Freedom and the Dynamics of the Self and the ‘Other’; Re-constructing the Debate Between Tagore and Gandhi

Tagore and Gandhi shared a relationship across 26 years. They argued about many things including the means for the attainment of swaraj/freedom. In terms of this central concern with the nature of freedom they came fairly close to an issue that has perhaps dominated the (European) Enlightenment. For the Enlightenment has sought to clarify what is meant by individual freedom and attempted to secure such freedom to the individual. This article argues that the Tagore-Gandhi debate can perhaps be reconstructed around the issue of freedom and the collective. Gandhi was able to employ the idea of collective action with conceptual and practical ease. He seemed to have felt no tension between individual freedom and the notion of the collective of which an individual becomes a part in his/her attempt to deal with the contending ‘other’ and secure his /her freedom/swaraj. To understand Tagore’s opposition to the Gandhian idea of swaraj this article draws a philosophical parallel between Tagore and Kant on individual freedom as primarily the freedom to reason. Tagore’s argument seemed to have centered on the insight that the location of the individual in a collective hypostatized self in order to protect his or her freedom from ‘others’ reaffirms the self other divide. The insider-outsider exclusionary dynamics that are generated not only consolidate such distinctions as external to (and outside of) the collective self, but they also initiate internal dynamics that create the ‘silenced insider.’     

Placebos and the UK medical research council — and the consumer perspective

The UK Medical Research Council, in order to further its mission of maintaining and improving human health, supports a substantial number of clinical trials on a wide variety of medical questions; some of these trials involve the use of placebos as controls or to maintain blinding. Before providing support, proposed trials are carefully reviewed to assess scientific quality, and to determine whether a placebo is required and is ethical — in addition to ethics review by independent Research Ethics Committees. Some questions such as the choice of placebos in trials in developing countries, in surgical trials and those involving alternative medicine require consideration of additional, specific issues. Involvement of consumers in MRC work has been increasing and includes the establishment of a Consumer Liaison Group; members of this group comment on patient information leaflets for clinical trials, helping to improve patient understanding of trials and ensuring topics like placebo use are explained clearly. Views differ on the value of placebos in clinical care and on their mechanism of action; continuing research is helping to clarify the issues. An earlier version of this paper was presented at an international conference, “Placebo: Its Action and Place in Health Research Today,” held in Warsaw, Poland on 12–13 April, 2003.     

Spare the rod and spoil the child?

The four papers which follow were originally presented at a research conference at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, on the use of discipline by primary caregivers. The use of corporal punishment in child discipline was discussed extensively. There was no consistent opinion among the authors about whether corporal punishment should be totally discouraged or whether such discipline had its place in the array of practices used by parents. Data supporting both points of view were presented and it was recommended that classification schemes of disciplinary practices include, in addition to a typology, some indications of the harshness of the punishment, the way in which it is administered and important contextual aspects.     

‘Between the bridge and the brook’

Abstract

That suicide was a damnable sin in Reformation England has been emphasized so far in the historiography of self-killing, but in practice the clergy were equivocal over the question of whether all self-killers were damned. This article re-examines English Protestant beliefs about suicide and salvation from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century. It suggests that clerical statements about the damnableness of suicide need to be understood in the context of the threat posed by Stoic philosophy. Religious writers rejected the notion of noble suicide and reiterated Augustinian theology that premeditated self-killing was a form of murder. However, the harsh rhetoric was mitigated by a number of factors that brought into question the idea that all suicides were destined for Hell. These included changing medical opinion about mental states, evidence of the good character of many suicides, belief in the overpowering influence of demonic forces and basic Christian charity and compassion.     

Are the windows to the soul the same in the East and West? Cultural differences in using the eyes and mouth as cues to recognize emotions in Japan and the United States

The current research investigated the hypothesis that, depending on an individual’s cultural background, facial cues in different parts of the face are weighted differently when interpreting emotions. Given that the eyes are more difficult to control than the mouth when people express emotions, we predicted that individuals in cultures where emotional subduction is the norm (such as Japan) would focus more strongly on the eyes than the mouth when interpreting others’ emotions. By contrast, we predicted that people in cultures where overt emotional expression is the norm (such as the US) would tend to interpret emotions based on the position of the mouth, because it is the most expressive part of the face. This hypothesis was confirmed in two studies, one using illustrated faces, and one using edited facial expressions from real people, in which emotional expressions in the eyes and mouth were independently manipulated. Implications for our understanding of cross-cultural psychology, as well of the psychology of emotional interpretation, are discussed.     

Materialism and ‘the soft substance of the brain’: Diderot and plasticity

ABSTRACT

Materialism is the view that everything that is real is material or is the product of material processes. It tends to take either a ‘cosmological’ form, as a claim about the ultimate nature of the world, or a more specific ‘psychological’ form, detailing how mental processes are brain processes. I focus on the second, psychological or cerebral form of materialism. In the mid-to-late eighteenth century, the French materialist philosopher Denis Diderot was one of the first to notice that any self-respecting materialist had to address the question of the status and functional role of the brain, and its relation to our mental life. After this the topic grew stale, with knee-jerk reiterations of ‘psychophysical identity’ in the nineteenth-century, and equally rigid assertions of anti-materialism. In 1960s philosophy of mind, brain–mind materialism reemerged as ‘identity theory’, focusing on the identity between mental processes and cerebral processes. In contrast, Diderot’s cerebral materialism allows for a more culturally sedimented sense of the brain, which he described in his late Elements of Physiology as a ‘book – except it is a book which reads itself’. Diderot thus provides a lesson for materialism as it reflects on the status of the brain, science and culture.     

In the eye of the beholder? Universality and cultural specificity in the expression and perception of emotion

Do members of different cultures express (or “encode”) emotions in the same fashion? How well can members of distinct cultures recognize (or “decode”) each other's emotion expressions? The question of cultural universality versus specificity in emotional expression has been a hot topic of debate for more than half a century, but, despite a sizeable amount of empirical research produced to date, no convincing answers have emerged. We suggest that this unsatisfactory state of affairs is due largely to a lack of concern with the precise mechanisms involved in emotion expression and perception, and propose to use a modified Brunswikian lens model as an appropriate framework for research in this area. On this basis we provide a comprehensive review of the existing literature and point to research paradigms that are likely to provide the evidence required to resolve the debate on universality vs. cultural specificity of emotional expression. Applying this fresh perspective, our analysis reveals that, given the paucity of pertinent data, no firm conclusions can be drawn on actual expression (encoding) patterns across cultures (although there appear to be more similarities than differences), but that there is compelling evidence for intercultural continuity in decoding, or recognition, ability. We also note a growing body of research on the notion of ingroup advantage due to expression “dialects,” above and beyond the general encoding or decoding patterns. We furthermore suggest that these empirical patterns could be explained by both universality in the underlying mechanisms and cultural specificity in the input to, and the regulation of, these expression and perception mechanisms. Overall, more evidence is needed, both to further elucidate these mechanisms and to inventory the patterns of cultural effects. We strongly recommend using more solid conceptual and theoretical perspectives, as well as more ecologically valid approaches, in designing future studies in emotion expression and perception research.     

Parenting and children's aggression: are there differences in the influence of the father and the mother?

Child rearing provides messages and rules that mediate the children's personality. These messages have a positive or negative influence on their behaviour. The objective of this empirical study was to analyse the relationship between physical and verbal aggression of sons and daughters and parenting style practiced by the father and the mother. The sample consisted of 2,788 students, aged 10 to 15 years, studying either the third cycle of Primary Education (44%) or the first cycle of Secondary Education (56%). Of them, 1,412 were boys (50.6%) and 1,375 were girls (49.3%). The results show that children's aggressiveness is more related to factors associated with the mother's parenting. In the case of daughters, the influence of parenting factors are caused by both parents (father and mother).     

Own and perceived parental religiosity and the quality of the parent–child relationship

This aim of this study was to investigate the association between perceived parental religiosity and the quality of the parent–child relationship. Eighty-nine adolescent boys and girls completed the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire (SCSRFQ) and the Parent–Child Relationship Survey (PCRS). The results showed that the girls had a better relationship with their mothers than with their fathers, while the boys tended to view their relationships with their father and mother of equal quality. It was also found that greater perceived religiosity of both the fathers and mothers was associated with a better parent–child relationship.     

Hermann Hesse and the Daodejing on the Wu 無 and You 有 of Sage-Leaders

Hermann Hesse (1877–1962), the poet, novelist, man of letters, and painter, created characters who, like the Daoist sages, had many paradoxical characteristics. Some of Hesse’s characters manage their paradoxical natures well and, like the balanced sages, are able to be simultaneously changing yet stable, full of life but also empty, in unison with nature and the social world. Centered between interchanging extremes, these balanced individuals are carefree yet self-controlled, efficacious in their work yet seemingly inactive, and successful in sustaining leadership and power yet humble and non-obtrusive. These sage-like individuals, the ideal leaders presented in the Daodejing 道德經, will be the focus of this essay. Specifically, I will focus on the Daoist “hub and wheel” analogy, the concepts of wu 無 and you 有, absence and presence respectively, which are extremely important in order to understand the influence of Daoist philosophy on Hesse’s literary examples of sage-leadership.     

The Symbol and the Theory of the Life-World: “The Transcendences of the Life-World and Their Overcoming by Signs and Symbols”

This essay presents a phenomenological analysis of the functioning of symbols as elements of the life-world with the purpose of demonstrating the interrelationship of individual and society. On the basis of Alfred Schutz's theory of the life-world, signs and symbols are viewed as mechanisms by means of which the individual can overcome the transcendences posed by time, space, the world of the Other, and multiple realities which confront him or her. Accordingly, the individual's life-world divides itself into the dimensions of time, space, the social world and various reality spheres which form the boundaries or transcendences that the I has to understand and integrate. Signs and symbols are described as appresentational modes which stand for experiences originating in the different spheres of the life-world within the world of everyday life, within which they can be communicated, thereby establishing intersubjectivity. Schutz's theory of the symbol explains how social entities – such as nations, states or religious groups – are symbolically integrated to become components of the individual's life-world. The following paper reconstructs Schutz's concept of the symbol as a crucial component of his theory of the life-world, which is seen as an outstanding phenomenological contribution to the theory of the sign and the symbol in general.     

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.     

Appropriating the Didjeridu and the Sweat Lodge: New Age Baddies and Indigenous Victims?

The article focuses upon the New Age and new age Pagan appropriation of the Aboriginal Australian didjeridu and the American Indian sweat lodge tradition. Against a background of colonialism, it addresses the issues that surround the dissemination of information concerning indigenous culture and knowledge among individuals involved in the New Age and new age Pagan movements via academia, Western fiction, and the Internet. Further, by looking at the representation of the 'Other' by the West, it explores the effects of such portrayal upon Western perceptions of indigeneity and upon indigenous people's perception of themselves. Issues, such as indigenous agency, inter- and intra-cultural appropriation, the lack of New Age and new age Pagan involvement in indigenous politics, and the arguments that surround the question who should teach indigenous knowledge and to whom, are also addressed.     

Ghazāli and the Ash'arites

It has been widely accepted that the thought of al‐Ghazāli was broadly in line with the Ash'arite approach to theology, which came to have a dominant role in Islamic thought for the last thousand years. Recently, though, many commentators have argued that this is a misconception, and that there are many instances where Ghazāli produces arguments and opinions which are not compatible with Ash'arism. It is argued here that these examples do not establish that the general line of Ghazāli's thought is not Ash'arite. The fact that on occasion he is prepared to use the language of his opponents does not invalidate the Ash'arite basis of his thought. It is quite possible to adhere to a philosophical view about how reality is and at the same time use the language of those who have a different view without committing oneself to that different form of expression. Although the revisionist approach to the interpretation of Ghazāli is interesting and often perceptive, it does not lead to any necessity to question his adherence to Ash'arite principles in general.     

Evolution‐revolution and the cosmos

The purpose of this paper is to sketch some remarks about the evolution of psychology within contemporary cognitive sciences and its consequences on the definition of the object of a (one) scientific psychology. Arguments are stated on empirical experience from interdisciplinary research and on experimental investigations in psycholinguistics and knowledge representation.     

Empathy and the Actor's Emotion’

Summary

Consensus ratings for beauty or attractiveness yielded comparatively low, though mostly positive, correlations with intelligence and educational achievement. Most of the correlations between beauty and intelligence and also between beauty and scholarship were in the neighborhood of +.20. Four groups of college students, two groups of girls and two groups of boys, served as S's. The consensus ratings for beauty were secured from 2 groups of judges, each group composed of 12 boys and 12 girls. These consensus ratings were correlated with ratings for intelligence and scholarship, as determined by intelligence test scores and by grades received in at least three semesters of college work. The ratings for beauty showed a high degree of variability. On the average, individual judgments deviated from the consensus ratings by about four steps. Deviations were greater for the middle group than for those taking a high or low position in the consensus ratings. The judges showed higher variability in rating their own sex than when rating the opposite sex.     

Traveling Through the Unthinkable and the Nameless: Discussion of Gómez and Kovalskys

In this response to the paper “Reencounter With History Through a Therapeutic Process” written by Elena Gómez and Juana Kovalskys, I comment in some aspects that are to be addressed while working with patients traumatized by social and political violence. I started by reflecting the inevitability of facing horror and death in the experience of remembering the foreclosed experience of trauma and the need and effects of working from the personal; how the personal wrecked history is interweaved with the ruptures of the big History, and how trauma is stablished not only from the violence of a single human over another, but by the catastrophic lose of the social bond. I conclude by commenting around the place of words in the field of the unthinkable and the nameless experiences.