Interactivism: A manifesto

The interactivist model has grown over the last several decades from a narrower initial beginning into an evolving systematic theory and underlying philosophy. It has been induced to do so because the underlying assumptions that framed the beginnings of the model were fundamentally different from those that are dominant throughout psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy. Consequently, the model faced multiple instances of attempting to integrate with literature in neighboring fields, discovering that such integration was not possible because the basic assumptions were not compatible, and having to either give up on the model thus far constructed, or else extend it in a way consistent with those assumptions into those neighboring (and foundational) domains. This manifesto outlines the resultant interactivist framework, presents some of the arguments for its underlying assumptions, and argues that these avoid problems that are fatal for many standard approaches in the literature.     

Prior-entry: A review

The law of prior entry was one of E.B. Titchener’s seven fundamental laws of attention. According to Titchener (1908, p. 251): “the object of attention comes to consciousness more quickly than the objects which we are not attending to.” Although researchers have been studying prior entry for more than a century now, progress in understanding the effect has been hindered by the many methodological confounds present in early research. As a consequence, it is unclear whether the behavioral effects reported in the majority of published studies in this area should be attributed to attention, decisional response biases, and/or, in the case of exogenous spatial cuing studies of the prior-entry effect, to sensory facilitation effects instead. In this article, the literature on the prior-entry effect is reviewed, the confounds present in previous research highlighted, current consensus summarized, and some of the key questions for future research outlined. In particular, recent research has now provided compelling psychophysical and electrophysiological evidence to support the claim that attending to a sensory modality, spatial location, or stimulus feature/attribute can all give rise to a relative speeding-up of the time of arrival of attended, as compared to relatively less attended (or unattended) stimuli. Prior-entry effects have now been demonstrated following both the endogenous and exogenous orienting of attention, though prior-entry effects tend to be smaller in magnitude when assessed by means of participants’ performance on SJ tasks than when assessed by means of their performance on TOJ tasks.     

Luther: A Mystic

Understanding Martin Luther means looking at a medieval monk heavily influenced by his confessor, John of Staupitz. Staupitz inspired Luther and his friends to read the sermons of the late medieval mystic John Tauler. Here Luther found a theology of grace, the idea that faith is the only remaining point to a grace‐full God. Tauler's most obvious influence, his understanding of penance, shaped the first and second of Luther's Ninety‐five Theses. Another influence, that of passion mysticism, Luther explored and developed in his early tracts. Over the years, while Luther would stress the importance of Scripture over mystical experience, this was more a slight but meaningful transformation rather than a complete break with mysticism.     

Prosopagnosia: A reclassification

We report a quantitative investigation of three patients who presented with a profound prosopagnosia. They were tested on a series of tests of face perception, face recognition, and paired associate learning using faces. A patient with marked perceptual difficulties but no difficulty whatever in recognizing faces was tested as a control. The control patient's performance was as bad or worse on the tests of perception of faces, and it is concluded that impaired performance on tests of face perception does not contribute to difficulties in recognizing familiar faces. The major difference between the three prosopagnosic patients was the evidence of covert recognition in two of these cases but not in the third. We use this evidence to argue that the perceptual/mnestic distinction is an inappropriate classification and would suggest instead that the two types may be described in terms either of a disconnection of the face recognition units or of damage to the units themselves.     

COLUMBINE: A COMMENTARY

A "poemtage" was created to express my thoughts and feelings about the massacre that took place at Columbine High School, Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999. The story behind the creation of this poemtage is shared.     

ANTITHEISM: A REFLECTION

Why is there no sustained tradition of argument concerning the existence of a supreme (omniscient and omnipotent) being who is perfectly evil, as there is about one who is perfectly good? Arguments which are reflections of the ontological, cosmological and teleological arguments, and arguments based on personal experience or the occurrence of antimiracles (harmful events not explicable by science) could have provided at least as good grounds for belief in such a being (ie for antitheism) as their originals in fact provide for theism. An imaginary encyclopedia entry, in which fictional antitheistic arguments and thinkers are presented, illustrates this point. The reason for the nonexistence of a tradition of antitheism seems therefore to be that it is merely emotionally, not that it is rationally, less inviting than theism.     

A Severe Employment Handicap: A Criminal Record

Having a criminal record can be viewed as a severe handicap that affects employment. Bonding and licensing regulations, employer attitudes, and psychological maladjustment of the ex-offender are aspects of his or her employment problems. The understanding and active involvement of the rehabilitation counselor and the community can help overcome employment barriers and help the ex-offender become an effective and contributing citizen.     

A Review of Jesus: A Psychological Biography

Capps's book uses historical, sociological, and psychological methods to probe the personal identity and self-understanding of Jesus. This reviewer suggests that historical, sociological, and psychological methods are modes of discourse that are modern forms of myth. Myth is understood as any narrative form that is used, and/or taken for granted, as a way of self-understanding and understanding the world. These disciplines are useful critical tools with which to explore the text and its world, but they do not guarantee knowledge about the past. As modern modes of discourse they create narratives (i.e., myths) about the past, that for us are preferred epistemological pathways. Jesus Christ is the ultimate model of the God-person relationship in the Christian west. Therefore, any serious attempt to render a realistic portrait of Jesus using contemporary modes of describing reality has the possibility of effecting a profound transformation of the images of God and Jesus. This then can transform our own relationship with God. The value of Capps's book is not in any knowledge it might give us about Jesus, but in the transformation it can effect within the reader, and the author, of central religious images. Psychoanalytic and developmental theories are limited in their explanatory effectiveness because they are materialistic and personalistic (reductive). The analytical psychology of Carl Jung and the archetypal psychology of James Hillman are proposed in order to add a transpersonal dimension to Capps's approach to the personality of Jesus.     

A Modest Proposal: A Pastoral Political Theology

A pastoral political theology, I contend, has four goals, namely, (a) critical, systemic examination of political governance, policies, programs, and structures vis-à-vis the concept of care—theologically understood, (b) facilitating cooperation and collaboration with diverse others in cultivating public spaces of appearances, (c) offering concrete plans in meeting the needs of particular others—citizen and non-citizen, and (d) assessing the implementation of these solutions. In this article, I offer an outline of and foundational theological premises for a pastoral political theology, indicating its distinctions from and contributions to political theologies that focus on justice and liberation. More specifically, I focus on the first goal, relying on the concept of care, theologically understood, as a hermeneutical framework for assessing the political milieu.     

A Woman Undaunted:

No abstract available for this article.     

Meritocracy: A Critique

Herpes Simplex, by T. Natasha Posner, The Experience of Illness Series, London: Routledge, 1998, 143 pages, paperback £13.99