An existential‐phenomenological counter‐theory of transference

The hypothesis of transference has become such a fundamental assumption for many therapeutic practitioners, that it is rarely questioned either in terms of its theoretical value or its function. This paper will critically examine the notion of transference from an existential‐phenomenological perspective and will argue the case for an alternative perspective. Further, it will seek to demonstrate that numerous and significant logical and applied problems arise with regard to the hypothesis of transference—problems which have a major negative impact upon the therapeutic relationship in general and upon the possibility of ‘encounter‘—or ‘meeting‘—between therapist and client. Finally, the paper will seek to show how, in many cases, the adoption of the hypothesis of transference can be seen as a defensive and power‐preserving (or enhancing) activity on the part of the therapist whose benefit to the client is, at best, questionable.     

An Ultra‐Realist Theory of Perception

In this paper I argue for a theory of perception distinct both from classical sense‐datum theories and from intentionalist theories, that is theories according to which one perceives external objects by dint of a relation with a propositional content. The alternative I propose completely rejects any representational element in perception. When one sees that an object has a property, the situation or state of affairs of its having that property is one's perception, so that the object and property are literally part of one's mind. The most obvious objection to this view is that it embodies a rampant form of idealism. It is argued to the contrary, via consideration of the metaphysics of situations, that the theory is entirely consistent with a robustly realist view of the world.     

Miracles and the spiritual un‐consciousness of technological culture

Abstract

The unconscious can be understood in terms of a constriction of possibilities of relatedness which occurs within a specific historical construction of the human context. Van den Berg argues that our technological world, in its having become secularized, has constellated a spiritual unconscious. In a similar vein, Havel suggests that respect for the miracle of being moves beyond technological rationality making possible the “self‐transcendence” sorely needed in the postmodern era. Van den Berg's and Havel's theses are amplified in terms of an analysis of two popular films. These films present belief as a non‐technological, non‐functional disclosure of things. When we believe, we let things be miracles by respecting the obligations they place upon us.     

A defence of mencius’ ethical naturalism

I argue that Mencius puts forth a defensible form of ethical naturalism, according to which moral properties, moral motivation, and moral deliberation can be accounted for within the parameters of a naturalistic worldview. On this position, moral properties are the subjectively real properties which acts have in virtue of their corresponding to our most coherent set of shared desires. I give a naturalistic definition of ‘right’ which, I argue, is implicit in Mencius’ philosophy. I address the objection that some of the contemporary‐sounding views which I attribute to Mencius are positions which are alien to the ancient thinker, and I argue that the version of Mencius given here is not only quite faithful to Mencius but also a true metaethical theory.     

Screen Christologies: An evaluation of the role of Christ‐figures in film

Throughout the course of Christian history, the nature and identity of Jesus Christ has been interpreted in a wide variety of ways. In this article, I will suggest that the root tensions between the divine and human natures of Christ, as epitomized in the Alexandrian and Antiochene controversies of the Patristic Church, find a contemporary expression in the abundance of Christ‐figures that have emerged in contemporary film. Attention will be given to the functions that such figures perform, and their relationship to the Person of Christ as understood by the respective ‘high’ (Alexandrian) and ‘low’ (Antiochene) schools of Christology. I will conclude that, provided sufficient emphasis is placed on the humanity of the Christ‐figure, a process of redemption analogous to that found in traditional Christian accounts of the Person of Christ is operative through such films.     

A defence of Wiredu’s project of conceptual decolonisation

Calls to decolonise the university and revise what we research and teach is a challenge that ought to be taken up by those working in African philosophy and philosophy in Africa, more generally. Often, the thought is that such decolonisation will involve a complete subversion, destruction or deconstruction of colonial attitudes, processes and concepts. A more moderate proposal for decolonisation of philosophy can be found, however, which is Kwasi Wiredu’s project of conceptual decolonisation. In this paper, I defend the project from two categories of objection, what I call the decolonisation and methodology objections. I argue that the objections are misdirected and unfair because they fail to recognise the theoretical backing of Wiredu’s wider work. The critical reflection central to Wiredu’s project of conceptual decolonisation can be a genuinely helpful and viable route to take when tackling the challenges of decolonising philosophy.     

Compassion: An east‐west comparison

Compassion is an emotion that occupies a central position in Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy while it is often a neglected subject in contemporary western philosophy. This essay is a comparison between an Eastern view of compassion based upon Mahāyāna Buddhist perspectives and a western view of the same emotion. Certain principles found in Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy such as the Bodhisattva Ideal, and suffering (dukkha) to name two, are explored for the information they contain about compassion. An essay by Lawrence Blum is taken as representative of a Western view (but not exclusively) and it is analyzed for its shortcomings in light of the Buddhist view. The conclusion briefly describes the value of understanding an eastern view on compassion as a means of filling the void one finds in western medical ethics discourse which focuses so heavily, and redundantly, upon issues such as patient autonomy and paternalism.     

An item/order trade‐off explanation of word length and generation effects

The item‐order hypothesis suggests that under certain conditions increased item processing can lead to deficits in order processing, and that this produces a dissociation in performance between item and order tasks. The generation effect is one such example. The word length effect is seen as another instance where this trade‐off might be observed. The following experiments compare word length and generation effects under serial recall and single item recognition conditions. Short words are better recalled than long words on the serial recall task but long words were better recognised than short words. The results are consistent with the item‐order approach and support a novel explanation for the word length effect.     

Self‐esteem and anomie: An integration of Adler and Merton as a theory of deviance

The purpose of this paper is to show that while anomie theory on the social level offers a valid explanation of deviance, in order to understand the phenomenon in its entirety, we must consider the individual level as well. The psycho‐dynamic dimension of individual action is a crucial component of deviant behavior and one which must be integrated into a broader theory of overall deviance. With this in mind we will attempt to integrate the social and the psychological by incorporating the Adlerian and Mertonian models in order to create a more dynamic theory of deviance.     

Donald C. Williams’s defence of real metaphysics

In the middle of last century metaphysics was widely criticized, ridiculed, and committed to the flames. During this period a handful of philosophers, against several anti-metaphysical trends, defended metaphysics and articulated novel metaphysical doctrines. Donald C. Williams was one of these philosophers. But while his contributions to metaphysics are well known his defence of metaphysics is not and yet it played a key part in the development and revival of metaphysics. In this paper I present his defence of metaphysics in its historical context. I also show how his defence is relevant in response to recent attacks on metaphysics.     

In defence of a perspectival semantics for ‘know’

Relativism offers an ingenious way of accommodating most of our intuitions about ‘know’: the truth-value of sentences containing ‘know’ is a function of parameters determined by a context of use and a context of assessment. This sort of double-indexing provides a more adequate account of the linguistic data involving ‘know’ than does standard contextualism. However, relativism has come under recent attack: it supposedly cannot account for the factivity of ‘know’, and it entails, counterintuitively, that circumstances of evaluation have features that cannot be shifted by any intensional operator. I offer replies to these objections on behalf of the relativist. I then argue that a version of contextualism can account for the same data as relativism without relativizing sentence truth to contexts of assessment. This version of contextualism is thus preferable to relativism on methodological grounds.     

Higher‐order factors of creativity within Guilford's structure‐of‐intellect model: A re‐analysis of a fifty‐three variable data base

Both exploratory factor analyses (varimax and promax solutions) and confirmatory maximum likelihood factor analyses were used to re‐examine a correlation matrix of 53 tests from a battery administered to a sample of more than 400 Air Force officers. The data base originated in a report from the University of Southern California Aptitudes Research Project (Guilford, Wilson, & Christensen, 1952), which was intended to identify factors of creative thinking. The major objective of this study was to ascertain whether the covariation among the test variables that were conceptualized as first‐order factors within the structure‐of‐intellect model could be explained parsimoniously in terms of a number of higher‐order creative abilities. Application of a relatively objective oblique exploratory factor analytic technique (promax) afforded a replication of four of Guilford's creativity factors—two divergent production constructs of ideational fluency and word fluency, one construct representing sensitivity to problems, and another identified as redefinition or flexibility of closure typically involving transformations. Although substantial support was found for higher‐order factor models which distinguished among five types of psychological operations and three kinds of test content, statistical indicators of closeness‐of‐fit suggested that a mixed model of both first‐order and higher‐order factors was required to describe creativity thinking, perhaps within some form of hierarchical ordering. In addition to recognition of divergent production as a key component of creative endeavor, it appeared that a higher‐order convergent production factor involving primarily semantic and symbolic transformations constituted a dimension of potential importance to the creative thinking of mathematicians, scientists, engineers, and inventors. It was hypothesized that in creative thinking a variety of psychological operations within a dynamic interactive system is employed almost simultaneously in a forward and backward manner.     

Is a new version of philosophical pragmatism necessary? A reply to Barnes-Holmes

Barnes-Holmes (2000) discussed certain issues regarding philosophy, pragmatism, and behavior analysis, and offered a "behavioral pragmatism" based on or derived from behavior-analytic perspectives. In a comparison of certain philosophical views, Quine's concept of observation sentences was employed for representing pragmatism, but this concept is not sufficiently representative of the literature of philosophical pragmatism to warrant the broad conclusions drawn by Barnes-Holmes. Further, although the extensive and diverse literature of philosophical pragmatism has been shown by a number of writers to have various themes and perspectives in common with Skinner's radical behaviorism, it is unnecessary to extract a limited, generic version of pragmatism because (a) the latter cannot match the range and depth of the various extant versions and (b) the problems raised by Barnes-Holmes in justification for the new version yield readily to the current versions in philosophy. A set of philosophical views may provide additional verbal support for a given system of science, and the science of behavior analysis may eventually contribute to philosophical discourse. The latter, however, will not be achieved by proposing new versions of old philosophy, but rather by approaching established philosophical issues in new ways.     

Measuring creative thinking: An activity‐based approach

The primary objective of this exploratory study was to test activity‐based behavioral measures of creative thinking with a sample of Hong Kong fifth‐grade school children, and also to determine the concurrent validity between activity‐based measures of creative thinking and standard divergent thinking tests. Altogether five creative thinking abilities were measured using the behavioral techniques and the children's scores for fluency, flexibility, and originality were compared with those from the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT). The construct‐related validity among all the different abilities on the behavioral measures was also calculated. Contrary to previous assertions about the lack of creativity among Chinese populations, the Hong Kong children demonstrated their ability to use a number of creative thinking features in order to solve problems. No construct validity was found between the different measures of creativity except between originality and fluency. Possible reasons for this are reviewed. The TTCT and the behavioral techniques were found to have some concurrent validity in relationto fluency and originality on the Verbal Tests. There was no correlation for flexibility. The advantages of using activity‐based measurements of creative behavior are discussed.     

Post‐modernism and social evolution: An inquiry

Post‐Modernism, according to critics and philosophers, is a linguistic theory emphasizing self‐referentiality. Practicing novelists define it functionally as a reflexive activity in which messages are folded back upon their media of communication. Applied to the symbol systems recording information for guiding the behaviors that structure societies, termed cognitive maps,” self‐referentiality and reflexivity combine in a co‐evolutionary model that offers hints about the creation of societal information. Although left‐ and right‐wing ideologists lament the Post‐Modernist abandonment of ultimate “reality,” this paper argues that, to preserve adaptive flexibility, extremely complex societies need to map themselves and their environments following a Post‐Modernist model.     

A defence of Owens’ exclusivity objection to beliefs having aims

In this paper we argue that Steglich-Petersen’s response to Owens’ Exclusivity Objection does not work. Our first point is that the examples Steglich-Petersen uses to demonstrate his argument do not work because they employ an undefended conception of the truth aim not shared by his target (and officially eschewed by Steglich-Petersen himself). Secondly we will make the point that deliberating over whether to form a belief about p is not part of the belief forming process. When an agent enters into this process of deliberation, he has not, contra Steglich-Petersen, already adopted the truth aim with regard to p. In closing, we further suggest that proponents of the truth aim hypothesis need to focus on aim-guidance, not mere aim attribution, for their approach to have explanatory utility so underlining the significance of Owens’ argument.     

Sharpening the echo: An iterative‐resonance model for short‐term recognition memory

We present an iterative‐resonance model for recognition memory. On successive iterations, the probe is compared against a feature‐by‐feature profile of the study set. Yes decisions depend on the similarity of the probe to the profile; No decisions depend on a count of elements in the probe that are not in the profile. Successive iterations sharpen the evidence, and response latency is a function of the number of iterations needed to obtain a sufficiently clear result. The model successfully simulates classic data as well as recent data problematic for alternate models.