Religious competence and individuality: three studies in the Roman Empire

Abstract

The theme of individuality and individualisation in religious contexts in the fairly remote past is perhaps best viewed as a heuristic device whose main value, at least in the context of Graeco-Roman history, is to question the excessive dominance of a model of religious action as essentially collective, which is perhaps proximately Durkheimian but in the Classical field goes back ultimately to early scholarship on ancient Judaism. Terminology is a basic problem in this context. Religious individuality can be defined as the construction of personal religious achievement or the practice of mastery defined by sui generis rules. In the case of the Roman Empire, five types of such achievement have been suggested: pragmatic; moral; competitive; representative; or exemplary/ reflexive. All these distinguishable types of individuality are linked, at least indirectly, to the complex and highly differentiated social, political, economic and moral structures of the Empire. Specifically religious individuation emerges only with the development of religion as a distinctive field of (social) action and thus the possibility of specifically religious distinction. If sustained over the long term, any such achievement is to be seen as individualisation under ancient conditions. This article briefly explores three types of religious distinction based on a conviction and lived practice of such individualised competence: the figure of the Weberian mystagogue in his Mediterranean forms; the figure of the practitioner skilled in Graeco-Egyptian ‘magic’; and the idealised figure of Pythagoras as projected by Iamblichus’ On the Pythagorean life (c.300 CE).     

The Spaces of Knowledge: Bertrand Russell,Logical Construction,and the Classification of the Sciences

What Russell regarded to be the ‘chief outcome’ of his 1914 Lowell Lectures at Harvard can only be fully appreciated, I argue, if one embeds the outcome back into the ‘classificatory problem’ that many at the time were heavily engaged in. The problem focused on the place and relationships between the newly formed or recently professionalized disciplines such as psychology, Erkenntnistheorie, physics, logic and philosophy. The prime metaphor used in discussions about the classificatory problem by British philosophers was a spatial one, with such motifs as ‘standpoints’, ‘place’ and ‘perspectives’ in the space of knowledge. In fact, Russell’s construction of a perspectival space of six-dimensions was meant precisely to be a timely solution to the widely discussed classificatory problem.     

Hilda Oakeley on Idealism,History and the Real Past

In the early twentieth century, Hilda Diana Oakeley (1867–1950) set out a new kind of British idealism. Oakeley is an idealist in the sense that she holds mind to actively contribute to the features of experience, but she also accepts that there is a world independent of mind. One of her central contributions to the idealist tradition is her thesis that minds construct our experiences using memory. This paper explores the theses underlying her idealism, and shows how they are intricately connected to the wider debates of her period. I go on to explain how the parts of Oakeley's idealism are connected to further areas of her thought – specifically, her views on history and her growing block theory of time – to provide a sense of Oakeley's philosophy as a system. As there is no existing literature on Oakeley, this paper aims to open a path for further scholarship.     

Memory for Faces, Shoes, and Objects by Deaf and Hearing Signers and Hearing Nonsigners

The visual spatial memory of 15 deaf signers, 15 hearing signers, and 15 hearing nonsigners for shoes, faces, and verbalizable objects was measured using the game Concentration. It was hypothesized that the deaf and hearing signers would require fewer attempts than the hearing nonsigners on the shoes and faces tasks because of their experience of using a visual-spatial language; and, in the case of the Deaf, also possibly, due to a compensatory mechanism. It was also hypothesized that memory for shoes would be more like that for faces than for simple objects. It was also anticipated that there would be no difference between the three group's memories for verbalizable objects. Deaf signers were found to be similar to hearing signers, both of whom were better than hearing nonsigners on the faces and shoes tasks. Generally, performance on the faces and shoes tasks was similar and followed the same pattern for the three groups. The three groups performed at a similar level on the objects task. There were no gender differences.     

The Products of the Imagination: Psychoanalytic Theory and Postmodern Literary Criticism

This article considers some of the affinities between postmodern literary theory and the psychoanalytic theories concerned with intersubjective phenomena. Postmodern literary theory is described briefly, and it is argued that one of its major concerns is the nature of, and the political and cultural influences on, subjectivity and identity. Despite that, postmodernism generally, and literary postmodernism in particular, can be said to lack a theory of the psychological and interpersonal dimensions of the experience of self. This article contends that the more relational schools of psychoanalytic theory can provide an example of the construction of selfhood that is of importance to contemporary and postmodern literary criticism. The academy has, to a considerable extent identified psychoanalysis with the work of Jacques Lacan, but since the 1980s the work of such theorists as Jane Flax and Jessica Benjamin, building on the work of Nancy Chodorow, have increasingly opened up the possibilities of relational and object relations theory for literary studies. The relational psychoanalytic theories operate in the same epistemological universe as postmodern literary criticism, congruent with the postmodern idea of truth as constructed and relational, and selfhood as shifting, contingent, and always-in-process. Particular attention is paid to the work of Wilfred Bion, whose understanding of self provides an account both of the failure of meaning, and of the development of mind. Some examples of a relational approach to literary analysis are provided.     

Counselling psychology in the United Kingdom

Counselling psychology within the UK has grown over the last three decades, adapting to many changes in the field of applied psychology, whilst remaining true to its core values and humanistic origins. The identity of counselling psychology is strongly rooted in a relational stance and applied psychology, where attention to psychological formulation is given to improve psychological functioning and well-being. This article outlines a brief history of counselling psychology in the UK, the training process, credentialing and looks at some important challenges and future directions for counselling psychology in the UK. A proportion of the members from the British Psychological Society’s division of counselling psychology (DCoP, N = 148) took part in the study. Participants provided demographic, training, employment, workplace and career pathway information obtained through an online questionnaire distributed to all DCoP members. On the whole, DCoP members are working in a variety of areas within the UK and the findings of this article contribute to the international study comparing counselling psychology across the globe.     

The social unconscious in clinical work

An analyst who is unaware of the constraints of social facts and forces will be insensitive to their unconscious recreation within therapeutic situations, and unable to provide space for patients to imagine how their identities have been formed at particular social and political junctures. The concepts of the social unconscious and of equivalence are defined and located within the traditions of Group Analysis and British Object Relations Theory. A model of maturity is outlined, the central element of which is the willingness and ability to take the role of citizen. These ideas are illustrated with clinical vignettes from psychoanalysis and group analysis.     

Developmental reversal in classification accuracy due to an increase with age in orientation-free judgments.

A complete developmental reversal in accuracy was obtained in Experiment I in which third graders, sixth graders, and adults judged the class membership of patterns presented in a same-different task. An examination of the task requirements and pattern classes employed led to the hypothesis that the reversal in accuracy resulted from an increase with age in orientation-free judgments. The results of Experiment II, in which adults were told to not rotate the patterns, and Experiment III, which was a replication of Experiment I using symmetric rather than areally skewed pattern classes, provided confirmation for that hypothesis.     

The statistical interaction of cerebral specialization and integration in the interpretation of dynamic brain images

Two constructs of brain function, namely cerebral specialization and integration, have been examined in the analysis of blood flow and metabolic function resulting from dynamic imaging procedures. The purpose of the current paper is to illustrate the interaction of these two constructs at the statistical level. Because of the statistical interaction, it is argued that the currently accepted statistical evidence for cerebral specialization is, in fact, partially a function of the degree of regional cerebral integration. Therefore, found asymmetries of flow or rate may be solely a function of cerebral integration. These points are discussed with respect to developing a better understanding of stimulus/brain/behavior relations.