ISOLATING THE INDIVIDUAL: THEOLOGY,THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION,AND THE PROBLEM OF ABSTRACT INDIVIDUALISM

Debates about the theological implications of recent research in the cognitive and evolutionary study of religion have tended to focus on the question of theism. The question of whether there is any disagreement about the conceptualization of the individual human being has been largely overlooked. In this article, I argue that evolutionary and cognitive accounts of religion typically depend upon a view of cognition that conceptually isolates the mind from its particular social and physical environmental contexts. By embracing this view of the mind, these accounts also unwittingly embrace an abstract individualist view of individual personhood that Christian theologians have explicitly battled against. Taken as a whole, the field leaves sufficient room for supplementary theories that are compatible with theological accounts of the relational individual, but in practice, no effort has been made to engage, or even to accommodate, any other view of individual personhood.     

Why Insight Fails

Psychoanalysts rely on insight to promote therapeutic change. However, even when a great deal of insight has been attained, significant change may not be forthcoming in some patients, more often in borderline-level patients. The author examines such a case with particular reference to E. Kris' major points on insight, including the role of the ego's integrative functions in the attainment and utilization of insight. The author contends that failure to utilize insight is overdetermined and not necessarily owing to impairments in the integrative functions or to resistance in all its expressions. The author postulates that failure to make progress is due to a combination of the strength of the unmodulated drives, general ego weakness, poor early object relations, particularly preverbal experience, and constitution, in interaction. The whole of the personality is implicated in the inability to utilize insight.     

A New View of Meditation

After years of meditating, are you still saddled with many of the same personal conflicts and interpersonal inhibitions that plagued you before you began? Rubin explores the hidden flaws in the meditative method itself. He explores Buddhism's ambivalent relationship to emotional life, and the negative consequences of letting go of experience. Detaching from experience may result in renouncing vital aspects of ourselves, such as constructive passion. The author argues that real meditation is transformative not tranquilizing, fostering a dynamic way of living.     

汉语字谜原型激活中的情绪促进效应

采用先学习原型字谜、接着进行正负情绪诱导、然后再进行靶字谜测验的三阶段实验设计,探讨了不同诱发情绪状态对汉语字谜原型激活的影响。结果发现,在本实验条件下：难度高的靶字谜的测试中没有发现正负诱发情绪状态对汉语字谜原型激活的不同影响;但是,在难度中等的靶字谜的测试中,诱发的正面情绪状态对汉语字谜原型激活有显著促进作用,而诱发的负面情绪状态与控制组相比对汉语字谜原型激活没有显著影响。性别变量在两种实验条件下都没有显著主效应     

基于线索的顿悟问题解决:图式和表征操作的影响

对小学、初中、高中学生共270名被试在不同线索条件下解决顿悟问题T puzzle的表现进行研究,结果表明:(1)由于图式运用水平的发展,知觉定势在单一线索下对高二被试的限制作用更为明显,导致小学五年级和初中二年级被试的问题解决时间短于高中二年级;(2)由于表征操作能力发展水平的限制,增大需操作表征数目的线索不利于五年级被试的问题解决;较高的表征操作能力发展水平使得高二被试在多重线索下有更好的解决成绩;(3)与图式相关的线索并不能有效提高儿童解决顿悟问题的效率。     

On Being Lutheran In A Religiously Plural World

Abstract : For those of us who are self‐consciously Lutheran, the reality of contemporary religious pluralism engenders important theological questions. The thesis of this essay is that “being Lutheran” within the context of contemporary religious pluralism requires the creation of “Lutheran identity” that is pluralistic in structure, while simultaneously avoiding either theological exclusivism or theological inclusivism. The implications of this thesis are that (1) dialogue with the religious traditions of the world is of primary importance for thinking Lutherans, and (2) the church's witness and mission needs to be reconfigured in light of the practice of interreligious dialogue.     

FIRST PERSON PLURAL: SELF‐UNITY AND SELF‐MULTIPLICITY IN THEOLOGY'S DIALOGUE WITH PSYCHOLOGY

In contradistinction to the contemporary human sciences, recent theological accounts of the individual‐in‐relation continue to defend the concept of the singular continuous self. Consequently, theological anthropology and the human sciences seem to offer widely divergent accounts of the sense of self‐fragmentation that many believe pervades the modern world. There has been little constructive interdisciplinary conversation in this area. In this essay I address the damaging implications of this oversight and establish the necessary conditions for future dialogue. I have three primary objectives. First, I show how the notion of personal continuity acquires philosophical theological significance through its close association with the concept of personal particularity. Second, through a discussion of contemporary accounts of self‐multiplicity, I clarify the extent of theological anthropology's disagreement with the human sciences. Third, I draw upon narrative accounts of identity to suggest an alternative means of understanding the experiential continuity of personhood that maintains the tension between self‐plurality, unity, and particularity and thereby reconnects philosophical theological concerns with human‐scientific analyses of the human condition. Narrative approaches to personhood are ideally suited to this purpose, and, I suggest, offer an intriguing solution to understanding and resolving the problem of self‐fragmentation that has caused recent theological anthropology so much consternation.