Agency And Consciousness

In Intentionality and other works, John Searle establishes himself as a leading defender of the view that consciousness of what one is doing is always a component of one’s action. In this paper I focus on problems with Searle’s view to establish that there are actions in which the agent is not at all aware of what she is doing. I argue that any theory that misses this sort of action keeps us from important insights into autonomy, self-knowledge and responsibility. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Animalism versus Lockeanism: No Contest

In 'Animalism versus Lockeanism: a Current Controversy', The Philosophical Quarterly , 48 (1998), pp. 302–18, Harold Noonan examined the relation between animalist and neo-Lockean theories of personal identity. As well as presenting arguments intended to support a modest compatibilism of animalism and neo-Lockeanism, he advanced a new proposal about the relation between persons and human beings which was intended to evade the principal animalist objections to neo-Lockean theories. I argue both that the arguments for compatibilism are without force, and that Noonan's new neo-Lockean proposal is inadequate.
email : david.mackie@oriel.oxford.ac.uk     

Authority,Psychotherapy and the Authority of the Therapist in the Religious Haredi Community

This article considers the meaning and significance of authority, and its relevance to the transference process, within the framework of psychotherapy in the orthodox Jewish (Haredi) community in Israel. In this community, deeply-rooted habits of obedience to the commandments of the Torah and the authority of the Rabbi are integral to maintaining an orthodox way of life. Clinical vignettes with Haredi patients are presented to illustrate the complexities that arise when both patient and therapist belong to the orthodox community, and highlight the authority-related issues that are central to the therapy. This combination of factors requires a sensitive and finely-tuned approach which will enable the therapist to maintain the treatment framework while still accommodating the orthodox way of life.     

Melancholic Response to War Destruction and the Emergence of a Group Assumption of Post-Ness

What psychological response does war and forced displacement evoke in victims? How do survivors of war communicate their experiences to their children? Finally, what culture does the psychological response to loss shape? Using data collected through interviews, psychological consultations, and children’s drawings from two sources—the ongoing Syrian civil war and the Bosnian war of 1992–1995, this paper suggests that the experience of the war generation becomes the organizing axis of their identity and that of their children. It seeks to demonstrate that survivor parents communicate their experience of loss through gesture, act, and object rather than through a coherent narrative. Whereas survivor children use metaphoric and metonymic readings of their parents’ everyday performance in order to construct meaning and form their identities as descendants of a given family. This paper argues that such an identity is characterized by ambivalence towards the self and towards others, melancholic longing for an idealized pre-war past, and the impossibility of letting it go.