The role of affect in narratives

Affect states and reactions commonly occur in narratives. This paper discusses the importance of affect knowledge and processing in the context of BORIS, a computer program which reads and answers questions about narratives involving multiple sources of knowledge. There are several reasons why affects are important in a process model of narrative comprehension: For one thing, affects describe goal situations and signal the occurrence of expectation failures. Affective reactions also serve as an indication of the status of interpersonal relationships. Finally, affects influence the kinds of thematic structures which become instantiated in episodic memory.     

Current issues in theory construction: A commentary on Waters and Sroufe

The view of competence proposed by Waters and Sroufe remains faithful to a kind of theorizing about human personality which emphasizes its unitary and universal properties. Developments in other areas of inquiry, however, are redirecting theoretical efforts toward a more pluralistic and contextualistic view of human nature and development. Implications for future theories of development are discussed.     

THE STRUCTURE OF JUSTIFICATION IN POLITICAL CONSTRUCTIVISM

Abstract: In this article the author develops the view, held by some, that political constructivism is best interpreted as a pragmatic enterprise aiming to solve political problems. He argues that this interpretation's structure of justification is best conceived in terms of two separate investigations—one develops a normative solution to a particular political problem by working up into a coherent whole certain moral conceptions of persons and society; and the other is an empirically based analysis of the political problem. The author argues that the empirically based analysis can generate criteria for assessing whether the normative theory successfully works out a solution, thereby developing a functionalist structure of justification. He further argues that this interpretation overcomes a longstanding criticism of constructivism, namely, that the use of substantive moral concepts in the hypothetical choice procedure biases the defense of principles in a particular direction and therefore begs important philosophical questions.     

A dissociation of right and left hemispheric effects for recognizing emotional tone and verbal content

Emotionally intoned sentences (happy, sad, angry, and neutral voices) were dichotically paired with monotone sentences. A left ear advantage was found for recognizing emotional intonation, while a simultaneous right ear advantage was found for recognizing the verbal content of the sentences. The results indicate a right hemispheric superiority in recognizing emotional stimuli. These findings are most reasonably attributed to differential lateralization of emotional functions, rather than to subject strategy effects. No evidence was found to support a hypothesis that each hemisphere is involved in processing different types of emotion.     

“All history is the history of thought”: competing British idealist historiographies

ABSTRACT

Along with utilitarianism, British idealism was the most important philosophical and practical movement in Britain and its Empire during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Even though the British idealists have regained some of their standing in the history of philosophy, their own historical theories still fail to receive the deserved scholarly attention. This article helps to fill that major gap in the literature. Understanding historiography as concerning the appropriate modes of enquiring into the recorded past, this article analyses the key historiographical commitments that underpin the writings of the early T.H. Green (section two), Edward Caird (section three), and F.H. Bradley (sections four and five). Section six explores the influence of Bradley's historiography. These approaches are linked by the belief that all thought can be properly understood only by critical historians who possess the appropriate tools with which to distinguish permanently valid truths from the transient imperfections with which those truths are mixed. A crucial division between them is the invocation of a neo-Hegelian Geist by the early Green and Caird, and Bradley's reliance on a progressive human nature. Moreover, the article establishes that R.G. Collingwood's highly influential theories of “absolute presuppositions” and “re-enactment” were taken largely from Bradley's historiography.     

On A Reductionist Analysis of William James's Philosophy of Religion

William James undertook to steer his way between a rationalistic systemthat was not empirical enough and an empirical system so materialistic that it could not account for the value commitments on which it rested. In arguing against both the absolutists (gnostics) and the empiricists (agnostics), he defined a position of pluralistic moralism that seemed equally distant from both, leaving himself vulnerable to the criticism that he had rescued morality from scientism only by reducing religion to morals. Such criticism, however, ignores distinctions James made between religion and theology and between monistic theology and dualistic theology. When these distinctions are taken into account, it becomes evident that James can be criticized for reducing religion to morality only from the point of view of either absolute monism or religious humanism and that radical empiricism not only embraces a significant number ofnonmoral religious experiences but also leaves open the possibility of belief in the particular historical God of traditional Christianity.     

‘Doctrina Deo vivendi’: William Ames,the Nature and Sources of His Voluntarism

ABSTRACT

To establish his vision of theology as the doctrine of ‘living to God,’ William Ames, the English puritan theologian exiled in The Netherlands, strongly emphasized the will as the seat of faith. This prominence has often been interpreted as an extreme version of voluntarism eliminating the intellective elements altogether and regarded as something outside mainstream, Reformed orthodoxy. However, when analysed through the distinction between habit and action, it will be clear that Ames’s emphatic statements on the will reflect his concern for the singularity of virtue, and that he did assign some roles to the intellect in terms of the action of faith. Therefore, the difference over the question of the seat of faith is highly technical in nature and should not be exaggerated. Ames argued for the priority of the will over the intellect by drawing from Scotist sources, which was compatible with the Thomistic idea of premotion.     

PRAGMATISM,REALISM, AND RELIGION

Pragmatism is often thought to be incompatible with realism, the view that there are knowable mind‐independent facts, objects, or properties. In this article, I show that there are, in fact, realist versions of pragmatism and argue that a realist pragmatism of the right sort can make important contributions to such fields as religious ethics and philosophy of religion. Using William James's pragmatism as my primary example, I show (1) that James defended realist and pluralist views in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of religion, and (2) that these views not only cohere with his pragmatism but indeed are basic to it. After arguing that James's pragmatism provides a credible and useful approach to a number of basic philosophical and religious issues, I conclude by reflecting on some ways in which we can apply and potentially improve James's views in the study of religion.     

HISTORICISM IN PRAGMATISM: LESSONS IN HISTORIOGRAPHY AND PHILOSOPHY

Abstract: Pragmatism involves simultaneous commitments to modes of inquiry that are philosophical and historical. This article begins by demonstrating this point as it is evidenced in the historicist pragmatisms of William James and John Dewey. Having shown that pragmatism focuses philosophical attention on concrete historical processes, the article turns to a discussion of the specific historiographical commitments consistent with this focus. This focus here is on a pragmatist version of historical inquiry in terms of the central historiographical categories of the object of historical inquiry and mode of historical periodization. After describing the basic historiographical consequences of pragmatism's historicism, the article moves to a discussion of the philosophical results of this historicism. The focus here is on the role that historical inquiry can play in the general philosophical perspective of pragmatism as well as on some recent texts that exemplify the dual pragmatist commitment to philosophy and history.