"Let Us Be Saints if We Can"

Stanley Hauerwas's Gifford Lectures are, at least in part, an interpretation of the Giffords that came before him. As a contribution to intellectual and theological history, however, I wish Hauerwas had given witness to Santayana's Hermes the hermeneut, along with the considerable, indeed considerate, witness he does give to his own Christian faith. Hauerwas seems to dislike Reinhold Niebuhr and, by my account, misreads William James. Thus I have to conclude that With the Grain of the Universe does not measure up to his own more capacious and incisive works.     

Murdering an Accident Victim: A New Objection to the Bare-Difference Argument

Many philosophers, psychologists, and medical practitioners believe that killing is no worse than letting die on the basis of James Rachels's Bare-Difference Argument. I show that his argument is unsound. In particular, a premise of the argument is that his examples are as similar as is consistent with one being a case of killing and the other being a case of letting die. However, the subject who lets die has both the ability to kill and the ability to let die while the subject who kills lacks the ability to let die. Modifying the latter example so that the killer has both abilities yields a pair of cases with morally different acts. The hypothesis that killing is worse than letting die is the best explanation of this difference.     

The weariness of the hero: depression and the self in a civilization in transition

According to the World Health Organization, depression is currently the leading cause of disability, which is of great concern worldwide; however there is much dispute about depression and its causes. This article raises the hypothesis that depression could be related to an increase or inflation of ego‐consciousness, which, in turn, is inseparable from the development of modernity. The ‘hero’, symbol of this historical process of self‐consciousness and autonomy, stands now wearied and disoriented. The paper outlines how, in this cultural scene, certain ideas from Carl Jung's and James Hillman's depth psychologies may be useful in addressing the issue: the rediscovery of figures of the other through the analysis of the unconscious (Jung) and associating with others in groups imbued with communal sense (Hillman) could help the depressed individual to mitigate his or her inflated ego‐consciousness. These are two complementary ways of experiencing the conglomerate nature of the self, thus promoting the process of individuation.     

UNCERTAINTY AND GOD: A JAMESIAN PRAGMATIST APPROACH TO UNCERTAINTY AND IGNORANCE IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

This article picks up from William James's pragmatism and metaphysics of experience, as expressed in his “radical empiricism,” and further develops this Jamesian pragmatist approach to uncertainty and ignorance by connecting it to phenomenological thought. The Jamesian pragmatist approach avoids both a “crude naturalism” and an “absolutist rationalism,” and allows for identification of intimations of the sacred in both scientific and religious practices—which all, in their respective ways, try to make sense of a complex world. Analogous to religious practices, emotion and the metaphysics of experience play a central role in science, especially the emotion of wonder. Engaging in scientific or religious practices may create opportunities for individuals to realize that they are co‐creators of the world in partnership with God, in full awareness of uncertainty and ignorance and filled with the emotion of wonder.     

FREGE IN CONTEXT

Although the Cambridge Professor of Mental Philosophy and Logic James Ward was once one of Britain's most highly regarded Psychologists and Philosophers, today his work is unjustly neglected. This is because his philosophy is frequently misrepresented as a reactionary anti-naturalistic idealist theism. In this article, I argue, first, that this reading is false, and that by viewing Ward through the lens of pragmatism we obtain a fresh interpretation of his work that highlights the scientific nature of his philosophy and his original and promising theory of ‘evolutionary Kantianism’, with its applications to the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and metaphysics. Second, I show that reading Ward as a pragmatist provides us with (1) a more complex history of the reception of pragmatism at Cambridge at the turn of the twentieth century than the straightforwardly hostile one traditionally told; and (2) a more detailed understanding of the wide range of philosophical problems to which pragmatism was deemed at this time to have an appropriate application.     

Pragmatism and revisionism: James's conception of truth

Abstract

The paper argues that James's conception of truth is non‐revisionist, that is, it sanctions common use of the notion of truth, but criticizes foundation‐alist philosophical accounts of that notion. This interpretation conflicts with traditional interpretations of James such as Russell's and Moore's, and contemporary interpretations such as Dummett's, all of which are revisionist. To the extent that objections raised against James's pragmatism depend on such revisionist reading, this paper constitutes a defence of James. The paper argues, further, that non‐revisionism distinguishes James from logical positivism and contemporary verificationism, and that James seeks to defend rather than renounce metaphysics. On this issue the paper disagrees with Rorty, who ascribes to James an extreme anti‐metaphysical stance.     

Interview with Jonathan Asser

In this interview, Jonathan Asser recounts how working in prisons with violent male inmates was the inspiration behind ‘Starred Up’, his acclaimed film about a young man who enters adult prison for the first time. The film offers an insight into the innovative Shame/Violence Intervention (SVI) that Asser pioneered whilst working as a group therapist at HMP Wandsworth. Asser’s approach included getting members of his groups to acknowledge the shame they felt before these feelings became unbearable and escalated into violence. Drawing on the ideas of American psychiatrist James Gilligan, Asser found he was able to work with the most violent and institutionalised prisoners by developing a technique that relied on a particular use of his counter-transference. Asser also talks about the personal experiences that led him into working therapeutically with this client group.     

El pancalismo de James Mark Baldwin. Estética,psicología y constructivismo

Resumen

En este artículo nos proponemos realizar una exposición crítica del “pancalismo”, denominación que dio el psicólogo funcionalista James Mark Baldwin (1861–1934) a la ontología que corona su psicología evolucionista y su epistemología genética. Defendiendo que el pancalismo constituye uno de los mejores frutos del constructivismo, presentamos sus filiaciones teóricas generales, discutimos sus interpretaciones metafísicas—en las cuales el propio Baldwin cayó—y apuntamos algunas de sus implicaciones actuales.     

Constructing an Aesthetic Weltanschauung: Freud,James, and Ricoeur

I will investigate in this paper what kind of Weltanschauung Freud suggests. Although Freud argues in the lecture XXXV, The Question of a Weltanschauung (1933), that psychoanalysis is incapable of creating a Weltanschauung of its own, I think that he has a certain Weltanschauung, i.e., the aesthetic worldview, which involves his scientific, psychoanalytic, and artistic principles. Furthermore, I will explicate that Freud's aesthetic worldview is ultimately related to the Weltanschauungen of William James and Paul Ricoeur. I will focus particularly on their terms, sympathetic and poetic, which are the crucial elements that constitute the aesthetic Weltanschauung. Finally, I will briefly present my intention in drawing this aesthetic Weltanschauung. I will conclude that throughout the aesthetic Weltanschauung we may accept that everything is precious, pertinent, and worthy to be viewed as a part and a whole, and as home (Heim).     

Guest Editorial: The Resistance to Belief

William James's essay The Will to Believe proposed that we are sometimes justified, even obligated, to believe from our strong emotional or passional nature that something is true, even though there may not be total logical, evidential proof—which he also wrote is not to be found in this world. This essay explores situations, using a recent dear-death experience (NDE) example, in which there are reasonable evidence and logic, and yet belief seems to be withheld. I postulate and discuss nonrational influences producing resistance to belief, including the fear of being in error, the fear of rejection from the scientific community, irrational requirements of logicality, avoidance of consequences, and paradigm fixation. I also discuss issues in philosophy of science and epistemology in regard to proof.