Emergent persons

Recent psychological theorizing about the emergence of persons makes a number of ontological claims that are not always explicit. A critical consideration of such claims reveals both considerable convergence and some points of disagreement across different psychological theories of emergent personhood. What is clear is that all such theories resist the reduction of persons to biophysical or sociocultural properties, conditions, and processes. In various ways, they each call for a nonreductionistic recognition of the sociocultural constitution of important aspects of personhood, without denying the necessity of biophysical requirements of personhood. Because standard emergentist positions in physical science and the philosophy of physical science mostly ignore the sociocultural level of reality, psychological theorizing about the emergence of persons requires an alternative ontological framework. It is proposed that an ontology of levels of reality that includes the physical, chemical, biological, sociocultural, and personal/psychological is appropriate for understanding how persons are both substantively and relationally emergent within the biophysical, sociocultural world. With such an ontological framework in place, it is possible to understand human activity in the world as the primary vehicle for both the phylogenetic evolution and ontogenetic development of persons.     

Coordinating with others: Outlining a pragmatic, perspectival psychology of personhood

In contrast to individualistic, cognitive-biological, and reductive psychologies, a pragmatic psychology of personhood takes the worldly activity of persons as its core subject matter. The pragmatic, perspectival psychology of personhood outlined herein offers theoretical frameworks for understanding the development and evolution of persons through their embodied coordination with objects and others in a world that is simultaneously biophysical and sociocultural. In both phylogenesis and ontogenesis, it is their active participation within coordinated, multi-perspectival sequences of interactive practices that constitutes human beings as psychological selves and communal agents who constantly transform the world and themselves. The constitution, emergence, and transformation of persons are accompanied and enabled by a holistic neurophysiological functioning that interacts constantly with, and owes much to, our history of interactivity within the world, especially our social participation with others and their actions and perspectives. A viable pragmatic, perspectival psychology of personhood demands the close study of our coordinated interactivity within sociocultural practices central to the life of communities and the communal agents who populate them.     

The tradition of personalism and its relationship to contemporary indeterminate functionalism

Early twentieth century psychology was marked by a variety of perspectives that took seriously the centrality of personhood as the key marker of psychological properties and attributes. William Stern's critical personalism was one such position and its loss, along with related positions, to the scientism that has marked the last hundred years of psychology has meant the impoverishment of both the theoretical and empirical worlds of psychology. In this paper I wish to trace the demise of these positions by focusing on the gradual hegemony of functionalist theories of various kinds that have come to dominate psychological theorizing. This functionalism, quite loose from the various forms of functionalism debated in philosophical circles, is indeterminate in so far as it is neutral with respect to important properties of experience and its relationship to a reductionist form of science. Denying the fundamental sociality and alterity of human attributes however has become a crucial foundation of modern psychology, making possible its inherently neutral stance with respect to the nature of personhood. Stern would have disagreed and I contrast his stance with that of Kurt Lewin who shares a number of important features of Stern's life and position with respect to the importance of individuality and personhood.     

Freedom for Relationship: An Initial Exploration of the Theology of Zizioulas and the Psychoanalytic Insights of Winnicott in Dialogue

In exploring the theology of John D. Zizioulas in conversation with the psychoanalytic theory of Donald Winnicott, this paper highlights how the theological concerns of personhood, sin, faith, and redemption may correlate, without conflation, to healing in the psychoanalytic context. Using a particular chapter of Zizioulas’s book, Communion and Otherness; Further Studies in Personhood and the Church, this paper looks at Zizioulas’s notion of what constitutes personhood and discusses this in light of Winnicott’s understanding of development of the True Self and False Self. I underscore the emphasis placed by both theology and psychoanalysis on the need to experience both dependence and otherness in order to become a self, that we might heal from being a False Self (Winnicott) or ‘thing’ (Zizioulas) capable only of living in opposition and fragmentation and grow towards living in communion and authentic relationship. I conclude by contending that both disciplines, in this case, flow towards an elucidation of pathological narcissism and the need for the healing of this condition as addressed both from a theological as well as psychological perspective.     

Paradigms and Personhood: A Deepening of the Dilemmas in Ethics and Medical Ethics

There are many calls for a definitions personhood, but also many logical and Wittgensteinian reasons to think fulfilling this is unimportant or impossible. I argue that we can consider many contexts as language-games and consider the person as the key player in each. We can then examine the attributes, presuppositions and implications of personhood in those contexts. I use law and therapeutic psychology as two examples of such contexts or language-games. Each correlates with one of the classic “theories” of ethics-deontology and consequentialism. But each is a large enough cluster to consider them as paradigms in a sense related to Thomas Kuhn's notion in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Showing the presuppositions about and “takes” on personhood together with the connections involved in the paradigms deepens the dilemmas we already know to be present. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

?The person is a monad with windows?: sketch of a conceptual history of ‘person’ in Russia

The basic concepts ??person?? (Person), I/self (Ich) and ??subject?? (Subjekt) structuring the Russian discourse of personhood (Personalit?t) developed during the philosophical discussions of the 1820s?C1840s. The development occurred in the course of an intense reception of German Idealism and Romanticism. Characteristic of this process is that the modern meaning of personhood going back to the theological and natural-law interpretations of the person in Western Europe does not exist in the Russian cultural consciousness. Therefore the Russian concepts of personhood demonstrate the influence of the semantic innovations of Romanticism. Correspondingly, the semantic core of the Russian discourses on personhood is not the idea of an ??autonomous person?? but that of an ??unique individuality??. Here, personhood is not the indefeasible attribute of every man, but the mark of inimitable individuality. Accordingly, the basic distinction underlying the discourse on personhood in Russia is not the differentiation between ??person?? and ??thing?? as in the European tradition, but the distinction between ??individual?? and (anonymous) ??community??. Also, in the meaning of the concept of I/self the dominant differentiation is not that between I/self (Ich) and not-I/not-self (Nicht-Ich), but that between I and We. This discourse on personhood centring on the idea of individuality took form in Russia starting in the middle of the nineteenth century, in particular in aesthetics, psychology, and educational theory, as well as in the philosophy of history. The comparative intercultural analysis of the history of concepts pertaining to personhood in the German-Russian cultural transfer brings to light the dialectic of European modernity in which a degree of tension is visible between the idea of personal autonomy and individuality.     

On Persons and Immortality Symposium on Pedro Tabensky,Happiness: Personhood,Community, Purpose

Abstract

This paper considers Tabensky’s method of critical introspection, and in particular the conception of personhood that informs it. By interrogating the lives of pure hedonism, divinity and immortality from our already existing conception of personhood, Tabensky argues that such lives are incompatible with what it is to be a person, and desiring to live them is therefore irrational. Concentrating on the example of immortality, I argue that, while there are undoubtedly disadvantages associated with the immortal life, these are contingent rather than essential to the notion of being a person. In fact, we have very little idea of the boundaries of that concept. The paper concludes by looking at the consequences of Tabensky’s approach for issues surrounding moral vision and improvement, and new technologies of the person.     

Defining Death for Persons and Human Organisms

This paper discusses how alternative concepts of personhood affect the definition of death. I argue that parties in the debate over the definition of death have employed different concepts of personhood, and thus have been talking past each other by proposing definitions of death for different kinds of things. In particular, I show how critics of the consciousness-related, neurological formation of death have relied on concepts of personhood that would be rejected by proponents of that formulation. These critics rest on treating persons as qualitative specifications of human organisms (Bernat, Culver, and Gert) or as identical to human organisms (Capron, Seifert, and Shewmon). Since advocates of the consciousness-related, neurological formulation of death are not committed to either of these views of personhood, these critics commit the fallacy of attacking a straw man. I then clarify the substantive concept of personhood (Boethius, Strawson, and Wiggins) that may be invoked in the consciousness-related, neurological formulation of death, and argue that, on this view and contra Bernat, Culver, and Gert, persons have always been the kind of thing that can literally die. I conclude by suggesting that the discussion of defining death needs to focus on which approach to personhood makes the most sense metaphysically and morally.     

Transplanting brains?

Brain transplant thought experiments figure prominently in the debate on personal identity. Such hypotheticals are usually taken to provide support for psychological continuity theories. This standard interpretation has recently been challenged by Marya Schechtman. Simon Beck argues that Schechtman's critique rests upon ‘two costly mistakes’—claiming that (1) when evaluating these cases, philosophers mistakenly try to figure out the intuitions that they think people inhabiting such a possible world ought to have, instead of pondering their own intuitions. Beck further asserts that (2) brain transplant thought experiments cannot confirm any given theory of personal identity but rather they can only rule out theories. I argue on grounds of the social ontology of personhood that Beck has things back to front. Since our concept of personhood is shaped and informed by contingent de facto norms and structures of the natural world, and as such is heavily normatively laden, the conceptual genesis of personhood must be taken into account. This calls for constructing thought experiments as realistically as possible in order to trigger reliable intuitions. Furthermore, drawing on recent evidence from cognitive science, an empirically informed look at brain transplant thought experiments considering ‘Embodied Cognition’ reveals that Beck's arguments not only fall short for supporting psychological continuity theories, but also suggests an advantage of Schechtman's ‘Person Life View’.     

ISOLATING THE INDIVIDUAL: THEOLOGY,THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION,AND THE PROBLEM OF ABSTRACT INDIVIDUALISM

Debates about the theological implications of recent research in the cognitive and evolutionary study of religion have tended to focus on the question of theism. The question of whether there is any disagreement about the conceptualization of the individual human being has been largely overlooked. In this article, I argue that evolutionary and cognitive accounts of religion typically depend upon a view of cognition that conceptually isolates the mind from its particular social and physical environmental contexts. By embracing this view of the mind, these accounts also unwittingly embrace an abstract individualist view of individual personhood that Christian theologians have explicitly battled against. Taken as a whole, the field leaves sufficient room for supplementary theories that are compatible with theological accounts of the relational individual, but in practice, no effort has been made to engage, or even to accommodate, any other view of individual personhood.     

Reimagining gender in psychology: What can critical psychology offer?

In this article, I argue that gender is a complex sociocultural construct, yet how gender is accounted for in psychological research is limited. Specifically, psychologists conflate sex with gender, rely on quantifying gender differences and, by implication, conceptualise gender as merely a participant characteristic. To illustrate, I apply this viewpoint to the topic of gender differences in tobacco use/cessation using on a feminist quality appraisal tool. I show how these three issues promote the narrow study of sex/gender differences, despite problems surrounding this inquiry, and reduce insights into the intersection of gender and behaviour. To offer a way forward for psychology, I describe how a critical psychology perspective attends to the complexities of gender and its influence on behaviour. I showcase diverse ways of attending to gender as a sociocultural construct, inviting psychologists to engage with, and reflect on, their gender analyses.     

Surviving Personal Identity Theory: Recovering Interpretability

Marya Schechtman's narrative self‐constitution view relies on an account of reality as self‐evident that eclipses the interpretive labor required to fix the content of intelligibility. As a result, her view illegitimately limits what counts as identity‐conferring narrative and problematically excludes many with psychiatric disabilities from the category of full personhood. Plantikow cautions personal identity theorists against this move and offers an alternative approach to engaging in and conceptualizing narrative construction.     

Menkiti’s normative communitarian conception of personhood as gendered,ableist and anti-queer

This paper aims to indicate the sense in which Menkiti’s normative conception of personhood can be considered as gendered, ableist and anti-queer. I argue that Menkiti’s given account of personhood marginalises at least one of the categories of gender, people with disabilities and queer people. Therefore, I conclude that it should be rejected as a plausible theory of personhood insofar as it can be argued that inclusive theories of personhood are preferable, namely theories of persons that consider gender, people with disabilities, and queer people.     

DISABILITY,IMPAIRMENT, AND SOME MEDIEVAL ACCOUNTS OF THE INCARNATION: SUGGESTIONS FOR A THEOLOGY OF PERSONHOOD

Drawing on insights from the medieval theologians Duns Scotus and Hervaeus Natalis, I argue that medieval views of the incarnation require that there is a sense in which the divine person depends on his human nature for his human personhood, and thus that the paradigmatic pattern of human personhood is in some way dependent existence. I relate this to a modern distinction between impairment and disability to show that impairment—understood as dependence—is normative for human personhood. I try to show how medieval theories of the resurrection of the body can provide, within this context, plausible accounts of what it might be for human persons to be redeemed.     

Cultural difference,inside and out

Cultural psychologists study the extent to which human psychological experience is shaped by our participation in sociocultural practices, meanings, and products. Cultural psychologists document cultural differences both inside the head (in the form of emotions, cognitions, or motivations) and outside the head (in the form of public behaviors, cultural products, or institutions). Because cultural psychologists argue that culture and psyche “make each other up,” it is appropriate to study cultural difference at many loci—not just the traditional psychological areas in which many of us were trained. In this article, I describe cultural psychological evidence based on its social visibility and tangible nature. One category is collected on private, intangible, inside‐the‐head activities such as emotions, values, or motives. Another category, social interactions and behavioral performances, is intangible, public, and outside the head and includes how people talk to each other and how they walk, drive, or dress. A third category contains cultural products, which are tangible, public, and outside the head; it includes texts, websites, advertising, art, and architecture. These varying loci of cultural psychology allow us to appropriately document cultural differences and also allow us to study how humans are shaped by, and participate in recreating, their cultural contexts.     

Why go the extra mile? A longitudinal study on sojourn goals and their impact on sojourners' adaptation

Although international student mobility has become a ubiquitous phenomenon in many parts of the world, the goals that student sojourners pursue when moving abroad have received little systematic attention in psychological research. Likewise, their effects on psychological outcomes such as sojourners' psychological and sociocultural adaptation abroad have not yet been examined. Hence, the purpose of the present research was twofold: First, we established the parsimonious Sojourn Goals Scale and confirmed its psychometric quality and construct validity. Second, we used a longitudinal sample of student sojourners to investigate the role of sojourn goals for sojourners' sociocultural (i.e., sojourners' social relationships) and psychological (i.e., sojourn satisfaction) adaptation abroad at 3 months into the sojourn. Regression analyses revealed substantial effects of sojourn goals on measures of sociocultural adaptation. Response surface analyses served to examine the interplay of sojourn goals and respective sojourn experiences on sojourn satisfaction. We discuss implications for both psychological and applied research and identify future research needs.     

Long‐term immigrant adaptation: Eight‐year follow‐up study among immigrants from Russia and Estonia living in Finland

This study was a longitudinal investigation of the three different dimensions of long‐term immigrant adaptation (i.e., psychological, sociocultural, and socioeconomic adaptation) and the relationships between them in an 8‐year follow‐up with panel data. The 282 respondents were immigrants in Finland, born between 1961 and 1976, coming from the former Soviet Union. The results suggest that the adaptation of these immigrants has developed favourably. In 8 years, the respondents had improved their Finnish language skills and their position in the labour market. No differences were observed in their levels of psychological well‐being between the two assessments. Of the three adaptation dimensions assessed, sociocultural adaptation, measured as proficiency in understanding, speaking, reading, and writing Finnish, turned out to be the most significant predictor of the two other long‐term outcomes of immigrant adaptation (i.e., socioeconomic and psychological). In particular, the better the initial command of the Finnish language, the better were their socioeconomic and psychological adaptation outcomes after 8 years of residence. These results demonstrate the importance of parallel and longitudinal assessments of the different outcomes of immigrant adaptation in order to address which particular dimensions of adaptation are most critical in the beginning of acculturation in terms of determining positive development and long‐term immigrant adaptation.     

What Torture Survivors Teach Assessors About Being More Fully Human

This article illustrates the complex sociocultural components in the forensic psychological assessment of a young Ethiopian woman's claim for political asylum due to a well-founded fear of persecution and for relief under the Convention Against Torture. It draws attention to the subtle social and cultural influences in the practice of forensic psychological assessment with an emphasis of reflective practice, which is contextualized in the interpersonal theory of Sullivan. In the interpersonal approach, the essential work of the assessor is to pay careful attention to the microinteractions between the client and the assessor as reflections of the interpersonal (meaning social and cultural) processes, eschewing the illusion of objectivity.

In this case study, I illustrate the particular cultural dilemmas for client and assessor in conducting a forensic assessment of psychological trauma, including cross-cultural, gender, and legal difficulties in arriving at an informed, objective, and compassionate assessment of an individual seeking asylum after an especially brutal experience of torture. I argue that collaborative therapeutic assessment methods adapted for forensic practice offer an approach to assessment of psychological trauma that provides more accurate and compassionate assessment than so-called neutral standard forensic assessment practice.     

Reconsidering a transplant: A response to Wagner

Nils-Frederic Wagner takes issue with my argument that influential critics of “transplant” thought experiments make two cardinal mistakes. He responds that the mistakes I identify are not mistakes at all. The mistakes are rather on my part, in that I have not taken into account the conceptual genesis of personhood, that my view of thought experiments is idiosyncratic and possibly self-defeating, and in that I have ignored important empirical evidence about the relationship between brains and minds. I argue that my case still stands and that transplant thought experiments can do damage to rivals of a psychological continuity theory of personal identity like Marya Schechtman’s Person Life View.     

The Holy Trinity: Between Mystery and Analysis

Two significant strands of trinitarian theology, the analytic and the apophatic, emphasize considerations of logical consistency and divine incomprehensibility respectively. This article seeks to mediate between these two seemingly opposed lines of thought by arguing for a fuller awareness of the particular mystery associated with the trinitarian notion of ‘person’. By specifying more closely this mystery of divine personhood, I qualify an overzealous apophaticism and also open up some scope for analytic approaches. I then highlight an implication of the mystery of divine personhood that any proposition linking together person‐language and nature‐language (e.g. ‘the Son is God’) necessarily contains its own mystery and cannot be understood in analytic terms.