Politicizing Brandom's Pragmatism: Normativity and the Agonal Character of Social Practice

This paper provides an agonistic interpretation of Robert Brandom's social‐pragmatic account of normativity. I argue that social practice, on this approach, should be seen not just as cooperative, but also as contestatory. This aspect, which has so far remained implicit, helps to illuminate Brandom's claim that normative statuses are ‘instituted’ by social practices: normative statuses are brought into play in mutual engagement, and are only in play from an engaged social perspective among others. Moreover, in contrast to a positivist or conventionalist understanding of Brandom's work, it shows that the possibility of a critical stance toward existing practices is not only compatible with, but already implicit in this form of pragmatism. This can be made explicit with the notion of farcical practices: practices that are treated merely as if they institute genuine commitments and entitlements. Interpreting a practice as farcical is taking a critical stance toward it, and this possibility is inherent in Brandom's theoretical framework. This opens the way for a fruitful appropriation of Brandom's pragmatism for social and political philosophy.     

Managing boundaries under pressure: A qualitative study of therapists’ experiences of sexual attraction in therapy

Aim: To identify therapists’ views on sexual boundaries and the strategies they employ to manage them in therapeutic practice. Method: In‐depth qualitative interviews were conducted with a sample of 13 accredited, experienced practitioners of psychotherapy or counselling. A grounded theory approach, informed by principles from Free Association Narrative methodology, was employed, in which team members used debriefing sessions for extending depth of understanding of the interviews. Findings: There is consensus about boundaries at the extremes, but variability about fantasy, flirtation and touch. A core process was generated from accounts of successful management of sexual attraction. We identified four problematic ways of reacting to boundary pressure, each with potential to harm clients and therapy. Discussion: A participant‐observer stance was conceptualised as essential for managing threats to boundaries, consistent with the empathic stance. Minor boundary crossings were viewed by interviewees as both potential precursors of more serious transgressions, and as opportunities for understanding the client's difficulties. Implications for practice: These span training, accrediting organisations, supervision and therapy practice.     

Wittgenstein,Korsgaard and the Publicity of Reasons

In The Sources of Normativity (Korsgaard, Christine. The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), Christine Korsgaard tried to argue against what she called the ‘privacy’ of reasons, appealing to Wittgenstein's argument against the possibility of a private language. In recent work she continues to endorse Wittgenstein's perspective on the normativity of meaning, although she now emphasizes that her own argument was only meant to be analogous to the private language argument. The purpose of the present paper is to show that the Wittgensteinian perspective is not only not useful in support of Korsgaard's general project, but that it is positively inimical to it, in two ways. First, Wittgenstein opposes views on which principled or rule-following behavior requires that one be guided by anything like a mental representation of a rule or principle. But for Korsgaard, human action essentially requires this. Second, Wittgenstein systematically attempts to de-emphasize the importance of the first-personal perspective, and to emphasize the social functions even of concepts that might seem deployed primarily from that perspective: for example, concepts of sensations and intentions. This is the reverse of Korsgaard's emphasis. The paper also argues, however, that the private language argument does have some implications for a theory of rationality and reasons.     

Language and the use of language

Antony Flew's ‘A Strong Programme for the Sociology of Belief (Inquiry 25 {1982], 365–78) critically assesses the strong programme in the sociology of knowledge defended in David Bloor's Knowledge and Social Imagery. I argue that Flew's rejection of the epistemological relativism evident in Bloor's work begs the question against the relativist and ignores Bloor's focus on the social relativity of mathematical knowledge. Bloor attempts to establish such relativity via a sociological analysis of Frege's theory of number. But this analysis only succeeds if the rejection of an explanatory theory entails that there are reasonable grounds for the rejection of the set of propositions which that theory was intended to explain. I argue against such an entailment, and thus against Bloor's attempt to relativize mathematical knowledge.     

Narrative Discourse and Theory of Mind Development

The authors examined experimentally whether exposure to social discourse about concepts related to mental states could promote changes in children's theory of mind understanding. In 2 studies, 3- to 4-year-old children were assigned to either a training or a no training control condition. All children were administered several theory of mind measures at pretest and 2 posttests. Training was not effective in improving performance in Study 1 (n = 37); but in Study 2 (n = 54), modifications of the training procedure led to significant improvements on measures of false belief and deception from pretest to 1st posttest. The findings support the influence of social discourse on children's theory of mind development.     

A Pedagogy of Dealienation: A Case Study in the Application of Peter Berger's The Sacred Canopy

Abstract. This paper explores the use of Peter Berger's theory of religion and its features of alienation and dealienation to lead students to the critical awareness of the role that human beings play in the construction of social worlds, including most especially our religious worlds. After summarizing Berger's theory of the alienating and potentially dealienating capacity of religion, the paper describes how the author used the study of certain biblical texts, the Wisdom of Solomon and the pericope of the controversy over clean and unclean foods, as presented in both Matthew and Mark, to explore both the alienating and dealienating aspects of religion as presented in these selected biblical texts. The paper also describes how the author encouraged students to embrace as the most responsible stance a dealienating stance toward religion, especially one's own.     

Group typicality,group loyalty and cognitive development

Over the course of childhood, children's thinking about social groups changes in a variety of ways. Developmental Subjective Group Dynamics (DSGD) theory emphasizes children's understanding of the importance of conforming to group norms. Abrams et al.'s study, which uses DSGD theory as a framework, demonstrates the social cognitive skills underlying young elementary school children's thinking about group norms. Future research on children's thinking about groups and group norms should explore additional elements of this topic, including aspects of typicality beyond loyalty.     

Clarifying value judgment: Principles of content and procedure

This contribution to the debate over Marx's theory of value gives an account of his concept of ‘abstract labour’. Contrary to Stanley Moore {Inquiry, Vol. 14 [1971]), Marx never abandons his early critique of the Hegelian ‘Concept'; for he gives a material basis to the conception of social labour as concretely universal. If, in analysing the commodity form of the product of labour, Marx characterizes the labour that forms the substance of value as ‘abstractly universal labour’, the priority of the abstract over the concrete at this point is not due to the influence of Hegel's Logic on Marx's work, but reflects the material process of abstraction occurring in commodity exchange. We show that Marx takes up a critical stance to this reality.     

Phenomenology as a Form of Empathy

This paper proposes that adopting a “phenomenological stance” enables a distinctive kind of empathy, which is required in order to understand forms of experience that occur in psychiatric illness and elsewhere. For the most part, we interpret other people's experiences against the backdrop of a shared world. Hence our attempts to appreciate interpersonal differences do not call into question a deeper level of commonality. A phenomenological stance involves suspending our habitual acceptance of that world. It thus allows us to contemplate the possibility of structurally different ways of “finding oneself in the world”. Such a stance, I suggest, can be incorporated into an empathetic appreciation of others' experiences, amounting to what we might call “radical empathy”.     

Gatekeepers and the “Chomskian revolution”

The widely believed folk history of the confrontation between an established neo-Bloomfieldian generation and the revolutionary advances of transformational grammarians bears little relation to the open access to publication that Noam Chomsky encountered in the 1950s. Although a rhetoric of revolutionary conflict appeared, it cannot be attributed to attempts by the established generation to suppress new ideas, as in Thomas Kuhn's morphology of scientific revolutions. The central neo-Bloomfieldian gatekeeper, Bernard Bloch, fostered the diffusion of Chomsky's ideas and promoted the careers of Chomsky and Robert Lees. Other prominent neo-Bloomfieldians, regarding Chomsky as continuing the work of his teacher Zellig Harris, were sympathetic to his ideas and ready to concede his advances in syntactic theory. Nonetheless, Chomsky and his followers adopted an aggressive stance, denying the value of preceding work in structuralist linguistics. Although the case is anomalous for Kuhn's theory, it fits a sociological theory of scientific revolutions.     

Social Control of Health Behaviors in Marriage1

Married couples (N= 69) reported on their use of social control strategies in attempting to modify each other's health behaviors, as well as their affective and behavioral responses to experiencing health‐related social control. Experiencing more negative social control was associated with the tendency to engage in potentially health‐compromising behaviors, whereas experiencing positive social control was associated with attempts to engage in the desired behavior. Most associations between experiencing social control and the target's behavioral responses could be accounted for, at least partially, by the target's affective responses to the social control attempts. These results suggest that current conceptualizations of the health‐relevance of social control are in need of revision. Implications of these results for social control measurement and theory are discussed.     

Love as a Problem of Knowledge in Kierkegaard's Either/Or and Plato's Symposium

At the end of the essay “Silhouettes” in Either/Or, Kierkegaard writes, “only the person who has been bitten by snakes knows what one who has been bitten by snakes must suffer.” I interpret this as an allusion to Alcibiades' speech in Plato's Symposium. Kierkegaard invites the reader to compare Socrates with Don Giovanni, and Alcibiades with the seducer's women. Socrates' philosophical method, in this light, is a deceptive seduction: just as Don Giovanni's seduction leads his conquests to unhappy love—what Kierkegaard terms “reflective sorrow”—so the elenctic method leads Socrates' interlocutors to aporia, not to knowledge. I offer a critique of Socrates' ironic stance as a philosopher, which stance is reflected in the theory of love he presents in the Symposium, and suggest that philosophy should be modeled on the romantic love of persons—a love that can be reciprocated—not the love of an impersonal Form, a one-sided love.     

Subjectivity,Not Personality: Combining Discourse Analysis and Psychoanalysis

Mainstream psychology can often be criticized for turning the liberal concerns of psychologists into conservative practices focusing on the individual. In the United Kingdom, the discursive turn in social psychology has been marked by an audacious body of work critical of cognitive attempts to theorize the social. A particular psycho‐discursive strand has emerged, which combines discourse analysis and psychoanalytic theory in an attempt to change both the subject of, and the subjectivity (re)produced by, mainstream psychology. This paper reviews three different psycho‐discursive approaches: (i) Hollway and Jefferson's Free Association Narrative Interview method; (ii) Billig's Psychoanalytic Discursive Psychology; (iii) Parker's Lacanian excursions into social psychology. In these psycho‐discursive approaches, ‘subjectivity’ replaces personality as the key theoretical construct where the social forms part of who we are and these approaches seem to offer social psychologists the theoretical tools to start to appreciate how individual personality and social context are intimately connected.     

I. Feuer on guilt and logic

Recent work in the theory of action by analytical philosophers has focused on explaining actions by citing the agent's motivating reason(s). But this ignores a pattern of explanation typical in the social sciences, i.e. situating the agent in a reference group whose members typically manifest that behavior. In some cases the behavior of such groups can itself be shown to be the product of social forces. Two extended examples of this explanatory pattern are studied. In each case the motivating reasons of the agents concerned can scarcely be understood apart from reference to the groups of which the agents are members and the social forces which work on those groups. However, attention to the agent's own reasons for action remains important, in part because of action theory's critical potential to help liberate people from arbitrary, hypostasized social forces.     

Lacan and Social Psychology

Jacques Lacan kept silent on the topic of social psychology, never referring to it, not even to criticize it. But this has not impeded Lacanian theory from inspiring diverse critical approaches to social psychology. After reviewing these approaches, the article examines Lacan's different explicit positions with respect to psychology, the social and what he called psychology of the social field. This allows us to infer the implicit manner in which Lacan would establish his silent relationship with social psychology. On the basis of this relationship, we outline an original proposal for a Lacanian critical approach to social psychology that might lead to an alternative transindividual metapsychology. Our proposal precisely differs from others in that it attempts to consider and elucidate Lacan's own attitude regarding social psychology.     

Teaching Elder: Erik H. Erickson

A renowned child psychoanalyst, Erik H. Erikson (1902–1994) is perhaps best known for his work on developmental theory (Childhood and Society, 1950) and his studies of the lives of Martin Luther (Young Man Luther, 1958) and Gandhi (Gandhi's Truth, 1969). Twice he found himself intensely engaged in the role of teacher – once as a young artist who had been called by a friend to help in the progressive school formed for the children of Sigmund and Anna Freud's patients in Vienna (1927–1932), and years later (1960–1970) as a tenured professor at Harvard. This essay describes Erickson's teaching experience in both settings and suggests some of the reasons he was honored by Harvard in 1980 as a “humane teacher.” Implications from Erikson's educational practice are drawn that demonstrate how Erikson moved beyond the rote memorization and authoritarian educational practice he experienced as a youth. The essay suggests Erikson's teaching stance at Harvard fits the author's theological tradition's use of the term “teaching elder.”     

Counseling in a Complex World: Advancing Relational Well-Being

In a globalized world, people's attempts at living a good life interfere with one another in complex ways. In particular, tension and conflict are inevitable. This confronts counselors/therapists with the ethical question of how to take into account (global) interdependence and relational complexity. In this article, I explore what moral visions—assumptions of what a person is and should be—help counselors shift their focus from individual to relational well-being. First, I examine the moral vision of narrative therapy, as an alternative to more traditional, individualistic moral visions. Then, I construct a moral vision of relational being, based on the relational being perspective of Kenneth Gergen. This vision represents an ethical stance that may, using work by philosopher Judith Butler, be understood as an ethic of recognition and nonviolence. Finally, implications of the moral vision of relational being for counseling/therapeutic practice are explored.     

To Have or To Be? A Comparison of Materialism‐Based Theories and Self‐Determination Theory as Explanatory Frameworks of Prejudice

ABSTRACT The present study aimed to delineate the psychological structure of materialism and intrinsic and extrinsic value pursuit. Moreover, we compared models based on self‐determination theory (SDT), Fromm's marketing character, and Inglehart's theory of social change to account for racial prejudice. In a sample of undergraduate students (n=131) and adults (n=176) it was revealed that the extrinsic value pursuit Financial Success/Materialism could be distinguished from the extrinsic value scales Physical Appeal and Social Recognition, and Community Concern could be distinguished from the intrinsic value pursuit scales Self‐acceptance and Affiliation. Moreover, Financial Success/Materialism and Community Concern were consistently and significantly related to prejudice, whereas the other SDT facet scales yielded weaker relationships with prejudice. Structural models based on SDT and Inglehart were not corroborated, but instead the present data supported a mediation model based on Fromm's work in which the effect of Community Concern was mediated by Financial Success/Materialism. Broader implications for SDT are critically assessed.     

“THE PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF EXPERTS”: IN DEFENSE OF THE “ELITES” OF THE SCIENCE‐AND‐RELIGION DEBATE

This article takes a critical stance on John H. Evans's 2018 book, Morals Not Knowledge: Recasting the Contemporary U.S. Conflict between Religion and Science. Highlighting the significance of the book for the science‐and‐religion debate, particularly the book's emphasis on moral questions over knowledge claims revealed in social‐scientific studies of the American public, I also suggest that the distinction between the “elites” of the academic science‐and‐religion field and the religious “public” is insufficiently drawn. I argue that various nuances should be taken into account concerning the portrayal of “elites,” nuances which potentially change the way that “conflict” between science and religion is envisaged, as well as the function of the field. Similarly, I examine the ways in which the book construes science and religion as distinct knowledge systems, and I suggest that, from a theological perspective—relevant for much academic activity in science and religion—there is value in seeing science and religion in terms of a single knowledge system. This perspective may not address the public's interest in moral questions directly—important as they are—but nevertheless it fulfils the academic function of advancing the frontiers of human knowledge and self‐understanding.     

The Dark Side of Helping: Does Returning the Favor from Coworkers Hurt Employee Work Engagement?

This study investigated the potential "dark side" of helping behavior at work -- operationalized as provision of social support to coworkers. Drawing from the emotional contagion literature and Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, we proposed and tested a moderated mediational model to examine the mechanisms by which social support received from one's coworkers contribute to the support recipient's work engagement. Employing data from a 12-week-long weekly diary among 142 acute care nurses, we did not find support for the proposed negative relationship between providing social support to coworkers and support providers' work engagement, nor for the overall mediational effect of the relationship between received coworker support and work engagement through support provision. However, we found that some work contextual factors (i.e., stable social support climates from coworkers and supervisors) moderated the weekly processes through which nurses' repaying social support received from coworkers predicts their subsequent work engagement. Specifically, providing support to coworkers had stronger beneficial effects on providers' engagement when coworker/supervisor support climates were relatively low; support received from coworkers had stronger indirect beneficial effects on nurses' engagement when coworker/supervisor support climates were relatively low. Our study findings highlight the complexity of the relationship between social support dynamics and work engagement, and that emotional contagion and COR theory may be insufficient, on their own, to explain social support dynamics between coworkers. We also discuss implications of the findings for managerial practices related to support dynamics at work.