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 non-linear model of dynamics: A case of panic

This is a case report of a patient with panic who is on the edge of relapse into alcoholism. It is a case of general theoretical interest, because of the separate phases of containment of his desperation, involving psychopharmacology, sociotherapy, and psychotherapy. It extends the dynamic model into non-linear dynamics, an extension that allows the patient to come to face his amazement at the sudden eruption of unconscious forces, and that allows the psychotherapist to see the therapeutic path of backing up from walking forward, unwittingly, into catastrophe.     

A Naturalistic A Priori

Philosophical Studies -     

A Counterexample to A

The Direct Argument is an important argument for demonstrating that moral responsibility is incompatible with determinism because it makes no presuppositions about the nature of free will. One of the inference rules employed in the Direct Argument is rule A: If a proposition is broadly logically necessary, then it is true and no one is, nor ever has been, even partially morally responsible for the fact that the proposition is true. While inference rule A is assumed by all parties to the debate, I demonstrate that the rule is invalid.     

A dynamic view of cultural influence: A review

Static models of culture's influence have given way to a dynamic view, which identifies not only differences across cultures in people's judgments and decisions, but also the situations and conditions in which these differences do or do not appear. Theory and evidence developed from a cognitive psychological perspective underlie this dynamic approach, including research emerging from the “dynamic constructivist” and “situated cognition” models. In the present review, we focus on findings that confirm the utility of this cognitively oriented approach, and briefly discuss the advantages and complementary nature of the “social collective” and neuroscience approaches to understanding culture.     

A Defense of Conduction: A Reply to Adler

In (2013) Jonathan Adler argued that conductive arguments, as they are commonly characterized, are impossible—that no such argument can exist. This striking contention threatens to undermine a topic of argumentation theory originated by Trudy Govier (1979) based on Carl Wellman (1971) and revisited by the papers in “Conductive argument, An overlooked type of defeasible reasoning” (ed. Blair and Johnson, 2011). I here argue that Adler’s dismissal of conductive arguments relies on a misreading of the term ‘non-conclusive’ used in the characterization of this type of reasoning and argument, and that as a result, his refutation fails. However, Adler’s critique raises other questions about conductive arguments that have to be answered.     

A scale of educational-vocational undecidedness: A typological approach

A scale designed to measure and identify antecedents of educational-vocational indecision was administered to a variety of college student groups expected to differ in career-decidedness. Results indicate that the scale is reliable, appears to discriminate career-decided from career-undecided students, and is responsive to interventions designed to alleviate educational-vocational indecision. A factor analysis of the scale yielded four factors: need for structure, perceived external barriers, positive choice conflict, and personal conflict. The instrument has potential for diagnostic, criterion, and conceptual purposes related to career indecision.     

中国古代心理学思想史百年研究史略

1 中国古代心理学思想史是研究中国古代心理学思想产生、形成与发展历史的学科。近百年来．它经历了一个从自发到自觉、从分散到有组织、从零星探讨到系统研究的发展过程。大致可分为在指导思想、工作方式和科研成果等方面都具不同特点的三个阶段。