures. This Comment describes a framework for classifying personality tests based on the psychological processes that occur as people respond to test stimuli. Because an attribution process is involved in responding to both types of measures, those instruments formerly called "objective" tests are labeled self-attribution tests, and those formerly classified as "projective" tests are labeled stimulus-attribution tests. The possibility of extending the process-based framework beyond personality, to psychological tests in general, is also discussed. Clinical and empirical implications of a process-based framework are considered.     

A cognitive-perceptual analysis of projective tests used with children.

There are both general and specific problems with projective tests--the production, comprehension, and interpretation of two-dimensional visual representations. At the general level, there is a need to integrate findings from the neuro- and cognitive sciences, cognitive, perceptual, and affective development, and the understanding and interpretation of pictorial material based on the accumulated research base in the arts. At the specific level, much of the research base on projective tests is poor or outdated; evidence for clinical utility is mixed or negative; and the tests possess poor reliability and validity while the putative underlying psychological process of projection" has not been subject to rigorous empirical examination--the term remains vague and elusive. While earlier critiques and reviews have focused on problems in validity and reliability, their has been a lack of attention to the development of children's pictorial abilities as pertain to projective techniques. Although many of the principles delineated here also apply to adolescents and adults, an important challenge for clinicians is to develop and employ better methods in the "projective" assessment of children.     

Prediction of Job Retention Using a Brief Projective Test Battery: a Preliminary Report

The use of objectively validated projective tests in personnel decisions has been limited in recent years because of the perception that such tests are highly subjective, difficult to administer, and difficult to score in a reliable manner. The present paper demonstrates the use of a brief (½ hour) projective test battery consisting of the Bender–Gestalt, House–Tree–Person, and a free drawing test which can be administered in a personnel office and scored blindly using an objective scoring system. The study showed that such a battery could predict six month retention rates in a sample of recently hired corrections officers at statistically significant rates (2 = 6.25, p < 0.05) despite the fact that the individuals had already been thoroughly prescreened using the company's comprehensive normal procedures. The possible uses and advantages of a language-free projective battery are discussed along with future research directions.     

Job Satisfaction as a Reflection of Disposition: A Multiple Source Causal Analysis

Dispositional sources of job satisfaction have been the subject of recent research in the organizational sciences. Problems in much of this research, which limit the conclusions one can draw from the results, are discussed. This study makes a distinction between affective disposition, defined as the tendency to respond generally to the environment in an affect-based manner, and subjective well-being, the level of overall happiness and satisfaction an individual has with his or her life. Affective disposition was hypothesized to lead to subjective well-being, and subjective well-being and job satisfaction were hypothesized to be mutually causal. A causal model was tested employing two different sources of data: self-reports and "significant other" evaluations. This biangulation of sources of data and estimation of nonrecursive relationships removes some problems often assumed to plague results based on single-source data. Results indicated support for the overall hypothesized causal model and supported a dispositional influence on job attitudes. The influences are more complex than past research has suggested.     

“Voices of the People”: Linguistic Research Among Germany's Prisoners of War During World War I

This paper investigates the history of the Royal Prussian Phonographic Commission, a body that collected and archived linguistic, ethnographic, and anthropological data from prisoners‐of‐war (POWs) in Germany during World War I. Recent literature has analyzed the significance of this research for the rise of conservative physical anthropology. Taking a complementary approach, the essay charts new territory in seeking to understand how the prison‐camp studies informed philology and linguistics specifically. I argue that recognizing philological commitments of the Phonographic Commission is essential to comprehending the project contextually. My approach reveals that linguists accommodated material and contemporary evidence to older text‐based research models, sustaining dynamic theories of language. Through a case study based on the Iranian philologist F. C. Andreas (1846–1930), the paper ultimately argues that linguistics merits greater recognition in the historiography of the behavioral sciences.     

Back to The Phenomena (of Sport) – or Back to The Phenomenologists? Towards a Phenomenology of (Sports) Phenomenology

Is phenomenology a method or a philosophy (of ‘ontological’ character)? This question is discussed here with a recent philosophical collection of articles about the phenomenology of sport at hand. However, one finds very few concrete phenomena in this volume, but much abstract talk about the authoritative philosophers of ontology and existentialism. This gives the ‘phenomenological school’ a somewhat sectarian character, which is not typical in recent contributions of phenomenology. This review essay broadens out from the current volume under consideration towards a history of phenomenology and a differential phenomenology of phenomenology. It is not clear how much value the volume itself, however, has for the understanding of sport as well as for the understanding of phenomenology. Nevertheless, it documents how phenomenological scholastics approach sport, which may serve as a warning at a time when positivist reductionism seems to have also become mainstream in human and social sciences.     

Torture and Religious Practice1

Abstract : This essay explores the connection between religious practices and torture with specific reference to the debate in the USA about ‘waterboarding’ as part of the so‐called War on Terror. After isolating some defining features of torture, the essay examines the historical background of waterboarding in the symbolism of Christian baptism and how this symbolism was used during the Inquisition and the Reformation as part of the torture of heretics and others. Mindful of this sordid use of a Christian rite meant to celebrate new life, the essay thereby clarifies Christian responsibility in the political order. That responsibility requires uncovering the religious roots of some forms of torture, resisting their use by the State, and, further, seeking to render current Christian practice both humane and life giving.     

The last stand of the psychocultural cold warriors: military contract research in Vietnam

In 1966, the social scientists of the Simulmatics Corporation arrived in Saigon. Tasked by the Pentagon with helping to pacify South Vietnam, they conducted political and social psychological research on Viet Cong defectors, government soldiers, and Vietnamese villagers. This essay argues that Simulmatics's work captures some of the ironies of Cold War social science: its tendency to mask militarization behind the rhetoric of peaceful nation-building, its blurring of data collection and intelligence gathering, and its ambitious dedication to revealing the unseen contents of hearts and minds while remaining ignorant of the historical, cultural, and linguistic contexts in which its subjects lived.     

No departure to "Pandora"? Using critical phenomenology to differentiate "naive" from "reflective" experience in psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine (A comment on Schwartz and Wiggins, 2010)

The mind-body problem lies at the heart of the clinical practice of both psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine. In their recent publication, Schwartz and Wiggins address the question of how to understand life as central to the mind-body problem. Drawing on their own use of the phenomenological method, we propose that the mind-body problem is not resolved by a general, evocative appeal to an all encompassing life-concept, but rather falters precisely at the insurmountable difference between "natural" and a "reflective" experience built into phenomenological method itself. Drawing on the works of phenomenologically oriented thinkers, we describe life as inherently "teleological" without collapsing life with our subjective perspective, or stepping over our epistemological limits. From the phenomenology it can be demonstrated that the hypothetical teleological qualities are a reflective reconstruction modelled on human behavioural structure.     

VIRTUE ETHICS AND VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY

Abstract: The aim of this essay is to test the claim that epistemologists—virtue epistemologists in particular—have much to learn from virtue ethics. The essay begins with an outline of virtue ethics itself. This section concludes that a pure form of virtue ethics is likely to be unattractive, so the virtue epistemologist should examine the "impure" views of real philosophers. Aristotle is usually held up as the paradigm virtue ethicist. His doctrine of the mean is described, and it is explained how that doctrine can provide a framework for an account of epistemic virtue. The conclusion of the essay is that a virtue epistemology based on analogies with virtue ethics, though well worth developing and considering, will face several challenges in fulfilling the significant promises that have been made on its behalf.     

Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences

Many of the key policy issues now facing the nation are behavioral in nature. Among these are educating and training citizens who can earn and keep jobs in a changing global economy; changing the behaviors that now cause half of all deaths in the country (e.g., smoking, poor diet and exercise patterns, and alcohol and drug abuse); reducing crime and violence; providing for an aging population; harnessing new information technologies to improve our quality of life; and reducing environmental pollution. These problems contrast with the defining policy challenges of the Cold War era, which demanded expertise primarily from the physical sciences.
Fortunately, the pressing need to solve behavioral problems arises at a time when rapid advances in behavioral, cognitive, and sensory sciences are improving our ability to address the problems. The time is ripe to strengthen the links between scientists and the policy community to harness new scientific advances to pressing public needs. To help forge these links, the National Research Council's (NRC) Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (CBASSE) established a Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences. This paper explains the need for this effort, and its potential. The report discusses the new promise of behavioral, cognitive, and sensory sciences, outlines the CBASSE record in these fields and its broadening focus on science-related policy questions; notes a range of emerging issues in which policy can benefit from expertise in these areas; and describes the functions of the new board.     

Face Validity and Fakability of Objective and Projective Measures of Dependency

Three studies involving a total of 225 subjects examined the relationship between the face validity and "fakability" (i.e., susceptibility to faking on the part of subjects) of widely used objective and projective dependency tests. in Study 1, subjects (n = 75) were able to accurately identify the trait being assessed by an objective dependency test but were unable to identify the trait being assessed by a projective dependency test. Study 2 demonstrated that subjects (n = 75) could deliberately fake their answers to the objective dependency test but could not fake their answers to the projective test. Study 3 demonstrated that subjects (n = 75) responses to the objective dependency test were influenced by an instructional manipulation wherein dependency was described in a positive, negative, or neutral manner immediately prior to test administration, whereas subjects responses to the projective dependency test were unaffected by this manipulation. These results suggest that there is an inverse relationship between the face validity and fakability of widely used objective and projective dependency tests. Conceptual and methodological implications of these findings are discussed.     

Contradiction,Liturgy, and Freedom: Romano Guardini's Search for Meaning after the Cataclysm of World War I

This essay examines the early thought of Romano Guardini (1886‐1968). It focuses on his magisterial book The Spirit of the Liturgy and discusses its genesis, its historical, biographical, and intellectual context, and its theological and philosophical significance. In so doing, it shows how Guardini reacted to World War I and the cataclysm of his time in turning to the church and its liturgical life in order to provide a source of meaning to a disoriented generation.     

Transitional Justice and “Genocide”: Practical Ethics for Genocide Narratives

In the wake of the Cold War a characteristic style of genocide narratives emerged in the West. For the most part, philosophers did not pay attention to this development even though they are uniquely qualified to address arguments and conceptual issues discussed in this burgeoning genocide genre. While ostensibly a response to a specific recent article belonging to the genre, this essay offers an outline of an ethics of genocide narratives in the form of four lessons on how not to write about genocide. It is argued that to the extent that works on the subject of genocide are dominated by narrativism, genocidalism, activism, or extreme pacifism, they cannot properly be classified as scholarly endeavors and must be met with resistance per the requirements of academic ethics and proper scholarly methodology.