Higher realities and the inner self: One quest? Transcendence and the significance of the body in the new age circuit

Can New Age be religious? In this article it is argued that New Age should not be treated as just one meaning system. It is possible to discern several different meaning systems in the New Age networks, even though they share a common language. Before examining whether these meaning systems are religious or, in other words, whether they contain transcendent elements, the concept of transcendence is ‘de‐christianised’. For it is precisely the Christian interpretation, namely the idea that the transcendent reality has to be ‘outside’, that makes the concept useless for the study of New Age meaning systems. The analysis then shows that sometimes there is a higher reality, and sometimes not. Even in one and the same meaning system this difference can occur, since central notions are interpreted in different ways.     

School pupils' perceptions of the police that visit schools: Not all police are ‘pigs’

This paper presents data concerning young people's perceptions of the police taking part in a police—schools liaison programme. Eighty-one 14-year-old school pupils took part in 28 semi-structured group discussions concerning their perceptions of the ‘typicality’ of police officers working in their schools. Pupils clearly differentiated between these and those ‘on the street’. Central to this differentiation was the issue of police power; the perceived atypicality of the police in schools was intimately bound up with pupils' perceptions of the qualitatively different social relations that obtain between young people and the police ‘in the school’ and ‘on the street’. The implications of these data for the literatures concerning the ‘contact hypothesis’ and police—schools liaison are discussed.     

Power and formation: New Foundations for a radical concept of Power

A radical concept of power identifies social processes which (whether as ‘ideology’, ‘false consciousness’, or ‘the spectacle') influence people's actions by moulding their beliefs or desires. However, seeing people as deluded is to risk treating them as less than fully autonomous beings. Despite his libertarian intentions, Lukes fails to guard against this paternalistic implication. His view still implies that it is the social critic who is in the best position to identify the real interests of an oppressed group. Here it is argued that power should be conceived as an intrusion on the ‘formative practices’ of people. It is possible to identify power as an unwanted influence on the processes in which people ‘form and discover’ interests, while maintaining that interests can only be self‐ascribed. This solution requires a concept of formation as both irreducibly social and yet potentially free. Neither Foucault nor Habermas can provide such a solution, despite some valuable insights. In the end, we must look at the influences of power on formative practices which are actual rather than idealized, productive rather than reflective, and which involve the whole person rather than merely the intellect.     

Power and the origins of unhappiness: Working with individuals

Evidence that the ‘ultimate repressed’ in our understanding of emotional distress is power can be gleaned even from Freud's writing. This is a form of repression which community psychology is well placed to lift. Impossible though it is to stand outside the ‘apparatus of power’ (and, therefore to give a complete analysis of it), we cannot achieve an accurate account of the causes of human unhappiness without taking its operations into account as fully as possible. The psychological therapies do have an implicit notion of will power, but this serves only to distract our attention from the external, material nature of power. We have to be careful, moreover, not to ‘psychologize’ power by trying to turn it into an internal attribute to be ‘switched on’ by an essentially mysterious process of ‘empowerment’. We need to specify empirically the types of power that contribute to ‘clinical’ distress and give an account of ‘therapy’ in terms of the powers to which it has access (recognizing also that these are limited).     

Understanding Adorno on ‘Natural-History’

‘Natural-History’ is one of the key concepts in the thought of the Frankfurt School critical theorist Theodor W. Adorno, appearing from his very earliest work through to his very last. Unfortunately, the existing literature provides little illumination as to what Adorno’s concept of natural-history is, or what it is supposed to do. This paper thus seeks to supply the required understanding. Ultimately, I argue that ‘natural-history’ is best understood as a sort of ‘therapeutic’ concept, intended to dissolve certain philosophical anxieties which might otherwise present obstacles to our being able to obtain a critical-theoretical understanding of reality.     

Empowerment,agency, and power

As ‘empowerment’ and ‘agency’ have received wider usage within development research and policy, ambiguities and variant meanings have proliferated. Amidst this conceptual drift, there has also been a tendency to assimilate the two concepts. This tendency is problematic in a number of ways. First, ‘agency’ has various meanings, and the weakest of these captures little of the concept of empowerment. Second, empowerment has a conceptual link with well-being that agency cannot have. Third, when empowerment is assimilated with expanded agency, that agency is not considered in a relational way: the focus is on how the agency of a group or individual becomes greater than it was, not on the degree to which their agency is dependent on or dominated by the agency of others. If ‘empowerment’ no longer refers to social relations, it loses its direct relevance to the transformation of those relations and, as some critics have claimed, it ceases to be a ‘transformative’ concept. After showing that there are cases of empowerment that cannot be captured by conceptions of empowerment that ‘take power out’, I draw upon the capability approach to propose relational conceptions of agency and empowerment that ‘bring power back in’.     

Extending Dynamical Systems Theory to Model Embodied Cognition

We define a mathematical formalism based on the concept of an ‘‘open dynamical system” and show how it can be used to model embodied cognition. This formalism extends classical dynamical systems theory by distinguishing a ‘‘total system’’ (which models an agent in an environment) and an ‘‘agent system’’ (which models an agent by itself), and it includes tools for analyzing the collections of overlapping paths that occur in an embedded agent's state space. To illustrate the way this formalism can be applied, several neural network models are embedded in a simple model environment. Such phenomena as masking, perceptual ambiguity, and priming are then observed. We also use this formalism to reinterpret examples from the embodiment literature, arguing that it provides for a more thorough analysis of the relevant phenomena.     

Spinoza on power

Spinoza's concept of ‘power’ finds expression in every major topic of which he treats. Some of the ways to the understanding of that concept are: the metaphysical, the genetic, and the political. I. Metaphysically, Spinoza distinguishes power from force or energy and defines it as the ability of a system to survive. The most interesting application of this definition is to that system, man, for whom survival means realization of his essence, achievement of understanding. II. The depth and generality of Spinoza's concept of power can be appreciated more clearly if we refer to its sources in (1) the classical analysis of ‘virtue’ beginning with Plato, (2) the traditional theological ponderings on the nature of God, and (3) the method and presuppositions of physical science. III. At the metaphysical level of analysis, power and liberty are shown to be all but synonymous. Spinoza's analysis of political power undermines previous authoritarian, hierarchical, and elitist theories of government and ends with a proof that both individual and social power flourish best under democratic government.     

Japanese religion as ritual order

It is argued in this paper that beneath the superficial analysis of Japanese ‘religions’ such as Buddhism, Shinto, Confucianism and the New Religions, there is one dominant ideological complex which, following some Japanese scholars, can conveniently be dubbed ‘The Japanese Religion’ or Nihonkyo. This Japanese religion is a ritual order based on the hierarchical concept of ‘ie’ and its variations such as ‘kigyoushugi‘¹ at the level of the company and ‘katei‘² at the domestic level. This ritual order pervades all major institutions in Japan and the main mechanism for its reproduction is the school system. In analysing the latter a distinction between training and education is adopted, and it is argued that the concept of liberal education, which is based on the concept of the autonomous rational and moral individual, is essentially missing from the Japanese school system which is better described as a system of training. It is suggested further that training can be linked conceptually with ritual: training is a form of ritualized behaviour though with a heavily pragmatic content. It is hoped that the approach to Japanese religion which is argued here will prove more fruitful in the Religious Studies context than one which begins with an explicit or implicit concept of religion centred on beliefs about salvation, the supernatural and life after death.     

Pastoral power in nurturing the spiritual life of the child

In this article, I will investigate the link between – what the French philosopher Michel Foucault calls – ‘pastoral power’ and the concept of ‘nurturing children’s spirituality.’ In the first step, I will explain the concept of pastoral power. In a second step, I will look to some literature about nurturing the spirituality of the child and the tips and tricks they give to nurturing the spirituality of the child. I will develop how power is present and how it can be abused easily. By nurturing the spirituality of their child, parents can control the life of the child. I will argue that it is important that everyone who works with children is aware of the hidden forms of power in nurturing the spirituality of the child in order to not misuse their power.     

The protestant secular in the study of American religion: reappraisal and suggestions

This article provides a theoretical and historiographical overview of secularism in the study of American religion. It focuses on how scholars have used the concept of the ‘Protestant secular’ in works on law, politics, and culture. Although it has been useful, we argue that this concept has lost some of its analytical utility in the effort to explain secularism predominantly in terms of its Protestant nature. In turn, this article looks to literature on secularism globally in order to suggest ways forward. Refocusing on secularism as a strategy of state governance ought to bring precision to both ‘Protestantism’ and ‘the secular,’ as well as shift attention toward state power and the high stakes of classification. An analysis of this strategy requires investigation into how states produce and police the category ‘religion’ and its neighboring concepts – for example, the ‘secular’ and the ‘superstitious’ – in order to render, manage, and colonize various populations.     

Perception,Expression, and the Continuity of Being: Some Intersections between Nishida and Gadamer

This article draws on Nishida’s ontology to shed light on some problems with Gadamer’s concept of dialogical truth. This form of truth relies on the claim that self and world ‘belong together’ as aspects of a single, unitary phenomenon, one which is made manifest in language. This view has difficulty, however, accounting for the expression in language of that which is distorted, mistaken, or untruthful. To get past these difficulties, I suggest that we turn to the more dynamic and developmental vision of the continuity of being found in Nishida’s work. One can cultivate or neglect this relational continuity, and so achieve or fail to achieve it in its fullest forms. I argue that we can cultivate our perceptual capacity along similar lines, bringing the self and world together into a kind of harmony so that the expression of such perceptions comes to be the expression of truth.     

Historical Judgement, Transcendent Perspective and 'Resurrection Appearances'

Suppose one judges as a historian that after Jesus' death there was an occurrence during the careers of various individuals in which: they took it that Jesus was appearing, raised by God to Life; and a concept worked in their minds, ‘Already, Jesus has been raised to Life’. Assume also that before one are fuller statements proposed now as to what happened. Some themselves cite just inner-worldly, non-transcendent factors – delusion and so on. The ‘Encountered’ statement however runs: ‘A transcendent reality, Jesus raised by God to Life, was encountered by the individuals.’ At first glance it might seem that in principle one could say: ‘Whereas I have not been convinced by the statements citing inner-worldly factors alone, I do by contrast find the Encountered statement convincing and elucidatory.’ But on closer scrutiny, would it indeed be possible for one maturely to say that? Some commentators voice a quick ‘Yes’– an apologetic argument thus. On the other hand some press challenges that a priori one may never fittingly say that. We should be content neither with a swift ‘Yes’ nor with swift dismissiveness. How you think directly about ‘resurrection appearances’ depends much on your analysis apropos of a wide range of epistemological and other matters. Some challenges are that the Encountered statement is as such flawed. But these claims rest on premises which arguably we should judge misguided. Some challenges (Humean and Barthian) concern how one is placed when the Encountered statement lies adjacent to ‘inner-worldly’ statements. Now we should maintain a standpoint on which a person can reach, apart from regard to Jesus, a theistic outlook: yet not by ‘natural theology’. Where that person is oneself, no a priori obstacles prevent one's maturely saying, ‘The Encountered statement for me elucidates, in contrast to the others’. These points can be put without talk of ‘probability estimates’ or ‘explanation’.     

Role Responsibility

This article is about ‘role responsibility’ as understood by H. L. A. Hart in his taxonomy of responsibility concepts in his book, Punishment and Responsibility. More particularly, it focuses on what I call ‘public, institutional role responsibility’. The main arguments are that (1) such role responsibility is based on authority and power rather than physical and mental capacity; and (2) the foundation of role responsibility in authority has significant implications for what Hart referred to as ‘liability–responsibility’, which I unpack in terms of ‘attribution’, ‘accountability’ and ‘liability’. The article addresses possible objections to the authority-based analysis of role responsibility based on the concept of ‘moral’ responsibility, and on understandings of what types of question are ‘philosophical.’     

Intermingling and confusion

Abstract

An understanding of Descartes’ concept of ‘confusion’ is important both for making sense of his epistemological enterprise and for grasping his doctrine of the union of mind and body. An analysis of Descartes’ notion of confusion is offered which is grounded in the (more or less controversial) theses that confused thoughts are thoughts, that confusion is confusion by a thinker of one thought with another, and that confusion both can and should be avoided or ‘undone’. This analysis takes its rise from his contrast between ‘confused’ and ‘distinct’ : it exhibits confusion as a failure to distinguish between meanings of systematically ambiguous expressions. This failure is sometimes due to ‘bad intellectual habits’ which in his view ought to be broken, sometimes to ‘nature’ (where the confusion is in general beneficial to our welfare). Paradigmatically these are expressions which refer ambiguously to substances (i.e. mind and body) which are ‘really distinct’. Moreover, his ‘disambiguations’ indicate a central but neglected aspect of his aim in philosophizing: he can be seen as engaged in a moral project of ‘philosophical therapy’.     

The Structure of Frege's Thoughts

Fregean thoughts (i.e. the senses of assertoric sentences) are structured entities because they are composed of simpler senses that are somehow ordered and interconnected. The constituent senses form a unity because some of them are ‘saturated’ and some ‘unsaturated’. This paper shows that Frege's explanation of the structure of thoughts, which is based on the ‘saturated/unsaturated’ distinction, is by no means sufficient because it permits what I call ‘wild analyses’, which have certain unwelcome consequences. Wild analyses are made possible because any ‘unsaturated’ sense that is a mode of presentation of a concept together with any ‘saturated’ sense forms a thought. The reason is that any concept can be applied to any object (which is presented by a ‘saturated’ sense). This stems from the fact that Frege was willing to admit only total functions. It is also briefly suggested what should be done to block wild analyses.     

Tradition as Subversion

Abstract: This article examines two ways in which the theology of tradition might become subversive. First, tradition can become ideology when the hermeneutics of power within a community determines our understanding of tradition. Because of possible tensions between revelation, reason and the community of faith in the ‘official’ narrative of tradition, there can develop ‘hermeneutical distortions’. Second, tradition, can, as ‘generative subversion’, also resist an ideology, its totalizing discourses and its power claims. It then expresses a community's orientation towards transcendence and its historical consciousness without necessarily lapsing into a destructive historicism. This concept of tradition finds its centre in Christ and in the understanding, and at the same time not fully comprehending, memory of him.     

The Phenomenological Life-World Analysis and the Methodology of the Social Sciences

This Alfred Schutz Memorial Lecture discusses the relationship between the phenomenological life-world analysis and the methodology of the social sciences, which was the central motive of Schutz’s work. I have set two major goals in this lecture. The first is to scrutinize the postulate of adequacy, as this postulate is the most crucial of Schutz’s methodological postulates. Max Weber devised the postulate ‘adequacy of meaning’ in analogy to the postulate of ‘causal adequacy’ (a concept used in jurisprudence) and regarded both as complementary and, in the context of sociological analysis, critical. Schutz extracted the two postulates from the Neokantian epistemology, dismissed the concept of causality, and reduced Weber’s two postulates of adequacy into one, namely, the adequacy of meaning. I discuss the benefits and shortcomings of this reduction. A major problem, in my view, is that Schutz’s reformulation lost the empirical concern that was inherent in Weber’s ‘causal adequacy’. As a result, the models of economics (which shaped Schutz’s conception of social science) are considered to be adequate if they are ‘understandable’ to an everyday actor, even when they are based on the most unrealistic assumptions. To recapture Weber’s empirical orientation I recommend a more restrictive interpretation of the postulate of adequacy that links it to qualitative research and unfolds the critical potential of Schutz’s phenomenological life-world analysis. My second goal is to report on some current developments in German sociology in which a number of approaches explicitly refer to Schutz’s analysis of the life-world and attempt to pursue ‘adequate’ empirical research. This lecture focuses on three approaches: ethnophenomenology, life-world analytic ethnography, and social scientific hermeneutics.     

Counselling in general practice: Clients' perceptions of significant events and outcome

An investigation of clients' perceptions of the change process and outcome of counselling in primary care is presented. Significant events were identified by 51 clients post-session for a mean of 4.7 counselling sessions. Outcome was assessed by clients, through their perceptions of goal attainment and change in quality of life from pre-to post-counselling. Four-hundred-and-nine events were categorized by use of the Therapeutic Impact Content Analysis System (TICAS) and a content analysis system was created to categorize clients' goals. Results showed that ‘reassurance’, ‘problem solution ’, ‘insight’ and ‘involvement’ impacts were reported most frequently by clients. No category of significant events was related to change in quality of life. For 11 clients who set goals in the ‘expression’ category, more ‘reassurance’ and fewer ‘problem solution’ impacts were related to attainment of ‘expression’. Some suggestions are made for the lack of significant relationships with overall measures of outcome and it was suggested that more qualitative analysis of the process of outcome is needed.