The Varieties of Religious Responses to Homosexuality: A Content and Tonal Analysis of Articles in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pastoral Psychology</Emphasis> from 1950 to 2015 Regarding Sexual Minorities

Psychology has a complex history with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Substantial shifts in stance, rhetoric, and research over the decades have influenced the greater societal view of LGBT people. While a noticeable cultural shift is occurring in America toward acceptance of LGBT people, some continue to argue that same-sex relationships are not healthy. Evangelical Christians, those who hold a high respect for the authority of the Bible and support nearly literal readings of its teachings, generally support such a position (Sullivan-Blum 2009). There is strain among evangelicals regarding what it means to live faithfully and to engage LGBT people, which becomes increasingly complex as evangelicals who identify as sexual minorities speak up and share their stories. Historically, a delayed time trend can be seen in responses to homosexuality among evangelical Christians. A content and tonal analysis was conducted of 53 peer-reviewed articles found in Pastoral Psychology, which were categorized as non-affirming, neutral/exploratory, or affirming. This analysis revealed a notable trend over the last 65 years toward more open and inclusive dialogue surrounding LGBT people, even when more traditional stances were being held. Tracing the views toward homosexuality in psychology and society allows for a more complex understanding of the current tensions among American evangelical Christians.     

Edmund Husserl, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Logical Investigations. Volume I. Prolegomena to Pure Logic</Emphasis>

This is a translation from Russian to English of Nikolai Onufriyevich Lossky’s review of the first Russian translation of volume one of Husserl’s Logische Untersuchungen (the “Prolegomena to Pure Logic”), which was translated by E. A. Berstein and published in 1909 by a Petersburgian editor. The review appeared in the Muscovite philosophical journal Pyccкaя мыcль (Russian Thought) in 1909. In this short text, Lossky expresses his agreement with Husserl’s early anti-psychologism in logic. He also manifests his stance against logical and axiological relativism and naturalism. As an ontological realist, Lossky thought he had found in the author of the Logische Untersuchungen an ally against the subjectivistic trends then still prevalent in Germany. The review is significant in intellectual history for its vanguard role in the Rezeptionsgeschichte of Husserl’s thought in Russia. (Frédéric Tremblay)     

Thinking emergence as interaffecting: approaching and contextualizing Eugene Gendlin’s Process Model

Prior to A Process Model, Gendlin’s theoretical and practical work focused on the interfacing of bodily-felt meaningfulness and symbolization. In A Process Model, Gendlin does something much wider and more philosophically primary. The hermeneutic and pragmatist distinction between the concept of experience, on the one hand, and actual experiential process, on the other, becomes for Gendlin the methodological basis for a radical reconceptualization of the body. Wittgenstein’s formulation of “meaning” as “language-use in situations” is spelled out by Gendlin in embodied terms, yielding a profound new grasp of language, meaning, situation, language-use and culture as interactional body-process. Gendlin, in building his text, answers the pragmatist critique of a wrong progression of thinking where the results of an inquiry are read back to be its premises. With his central concept “eveving” (“everything interaffected by everything”) Gendlin shows how the seeming determinacy of preceding structure is opened in the actual occurring. He thereby elaborates a new conception of continuity where the possibility for responsive novelty is emergent in the event itself. The conceptual development of the text itself instances this kind of emergent novelty. We will somewhat follow Gendlin’s own path in using language-in-situations as entry-point into his more fundamental process-thinking, thereby asking ourselves how to engage his new kind of model. In the last part, we introduce some of the philosophical roots of Gendlin’s A Process Model.     

That in the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Martyā</Emphasis> Which is <Emphasis Type="Italic">Amṛta</Emphasis>: a Dialog with Ramchandra Gandhi

This philosophical meditation, which deals with death as question, presence, and even teacher, begins with Ramchandra Gandhi’s (RCG’s) penetrating essay ‘On Meriting Death.’ What does it mean ‘to merit’ death? To provide an answer, I travel through RCG’s corpus, in dialog with contemporary theorists such as Sri Aurobindo, Daya Krishna, and Mukund Lath. RCG implies that the question about ‘meriting’ death, and life, is not and cannot be ‘personal’ or ‘isolated’. For X to die, is for his close and distant samāj a matter of losing him and living without him. Hence meriting death, as also life, is a joint venture which involves deep understanding regarding non-isolation as the heart of the human situation. RCG’s creative thinking, or svarāj in ideas, reaches its peak when he dares to offer an answer of his own to the piercing question kim ā?caryam, ‘what is amazing?’ raised in the Yak?a-pra?na episode of the Mahābhārata. For RCG, the heart of the matter is not the ‘ungraspability’ of one’s unavoidable death, or the perennial search for ‘permanence’ in vain, but our failure to perceive ‘that in the martyā which is am?ta,’ i.e., a sense of solidarity in the face of death, connecting ‘I and Thou,’ which he derives from the icchā m?tyu of his grandfather, the famous Mahatma.     

Embracing Ritual Healing: The Case of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Sazuke</Emphasis> in Tenrikyo in Contemporary Taiwan

This paper will explore how the practice of ritual healing (sazuke) has played a prominent part in the propagation of a Japanese new religious movement (Tenrikyo) in Taiwan. The author firstly unravels the mystery of Tenrikyo’s healing ritual (sazuke) and its role in enabling Taiwanese followers’ potential to re-establish their relationship with the world. The author points out that sazuke is similar to Taiwanese folk therapy and fits into Taiwan’s multi-medical systems. The author also examines the features of Tenrikyo’s healing practice in Taiwan and discusses the evolution of sazuke from a non-institutionalised practice to a bureaucratised one. The author then advances to a more widely theoretical consideration by discussing how sazuke became a force that enabled Taiwanese people to respond to the changing world and how it facilitated peoples’ transformation when they were confronted by daily troubles and difficulties.     

Husserl’s Transcendental-Phenomenological Idealism

This is a translation from Russian to English of Nikolai Onufriyevich Lossky’s “Tpaнcцeндeнтaльнo-фeнoмeнoлoгичecкiй идeaлизмъ Гyccepля” (Husserl’s Transcendental-Phenomenological Idealism), published in the émigré journal Пyть (The Way) in 1939. In this article, Lossky presents and criticizes Husserl’s transcendental idealism. Like many successors of Husserl’s “Göttingen School,” Lossky interprets Husserl’s transcendental idealism as a Neo-Kantian idealism and he criticizes it on the ground that it leads to a form of solipsism. In light of his own epistemology (intuitivism) and his metaphysical system (ideal-realism), he also claims that, although Husserl is more radical than Descartes in his methodological doubt, he is not radical enough, because his abstention from existential judgment with regard to the external world is itself an existential judgment. In this regard, Lossky affirms that his own critically-informed defense of naive realism is in fact more radical than Husserl’s transcendental idealism. (Frédéric Tremblay)     

“Color Him Black”: Erotic Representations and the Politics of Race in West German Homosexual Magazines, 1949–1974

This piece analyzes the tensions between racial liberalism and erotic representations in West German homosexual-oriented magazines between 1949 and 1974. Relying primarily on publications such as Der Kreis, Die Insel/Der Weg, Amigo, and Du & Ich, this paper argues that as white West German homosexual men made a case for the end of legal discrimination and for social acceptance, they often constructed their arguments and identity as a persecuted minority in relation to the struggles and imagined experiences of colonized men and racial minorities. At the same time, however, many homosexual men still maintained a set of assumptions about racial difference that exoticized and essentialized men of color, assumptions that are particularly apparent in the erotic representations (both visual and literary) of men of color that appeared in these magazines. I further argue that, although historians of homosexuality in West Germany have traditionally viewed 1969 as a break, due to the radical changes in gay life that followed the 1969 reform of the anti-sodomy statute, the tensions between racial liberalism and exoticization continued well into the 1970s and in a remarkably similar published format. The contradictions within these magazines add to the growing literature on both homosexuality and race in postwar West Germany. Through the close examination of a medium that was crucial to the formation of homosexual communities and the development reformist politics, we can more fully understand the complexities and tensions on which minority politics were built in the wake of fascism.     

A Comparison of Sexual Relationships Among Hispanic Men by Sexual Orientation: Implications for HIV/STI Prevention

Hispanic men experience high rates of HIV infection and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) when compared to non-Hispanic whites. Many factors contribute to HIV/STI risk among Hispanic men. Some researchers have suggested that primary relationships may be a source of HIV/STIs because some men engage in sexual relationships outside of the primary relationship. However, little is known about this among Hispanic men, and less is known about how sexual relationships differ by sexual orientation. The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to determine if Hispanic men engage in sexual relationships outside of primary relationships; and (2) to compare sex outside of primary relationships by sexual orientation. Data for this study were obtained from a larger study that investigated health risks of Hispanic men residing in the U.S.–Mexico border community. Participants were recruited from agencies that provided services to Hispanic men. Participants completed a structured interview that included questions about primary relationships and sex outside of primary relationships. The sample consisted of 103 Hispanic men (50 heterosexual, 43 gay, and 10 bisexual Hispanic men), but two participants refused to answer relationship questions, resulting in a sample of 101 Hispanic men. About one-third of the participants (n = 29) reported sex outside of the primary relationship, but no differences were found between the gay/bisexual and heterosexual men, X ² (2, N = 101) = 9.91, p = .128. More gay/bisexual men reported sex with the primary partner and another person at the same time than heterosexual men, X ² (2, N = 101) = 13.32, p = .010. More gay/bisexual men reported open relationships when compared to heterosexual men, X ² (2, N = 101) = 17.23, p = .008, and more gay/bisexual men reported sex outside the primary relationship without the primary partner’s knowledge, X ² (2, N = 101) = 15.09. p = .020. However, more heterosexual men reported that condoms were not used for sex outside the primary relationship when compared to gay/bisexual men, X ² (2, N = 101) = 14.01, p = .029. Sex outside of primary relationships presents some implications for HIV/STI prevention among Hispanic men. Because gay/bisexual men experience higher rates of HIV/STI, more attention needs to be focused on all forms of relationships to prevent acquisition of HIV/STIs. Among heterosexual Hispanic men more attention needs to be given to reinforcement of safer sex practices both outside the primary relationship, and within the primary relationship if high risk sex is occurring outside the primary relationship. More research is needed on the reasons for sex outside the primary relationship among Hispanic men, as well as research to promote safer sex practices when sex occurs outside of the primary relationship.     

FERENCZI’S EVOLVING CONCEPTION OF NARCISSISIC PATHOLOGY AND ITS BASIS IN TRAUMA*

Ferenczi’s landmark contributions to understanding and treating psychological trauma are inseparable from his evolving conception of narcissism, though he grasped their interrelationship only gradually. Ultimately, he saw narcissistic disorders as the result of how children cope with abuse or neglect, and their aftermath—they identify and comply with the needs of the aggressor, and later of people more generally, and dissociate their own needs, feelings, and perceptions; and they compensate for their submission and sacrifice of self by regressing to soothing omnipotent fantasies—which, ironically, may facilitate continued submission. Ferenczi’s experiments in technique were designed to help patients overcome their defensive retreat to omnipotent fantasies and regain their lost selves. His earliest experiment, active technique, in which he frustrated patients, was a direct attack on their clinging to omnipotent fantasy. But as he came to see such narcissistic personality distortions as a way of coping with the residue of early trauma, his focus shifted to the underlying trauma. His loving and indulgent relaxation technique was intended as an antidote to early emotional neglect. His final experiment, mutual analysis, characterized by the analyst’s openness and honesty in examining his own inevitable insincerities, was an attempt to heal the damage from parents’ hypocrisy about their mistreatment, which Ferenczi came to see as most destructive to the child.     

“Coming from Afar” and “Temporarily Becoming the Patient Without Knowing it”: Two Necessary Analytic Conditions According to Ferenczi’s Later Thought

In this paper the author discusses two points regarding Ferenczi’s views of psychoanalysis. The first concerns the fact that analysts, like their patients, “come from afar” (a concept of Borgogno, 2011). The second, closely linked to the first, has to do with Ferenczi’s belief that psychoanalytical knowledge is not intellectual but visceral, seeing that if analysts are to truly understand their patients they must first “take on” their suffering in such a way as to “become the patient.” The author follows Ferenczi’s progression along these two points through his whole oeuvre, from his first psychoanalytical writings to the Clinical Diary (1932a) of the last year of his life.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">The Self</Emphasis> restated

This is a short summary of the book The Self: Naturalism, Consciousness and the First-Person Stance (Oxford University Press 2012). It introduced an “author meets critics” panel at the American Philosophical Association Pacific Division meeting in San Francisco 2016. I try to relate the discussion in the book to recent work that has appeared since its publication.     

The Laruellean Clinamen: François Laruelle and French Atomism

According to François Laruelle, French thought has been unduly influenced by corpuscular or atomist thinking, yet Laruelle has himself employed key atomist terms—in particular, that of the clinamen or swerve—in framing his own style of thought. This essay looks at this tension between atomism and anti-atomism in Laruelle’s thought, taking the measure of his contribution to a larger stream of postwar French thinking about the relevance and stakes of ancient atomism. Its contention is that Laruelle subtly but really outlines a quantum theoretical resumption of ancient atomist philosophy—one that deserves closer attention and comparative study in the larger context of French philosophical interest in the atomists. A first section of the paper briefly describes Laruelle’s general project, along with his claim that he differs from his contemporaries because he uniquely escapes the dangers of what he calls corpuscular thought. A second section addresses the apparent tension between Laruelle’s claim to produce a non-corpuscular thinking and his consistent recent use of the atomist image of the clinamen, ultimately arguing that Laruelle sides with the clinamen against two forms of corpuscularity supposedly avoided by the clinamen itself but nonetheless usefully embodied in atomist thought. The final section of the paper draws up in preliminary terms a comparison between Laruelle’s understanding of his relationship to atomism and that of his contemporaries, focusing in particular on Alain Badiou.     

From Woman as Hasid to Woman as “Tsadik” in the Teachings of the Last Two Lubavitcher Rebbes

The paper deals with some of the ways in which the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menahem Mendel Schneerson, radicalized the legacy of his predecessor, Yosef Yitshak Schneersohn, who was the first hasidic leader to mobilize women as active members of the Habad constituency. In the teachings of Menahem Mendel Schneerson, women were invested for the first time with the sense of being full-fledged female hasidim in their own right. Moreover, unlike his predecessor, whose mobilization of women never became an integral element of his apocalyptic messianism, Menahem Mendel Schneerson consistently framed the empowerment of women in terms of kabbalistic eschatology, anticipating in the present the inverted gender hierarchy of the messianic future, which was, as he declared, just about to unfold. In this context, he applied to women some of the classical hasidic formulations of the doctrine of the tsadik, depicting them as a channel that mediates between Heaven and earth, and as the trigger that releases from Heaven the flow of material prosperity expressed in terms of the traditional tsadik’s blessing for sons (offspring), life (health), and food (secure livelihood).     

The Environment of Ferenczi’s Clinical Diary

The author evokes the tragic death of Ferenczi’s colleague and analysand Dr. Elisabeth Radó-Révész in 1923. She died of pernicious anemia, the same illness that ended the life of Ferenczi 10 years later, at age 59. Can this be a tragic coincidence? Following notes in Ferenczi’s Clinical Diary, the author considers the deep disappointments both Ferenczi and Radó-Révész had experienced and explores some of the Tragic Man qualities of Ferenczi.     

Effect of reference number on magnitude estimation

The psychophysical function obtained by the method of magnitude estimation was influenced by the reference number (modulus) assigned to a “standard” line and the position of this standard in the range of comparison stimuli. Data from two experiments with judgments of apparent length of lines show how both variables systematically affect the slope of the power function. AllowingO to choose his own reference numbers, even though these numbers varied among as, tended to produce less variability in slope than ifE imposed fixed reference numbers forO to use.     

Descartes’ Dog: a Clock with Passions?

Although much has been written on Descartes’ thought on animals, not so much has originated in, or has taken full account of, Descartes’ views on (human) emotions. I explore here the extent to which the latter can contribute to the debate on whether he embraced, and to which extent, the doctrine of the bête machine. I first try to show that Descartes’ views on emotions can help offer new support to the skeptical position without necessarily creating new tensions with other central aspects of his philosophy. And second, I sketch the type of theory of animal passions which Descartes could have accepted. The general conclusion I draw is not that Descartes did not hold the view of the bête machine but rather that we can find within his thought a solid stream of ideas, which became stronger towards the end of his life, that points in the opposite direction.     

Sources of Meaning in Life Among Chinese University Students

The current studies were designed to explore the structure of sources of meaning in life among Chinese university students. In Study 1, we content-analyzed 171 students’ answers to the question of what made their lives meaningful and derived 74 frequently mentioned ideas. Then, we composed a questionnaire based on these ideas and administered it to another sample of 523 university students in Study 2. Seven underlying dimensions were identified through exploratory factor analysis: Self-development (i.e., to accomplish one’s aspirations and actualize one’s potential), social commitment (i.e., to contribute to society and to adhere to moral principles), interpersonal relationships (i.e., relationships with family members, friends and others), secular pursuits (i.e., stable jobs, material possessions and social status), experiences in life (i.e., to experience all the joys and sorrows in life), civilization (i.e., reading, thinking, music and arts), and autonomy (i.e., to make decisions freely and take charge of one’s own life). Results are discussed in light of the philosophical influences in Chinese culture, especially those from Confucianism and Taoism.     

Nikolai Lossky’s Reception and Criticism of Husserl

Nikolai Lossky is key to the history of the Husserl-Rezeption in Russia. He was the first to publish a review of the Russian translation of Husserl’s first volume of the Logische Untersuchungen that appeared in 1909. He also published a presentation and criticism of Husserl’s transcendental idealism in 1939. An English translation of both of Lossky’s publications is offered in this volume for the first time. The present paper, which is intended as an introduction to these documents, situates Lossky within the Rezeptionsgeschichte of Husserl in Russia and explains why he is central to it. It also explains what Lossky principally found in Husserl: he saw in the latter’s critique of psychologism support for his own ontology, epistemology, and axiology. Lossky characterizes his ontology as an ideal-realism. According to ideal-realism, both the realm of ideal beings (in Plato’s sense) and the realm of real beings (i.e., the world of becoming) are mind-independent. Per his epistemology, which he calls “intuitivism,” real beings are intuited by sensual intuition and ideal beings by intellectual intuition. The realm of ideal beings includes the subrealm of values, which is intuited by axiological intuition. This thoroughly realist conception contrasted sharply with the subjectivist tendencies of the time. So, when Lossky took cognizance of Husserl’s critique of psychologism, he thereupon found an ally in his battle against the various subjectivisms. But, when Husserl took the transcendental idealist turn, Lossky was at the forefront of the backlash against the new direction Husserl wanted to give to phenomenology.     

On the Concept of Well-Being in Japan: Feeling <Emphasis Type="Italic">Shiawase </Emphasis>as Hedonic Well-Being and Feeling <Emphasis Type="Italic">Ikigai</Emphasis> as Eudaimonic Well-Being

This study clarified characteristics of well-being in Japan, specifically differences between feeling shiawase and feeling ikigai, to elucidate how they relate to eudaimonic well-being and hedonic well-being. Participants were 846 Japanese in their 30s (418 men, 428 women), who responded to a web-based survey. Questionnaire items comprised level of shiawase/ikigai, the presence of a difference between feeling shiawase and feeling ikigai, and, in an open-ended question, the difference between feeling shiawase and feeling ikigai. Results revealed that feeling shiawase is primarily characterized by such feelings as delight and peace; it is oriented toward the present. Feeling ikigai entails actions of devoting oneself to pursuits one enjoys and is associated with feelings of accomplishment and fulfillment. Furthermore, it includes awareness of values such as the purpose of life and the meaning of existence; it is future oriented, as in goal seeking. This study verifies that for Japanese, feeling shiawase is close to hedonic well-being and feeling ikigai is close to eudaimonic well-being. This suggests that it is important to approach Japanese well-being not in technical terms such as eudaimonic well-being; rather, Japanese well-being should be comprehended in terms of ikigai which is an aspect of daily conversation in Japan.