Ecumenism in the 21st Century

This article explores the challenges facing the ecumenical movement at the beginning of the 21st century: global demographic trends and a shift in the centre of gravity of Christianity toward the global South; the need for ecumenical structures and institutions to change in response to new realities; the need to widen the ecumenical fellowship so that Roman Catholics, Pentecostals, and evangelicals who have not played a part in the WCC may participate more fully; the urgency of inter‐religious dialogue; and the need to discover a “spirituality of engagement” in interaction with the world and its people.     

Geographic Mobility and Locus of Control

Migrants and nonmigrants are often alleged to differ on numerous psychological traits; little empirical analysis, however, has examined this possibility. This study examined the hypothesis that geographic mobility is associated with locus of control, a key dimension of the self-concept. No relationships between these variables were uncovered for a national sample of older white men.     

Meno and the Monist

Recent critiques of veritistic value monism, or the idea that true belief is unique in being of fundamental epistemic value, typically invoke a claim about the surplus value of knowledge over mere true belief, in turn traced back to Plato's Meno. However, to the extent Plato at all defends a surplus claim in the Meno, it differs from that figuring in contemporary discussions with respect to both its scope and the kind of value at issue, and is under closer scrutiny fully compatible with veritistic value monism. Consequently, contrary to what seems to be supposed in the literature, the critics of monism have little to gain from turning to the Meno for support.     

Invited commentary on the interview with Jan Stensson

Abstract

The potential of psychoanalysis as social criticism is explored in the context of the major social divides of gender, sexual orientation, race, social class, and ethnicity. It is argued that these divides play central roles in constructing individual psyches, and that their influence is inseparable from other social/ familial forces. Further, analyst and patient alike, inevitably enact the imperatives of class, race, gender, and sexuality in the analytic dyad. It is crucial that psychoanalytic theory be extended to account for the formative power of these cultural categories both in the construction of individual identity, and on the course of analytic work. Further, individual psychoanalysts must be aware of cultural countertransference in the analytic engagement. Finally, as a profession we have an obligation publicly to oppose the destructive imperatives of our economic, political, and social systems in the interest of individual and community psychic well-being.     

Pedagogies of piety: Comparing young observant Muslims and Christians in the Netherlands

In this article, I compare the active religious engagement found among many of today's young Dutch Muslims and Christians. I show that such comparison requires a move beyond the separate frameworks through which these groups are commonly perceived, found both in widely shared public discourses (‘allochthons’ versus ‘autochthons’) and in academic research (minority studies versus the sociology of religion). In their stead, this comparative analysis examines in what ways both groups give shape to observant religious practice in the shared context of contemporary Dutch society. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, I show that young Christians as well as Muslims participate in social settings of religious pedagogy, where they are encouraged to attain, sustain and improve personal piety in today's pluralist Dutch society. Such social participation does not preclude, but rather comes together with a strong emphasis on reflexivity and authenticity.     

Through a Glass Darkly: A Dialogue Between Dementia and Faith

SUMMARY

Our understanding and experience of dementia is changing and developing, as is our understanding and experience of faith. Both areas offer signs of hope but both also contain evidence of discrimination and disenchantment. This paper seeks to explore these parallel worlds from the perspective of the person with dementia, the family carer, the institutional carer and the community of faith. It closes with a challenge to theology to demonstrate just what is the Good News of the Gospel for the person with dementia.     

实用主义视域下心理学的多元化

心理学的多元化是指多种心理学研究的共存,它包括认识论水平的多元化、方法论水平的多元化和学科水平的多元化。多元化不是相对主义,它与实用主义具有内在的一致性。实用主义为当代多元化的心理学提供了合理的依据。实用主义多元论认为,各种心理学分支理论在没有被强制整合到同一框架之前,它就是统一的整体。促进心理学的多元化发展,更大程度地发挥心理学的实用价值是当代心理学的发展方向。     

Pragmatic Democracy: Inquiry,Objectivity, and Experience

This essay argues that to understand Dewey's vision of democracy as “epistemic” requires consideration of how experiential and communal aspects of inquiry together produce what is named here “pragmatic objectivity.” Such pragmatic objectivity provides an alternative to absolutism and self‐interested relativism by appealing to certain norms of empirical experimentation. Pragmatic objectivity, it is then argued, can be justified by appeal to Dewey's conception of primary experience. This justification, however, is not without its own complications, which are highlighted with objections regarding “radical pluralism” in political life, and some logical problems that arise due to the supposedly “ineffable” nature of primary experience. The essay concludes by admitting that while Dewey's theory of democracy based on experience cannot answer all of the objections argumentatively, it nevertheless provides potent suggestions for how consensus building can proceed without such philosophical arguments.     

Philosophy,Its Pitfalls,Some Rescue Plans,and Their Complications

This article offers the motivation for organising a conference on philosophy as it is practised across several faculties and departments at the University of Cambridge. It also offers an overview of the main themes that emerge in the essays collected in this issue of Metaphilosophy, which derive from the aforementioned conference. In particular it focuses on the risk of scholasticism and dogmatism that philosophy faces when it divorces itself from its own history, other disciplines, and real life. It then discusses the potential problems that can arise from the practice of philosophy in close conjunction with other disciplines, such as the natural sciences and the history of philosophy. Finally, it briefly comments on how institutional/academic structures have an influence on the way philosophy is practised.