Job satisfaction research of 1966-67

This review of job satisfaction research is the 24th in a series. It covers earlier studies not previously reviewed in this series as well as 103 reports published in 1966-67 relating job satisfaction to some 53 variables. The format—overview, variables investigated, current emphases—has become standard in this series. Earlier summaries will be found in Job Satisfaction by Robert Hoppock (Harper & Bros., 1935), in Occupations (April 1938, October 1940, February 1943, April 1945, April 1948, December 1948, December 1949, October 1950, May 1951, May 1952), and in the Personnel and Guidance Journal (September 1953, September 1954, May 1955, May 1956, September 1957, September 1958, May 1959, September 1960, December 1961, November 1962, October 1963, December 1964, December 1966). Readers are invited to notify the authors of research appropriate for review in future surveys.     

Empathy,Embodiment and Interpersonal Understanding: From Lipps to Schutz

When it comes to understanding the nature of social cognition, we have—according to the standard view—a choice between the simulation theory, the theory-theory or some hybrid between the two. The aim of this paper is to argue that there are, in fact, other options available, and that one such option has been articulated by various thinkers belonging to the phenomenological tradition. More specifically, the paper will contrast Lipps' account of empathy—an account that has recently undergone something of a revival in the hands of contemporary simulationists—with various accounts of empathy found in the phenomenological tradition. I discuss the way Lipps was criticized by Scheler, Stein and Husserl, and outline some of the core features of their, at times divergent, alternatives. I then proceed by considering how their basic take on empathy and social cognition was taken up and modified by Schutz—a thinker whose contribution to the analysis of interpersonal understanding has been unjustly neglected in recent years.     

Purity and danger in the solar temple

Based on research conducted in Québec, this study explores the shape of the social life, apocalyptic ideology and authority structure of the Ordre du Temple Solaire (OTS) or Solar Temple within the framework of Mary Douglas's typology of ‘group and grid’. The pollution fears and purity rituals of this controversial new religious movement are analysed as an important factor in their decision to orchestrate a religiously‐motivated mass suicide/homicide, explained in their suicide documents as a ‘transit’ (a magical feat of soul travel) to the Star Sirius. Douglas's insights into how the human body becomes a ‘natural symbol’ for small, persecuted groups, mirroring the social body and the vulnerability of its exits and entrances vis‐à‐vis the surrounding culture, are applied to the alternative patterns of sexuality and parenting in the OTS. It is suggested that the magical aspect of the mass suicide expressed a concern for purity and for protecting the boundaries of their community. It is also suggested that the ritual homicides in Morin Heights resemble the ‘witch‐hunts’ characteristic of Douglas's ‘small society’ that conceives of itself as the perfect, impermeable vessel.     

Deliberating Just War

This essay responds to James Turner Johnson's critiques of my argument in “‘Never Again War’: Recent Shifts in the Roman Catholic Just War Tradition and the Question of ‘Functional Pacifism.’” (2014). It attends specifically to three of Johnson's objections and offers accounts of the meaning and use of the term “functional pacifism,” an understanding of classic just war thought as a tradition, and the concepts of peace and authority within just war and pacifist thought. It argues that my analysis of the Catholic Church's movement toward pacifism but ultimate theological inability to embrace a functional pacifism still stands in spite of Johnson's critiques. In addition, it suggests that Johnson offers a thin pacifistic conception of peace and promotes a restricted notion of ecclesial authority and democratic government.     

A surviving Neoplatonism: on the creed of the Bektashi Order. Conversations with a mürsit

About 20 million men and women, a quarter of the population of Turkey, are Alevites, affiliated to the Bektashi Order, holding very liberal views related to those of the Mevlana Order. They have no mosques in their villages but community houses, where men and women together take part in cult ceremonies. They do not pray five times a day, neither do they fast. Alcohol is consumed in connection with initiation, men and women are equal and women do not wear veils, etc. As a consequence they are persecuted by Sunni neighbours as heretics and have been victims of arson attacks. The author received four years of weekly instruction by a Bektashi elder on questions related to faith, but not on the origin and context of the beliefs, which were virtually inaccessible locally. Further study has shown that their origin is in liberal Sufi thought, going back to Neoplatonism, Plotinus and the hermetic tradition. This tradition survives in Anatolia.     

The eleventh commandment fellowship: A new religious movement confronts the ecological crisis

Edward Tiryakian, Thomas Robbins and Phillip Hammond, among others, have highlighted the role of new religious movements (NRMs) as reflectors of larger social trends and innovators of broad cultural change. This paper presents a case study of the Eleventh Commandment Fellowship, a subgroup of the Holy Order of MANS (an American NRM founded in 1968) that attempted to uncover and articulate an ethic of ecology from within the Judeo‐Christian tradition during the late 1970s and 1980s. I contend that these efforts both reflected the broader movement within North American Christian denominations to engage seriously the ecological crisis, and offered innovative theoretical and practical solutions to this crisis. The fellowship is also shown to have been instrumental in the formation of an international coalition of both religious and secular environmental groups.     

Laying down one's life for oneself.

Roman Catholicism has long opposed suicide. Although Scripture neither condones nor condemns suicide explicitly, cases in the Bible that are purported to be suicides fall into several different categories, and the Roman Catholic tradition can show why some of these should be considered morally wrong and some should not. While Christian martyrdom is praised, it is not correct to argue that this Christian outlook invites suicide, or that it recommends physician-assisted suicide for altruistic motives. Church Tradition, from its earliest days, has clearly distinguished martyrdom from suicide. The principles of double effect and cooperation, mainstays in Roman Catholic moral theology, enable one to see the moral difference between martyrdom and suicide, and to appreciate why physician-assisted suicide is wrong for both patient and physician.     

John Dewey’s teaching methods in the discussion on german-language kindergartens — a case of non-perception?

At the beginning of the 20th century, German-language kindergartens were completely overshadowed by Friedrich Froebel’s tradition. The search for new forms of teaching started mainly by taking over the body of thinking developed by teaching reformers. John Dewey’s work was only accorded marginal examination. The person who got to grips most intensively with John Dewey and the American tradition of kindergarten teaching during the first half of the 20th century is Emmy Walser, one of the leading personalities in the kindergarten movement in Switzerland. As a result, the “free working method” developed in Switzerland as the new method. Dewey’s educational philosophy was reduced to the methodology of the free working method which had the effect of giving new life to Froebel’s ideas.     

MODERN ORTHODOXY’S ANCIENT PAST

The movement known as Modern Orthodox Judaism is often distinguished from “ultra-Orthodoxy” (or Haredi Judaism) in terms of openness. While adherents of the latter form of Judaism typically live together in isolated communities and seek to seal themselves off from secular books and learning (and, in our own age, such potentially malign influences as television, movies, and the internet), Modern Orthodox Jews are generally characterized by a more open attitude toward such things, and toward outsiders and outside ideas in general. The present article seeks to argue that the tendencies represented by these two movements are in fact dyed in the wool—that, from the very beginning, Judaism has endorsed and incorporated both isolationism and openness. This contention is illustrated with examples from the Hebrew Bible itself as well as from the extensive literature of the Second Temple period.     

Christianity in Modern Iraq

Abstract

Tradition attributes the evangelization of Mesopotamia to St Thomas and to an apostle called Addai as early as the first century AD. Christianity spread early in Iraq from the major centre of Edessa (today Urfa in south-east Turkey) in its Syriac linguistic and cultural form. Christianity in Iraq represents a direct line of continuity with history. However, Christians are a minority in modern Iraq, representing some 3–5 per cent of the population. Iraq's Christians can be divided into three main groups Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Protestant and Anglican; however, the Chaldean Catholics are the dominant tradition. Ecumenism is a significant factor between the communities. Despite war, emigration and sanctions the presence of Christianity in Iraq is a witness to the creative and spiritual power of Oriental Christianity in the Middle East and an important source for the religious and political renewal of the region.     

Reviews

Books reviewed in this article:
Tradition in Science . By W erner H eisenberg .
Order and Organism: Steps to a Whiteheadian Philosophy of Mathematics and the Natural Sciences . By M urray C ode .
Transfornation and Convergence in the Frame of Knowledge: Explorations in the Interrelations of Scientific and Theolgoical Enterprise. By T homas F. T orrance .
The Christian Frame of Mind. By T homas F. torrance .
Darwin's Legacy. Edited by C harles L. H amrum .
The Universe Is a Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story. By B rian S wimme .
Einstein's Space and Van Gogh's Sky: Physical Reality and Beyond. By L awrence L eshan and H enry M argenau .
Insight-lmagmataon: The Emancipataon of Thought and the Modern World. By D ouglas S loan .     

The Erotic and the Mystical in Postmodernity

Abstract

There has always been a close connection between divine and erotic love in the Western mystical tradition, from the Pseudo-Dionysius to St John of the Cross, and it is found also in poets such as John Donne and George Herbert. It is a tradition returned to in Ron Hansen's novel Mariette in Ecstasy (1991) in which Mariette, though banished from her convent, remains a stigmatic and Christ's ‘lover’. The essay concludes with a brief review of the postmodernity that entertains both the erotic—dangerous sex—and the love of God in true hospitality.     

THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF DIASPORIC SIKH NATIONALISM! FROM ANGUISHED CRIES OF ‘KHALISTAN’ TO PLEAS FOR ‘RECOGNITION’

This paper explores the nature of the diasporic Sikh nationalism in the post-1984 period. Generally labelled as a movement for an independent Sikh state, Khalistan, overseas Sikhs’ reaction was a highly emotional demonstration of anger and protest at the desecration of the Golden Temple in Amritsar – the holiest shrine of the Sikhs. While it seems certain that most Sikhs were suddenly made aware of the lack of state power, the strategy and ideas advocated by various Sikh leaders and their organizations did not produce a sustainable movement. The paper discusses reasons why such a widespread and shared diasporic nationalist movement failed to generate ideas and appropriate strategies for statehood and instead subsided with pleas for recognition.     

The Mystical and the Material: Slavoj Žižek and the French Reception of Mysticism

This paper will argue that the work of Slavoj ?i?ek can be fruitfully understood as a response to mystical theology as it has been received in two strands of 20th century French thought—psychoanalysis and phenomenology—and that ?i?ek's work in turn offers intriguing possibilities for the re-figuring of mystical theology by feminist philosophy of religion. Twentieth century French psychoanalysis is dominated by the work of Jacques Lacan and by his students Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray. All three of these figures engage in significant ways with mystical theology—particularly with the works and figures of female mystics—as a crucial resource for theorising gender and subjectivity. A second strand of the 20th century French reception of mystical theology is the phenomenological tradition, specifically the work of Jacques Derrida. This paper will argue that, drawing on and challenging both of these elements of recent French engagement with mystical theology, ?i?ek's work offers a materialist ontology which seeks to locate transcendence within immanence and materiality, offering to feminist philosophy of religion the resources for re-thinking the relationship of the mystical to the material.     

Qur'anic Recitation and The Aesthetics of Piety

Qur'anic recitation and azan (the call to prayer) are heard everywhere on the Muslim–Arabian Peninsula. Even those outside the Islamic tradition find Qur'anic recitation (tilawa) very beautiful. This article is an attempt to work out some of the puzzles—aesthetic and moral—of appreciating tilawa from outside the tradition. I defend an appreciation of tilawa that is aware and admiring of its piety, but appreciates it as an object of beauty. I further attempt to show how this does not violate Islamic precepts on the “art” of tilawa.     

The relationship between connectionist models and a dynamic data-oriented theory of concept formation

In this paper I shall compare two models of concept formation, both inspired by basic convictions of philosophical empiricism. The first, the connectionist model, will be exemplified by Kohonen maps, and the second will be my own dynamic theory of concept formation. Both can be understood in probabilistic terms, both use a notion of convergence or stabilization in modelling how concepts are built up. Both admit destabilization of concepts and conceptual change. Both do not use a notion of representation in some pregiven language, such as a language of thought or some logical language. Representation in a formal language only plays a role on the meta-level, namely within the theory about concept formation.A short version of this paper was given at the Fachtagung der Gesellschaft für Kognitionswissenschaft. Freiburg, October 12–15th, 1994.     

One nation under God? Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s changing Fiqh of citizenship in the light of the Islamic legal tradition

In the wake of the Arab Revolutions of 2011, countries in the Middle East are grappling with how Islamists might be included within a regime of democratic political pluralism and how their aspirations for an “Islamic state” could affect the citizenship status of non-Muslims. While Islamic jurisprudence on this issue has traditionally classified non-Muslims in Islamic society as protected peoples or dhimma, endowed with what the authors term “minority citizenship”, this article will examine how the transnational intellectual Wasa?iyya or Centrist movement, of which Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi is the figurehead, have sought to develop a new fiqh of citizenship in which Muslims and non-Muslims have equal civil and political rights. This article will focus on Yusuf al-Qaradawi on the basis that his very recent shift in 2010 on the issue is yet to be studied in depth, as well as in view of the fact that the dilemma faced by reformist Islamic scholars—how to integrate modern concepts into a legal tradition while simultaneously arguing for that tradition’s continuing relevance and authority—is for him rendered particularly acute, given that this tradition is itself the very source of his own authority and relevance. It will therefore be argued that the legacy of the Islamic legal tradition structures his discourse in a very specific way, thereby having the potential to render it more persuasive to his audience, and worthy of a more detailed examination.