Karl Popper and Albert Ellis: Their ideas on psychology and rationality compared

This paper considers leading ideas of Albert Ellis on psychological theory and therapy in relation to ideas of the celebrated philosopher, Karl Popper. The aim is to indicate striking similarities in their views on learning, the genesis of emotional disturbance and, in particular, rationality. Discussion commences with Popper's early, and little studied, work on psychology. His philosophy of science is then surveyed along with the theory of rationality that he analogically extends from it. After tracing the evolution of Ellis' thought, we note the central roles he assigns to irrational thinking in explaining emotional disturbance and to rational thinking in its treatment. Different senses of rationality are distinguished in his work, one of them associated with criticism, which provides a most important similarity to Popper's view of rationality.For helpful comments on draft versions of this paper the author is indebted to Barry Butcher.Drs. Jocelyn Dunphy and Albert Ellis, and an anonymous reviewer for this journal.Studies of Popper on psychology have only begun to appear in recent years. The most detailed is (Berkson & Wettersten, 1984).     

A stochastic multidimensional scaling vector threshold model for the spatial representation of “pick any/n” data

This paper presents a new stochastic multidimensional scaling vector threshold model designed to analyze pick any/n choice data (e.g., consumers rendering buy/no buy decisions concerning a number of actual products). A maximum likelihood procedure is formulated to estimate a joint space of both individuals (represented as vectors) and stimuli (represented as points). The relevant psychometric literature concerning the spatial treatment of such binary choice data is reviewed. The nonlinear probit type model is described, as well as the conjugate gradient procedure used to estimate parameters. Results of Monte Carlo analyses investigating the performance of this methodology with synthetic choice data sets are presented. An application concerning consumer choices for eleven competitive brands of soft drinks is discussed. Finally, directions for future research are presented in terms of further applications and generalizing the model to accommodate three-way choice data.     

The reach of systems theory: A clinician's retrospective, 1984–1993

One of the early family therapists provides a review and analysis of his work in the recent decade (1984–1993), providing also a structure and perspective that connects it with his earliest work in the early 1960s. His work describing the blaming process as a common source of pathogenic relating resulted in a key article in 1984, from which two streams of work and one tributary emerged. A 1984–1989 stream defined a conflict cycle by which therapists might sort out the countless conflicts heard in family interviews, thus aiding diagnosis and treatment. A 1989–1992 stream defined another form of pathogenic relating, learning to be possessed, a learned means of skillfully avoiding blame for wrongdoing which is roughly but usefully defined as The Devil made me do it. The writer concluded that if one became very good at it, learning to be possessed was excellent training for the development of delusional thinking in adolescence and afterwards. Piaget's work suggested that a case could be made for a good match between adult delusional and the problem-solving difficulties of six-to-eight year-old children. During 1992–1993, the author returned to a topic he believes he was the first to introduce and seriously address in family therapy: The problem of defining phases of family therapy (which he wrote about in the early 1970s). Rejecting the traditional beginning-middle-ending model in psychotherapy, he substituted a series of four-interview units, beginning with the engagement series and ending with termination. The early work concentrated on engagement, the recent on termination.Three decades ago family therapy hardly existed, but today it is firmly established among the major psychotherapies. There are tens of thousands of mental health workers familiar with the basic concepts and techniques of the field; and of these, there are several thousand highly skilled practitioners. The field has been both blessed and cursed by the absence of a single father. The blessing has been a rich diversity of viewpoints powerfully enunciated by quite gifted individuals and their disciples. The curse has been factionalism that at times has reached an unusual level of personal vindictiveness, and has encouraged ideologues intent on subordinating the originality and creativeness of the field.Exponents of major viewpoints in the field have, it seems to me, an obligation to continue to enunciate them clearly, to add depth and breadth to those viewpoints whenever possible. As one of the early family therapists, I believe I have such an obligation. In this article I propose to summarize, review, and analyze my work of the past decade, 1984–1993; to add a perspective whenever that may be possible; to relate the work of the recent decade to the work of past decades, whenever possible; to propose a structure for the work of the past decade, and whenever possible to relate that structure to those of previous decades. I am not a writer of books in the ordinary sense, but a writer of articles enunciating particular ideas; and often it has taken several articles to enunciate an idea to my satisfaction. In this article I will attempt to enunciate two streams which flowed from a common source, and also a tributary. It incorporates seven previously published articles.During the preparation of this article I learned of the death in October 1992 of Ernest A. Haggard, who was my chief mentor while I was a graduate student many decades ago at the University of Chicago. Thoughts about Ernie do not seem to leave me. I would like to dedicate this article to his memory.     

“Emotionally, Soulfully, Spiritually ‘Free to Think and Act’: The Helen Flanders Dunbar (1902–59) Memorial Lecture on Psychosomatic Medicine and Pastoral Care”

This essay aims to stimulate rethinking about religious and medical healing and wholeness. While psychiatrist (Helen) Flanders Dunbar (1902–1959) is well known as a psychosomatic investigator and as Medical Director of the Council for Clinical Training, the initial home of Anton Boisen's groundbreaking movement for the clinical pastoral education of institutional chaplains and parish ministers, she is less appreciated as a theologically-trained scholar. This essay explores an earlier era's understanding of the spiritual and the more soulful components of healing and how Dunbar combined these to focus on helping all peoples become free to think and act. This essay was originally delivered as The Helen Flanders Dunbar Memorial Lecture on Psychosomatic Medicine and Pastoral Care at Columbia Presbyterian Center of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, New York on November 2, 1999.     

Reasoning and logic

Gilbert Harman, in Logic and Reasoning (Synthese 60 (1984), 107–127) describes an unsuccessful attempt ... to develop a theory which would give logic a special role in reasoning. Here reasoning is psychological, a procedure for revising one's beliefs. In the present paper, I construe reasoning sociologically, as a process of linguistic interaction; and show how both reasoning in the psychologistic sense and logic are related to that process.     

Paradigms lost: Remembering herstories and other invalid subjects

During the First World Family Therapy Congress, Dublin, 1989, the author was the only women on a six member panel discussing The New Paradigm. This article re-presents her attempt to remember women and other invalid subjects, (e.g. those in poverty) in what was imagined would be an otherwise male oriented discourse. Until recently, within family therapy, the contrary and negatory experiences of women in families and society gained little recognition. This article joins others in adding herstory to history.She is in private practice at Vico Consultation Centre.The author acknowledges her team, Nollaig Byrne and Philip Kearney; and her sister witches (The Women in Therapy Chapter), Kay Gilliland, Bernadette O'Sullivan, Mia Van Doorslaer, and Jane Williams for their valued help and comments on this paper.     

The Longest Faculty Strike in the History of U.S. Institutions of Higher Education: Perceptions of the Union President

The president of the AAUP faculty union at University of Bridgeport, from 1987 to 1991, offers a first-hand account of the circumstances leading to the fatal strike there. He refutes accusations that the union and its leadership destroyed the university and provides a dramatic, personal account of a faculty union under attack by union busters. The faculty, he argues, was resisting a concerted onslaught on traditional faculty rights. It fought desperately to stifle a retrograde revolution in higher education seeking the substitution of absolute Management Rights to traditional collegiality. He refers to faculty as the soul and mind of a university, and to administration as a necessary evil whose duty is primarily to assist the faculty in the accomplishment of the university's mission.     

In and behind a Lenneberg paradigm

Lenneberg suggested that a chimpanzee's linguistic ability could be tested by presenting sentences containing two prepositional phrases joined by a conjunction. This would involve joining two semantic propositions, and thus represents a more complex test of chimpanzee syntactic competence than previously attempted. Jane, a five year-old language trained chimpanzee, was tested on her ability to both produce and comprehend sentences involving a preposition (in or behind) and a conjunction (and). The results from production and comprehension were substantially the same. Jane showed the ability to appropriately deploy and, behind and in, but displayed very little flexibility in their use. It is suggested that a chimpanzee may be able to learn some rules of syntax but is not able to be creative with that syntax.     

The Sunk Costs Fallacy or Argument from Waste

This project tackles the problem of analyzing a specific form of reasoning called sunk costs in economics and argument from waste in argumentation theory. The project is to build a normative structure representing the form of the argument, and then to apply this normative structure to actual cases in which the sunk costs argument has been used. The method is partly structural and partly empirical. The empirical part is carried out through the analysis of case studies of the sunk costs argument found in business decision-making, as well as other areas like medical decision-making and everyday conversational argumentation. The structural part is carried out by using existing methods and techniques from argumentation theory, like argumentation schemes. The project has three especially significant findings. First, the sunk costs argument is not always fallacious, and in many cases it can be seen to be a rational precommitment strategy. Second, a formal model of argumentation, called practical reasoning, can be constructed that helps a rational critic to judge which sunk costs arguments are fallacious and which are not. Third, this formal model represents an alternative model of rationality to the cost-benefit model based on Bayesian calculation of probabilities. This alternative model is called the argumentation model, and it is based on interpersonal reasoning in dialogue as the model of rational thinking. This model in turn is based on the underlying notion of commitment in dialogue.     

Refutability Revamped: How Quantum Mechanics Saves the Phenomena

On the basis of the Suppes–Sneed structuralview of scientific theories, we take a freshlook at the concept of refutability,which was famously proposed by K.R. Popper in 1934 as a criterion for the demarcation of scientific theories from non-scientific ones, e.g., pseudo-scientificand metaphysical theories. By way of an introduction we argue that a clash between Popper and his critics on whether scientific theories are, in fact, refutablecan be partly explained by the fact Popper and his criticsascribed different meanings to the term theoryThen we narrow our attention to one particular theory,namely quantum mechanics, in order to elucidate general matters discussed. We prove that quantum mechanics is irrefutable in a rather straightforward sense, but argue that it is refutable in a more sophisticated sense, which incorporates someobservations obtained by looking closely at the practiceof physics. We shall locate exactly where non-rigourous elements enter the evaluation of a scientific theory – thismakes us see clearly how fruitful mathematics isfor the philosophy of science.     

Metaphysics in Gaston Bachelard's “Reverie”

This paper aims to trace the evolution of Bachelard's thought as he gropes toward a concrete formulation of a philosophy of the imagination. Reverie, the creative daydream, occupies the central position in Bachelard's emerging metaphysic, which becomes increasingly phenomenological in a manner reminiscent of Husserl. This means that although Bachelard does not use Husserlian terms, he appropriates the following features of (Husserlian) phenomenology: 1. a desire to embracket the initial (rationalistic) impulse; and 2. an aspiration to apprehend in its entirety, the creative epiphany of an image. Ultimately, this paper aims to show that there is a sense in which Bachelard's metaphysical concerns in his poetics are an outgrowth of (rather than radical break from) his earlier scientific and epistemological concerns. What results in reverie is an aesthetic intentionality providing a metaphysic of the imagination: the aesthetic object, such as fire or water, is an object only insofar as it enables/calls forth a subject to enter into a receptive, self-aware and cosmic state of being; subject-ness and object-ness are intimately and archetypally intertwined. Bachelard's new poetics results from his transplantation/cross-fertilization of the general epistemology of the new scientific spirit on to/across his aesthetics.     

Ethnomethodology and the Rashomon Problem

In his doctoral dissertation, Harold Garfinkel critically examined Talcott Parsons' classical formulation of the problem of order referred to as the Hobbesian problem. Garfinkel's criticism can be summarized under the following three headings: (1) common sense rationality replaces scientific rationality; (2) the level of the premises of conduct replaces the level of de facto action; (3) congruence theory replaces the correspondence theory. The aim of this paper is to make some observations on the structure of the problem of order which Garfinkel discovered through this criticism. I propose to call it the Rashomon problem after Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon. Ethnomethodology can be regarded as an attempt to solve the Rashomon problem.     

Variations in use of the term “or”

Two studies showed that adults' responses to questions involving the term or varied markedly depending upon the type of question presented. When presented with various objects (A's and B's) and asked to circle all things which are A or B subjects tended to circle A's as well as B's, whereas when asked to circle all the A's or B's subjects showed a relatively stronger tendency to circle one or the other. Moreover the nature of the sets of objects (As and Bs) influenced behavior as well. There was also evidence that the effects due to question wording or set type transferred.     

Critical discussion

InExplaining Science: A Cognitive Approach, Ronald Giere (1988), proposes what he calls a cognitive theory of science (p. 2). Giere intends his view to be a broadly scientific account employing the resources of the cognitive sciences (Giere, 1988, p. 2). This paper argues that Giere does not secure a firm foundation for a cognitive theory of science because he leaves the door wide open for social constructivist interpretations of his views. In order to avoid social constructivism, Giere needs to adopt or develop an objective (i.e. non-conventionalist) concept of similarity.     

The Ecological Self: Metaphor and Developmental Experience?

The term ecological self, used within the fields of deep ecology and ecopsychology, is considered here from the viewpoint of developmental research and theory, within the context of contemporary relational psychoanalysis. Both developmental theory and more specifically our concept of health are explored with the inclusion of relatedness to the nonhuman world and an emphasis on embodiment and interactive experience. Illustrations and examples are drawn from research, clinical work with adults and the literature of natural history.     

Sequential social network data

A new method is proposed for the statistical analysis of dyadic social interaction data measured over time. The data to be studied are assumed to be realizations of a social network of a fixed set of actors interacting on a single relation. The method is based on loglinear models for the probabilities for various dyad (or actor pair) states and generalizes the statistical methods proposed by Holland and Leinhardt (1981), Fienberg, Meyer, & Wasserman (1985), and Wasserman (1987) for social network data. Two statistical models are described: the first is an associative approach that allows for the study of how the network has changed over time; the second is a predictive approach that permits the researcher to model one time point as a function of previous time points. These approaches are briefly contrasted with earlier methods for the sequential analysis of social networks and are illustrated with an example of longitudinal sociometric data.Research support provided by National Science Foundation Grant #SES84-08626 to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and by a predoctoral traineeship awarded to the second author by the Quantitative Methods Program of the Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, funded by ADAHMA, National Research Service Award #MH14257. We thank the editor and three anonymous referees for helpful comments.This paper is based on research presented at the 1986 Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society, Toronto, Ontario, June, 1986.     

Chains of meaning: A model for concept formation in contemporary physics theories

The rationality of scientific concept formation in theory transitions, challenged by the thesis of semantic incommensurability, can be restored by theChains of Meaning approach to concept formation. According to this approach, concepts of different, succeeding theories may be identified with respect to referential meaning, in spite of grave diversity of the mathematical structures characterizing them in their respective theories. The criterion of referential identity for concepts is that they meet a relation ofsemantic embedding, i.e. that the embedding concept can be substituted by the embedded one in classical limit situations. Three case studies from contemporary physics theories will be used to show that the Chains of Meaning approach not only yields meaning comparisons for already established concepts (as for Newtonian and Schwarzschild mass) but is also well suited to characterize actual scientific strategies of concept formation in yet open cases such as black hole entropy or relativistic thermodynamics.     

Proto-Semantics for Positive Free Logic

This paper presents a bivalent extensional semantics for positive free logic without resorting to the philosophically questionable device of using models endowed with a separate domain of non-existing objects. The models here introduced have only one (possibly empty) domain, and a partial reference function for the singular terms (that might be undefined at some arguments). Such an approach provides a solution to an open problem put forward by Lambert, and can be viewed as supplying a version of parametrized truth non unlike the notion of truth at world found in modal logic. A model theory is developed, establishing compactness, interpolation (implying a strong form of Beth definability), and completeness (with respect to a particular axiomatization).     

The Declarative/Procedural Model of Lexicon and Grammar

Our use of language depends upon two capacities: a mental lexicon of memorized words and a mental grammar of rules that underlie the sequential and hierarchical composition of lexical forms into predictably structured larger words, phrases, and sentences. The declarative/procedural model posits that the lexicon/grammar distinction in language is tied to the distinction between two well-studied brain memory systems. On this view, the memorization and use of at least simple words (those with noncompositional, that is, arbitrary form-meaning pairings) depends upon an associative memory of distributed representations that is subserved by temporal-lobe circuits previously implicated in the learning and use of fact and event knowledge. This declarative memory system appears to be specialized for learning arbitrarily related information (i.e., for associative binding). In contrast, the acquisition and use of grammatical rules that underlie symbol manipulation is subserved by frontal/basal-ganglia circuits previously implicated in the implicit (nonconscious) learning and expression of motor and cognitive skills and habits (e.g., from simple motor acts to skilled game playing). This procedural system may be specialized for computing sequences. This novel view of lexicon and grammar offers an alternative to the two main competing theoretical frameworks. It shares the perspective of traditional dual-mechanism theories in positing that the mental lexicon and a symbol-manipulating mental grammar are subserved by distinct computational components that may be linked to distinct brain structures. However, it diverges from these theories where they assume components dedicated to each of the two language capacities (that is, domain-specific) and in their common assumption that lexical memory is a rote list of items. Conversely, while it shares with single-mechanism theories the perspective that the two capacities are subserved by domain-independent computational mechanisms, it diverges from them where they link both capacities to a single associative memory system with broad anatomic distribution. The declarative/procedural model, but neither traditional dual- nor single-mechanism models, predicts double dissociations between lexicon and grammar, with associations among associative memory properties, memorized words and facts, and temporal-lobe structures, and among symbol-manipulation properties, grammatical rule products, motor skills, and frontal/basal-ganglia structures. In order to contrast lexicon and grammar while holding other factors constant, we have focused our investigations of the declarative/procedural model on morphologically complex word forms. Morphological transformations that are (largely) unproductive (e.g., in go—went, solemn—solemnity) are hypothesized to depend upon declarative memory. These have been contrasted with morphological transformations that are fully productive (e.g., in walk—walked, happy—happiness), whose computation is posited to be solely dependent upon grammatical rules subserved by the procedural system. Here evidence is presented from studies that use a range of psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic approaches with children and adults. It is argued that converging evidence from these studies supports the declarative/procedural model of lexicon and grammar.     

Formalization of the basic concepts of animal ecology

Summary Formal definitions of the following concepts of animal ecology are given: environment, niche, locality, local population, natural population, community, ecosystem. Five primitive (undefined) notions are used including animal, offspring and habitat, the latter in the sense of Charles Elton. The defining equations for the environment of one animal are first given, then niche (in the Elton sense) is formally defined in terms of the environment. The fifth primitve notion habitat is then introduced in order to define the remaining concepts.