Existentialism,Self Theory and the Existential Self

Self theory is reductionistic: it brackets off “real” reality and leaves it in metaphysical realms. Existentialism views both subjective and external reality as contained in existence. Rogers' theory is deterministic to the extent that it is built on causal constructs. The non-deterministic, holistic, and teleological assumptions of the existentialists may help strengthen self theories. For example the term existential self would combine self-as-doer and self-as-object, making such constructs as self-concept, self structure, individual, and organism unnecessary. The individual's experience or perception would not have to be caused by a self-definition, but would be for the purpose of something, i.e., his intentions or goals.     

Crime: Self and Society: Psychoanalytical Perspectives on Taking Responsibility and Moving Forward

The occurrence of a tragic and unnecessary act of evil (crime) induces in us a need to search for blame, to find who or what is responsible. Often this search amounts in a Kleinian splitting between personal and social responsibility – we either blame the person or blame the society, or oscillate between the two. In fact, even movement into a more integrated, depressive position does not solve the problem—the evil of the event is too hot to be contained anywhere. True healing from crime will not result by perfecting the “assigning blame” mechanism in ourselves or our criminal justice system, but rather when we recognize the futility of that search. To use Lowe’s concept of creative limits, only by recognizing our own limitedness will creative and healing spaces that allow the return to innocence occur. Jessica Van Denend serving as an intern chaplain at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for the past 2 years, became increasingly interested in the complexity of societal and personal complexes wrapped up in the criminal justice processes, and their manifestation in the prison system. While studying under Prof. Ann Ulanov (in the Psychiatry and Religion program at Union Theological Seminary), the author had time to examine what some psychoanalytical tools might have to say about crime and its repercussions.     

Kierkegaard's Mirrors: Interest,Self, and Moral Vision

This paper advances the view that the history of philosophy is both a kind of history and a kind of philosophy. Through a discussion of some examples from epistemology, metaphysics, and the historiography of philosophy, it explores the benefit to philosophy of a deep and broad engagement with its history. It comes to the conclusion that doing history of philosophy is a way to think outside the box of the current philosophical orthodoxies. Somewhat paradoxically, far from imprisoning its students in outdated and crystallized views, the history of philosophy trains the mind to think differently and alternatively about the fundamental problems of philosophy. It keeps us alert to the fact that latest is not always best, and that a genuinely new perspective often means embracing and developing an old insight. The upshot is that the study of the history of philosophy has an innovative and subversive potential, and that philosophy has a great deal to gain from a long, broad, and deep conversation with its history.     

TWO FORMS OF LOVE: The Problem of Preferential Love in Kierkegaard's Works of Love

The duty to love one's neighbor as oneself is at the core of Kierkegaard's Works of Love. In this book, Kierkegaard unfolds the meaning of neighborly love and claims that it is the only valid form of true love. He contrasts between neighborly love and preferential love (which includes romantic love and friendship) and criticizes the latter for being nothing but a form of selfishness. However, in some contexts, Kierkegaard seems to acknowledge the significance of preferential love relationships, and does not disallow them. Therefore, his understanding of preferential love appears to be confused and inconsistent. My essay discusses the tension in Kierkegaard's position regarding preferential love, and by presenting recent readings of Works of Love, it asks whether this tension is resolvable and offers a suggestion for a possible solution.     

Health-Risking Social Behaviors: Moving Forward

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) have a long history of supporting investigator-initiated research and research training to enhance the scientific understanding of and effective interventions for a range of problems associated with youth violence. New technologies are emerging and basic research has promise for increasing our understanding of how biological factors operate in conjunction with other factors to contribute to violent behavior, psychopathology, and drug abuse. This article describes emerging areas and directions for research in this important area of public health.The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the U.S. Government.     

Making Sense of Life: The Existential Self Trying to Deal with Personal Uncertainty

This article is about how people make sense of life and focuses on one core threat that may play a pivotal role in people's lives as existential meaning makers: personal uncertainty. Personal uncertainty is defined as the aversive feeling that you experience when you feel uncertain about yourself. Drawing on an uncertainty management perspective, it is hypothesized that cultural worldviews may provide a means to cope with personal uncertainty and that this may explain why under conditions of personal uncertainty people may respond especially positively to events that bolster their cultural norms and values and particularly negatively to persons and events that violate these norms and values. Findings are reviewed that support the uncertainty management model's predictions. Furthermore, the uncertainty management model may explain why terror management theory is not always about terror, but (at least partly) about personal uncertainty. Finally, conceptual implications, conflicting findings, and loose ends are noted, and testable hypotheses are formulated, which may further insight into the psychological processes pertaining to sense-making, worldview defense, and self-regulation.     

Concrete and Otherworldly: Reading Kierkegaard's Works of Love alongside Hegel's Philosophy of Right

Here I argue that much of the confusion surrounding the status of material aid to the neighbor in Kierkegaard's Works of Love is cleared up once one sees the text as participating in a movement that has a fundamentally Hegelian substructure: from Moralität in Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits to Sittlichkeit in Works of Love. As might be expected, Kierkegaard takes this Hegelian structure in a very different direction than the Hegel of Philosophy of Right—a direction best described as an Augustinian ethic that is both concrete and otherworldly.     

Feminism and Evolutionary Psychology: Moving Forward

The Special Issue on feminism and evolutionary psychology published by Sex Roles (Smith and Konik 2011) has elicited responses that advance understanding of the debate between evolutionary psychology and feminist perspectives concerning the origins of similarities and differences in the behavior of women and men (Smith and Konik 2013). The further challenges to evolutionary psychology mounted in these responses suggest that the Special Issue has intensified the debate more that it has resolved it. Moving forward requires that feminist psychologists not only add to the considerable body of empirical evidence that challenges evolutionary psychology but also produce alternative evolutionary theories that transcend the nature-nurture controversy that underlies the current debate. To this end, we refer readers to our biosocial constructionist theory in which culture and biology are intertwined in both distal evolutionary processes that shaped human psychology and proximal mechanisms that underlie differences and similarities in male and female behavior (Wood and Eagly 2012).     

Military Enlistment Selection and Classification: Moving Forward

This article places the articles included in this special issue within the larger context of the objectives of a selection and classification system. It examines the full range of individual differences and how, until relatively recently, a focus on training success has led to an emphasis on the cognitive subset of these differences within the military. It describes how, consistent with a greater recognition of the importance of job performance, the research described in this issue has opened the door to expanded coverage of both cognitive and noncognitive attributes. It summarizes the methodological advances that have contributed to the efficacy of new noncognitive measures. It explores how popular approaches to the measurement of classification efficiency have led to unwarranted pessimism regarding the classification potential of multiattribute measures and discusses research indicating how much greater classification efficiency is possible with existing measures. Finally, it examines potentially fruitful areas of future research to better meet military objectives. These include development of an approach to performance measurement and validity transportation that makes future military classification research feasible; exploration of currently untapped individual-difference domains, particularly those that might differentially predict across job groupings; exploration of the interaction between cognitive and noncognitive attributes; and exploration of alternative measurement techniques.     

The self in Kierkegaard's pseudonyms

Conclusion This is essentially what I take to be Kierkegaard's ontological foundation of human existence. It is the structure which both makes possible and unifies the different modes of existing which he so fully describes in his pseudonyms. The further task is one of demonstrating concretely the relation of these modes (stages) of existing to his ontology.This essay will appear in my book, Being and Existence in Kierkegaard's Pseudonyms, to be published by Princeton University Press in 1975. I would like to thank the Princeton University Pres for permission to publish a portion of the book in this journal. I would also like to acknowledge my colleagues' helpful criticisms of the original draft of this paper which I read in a departmental seminar at Iowa State University last fall. Some of their suggestions were incorporated in the final draft.