Paths to Late Midlife Well-Being for Women and Men: The Importance of Identity Development and Social Role Quality

Theories of adult development suggest that personality development and social role involvements are sources of adult well-being for both men and women. However, previous research on this topic has focused mainly on (a) women, and (b) early stages of adulthood. We tested an alternative model for predicting late-midlife adults’ well-being, with role quality, number of roles, and healthy adaptation to late midlife (reflected in lower concern about aging) as mediators of the relationship between young adult identity development and well-being in late midlife. Results indicated that the model fit women’s experience very well, and men’s experience somewhat. Follow-up analyses indicated that the model fit men’s experience with respect to family role quality, but that young adult identity played a lesser role in men’s well-being in later midlife, and that problems in the late-midlife work role were reflected in concerns about aging for men, but not for women.     

The Horizon Model Continued: Incorporating the Somatic Mysticism of Pre-history,and Some Further Theoretical Issues

The paper continues the model I began in a previous issue of Sophia. It is argued that the predominance of purely ascending or ‘top down’ forms of spirituality which stemmed largely from the axial period and have been carried forward into modern, transpersonal theories of evolutionary spirituality is a mistake and that there exists a lost or largely ignored form of spirituality—which I name somatic—which was the predominant domain of early Neolithic and Palaeolithic experience. Aspects of what I call somatic mystical experiences have certainly been acknowledged at times to a limited degree, though they have rarely been fully explored, and have usually been considered as basic to other kinds of mystical experience, rather than fully developed forms in their own right. This article offers a fuller exploration and places such states more accurately within a detailed developmental framework than has previously been the case. Other issues relating to the horizon model across the two papers are also expanded.     

Nibbanic (or Pure) Consciousness and Beyond

Pike’s phenomenology of mystical experiences articulates sharply where theological content may enter the structure of Christian mystics’ experiences (as characterized in their own words). Here we look to Buddhist (and other) accounts of “pure” or “nibbanic” consciousness attained in experiences of deep meditation. A contemporary “modal” model of inner awareness is considered whereby a form of pure consciousness underlies and embraces further content in various forms of consciousness, including mystical experiences in different traditions and experiences of “full union” (with God).     

Winch and Wittgenstein on moral harm and absolute safety

This paper examines Wittgenstein’s conception of absolute safety in the light of two potential problems exposed by Winch. These are that, firstly: even if someone’s life has been virtuous so far, the contingency of its remaining so until death vitiates the claim that the virtuous person cannot be harmed; and secondly: when voiced from a first-person standpoint, the claim to be absolutely safe due to one’s virtuousness appears hubristic and self-undermining. I argue that Wittgenstein’s mystical conception of safety, unlike some others, requires no claim about one’s own virtue and hence can be construed as avoiding these problems.     

Vague Objects Without Ontically Indeterminate Identity

The supporter of vague objects has been long challenged by the following ‘Argument from Identity’: 1) if there are vague objects, then there is ontically indeterminate identity; 2) there is no ontically indeterminate identity; therefore, 3) there are no vague objects. Some supporters of vague objects have argued that 1) is false. Noonan (Analysis 68: 174–176, 2008) grants that 1) does not hold in general, but claims that ontically indeterminate identity is indeed implied by the assumption that there are vague objects of a certain special kind (i.e. vague objects*). One can therefore formulate a ‘New Argument from Identity’: 1′) if there are vague objects*, then there is ontically indeterminate identity; 2) there is no ontically indeterminate identity; therefore, 3′) there are no vague objects*. Noonan’s strategy is to argue that premiss 1′) is inescapable, and, as a consequence, that Evans’s alleged defence of 2) is a real challenge for any supporter of vague objects. I object that a supporter of vague objects who grants the validity of Evans’s argument allegedly in favour of 2) should reject premiss 1′). The threat of the New Argument from Identity is thus avoided.     

Seeing is believing? How reinterpreting perception as dynamic engagement alters the justificatory force of religious experience

William Alston’s Theory of Appearing has attracted considerable attention in recent years, both for its elegant interpretation of direct realism in light of the presentational character of perceptual experience and for its central role in his defense of the justificatory force of Christian mystical experiences. There are different ways to account for presentational character, however, and in this article we argue that a superior interpretation of direct realism can be given by a theory of perception as dynamic engagement. The conditions for dynamic engagement are such that there can be no absolute discontinuity between individual perceptual experiences and more public forms of inquiry, and this requirement has radical consequences for the prima facie justificatory force of religious experience.     

Forget assimilation: introducing subjectivity to German–Jewish history

Between the Enlightenment and the Holocaust, a wide range of German-speaking Jewish subjects shared certain assumptions about a problematic associated with being Jewish and living in a non-Jewish German society (and the concomitant process of relative “assimilation”). The categories of identity and culture that undergirded this problematic became part of a shared lexicon of a German-Jewish “identity crisis”—a lexicon that was handed down to the historiography of German Jews that would develop after the community’s destruction. The author of this contribution challenges the validity of some of these categorical assumptions by setting them against the varied background of German-Jewish experience in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, offering a model of subjectivity (rather than identity) that might allow the historiography to break out of the cyclical repetition in which it currently finds itself. By examining specific exemplars, including Gershom Scholem, Edith Stein, Martin Buber, and others, the author models a reading strategy that would be appropriate for German-Jewish subjectivity.     

Memory and identity

Among the many topics covered in Sven Bernecker’s impressive study of memory is the relation between memory and personal identity. Bernecker uses his grammatical taxonomy of memory and causal account to defend the claim that memory does not logically presuppose personal identity and hence that circularity objections to memory-based accounts of personal identity are misplaced. In my comment I investigate these claims, suggesting that the relation between personal identity and memory is more complicated than Bernecker’s analysis suggests. In particular, I argue (1) that while he shows that some memories do not presuppose personal identity he fails to show that those that are appealed to in memory-based accounts of personal identity do not, and (2) that the features of his view that allow him to define memory without reference to personal identity also obscure important features of memory that must be part of a complete account.     

Special People? An Exploratory Study into Re-entering Missionaries’ Identity and Resilience

Home country re-entry from cross-cultural missionary work abroad may be associated with psychological distress. Re-entrants experience multiple losses including loss of identity which may be associated with personal/relational identity gaps and depersonalization/dehumanization. However, research suggests that some re-entrants are resilient with good mental health, while others are fragile with poor mental health. The aims of this paper are to explore the nature and frequency of re-entering missionaries’ identity gaps and their depersonalization/dehumanization in resilient and fragile re-entrants. Fifteen re-entering adult Australian cross-cultural missionary workers from four interdenominational Australian mission organizations completed semi-structured interviews. Results were analysed using modified Consensual Qualitative Research methods. Links were established between personal/relational identity gaps, depersonalization/dehumanization and resilience on re-entry. Implications for re-entrants’ care are discussed with suggestions for further research.     

Merton’s “True Self”: A Resource for Survivors of Sexual Abuse by Priests

The toxic impact of clergy sexual abuse in childhood and adolescence can be complex and enduring. For some, a particularly painful consequence is noteworthy change in one’s personal identity or sense of self. Survivors frequently experience unrelenting grief over the loss of the “self” that was experienced as “real” prior to the onset of abuse. Memories of days and times when this self was “alive” are often accompanied by strong feelings of affection and joy. Despair over the loss of this identity contrasts sharply with the indifference or hostility felt for the self with which they have been burdened as a consequence of sexual abuse by clergy in childhood. Many struggle with the unbearable conviction that they are fated to live “in the skin” of an identity that is not an authentic expression of the person they were meant to be. This article suggests that the writings of Thomas Merton (1915–1968) may offer a hopeful resource for survivors of clergy sexual abuse and for those working in support of survivors’ recovery. Merton has been described as “the most influential Catholic author of the twentieth century” ). His writings touch the “deeper woundedness of spirit and psyche” (Kilcourse, Cross Curr, 49:87–96, 1999, p. 90) and his elegant examination of the true self lies “at the center of his teaching on the Christian life” (Conn, Pastor Psychol, 46:323–332, 1998, p. 327). For Merton, the true self is indestructible and, because it is “rooted in God” (Merton, The inner experience: Notes on contemplation, Harper Collins, New York, 2003, p. 2), always open to discovery, growth, and transformation. This framework may be especially useful for individuals whose personal identity, as a consequence of sexual abuse in childhood by clergy, is experienced as forever poisoned and beyond redemption.     

The effects of mental illness on families within faith communities

Associations between mysticism and madness have been made since earliest recorded history, and the striking resemblance between self-reports of both mystical and psychotic experience suggests that similar psychological processes may be involved in their occurrence. By exploring the similarities, and proposing a common element to mystical and psychotic experience (referred to here as the experience of “oneness”), this paper aims to place mysticism and madness onto the same experiential continuum. However, in contrast to much of the previous literature, the intention is not to pathologize mystical experience, but rather to normalize psychotic experience. The paper argues not only that the experience of oneness is entirely genuine and available to all humans, but also that it has an important psychological (and evolutionary) function. Using cognitive terminology, it then attempts to explain the processes determining whether an individual enjoys a fulfilling mystical experience, or suffers a debilitating psychotic breakdown (i.e., how “oneness” is experienced). Finally, this paper turns to look at some of the important implications such an approach might have for clinical practice and for the mental health of people in general.     

Changing the subject: on the subject of subjectivity

In this paper I shall attempt to argue for the simple view of personal identity. I shall first argue that we often do have warrant for our beliefs that we exist as continuing subjects of experience, and that these beliefs are justified independently of any reductionist analysis of what it means to be a person. This has two important implications that are relevant to the ongoing debate concerning the number of persons that are in existence throughout any duration in time: (1) the lack of logically or metaphysically necessary and sufficient conditions for distinguishing one person from another should imply neither that there is only one person nor that personhood is not individuative; and (2) the lack of such universally applicable identity criteria should not imply that the term ‘person’ is a folk term with no real application. In other words, lack of reductionist analysis does not entail lack of existence.     

Gupta’s gambit

After summarizing the essential details of Anil Gupta’s account of perceptual justification in his book Empiricism and Experience, I argue for three claims: (1) Gupta’s proposal is closer to rationalism than advertised; (2) there is a major lacuna in Gupta’s account of how convergence in light of experience yields absolute entitlements to form beliefs; and (3) Gupta has not adequately explained how ordinary courses of experience can lead to convergence on a commonsense view of the world.     

Against qualia theory

Representational theorists identify experiences’ phenomenal properties with their representational properties. Qualia theorists reject this identity, insisting that experiences’ phenomenal properties can come apart from and completely outrun their representational properties. Qualia theorists account for phenomenal properties in terms of “qualia,” intrinsic mental properties they allege experiences to instantiate. The debate between representational theorists and qualia theorists has focused on whether phenomenal properties really can come apart from and completely outrun representational properties. As a result, qualia theorists have failed (1) to explain how experiences owe their phenomenal properties to their instantiation of qualia and (2) to clarify the nature of subjects’ epistemic access to qualia. I survey qualia theorists’ options for dealing with each issue and find them all wanting.     

Gender Verification: A Term Whose Time has Come and Gone

The process of testing to determine gender in putatively female athletes was developed in order to prevent cheating, but has devolved instead into a clumsy mechanism for detecting disorders of sexual development (DSD’s). In over thirty years of compulsory testing, individuals with DSD’s have been stigmatized and some have been denied the right to compete, although frequently their condition provided no competitive advantage. More recent guidelines require testing only on a case-by-case basis; the South African runner Caster Semenya was the first major test of this policy, and her experience points to the need for a more sensitive and confidential process. In addition, her case dramatizes the inadequacy of the term “gender verification.” Gender identity is a complex entity and resists simple classification. Sports authorities may set guidelines for who can compete, but they should refrain from taking on themselves the authority to decide who is and who is not a female.     

Narrative identity,practical identity and ethical subjectivity

The narrative approach to identity has developed as a sophisticated philosophical response to the complexities and ambiguities of the human, lived situation, and is not – as has been naively suggested elsewhere – the imposition of a generic form of life or the attempt to imitate a fictional character. I argue that the narrative model of identity provides a more inclusive and exhaustive account of identity than the causal models employed by mainstream theorists of personal identity. Importantly for ethical subjectivity, the narrative model gives a central and irreducible role to the first-person perspective. I will draw the connection between narrative identity and ethical subjectivity by way of an exposition of work by Paul Ricoeur and Marya Schechtman, and a brief consideration of Korsgaard’s work on practical identity and normative ethics. I argue that the first-person perspective – the reflective structure of human consciousness – arises from human embodiment, and therefore the model of identity required of embodied consciousness is more complex and irreducibly first-personal than that provided in a causal account. What is required is a self-constitution model of identity: a narrative model of identity.     

The phenomenology of religious humility in Heidegger’s reading of Luther

The return to religion in contemporary continental philosophy is characterized by a profound sense of intellectual humility. A significant influence within this discussion is Heidegger’s anthropology of finitude in Being and Time and his later critiques of onto-theology. These critiques, however, were informed by Heidegger’s earlier phenomenology of the lived experience of religious humility performed alongside his reading of Martin Luther’s theology. This article shows that for Luther and Heidegger, religious humility is foremost an affection structured according to the enactment of one’s dissimilitude from God and resulting existential tribulation. During a seminal period in his development, Heidegger’s phenomenology of humility changed from an Eckhartian conception of detachment culminating in the unio mystica to a Lutheran conception of humiliation and Anfechtung. Heidegger’s break from a mystical phenomenology of humility parallels Luther’s own break from that tradition, and anticipates contemporary developments in the continental philosophy of religion.

Feminist identity development: Psychometric analyses of two feminist identity scales

N. E. Downing and K. L. Roush [(1985) “From Passive Acceptance to Active Commitment: A Model of Feminist Identity Development,”The Counseling Psychologist, Vol. 13, pp. 695–709] proposed a five-level developmental model of feminist identity that charts development from passive acceptance of traditional gender roles toward active commitment to feminist ideals and an egalitarian society. A Bargad and J. S. Hyde [(1991) “Women’s Studies: A Study of Feminist Identity Development in Women,”Psychology of Women Quarterly, Vol. 15, pp. 181–201] and K. M. Rickard [(1989) “The Relationship of Self-Monitored Dating Behaviors to Level of Feminist Identity on the Feminist Identity Scale,Sex Roles, Vol. 20, pp. 213–226] developed questionnaires to measure the Downing and Roush levels. The goal of the present study was to further explore the reliability and validity of the two feminist identity development scales. Participants included 198 female students who were taking either a women’s studies class or a general psychology class. They were administered Rickard’s and Bargad and Hyde’s scales of feminist identity development and a measure of cognitive development both at the beginning and end of the semester. Sixty-six percent of the participants classified themselves as Caucasian, 13% as Asian, 7% as African American, 4% as Hispanic, 3% as Indian, 5% as Other, and 2% left the item blank. Within this framework, we demonstrated support for (1) the psychometric/statistical properties of each scale, including (a) internal consistency and reliability, (b) component structure, (c) the relationship among the two scales, and (d) discrimination from social desirability; and (2) construct validity, as determined by (a) distinction between general psychology students who were interested in taking a women’s studies class in the future and those who were not, (b) the impact of a women’s studies class on feminist identity development, and (c) relationship of the scales to a measure of cognitive development. The authors wish to thank Richard Ashmore and Erich Labouvie for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. We also would like to thank the instructors of the general psychology and women’s studies classes, especially Barbara Balliet, for allowing us to recruit participants in their classes.