GILSON AND GOUHIER: FRAMING ‘CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY’

Focusing on their approaches to Nicolas Malebranche, this article compares the contributions of Étienne Gilson and his student and colleague, Henri Gouhier, to the debate around the notion of Christian philosophy during the mid‐1920s into the 1930s. Gilson agreed with Brunschvicg's characterization of Nicolas Malebranche as an important representative of Christian philosophy, and both Gilson and Gouhier had a profound understanding of Malebranche's thought. Following St. Thomas that philosophy should strive to be a ‘perfect use of reason’, Gilson posited Christianity's influence as remaining exterior to philosophy itself. More sympathetic to Malebranche's Augustinian approach, Gouhier allowed for religious experience to operate at the interior of philosophy. These different approaches stemmed from fundamental differences as to how the historical method should be employed in philosophy and what it reveals.     

THE RELATIONSHIP OF ‘EXCHANGE-ORIENTATION’ AND ‘COMMITMENT’ SCALES TO MARRIAGE ADJUSTMENT*

Believing that “exchange” and “commitment” are basic dimensions associated with marriage adjustment (MA), scales measuring these three dimensions were administered to 40 married couples. Exchange was predicted to be negatively correlated with MA, commitment positively associated with it, and an individual's exchange and commitment qualities were predicted to affect his partner's MA. The hypotheses were all supported. Further analyses, however, revealed that husbands' MA was more strongly associated with their own exchange and commitment scores than those of their wives. However, wives' MA was equally associated with their own and their husbands' exchange and commitment scores. The implications of this finding for women's position in marriage are discussed.     

A Lesson in ‘Psycholese,’ or How to ‘Get a Feel For’ Where Your ‘Helper’ Is ‘Coming From’

Oftentimes/frequently the consumers/clients/patients of community/private mental health agencies/facilities experience/encounter difficulty communicating with the mental health professionals/paraprofessionals. Presented is a glossary that should aid novice clients to better communicate with their helpers/therapists/counselors/ caregivers. On the other hand (at the same time), it might just confuse the clients further. This is clearly a risk with counseling.     

Peter Winch on ‘Aristotelian’ and ‘Socratic’ Reasoning

Peter Winch often returned to questions about the nature of logic. In the context of his work on Wittgenstein and political philosophy in the 1990s, Winch described a contrast between ‘Aristotelian’ and ‘Socratic’ reasoning. Aristotelian conceptions of reasoning, attributed to Frege and Russell, would see logic as a formal science and rationality as consistency with pre‐existent rules of inference. The Socratic conception, attributed to Wittgenstein, understands rational argument as a form of socially embedded dialogue that involves moral relationships and a dimension of depth. Rational persuasion may also involve use of persuasive images and examples.     

‘CREATIONISM’ AND THE CONTINGENT A PRIORI

Williamson (1986) presents a troublesome example of the contingent a priori; troublesome, because it does not involve indexicals, and hence cannot be defused via the usual two‐dimensional strategies. Here I explore how the example works, via an examination of crucial belief‐forming method M, partly in response to Hawthorne (2002) and the questions there raised for ‘hyperreliable’ belief‐forming methods. I suggest that, when used to form a belief, M does its special work through creating a verifying state of affairs which guarantees the truth of the belief thus formed. This creative link can be said to account for the knowledge‐conferring status of M. But it also provides us with a way to defuse the purported example of the contingent a priori. The knowledge at issue is only a priori in virtue of this creative link, an importantly different epistemic achievement from standard cases of a priori knowledge. One important moral to be drawn is that the a priori/a posteriori distinction does not appear to be slicing the epistemological beast at its joints.     

Still Not ‘Good’ in Terms of ‘Better’

Erik Carlson puts forward a new way of defining monadic value predicates, such as ‘good’, in terms of dyadic value relations, such as ‘better’. Earlier definitions of this kind have the unwanted feature that they rule out some reasonable axiologies by conceptual fiat. Carlson claims that his definitions do not have this drawback. In this paper, I argue that they do.