Reviews the book, Challenges to theoretical psychology by Wolfgang Maiers, Betty Bayer, Barbara Duarte Esgalhado, Rene Jorna, and Ernst Schraube . This stimulating and wide-ranging collection is composed of selections from the program of the Seventh Biennial Conference of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology that was held in Berlin, Germany in April and May of 1997. The 55 essays are grouped into ten major thematic fields: Psychological Understanding and the Role of Theory; (...) Critical History of Psychology; Foundational Issues in the Sciences of Mind; Agency, Action, and Consciousness; Implications of Life Narratives for Psychological Theorization; Social Practice, Discourse, and Subjects; Psychological Studies and the Notion of Culture; Technology and the Body in Psychology; Feminist Research and Subjectivity; Postmodernism, Marxism, and Critical Psychology. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Across the world people in different societies structure their family relationships in many different ways. These relationships become encoded in their languages as kinship terminology, a word set that maps variably onto a vast genealogical grid of kinship categories, each of which could in principle vary independently. But the observed diversity of kinship terminology is considerably smaller than the enormous theoretical design space. For the past century anthropologists have captured this variation in typological schemes with only a small number (...) of model system types. Whether those types exhibit the internal co-selection of parts implicit in their use is an outstanding question, as is the sufficiency of typologies in capturing variation as a whole. We interrogate the coherence of classic kinship typologies using modern statistical approaches and systematic data from a new database, Kinbank. We first survey the canonical types and their assumed patterns of internal and external co-selection, then present two data-driven approaches to assess internal coherence. Our first analysis reveals that across parents’ and ego’s generation, typology has limited predictive value: knowing the system in one generation does not reliably predict the other. Though we detect limited co-selection between generations, “disharmonic” systems are equally common. Second, we represent structural diversity with a novel multidimensional approach we term kinship space. This approach reveals, for ego’s generation, some broad patterning consistent with the canonical typology, but diversity is considerably higher than classical typologies suggest. Our results strongly challenge the descriptive adequacy of the set of canonical kinship types. (shrink)

What may we believe? What ought we to do? These two questions, which are intended as a subtle contemporary version of the questions that concerned Kant, set the parameters of the diverse activities of the Eighth Triannual International Congress, GAP.8, of the German Gesellschaft für Analytische Philosophie (Society for Analytic Philosophy, GAP), held at the University of Konstanz at September 17–20, 2012. These questions remain central systematic questions of theoretical and practical philosophy.The six articles collected here are (...) the main papers presented at that congress. They can be divided into two groups. First, there are Peter M. S. Hacker’s opening lecture, Ulrich Blau’s Erkenntnis lecture which was sponsored by Springer Publishers, and Roy Sorensen’s closing lecture. Second, there are three papers which are all connected to the author’s symposium held in honour of Rüdiger Bittner, who received the 2012 Frege-Prize of the Gesellschaft für Analytische Philosophie for a distinguis. (shrink)

The Society for Unification Psychology was formed by a group of psychologists concerned about the growing issues of diversity and fragmentation in psychology. The Society held its first organizational meeting at the 1985 APA convention. It is intended that SUNI will become a special interest group of APA's Division 24, Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. The Society's purpose is to stimulate discussion of issues of unity and disunity in psychology by: planning symposia and (...) other presentations at APA and related conventions; conducting Society interest group meetings at these conventions; and publishing a Newsletter. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

The Society for Unification Psychology was formed by a group of psychologists concerned about the growing issues of diversity and fragmentation in psychology. The Society held its first organizational meeting at the 1985 APA convention. It is intended that SUNI will become a special interest group of APA's Division 24, Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. The Society's purpose is to stimulate discussion of issues of unity and disunity in psychology by: planning symposia and (...) other presentations at APA and related conventions; conducting Society interest group meetings at these conventions; and publishing a Newsletter. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Proceeding of the Third International Conference of the French-Speaking Society for Theoretical Biology Content Type Journal Article Category Editorial Pages 1-2 DOI 10.1007/s10441-012-9156-2 Authors Slimane Ben Miled, ENIT-LAMSIN, Tunis el Manar University, 13, place Pasteur, Belvédère, B.P. 74, 1002 Tunis, Tunisia Journal Acta Biotheoretica Online ISSN 1572-8358 Print ISSN 0001-5342.

Experiments are generally thought of as actions or operations undertaken to test a scientific hypothesis in settings detached from the rest of society. In this paper a different notion of experiment will be discussed. It is an understanding that has been developed in the classical tradition of the Chicago School of Sociology since the 1890s, but has so far remained unexplored. This sociological understanding of experiment does not model itself strictly on the natural sciences. Rather, it implies a process (...) of societal self-experimentation without a fixed setting of a sociological experimenter. The paper discusses this notion of experiment in relation to the recursive dependency of the application and the production of sociological knowledge. It is contended that this concept of a self-experimental society offers theoretical insights that could well prove fruitful for a sociological concept of experiment beyond the realm of the laboratory. (shrink)

Independent on Sunday October 2nd One of the country's lead­ing philosophical counsellers, and chairman of the Society for Philosophy in Practice (SPP), Tim LeBon, said it typically took around six 50 ­minute sessions for a client to move from confusion to resolution. Mr LeBon, who has 'published a book on the subject, Wise Therapy, said philoso­phy was perfectly suited to this type of therapy, dealing as it does with timeless human issues such as love, purpose, happiness and emo­tional challenges. (...) `Wise Therapy, is part of a series aimed at promoting an integrative attitude as its ethos. Among all the many perspectives of psychotherapists and counselors, philosophy needs to take its place and needs to find its voice. Tim LeBon has provided an effective means by which counselors can bring philosophy into their work with clients' - APPA journal `Tim Le Bon's Wise Therapy is a comprehensible and well argued book dealing with the practical therapeutic applications of philosophical research that may well be of interest to philosophers but -- as the author himself intends -- will be of most obvious benefit to therapists and counselors, both by informing their dialogue with clients in new ways and by helping them become more informed about ways to resolve the ethical dilemmas arising within the context of their own work' - Metapsychology `A fascinating workshop for therapists and clients, backed up a thorough degree if philosophical acuity' - Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis `I strongly recommend the book for philosophers as well as practitioners, teachers, students and supervisors in counselling and psychotherapy' - Self and Society `Provides some additional and valuable arrows for the therapist's quiver' - Irvin Yalom, author of Love's Executioner `Like Aristotle, Tim LeBon examines what is said and extracts what is best from it…. There are many fascinating exercises designed to bring out and enlighten the client's values, conception of the good life, well-being, happiness, pleasure, and the proper place of reason in life…. Wise Therapy is well written and engaging. The case histories are illuminating examples of therapeutic techniques at work, the thought experiments are well designed, and the philosophical position adapted from the internal debates of the philosophers is level headed…. I recommend it highly to philosophers with an interest in counselling, and psychological counsellors with an interest in philosophy' - Jeff Mason, The Philosophers' Magazine `Tim LeBon has… authored a text which should become a staple on the philosophical counsellor's bookshelf…. Wise Therapy is a concise, well-written book…. His ability to relate philosophical concepts to counselling concerns is admirable and attests to the skill and knowledge he possesses as a working counsellor. But, by far the most important part of Tim LeBon's book to PC is the last chapter, "The Counsellor's Philosophical Toolbox"' - Craig Munns in The Examined Life ` Tim LeBon has done a good job of offering practical approaches to some of the most important and vexing issues that arise in counselling…. Tim LeBon's book contains helpful suggestions, practical information, and useful examples, and would make a good addition to the library of any counsellors willing to allow philosophy to turn mere client sessions into wise therapy' - Peter Raabe, Practical Philosophy Wise Therapy is an original and practical guide to how philosophy can benefit counselling and psychotherapy. Tim LeBon argues that therapy, informed by philosophy, can help clients make better decision and achieve emotional wisdom. He uses philosophical approaches to explore issues of right and wrong, the emotions and reasons, well-being and the meaning of life, and develops a 'counsellor's toolbox' of techniques that can help practitioners apply the wisdom of philosophy to good therapeutic practice. For counsellors who may find philosophical approaches to therapy useful, this work addresses key philosophical topics - the emotions, free will, the meaning of life and ethics. It is jargon-free where possible and assumes no previous philosophical training. From The Independent, 16th November 2004 Plato is my agony aunt It was the end of a love affair that broke her heart. Could the wisdom of the great philosophers show her how to be happy again? Claire Smith tries a novel form of therapy "The unexamined life is not worth living," Socrates said. Nor is the life you're left with after your boyfriend has left you for another woman - at least, that's how it felt in October last year when mine broke rank and went off with an art student from Cleveland, Ohio. We were over there for the opening of his new art exhibition. He'd flown over four days before me and had met her at a party. Supposedly, they "connected". The five months that followed were a roller-coaster of confusion, vitriol and despair. I knew there'd been problems in our relationship. We saw the world very differently; he delighted in the charm of the ordinary, I wanted maximum divinity. He walked; I galloped. He drank tea; I loathed the stuff. But, along the banks of the Thames, we'd made a promise to always stick together. Our love was something unique: "transcendental", I called it. And besides, we recycled. Surely a commitment to save the world would save our relationship? Alas, no. So there I was, a woman scorned. Hell truly hath no greater fury. And what made it worse was that I still believed in our transcendental love. If I wanted to change the way I was feeling, I needed to alter the way I was thinking. But how? A few bottles of wine and a sharp blow to the head might have done the trick. Fortunately, there's an older, more trusted way of turning your head on its head that counsellors are starting to use: philosophy. The idea of employing Plato as an agony aunt was begun in 1981 by the German philosopher Gerd Achenbach. Although philosophy spends a lot of its time asking real-life questions that affect real-life people - What is happiness? And is it always wrong to lie? - most of the debate goes on in ivory towers. What Achenbach and subsequent philosophers including Tim LeBon, the chairman of the UK's Society for Philosophy in Practice, wanted to do was "give practical application" to this gigantic library of great thoughts. So how does it work? Like most types of therapy, you sign up for a set of sessions. "Two would give you a new perspective on one issue; six would help you to make a major life-decision, like a career change; with 12 you can start to rethink your entire life philosophy," explains LeBon. Each session lasts 50 minutes and costs £50 - and, no, you don't have to have any previous knowledge of philosophy. "If you think of Friends, it would suit Ross and Chandler more than Joey," LeBon says. "It's for anyone who wants to make their emotions more intelligent. Or for those who have tried other kinds of therapy, and want something more cerebral." The first session begins with the patient venting off about whatever's troubling them. The rant over, the counsellor then picks out some key concepts that are crucial to the problem - in the case of heartbreak, it is love and happiness that come hurtling to the fore - and then gets the patient to define what they mean. So, what is love? What is happiness? To kick-start the patient's thinking, LeBon describes what a great philosopher had to say about it. In my case, he tells me what Plato wrote about love in his Symposium: that to stop man fighting the gods, Zeus decided to cut each human in two, so they would lose their strength. "This, then, is the source of our desire to love each other," Plato said. "Each of us is a 'matching half' of a human whole, because each was sliced like a flatfish, two out of one, and each of us is always seeking the half that matches him." This method of probing what we might think are "obvious" ideas, such as love and happiness, was devised by Socrates in the squares of Athens. "The only I thing I know is that I know nothing at all," he boasted. What Socrates showed was that although many of the thinkers of his time thought they knew what justice, happiness and goodness meant, their understanding was tied in to their personal agenda and world view, and, what's more, when pushed, their ideas often contradicted themselves. A bit like me on love. Whereas part of my understanding of love was something that gave life meaning, made it worth living and bound us together, I also believed that true love was "transcendental": that it was out of this world, and it didn't matter if the two people who loved each other couldn't get along in the day-to-day. Love was bigger than the mundane. But when it came to the next stage of the therapy, critical thinking - "to check out whether your assumptions stand up to examination" - I walked head first into a contradiction. If I think love's purpose is to make life worth living, but then say it's irrelevant to daily life, surely my two ideas of love are not compatible? As the cogs in my brain start to creak into motion, I feel myself taking a step back from my predicament: thinking about how I've been thinking. This idea I had of transcendental love might have started off as a romantic dream. But when the relationship stopped working, and I found myself feeling trapped and frustrated, I used it to justify the mechanics of a relationship that just didn't work in the daily grind. I used it to lie to myself. In the final stage, LeBon gets me to start thinking about how to go forward. "You can't change what has happened," he says. "You can't change that he's left you, or how you behaved in the relationship. So, as the Stoics did, let's work on controlling the controllables: the things that you can change." To work out what can be changed, he gets me to try out a thought experiment, a method often used in philosophy to imagine other worlds where people can have different codes of behaviour. Thought experiments shatter your preconceived ideas of how the world should be and let your imagination run wild to how the world could be. "I find Viktor Frankl very useful here, the Austrian psychiatrist and concentration-camp survivor who actually believed that everything in life happens for a purpose," LeBon says. "Suppose this break-up did happen for a reason that will work to your benefit," he suggests. "What might that be? The answer might be that you can now focus on something important that was denied in the relationship. Or - the Hollywood version - so you'll meet someone who is really right for you." Temporarily freed of any sense of responsibility for the relationship that was, and its sorry demise, the list came fast. I could now travel more; he didn't like me travelling on my own, but too often he didn't want to go anywhere, preferring to stay in his studio and make art. I'd love to meet someone with a similar sense of adventure to mine. For the first time in two years, I was being honest with myself about what I really wanted - listening to those voices that we all have inside our heads, and too often try to muzzle. So did philosophy save me? Well, I'm now dating a travel writer I have to run to keep up with. I still haven't got over the fact that my replacement came from Cleveland, Ohio. But I guess I never will. Tim LeBon can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] A FEW WORDS FROM THE WISE Compiled by Ed Caesar · "At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet" - Plato · "There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness" - Friedrich Nietzsche · "That man shall live as his own master and in happiness who can say each day 'I have lived'" - Horace · "The good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue... Moreover this activity must occupy a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy" - Aristotle · "There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than friendship" - Thomas Aquinas · "Whatever you do... love those who love you" - Voltaire · "Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination" - Immanuel Kant · "Happiness is a state of which you are unconscious. The moment you are aware that you are happy, you cease to be happy" - Jiddu Krishnamurti · "Love is an ideal thing. Marriage is a real thing" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I shrink, therefore I am Therapy has many answers, but some questions require the help of a philosopher, says Clint Witchalls Sunday November 21, 2004 The Observer Danny had worked in the City of London for 10 years. As a research analyst, stockbroker and fund manager, he'd made a lot of valuable contacts, earnt a lot of cash, and learnt some important business skills. However, as he approached his mid-thirties, he no longer felt good about himself or what he did for a living, and he found his colleagues cold and unfriendly. A chronic illness made him realise his mortality, and he began to reassess his priorities. Danny had been struggling with his career conundrum for nearly five years when he met David Arnaud, a philosophical counsellor. After a few soul-searching sessions, Danny arrived at a decision. Today, he teaches economics to sixth-formers, and he loves it. 'It's a much better lifestyle,' he says. Many people are turning to philosophical counsellors to get answers to questions such as: 'How do I make sense of myself?' 'What is important to me?' 'Where am I going?' These are perhaps not the sort of questions that require psychiatric intervention, but Arnaud, who recently completed the first empirical study of philosophical counselling in the UK, has found that within just five sessions the majority of clients, with important decisions to make, tend to move from a state of concern and confusion to a resolution. Modern philosophical counselling can be traced back to 1981, when the philosopher Gerd Achenbach opened the first practice near Cologne. Achenbach referred to the new discipline as 'therapy for the sane.' Today, there are hundreds of philosophical counsellors around the world, with the movement particularly strong in the US, Britain and the Netherlands. 'The dilemmas people face aren't always primarily psychological,' says Alex Howard, a philosophical counsellor from Newcastle. 'If people face problems that are social or economic, it doesn't make sense to define their problems in purely psychological terms.' Tim LeBon, a founder member of the Society for Philosophy in Practice (SPP) and author of Wise Therapy, adds: 'We are faced with far more life choices than our grandparents, yet have far fewer resources to deal with them. Our grandparents may have gone to a priest or to other family members for advice; most people don't trust these solutions any more and so want to make their own well-informed, well thought-out choices. Philosophical counselling can help these people - people in mid-life crises who are wondering how to make the most of the rest of their life. People who want to take stock of their values.' Where stressed executives might once have been prescribed a course of tranquillisers or antidepressants, they can now get a dose of Bertrand Russell instead: 'Success is too dearly purchased if all the other ingredients have been sacrificed to obtain it.' While some philosophical counsellors do recommend books for their clients to read, most sessions are about helping the client identify faulty thoughts. For example, a briefing in Aristotelian logic might show a client why their beliefs are erroneous. The person might infer that they're a screw-up because they've screwed up. The counsellor could point out that they're making an error called 'fallacy of composition' - that is, what's true of the part isn't necessarily true of the whole. In philosophical counselling, problems aren't pathologised as they are by the psychiatric profession, and the dialogue between client and counsellor is more like a meeting of equals, compared to many therapies where the client is treated like a patient and seen as someone who is, in some way, inadequate. 'Anybody can benefit from philosophical counselling,' says Howard. 'But it does require someone who is willing to take stock.' Lou Marinoff, author of international bestseller Plato Not Prozac! has done much to promote philosophical counselling. 'Some people who have stabilised their neurochemistry and validated their emotions now wish to examine or re-examine the criteria of their beliefs, the principles of their conduct, or the meaning of their lives,' he says. 'With whom shall they do this? Psychologists and psychiatrists can shed light on such issues - as can rabbis, priests, imams and gurus. Philosophers are now rejoining the ranks of helpers.' LeBon believes certain therapies (such as cognitive behavioural therapy) don't go far enough in helping their clients. 'For instance, if you are anxious about your relationship, a cognitive therapist would try to dispute your catastrophising and jump to conclusions to make you feel less anxious,' says LeBon. 'A philosophical counsellor would do this, but would also look for existential meaning in your anxiety - perhaps you really don't want to be in the relationship and that is what your anxiety is telling you.' LeBon also gives short shrift to psychoanalysts. 'There's very little evidence for the Freudian unconscious, and it's time to move on to more intellectually satisfying and helpful therapies,' he says. However, Alain de Botton, the man who popularised philosophy as self-help, isn't ready to bury psychologists and their ilk just yet. 'The truth is that psychoanalysis grew out of philosophy - it's not some completely new idea, and in fact, done properly, psychoanalysis is philosophical anyway. It may even be dangerous to the mental health of some people to suggest a philosopher rather than a properly trained analyst. The knowledge of analysts when it comes to many emotional problems is now much greater than that of most philosophers.' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004. (shrink)

This handsomely produced volume contains 22 contributions from international scholars, which were originally presented at the 2000 Conference of the International Society for Phenomenology, Fine Arts, & Aesthetics. The papers center around the theme of gardens and include a wide range of topics of interest to phenomenologists but also, perhaps, to gardeners with a philosophical bent. A sampling of topics: Leonardo's Annunciation Hortus Conclusus and its reflexive intent; hatha yoga--a phenomenological experience of nature; the Chinese attempt to (...) miniaturize the world in gardens; conflating and compressing time in commodified space and architecture; constructing the deconstructive landscape (the ruin aesthetic); and a phenomenological-anthropological aproach to Zen gardens. The volume is lightly indexed by name (mostly philosophers). Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com). (shrink)

This special issue offers a fresh re-evaluation of James Fowler's faith development theory, in celebration of his 60th birthday. Challenges to the theory have focused on the role of emotion in faith, the contributions of the psychodynamic unconscious, and the factor of the interpersonal. Now in its third decade, the theory continues to inspire theoretical and methodological reflections. The papers presented reflect the considerable influence of this theory. This issue's theme--"Religious Development Beyond the Modern Paradigm?"--was the topic of a (...) symposium held in Boston at the 107th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association. (shrink)

This anthology contains twelve papers on various aspects of Platonism, ranging from Plato's Republic to the Neoplatonism of Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus and Hermias, to the use of Platonic philosophy by Cudworth and Schleiermacher. The papers cover topics in ethics, psychology, religion, poetics, art, epistemology, and metaphysics.

Info in English (book is in German): The book "Schöpferische Freiheit" ("Creative Freedom") is considered the third major work of Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Metzger (1899-1979) - along with his "Psychology" and the "Laws of Seeing". According to Michael Stadler and Wolfgang Crabus, Metzger's real achievement in the further development of Gestalt theory is expressed in this book: "Metzger develops here, on the basis of Köhler's natural philosophical ideas of 'physical Gestalten' (1920) and incorporating the teachings of Zen (...) Buddhism ... a theory of education for creative thought and action. ... This book perhaps most clearly expresses the ethic of free self-determination of human thought and action inherent in Gestalt theory." "Creative Freedom" has lost none of its relevance since its last edition in 1962. It can be considered a foundational work of a Gestalt theory of the living. Jürgen Kriz writes in his preface to the now new edition: "It is extremely gratifying that this central work not only of Gestalt psychology, but (at least from my point of view) also of humanistic psychology and psychotherapy is being reissued. It is currently available only in (all too few) libraries and single antiquarian copies. Yet the central messages and insights of Wolfgang Metzger's 'Creative Freedom' are more relevant than ever: as a necessary warning against the aberrations of an increasing functionalization, medicalization, and progress-believing optimization (for whatever purposes) of the human being in our time." The new edition is accompanied by comments on the topicality and relevance of the work for education and teaching (Marianne Soff) as well as for psychotherapy (Gerhard Stemberger). Buchinformation: Die „Schöpferische Freiheit“ gilt als das dritte Hauptwerk des Gestaltpsychologen Wolfgang Metzger (1899-1979) – neben seiner „Psychologie“ und den „Gesetzen des Sehens“. Nach Michael Stadler und Wolfgang Crabus kommt in diesem Buch Metzgers eigentliche Leistung der Weiterentwicklung der Gestalttheorie zum Ausdruck: „Metzger entwickelt hier auf der Grundlage von Köhlers naturphilosophischen Ideen der ‚physischen Gestalten‘ (1920) und unter Einbeziehung der Lehren des Zen-Buddhismus … eine Theorie der Erziehung zum schöpferischen Denken und Handeln. … Dieses Buch drückt vielleicht am deutlichsten die der Gestalttheorie inhärente Ethik der freien Selbstbestimmung menschlichen Denkens und Handelns aus.“. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Neo-Idealist Reception of Kant in the Moscow Psychological SocietyRandall A. Poole*The Moscow Psychological Society, founded in 1885 at Moscow University, was the philosophical center of the revolt against positivism in the Russian Silver Age. By the end of its activity in 1922 it had played the major role in the growth of professional philosophy in Russia. 1 The Society owes its name to its founder, M. (...) M. Troitsky (1835–99), an empiricist psychologist. Although it sponsored significant psychological research, its greater importance in the history of Russian philosophy began to emerge already in 1888, when Nikolai Ia. Grot (1852–99) took over as director. Grot’s principal colleagues in the affairs of the Society included the major Russian idealist philosophers Vladimir S. Solov’ev (1853–1900), Sergei N. Trubetskoi (1862–1905), and Lev M. Lopatin (1855–1920). In 1889 the Psychological Society began publication of Russia’s first regular, specialized journal in philosophy, Questions of Philosophy and Psychology (Voprosy Filosofii i Psikhologii). Grot characterized the journal’s prevailing direction as idealist or, “in respect to method, metaphysical.” 2While the cultural revival of the Silver Age mounted a broad-based revolt against positivism, neo-idealist philosophy in the Psychological Society was distinctive in the theoretical depth of its critique. Positivism was remarkably pervasive [End Page 319] in Russia from the middle of the nineteenth century. The main characteristics of this positivist Weltanschauung were reductionism, which dismissed as a meaningless proposition (neither analytic nor empirical) the possibility of being beyond the positively-given data of sense experience, i.e., phenomena in space and time; scientism, the claim, consistent with the positivist reduction of being to natural phenomena, that the methodology of the natural sciences covered eve-rything; and utopianism, the hope that the application of natural scientific methods to man and society would make human existence as regular and well-ordered as nature. 3 The defining trait was reductionism or, in other words, naturalism or atheism: the reduction of being to nature. In ethics, epistemology, ontology, and social philosophy neo-idealism emerged as a response to these characteristics. Its development by philosophers in the Psychological Society, apart from comprising a basic chapter in the history of Russian thought, informs the European-wide revolt against positivism characteristic of fin-de-siècle culture.According to scientistic positivism, philosophy had no distinctive methodology and thus no legitimate right to exist as its own type of scientific (nauchnyi or wissenschaftlich) discipline. Empirical sciences were the only sciences; philosophy could at best serve as a field that systematized empirical research. Against these claims Russian neo-idealists sought to advance the autonomy of philosophy by showing that the positivist measure of reality was far from exhaustive and that what it did not exhaust comprised the domain of philosophy. This domain was human consciousness itself, to the extent it could be shown to be irreducible to empirical experience (the positivist sphere). Neo-idealism thus took shape as a type of philosophy of consciousness. In the inaugural issue of Questions of Philosophy and Psychology S. N. Trubetskoi published the first installment of a large essay bearing the title, “On the Nature of Human Consciousness.” “The question of the nature of consciousness is the principal question of philosophy, not only of psychology,” Trubetskoi wrote, “for in consciousness we know everything that we know.” 4 Trubetskoi and his colleagues in the Psychological Society were convinced that philosophy had to develop through specification of its own internal standards and through autonomization from the spurious criteria positivism applied externally to it. Their goal was to match, in theoretical rigor, the professionalism associated with the natural sciences by making philosophy “scientific,” but on idealist, not empirical grounds. [End Page 320]The Kantian Critique of PositivismIn their defense of the self against positivist reductionism and naturalism, neo-idealists of the Psychological Society were deeply indebted to Kant, in both epistemology and moral philosophy. This claim revises the traditional view that Russian philosophy developed without significant assistance from Kant. 5In two ways Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason defends the minimal idealist claim that not everything intellectual can be reduced to the natural (sensible or psychological), that consciousness cannot... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Concurrent Contents: Recent and Classic References at the Interface of Philosophy, Psychiatry, and PsychologyArticlesAntonak, R. J., C. R. Fielder, and J. A. Mulick. 1993. A scale of attitudes toward the application of eugenics to the treatment of people with mental retardation. Journal of Intellect Disabilities Research 37:75–83.Arens, K. 1996. Commentary on “Lumps and bumps.” Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 3:15–16.Bavidge, M. 1996. Commentary on “Minds, memes, and multiples.” Philosophy, (...) Psychiatry, & Psychology 3:29–30.Blashfield, R. K. 1973. Evaluation of the DSM-II classification of schizophrenia as a nomenclature. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 85(2):140–150.Braude, S. E. 1996. Multiple personality and moral responsibility. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 3:37–54.Broverman, I. K., S. R. Vogel, D. M. Broverman et al. 1972. Sex-role stereotypes: a current appraisal. Journal of Social Issues 28:59–78.Broverman, I. K., D. M. Broverman, P. E. Clarkson et al. 1975. Sex-role stereotypes and clinical judgments of mental health. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 34:1–7.Checkland, D., and M. Silberfeld. 1996. Mental competence and the question of beneficient intervention. Theoretical Medicine 17(2):121–134.Clark, S. R. L. 1996. Commentary on “Multiple personality and moral responsibility.” Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 3:55–57.Clark, S. R. L. 1996. Minds, memes, and multiples. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 3:21–28.Dickenson, D., and D. Jones. 1995. True wishes: The philosophy and developmental psychology of children’s informed consent. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 2:287–303.Donaldson, T. 1978. Psychoanalyzing the practical inference model. Philosophical Research Archives 4:1215.Eekelaar, J. 1995. Commentary on “True wishes.” Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 2:305–307.Fisher, S., and R. P. Greenberg. 1993. How sound is the double-blind design for evaluating psychotropic drugs? Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 181:345–350.Fulwiler, C., and M. F. Folstein. 1995. Commentary on “Chris Walker’s interpretation of Karl Jaspers’ phenomenology.” Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 2:345–346.Heinze, M. 1995. Commentary on “Moralist or therapist?” Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 2:31–32.Iturrate, M. 1977. Man’s freedom: Freud’s therapeutic goal. Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry 15:32–45.Littlewood, R. 1991. From diseae to illness and back again. Lancet 337:1013–1015.Maddox, J. 1993. New genetics means no new ethics. Nature 364:97.McCormick, S. 1995. Commentary on “True wishes.” Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 2:309–310.Murray, T. H. 1995. Commentary on “True wishes.” Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 2:311–312.Muzika, E. G. 1989. Object relations theory, Buddhism, and the self-synthesis of eastern and western approaches. International Philosophical Quarterly 30(1):59–74.Parker, M. 1995. Commentary on “True wishes.” Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 2:313–314.Phillips, J. 1996. Key concepts: Hermeneutics. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 3:61–69.Pole, D. 1970. Self and personality. The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 1:30–36.Priebe, S. 1989. On the subjectivity of psychiatric diagnosis. Psychiatric Praxis 16:86–89.Radden, J. 1996. Lumps and bumps: Kantian faculty psychology, phrenology, and twentieth-century psychiatric classification. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 3:1–14.Sampson, E. E. 1981. Cognitive psychology as ideology. American Psychologist 36:730–743.Sarbin, T. R. 1976. Contextualism: A worldview for modern psychology. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation 24:1–41.Senft, P. A. 1975. The self-contradictions (antinomies) of psychotherapy: Is a solution in social action possible? The Human Context 7:367–372.Shuman, D. W. 1996. Commentary on “Multiple personality and moral responsibility.” Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 3:59–60.Sprigge, T. 1996. Commentary on “Minds, memes, and multiples.” Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 3:31–36.Wallace, K. 1996. Commentary on “Lumps and bumps.” Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 3:17–20.Wells, L. A. 1995. Commentary on “True wishes.” Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 2:315–317.Wiggins, O. P., and M. A. Schwartz. 1995. Chris Walker’s interpretation of Karl Jaspers’ phenomenology: a critique. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 2:319–343.BooksAmerican Hospital Association. 1994. Values in conflict: Resolving ethical issues in health care. 2nd ed. Chicago: American Hospital Association.American Medical Association. 1992. Code of medical ethics: Annotated current opinions of the council on ethical and judicial affairs. Chicago: American Medical Association.———. 1994. Council on ethical and judicial affairs... (shrink)

How is technology changing the way people remember? This book explores the interplay of memory stored in the brain and outside of the brain, providing a thorough interdisciplinary review of the current literature, including relevant theoretical frameworks from across a variety of disciplines in the sciences, arts, and humanities. It also presents the findings of a rich and novel empirical data set, based on a comprehensive survey on the shifting interplay of internal and external memory in the 21st century. (...) Results reveal a growing symbiosis between the two forms of memory in our everyday lives. The book presents a new theoretical framework for understanding the interplay of internal and external memory, and their complementary strengths. It concludes with a guide to important dimensions, questions, and methods for future research. Memory and Technology will be of interest to researchers, professors, and students across the disciplines of psychology, philosophy, library and information science, human factors, media and cultural studies, anthropology and archaeology, photography, and cognitive rehabilitation, as well as anyone interested in how technology is affecting human memory. _____ "This is a novel book, with interesting and valuable data on an important, meaningful topic, as well as a gathering of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary ideas...The research is accurately represented and inclusive. As a teaching tool, I can envision graduate seminars in different disciplines drawing on the material as the basis for teaching and discussions." Dr. Linda A. Henkel, Fairfield University "This book documents the achievements of a vibrant scientific project – you feel the enthusiasm of the authors for their research. The organization of the manuscript introduces the reader into a comparatively new field the same way as pioneering authors have approached it." Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schönpflug, Freie Universität Berlin. (shrink)

Max Weber's magnum opus Economy and Society was for the most part published only after his premature death in June 1920. Only the chapters on basic sociological terms, the categories of social action, and the Three Times of Legitimate Domination were sent to the publishers by Weber himself; the other manuscripts were found in a pile on his desk. The editions by Marianne Weber and Melchior Palyi and by Johannes F. Winckelmann are in many ways unsatisfactory, and the controversy (...) about the correct composition of Economy and Society persists. This article reconstructs the origins of the various texts of Economy and Society on the basis of the available source material, notably the correspondence between Weber, Marianne Weber, and the publishers. It shows that in many ways the editions available at present do not live up to Max Weber's own intentions. Both the arrangement and the precise wording of the texts are unreliable, and the time sequence of the texts written from 1909 to 1914 and then in part rewritten and reorganized in 1919–1920 is uncertain. A segment of an earlier draft of parts of the chapter on Communities found among Weber's papers allows the conclusion that as early as 1905–1906, Weber had outlined a universal historical scheme of all known civilizations. This is to say that Economy and Society is not as closely linked to Weber's work on the Outline of Social Economics as has been previously assumed. This article offers a precise reconstruction of the complicated history of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Soziologie-the exact title agreed upon by Weber and his publisher Paul Siebeck shortly before his death. It shows the development of Weber's theoretical conceptions and the corresponding changes of his terminology much more clearly, and paves the way to a better understanding of his magnum opus. (shrink)

To effectively improve the efficiency of international service design talent training and make it more in line with society's needs, we analyze the current status of international service design talent training and its professional training focus. Based on the above problems, from the perspective of cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence and human–computer interaction technology are used to construct the international service design talent training mode of the HCI intelligent service robot. This mode can be used to (...) solve the existing teaching problems by using novel means to ensure the quality of teaching. Finally, through the actual analysis of teaching cases, the effectiveness of the proposed talent training mode is verified. The HCI system is based on knowledge of cognitive psychology. According to the characteristics and functions of an educational robot, the robot is combined with traditional teaching activities, and the robot-assisted talent training mode is designed. Robot-assisted talent training is a feasible training method that can improve the efficiency of talent training. Students have confidence in their learning skills before the course, and the confidence is further strengthened after the end of the course. After the course, the students have a stronger sense of cooperation. This study can provide theoretical ideas for the research of international service talent training mode. (shrink)

During psychotherapy, patient and therapist tend to spontaneously synchronize their vocal pitch, bodily movements, and even their physiological processes. In the present article, we consider how this pervasive phenomenon may shed new light on the therapeutic relationship– or alliance– and its role within psychotherapy. We first review clinical research on the alliance and the multidisciplinary area of interpersonal synchrony. We then integrate both literatures in the Interpersonal Synchrony (In-Sync) model of psychotherapy. According to the model, the alliance is grounded in (...) the coupling of patient and therapist’s brains. Because brains do not interact directly, movement synchrony may help to establish inter-brain coupling. Inter-brain coupling may provide patient and therapist with access to another’s internal states, which facilitates common understanding and emotional sharing. Over time, these interpersonal exchanges may improve patients’ emotion-regulatory capacities and related therapeutic outcomes. We discuss the empirical assessment of interpersonal synchrony and review preliminary research on synchrony in psychotherapy. Finally, we summarize our main conclusions and consider the broader implications of viewing psychotherapy as the product of two interacting brains. (shrink)

This handbook presents the state of the art of quantitative methods and models to understand and assess the science and technology system. Focusing on various aspects of the development and application of indicators derived from data on scholarly publications, patents and electronic communications, the individual chapters, written by leading experts, discuss theoretical and methodological issues, illustrate applications, highlight their policy context and relevance, and point to future research directions. A substantial portion of the book is dedicated to detailed descriptions (...) and analyses of data sources, presenting both traditional and advanced approaches. It addresses the main bibliographic metrics and indexes, such as the journal impact factor and the h-index, as well as altmetric and webometric indicators and science mapping techniques on different levels of aggregation and in the context of their value for the assessment of research performance as well as their impact on research policy and society. It also presents and critically discusses various national research evaluation systems. Complementing the sections reflecting on the science system, the technology section includes multiple chapters that explain different aspects of patent statistics, patent classification and database search methods to retrieve patent-related information. In addition, it examines the relevance of trademarks and standards as additional technological indicators. The Springer Handbook of Science and Technology Indicators is an invaluable resource for practitioners, scientists and policy makers wanting a systematic and thorough analysis of the potential and limitations of the various approaches to assess research and research performance. (shrink)

The quest for integrity in business is not only a reaction against malfeasance in business and associated calls for reform, but also a result of changes and new demands in the global business environment as well as the latest economic crisis. Among the sources of these new demands are the expectations of stakeholders that corporations and their leaders will take more active roles as citizens within society and in the fight against some of the most pressing problems in the (...) world, such as poverty, environmental degradation, defending human rights, corruption, and pandemic diseases. This topical and much needed book constitutes an important part of the debate on the best practices for ensuring integrity in an organizational context. (shrink)

In addition to discussing some philosophical accounts of common sense, this article considers several ways in which common sense can be altered or disturbed in psychopathology. Common sense can be defined as practical understanding, capacity to see and take things in their right light, sound judgment, or ordinary mental capacity. The philosopher Vico described it as the ability to distinguish the probable from the improbable. Goethe understood common sense as an "organ" that is formed in communication for the purpose of (...) communication. Common sense is rooted in the intersubjective constitution of the life-world. Obsessive-compulsive patients show relatively mild disturbances of common sense. Patients with major affective psychoses, in their premorbid personality structure, are overly attached to common sense. In schizophrenia, however, there seems to be a true abdication of common sense involving a loss of "natural self-evidence." Even in premorbid states, such persons often lose both the sense of tact and the ability to "take things in their right light." Although logic, and the ability to engage in theoretical discussion, may be preserved, there is a loss of interpretive skills and the "faculty of judgment"; this results in an inability to cope with everyday practical and social activity. There is also a characteristic sense of perplexity, a sense of amazement before that which would normally seem self-evident and a frequent tendency to reflect upon the conditions of possibility of existence that otherwise remain concealed. The author suggests that the fragility of common sense should not be seen as a mere deficiency state. Rather, it derives from a basic vulnerability inherent in the very structure of being human. (Abstract written by special issue editor: L.A.S.). (shrink)

The ontology of marketing, particularly the question of what products and brands are, is still largely unexplored. The ontological status of brands hinges on their relationship with products. Idealists about brands see perceptual or cognitive acts of consumers grouped under the heading ‘brand awareness’ or ‘brand image’ as constitutive for the existence of brands so that, in their view, tools of the marketing mix can influence relevant mental dispositions and attitudes. Brand realists, on the other hand, reject the view of (...) brands as mere marks or names and interpret them as emergent products with properties that afford branding in the sense of Gibson’s ecological psychology. Brand strength is a function of the degree to which brands occupy defensible niches in product space. Branding as a process involves changing external or internal boundaries of products. Several arguments are proposed in favor of brand realism. The fragments of an ontology of marketing are developed in a broadly Aristotelian framework. Brand realism has significant implications for a new understanding of issues ranging from the effects of advertising to financial brand valuation, the nature of trademarks, and marketing strategy in general. It permits one to treat brand equity as a real phenomenon not dependent on associations, attitudinal states such as brand loyalty, or spurious constructs such as brand character or personality. (shrink)

The article discusses principles that form part of evolutionary systems thinking in social sciences and humanities. It is argued that introducing the concept of self-organization relates agency and structures in a way that makes it possible to take up certain features of Critical Theory by which it can meet the demands for a critical social science. These principles are applied to the question of whether there is convergence or divergence in and by means of the Internet. It will be clarified (...) that the Internet is basically a social system and that it is a subsystem of the larger and overarching system of the whole society. It will be shown how the Internet can be perceived as a possible trigger for societal developments bringing about fundamental change in the nature of society. Thus the article cuts across philosophical, system theoretical, social theoretical, sociology of technology, and information society theory considerations. Key Words: dynamic • "mechanism" • self-organizaton • revolution • evolution • Critical Theory • information society • Internet. (shrink)

Based on the concept of Informational Cities, which are the highly developed prototypical cities of the 21st century, we conducted a regional comparison of four Japanese cities in terms of their “cityness” and “informativeness”. The purpose of our articles is to specify the theoretical framework for measuring the informativeness and cityness level of any desired city, to quantify the chosen indicators in order to compare the investigated cities, and finally, to conclude what is their advancement level in terms of (...) a modern city of the knowledge society. Our methodology is based on a new approach to measure the position of a city in a national or a global scale, originating from information science and its indicators of the knowledge society. It includes such procedures as desktop research and bibliometrics, ethnographic field study, or grounded theory method. The investigated aspects under the notion of the informativeness level are the distinct labour market and mix of companies located in the city, as well as the progressive e-governance and advanced e-government. The notion of cityness level oscillates around the concept of space of flows in the city, including the flow of money, power, information, and human capital. In order to make our model practical and grounded on available evidence, we have chosen four Japanese cities to undergo the process. Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka and Kyoto are big and economically significant Japanese metropolises. However, our results show that they differ from each other regarding many important aspects. We were able to quantify their performances and create a ranking. The limitation of our approach appears to be the strict quantification method that makes the cityness and informativeness levels of the cities dependent on other cities’ performances, and that does not precisely reflect the actual dimension of the differences between them. Hence, in the future work we will develop a more flexible and independent approach, enabling us to make more accurate statements on cities’ advancement unregarded the advancement level of the other metropolises. (shrink)

The first reference on rationality that integrates accounts from psychology and philosophy, covering descriptive and normative theories from both disciplines. Both analytic philosophy and cognitive psychology have made dramatic advances in understanding rationality, but there has been little interaction between the disciplines. This volume offers the first integrated overview of the state of the art in the psychology and philosophy of rationality. Written by leading experts from both disciplines, The Handbook of Rationality covers the main normative and (...) descriptive theories of rationality—how people ought to think, how they actually think, and why we often deviate from what we can call rational. It also offers insights from other fields such as artificial intelligence, economics, the social sciences, and cognitive neuroscience. The Handbook proposes a novel classification system for researchers in human rationality, and it creates new connections between rationality research in philosophy, psychology, and other disciplines. Following the basic distinction between theoretical and practical rationality, the book first considers the theoretical side, including normative and descriptive theories of logical, probabilistic, causal, and defeasible reasoning. It then turns to the practical side, discussing topics such as decision making, bounded rationality, game theory, deontic and legal reasoning, and the relation between rationality and morality. Finally, it covers topics that arise in both theoretical and practical rationality, including visual and spatial thinking, scientific rationality, how children learn to reason rationally, and the connection between intelligence and rationality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reading Aristotle: Physics VII.3. “What is Alteration?” Proceedings of the International ESAP-HYELE Conference Reading Aristotle: Physics VII.3. “What is Alteration?” Proceedings of the International ESAP-HYELE Conference ed. by Stephano Maso, Carlo Natali, and Gerhard SeelMariska LeunissenStephano Maso, Carlo Natali, and Gerhard Seel, eds. Reading Aristotle: Physics VII.3. “What is Alteration?” Proceedings of the International ESAP-HYELE Conference. Las Vegas, Nev.: Parmenides Publishing, 2012. xvii + 152 (...) pp. Paper, $65.As the editors of this excellent little volume point out from the outset, Aristotle’s Physics VII.3 is a curious, difficult, and—sadly—mostly neglected chapter. On the one hand, the chapter discusses quite important matters. Offering one of the lengthiest discussions of qualitative change in the Aristotelian corpus, it starts out by restricting this type of change—not to changes in any of the four types of quality Aristotle had distinguished in Categories 8—but to change in perceptual qualities only (i.e., to change in the third type of “affective qualities” listed in Categories 8). It then proceeds by demonstrating that two seeming counterexamples to this refined notion of qualitative change—namely, items taking on figures or shapes, and the taking on and casting off of states (the fourth and first type of quality listed in the Categories, respectively)—are not in fact cases of qualitative change, even if their occurrence depends on qualitative changes [End Page 155] taking place in something else. In the meantime, it offers a rare physiological account of the acquisition and loss of the ethical and intellectual virtues, thereby making the chapter not only crucial for our understanding of Aristotle’s physics and metaphysics but also for his moral psychology and ethics. On the other hand, the chapter is demanding, does not seem to fit in well within the argument of Physics VII as a whole (although this book seems to be a bit of an anomaly itself: Aristotle’s student Eudemus, who wrote his own paraphrase of the entire Physics, does not include his own version of Book VII), and the Greek has been handed down to us in two different versions (this is true also of Physics VII.1–2, but otherwise this phenomenon is unique for the Aristotelian corpus).The volume under review goes a long way toward making this intricate chapter more accessible to scholars by putting the chapter in context, printing both versions of the Greek text with an English translation, and offering—in the form of separate essays—a running commentary on the text. The volume is a product of a conference on Physics VII.3 held in Vitznau, Switzerland, 12–15 April 2007, organized by the European Society for Ancient Philosophy (ESAP) and the HYELE Institute for Comparative Studies. As Stefano Maso explains in the foreword to the volume, the main purpose of these meetings (of which there have been several since the first gathering of Aristotle scholars in Europe in 1995; the meetings have been annual since the foundation of ESAP in 2005) is to read and interpret closely an important chapter in the Aristotelian corpus, while paying attention to textual and exegetical issues as well as to questions of more theoretical and philosophical interest. For this purpose, the text is divided into short sections, which are then translated and introduced by the participating scholars, and debated collectively during the remainder of the session.The present volume reflects both the set up and the value of this approach: the volume consists, in addition to the foreword by Maso mentioned above, of an introduction by Robert Wardy (who has already done extensive work on the chapter in his The Chain of Change: A Study of Aristotle’s Physics VII [Cambridge 1990]); printed versions of the Greek texts with an English translation (first of version α, which is the version printed by W. D. Ross in his 1950 Oxford edition, and next of version β, which is the version known by Simplicius, Philoponus, and Themistius); another set of preliminary remarks on the place and structure of Physics VII.3 by Benjamin Morison and Gerhard Seel; and commentaries on the six sections of the chapter (245b3–46a9 by Benjamin Morison; 246a10–46b3... (shrink)

The papers in this volume reflect much of the current unease of a world that perceives itself once more at the edge of chaos. The authors present different vistas of that experience and their inherent dialectic, expressed in numerous and ceaseless conflicts between ordering and disordering processes. They can be read as comments on the ongoing processes that lead toward greater complexity.

Cognitive Action Theory of Reality presents an original and thought-provoking theory of consciousness. Adopting a panpsychist approach, the book argues that a primitive consciousness takes place in all material, assuming the observer's existence is the foundational premise underlying all further scientific inquiry. The human brain is treated as the ultimate measuring instrument, creating objective reality as an explanation for sensory stimulation in an internal mental model. The book presents a truly multi-disciplinary approach to the study of consciousness, drawing on the (...) author's knowledge of psychology, physics, computer science, and philosophy. (shrink)

The paper argues that the objects of belief should not be conceived as sets of possible worlds or propositions of set of centered possible worlds or egocentric propositions (this is the propositional conception), but rather as sets of pairs consisting of a centered world and a sequence of objects (this is the intentional conception of the objects of belief). The paper explains the deep significance of this thesis for the framework of two-dimensional semantics, indeed for any framework trying to adequately (...) relate semantics and epistemology (which is here construed as what I call the Congruence Principle). I give three arguments for this thesis, two preliminary indecisive ones by way of examples, and third theoretical one alluding to a deep principle of philosophical psychology (which I call the Invariance Principle). This paper is an improved and up-dated version of my paper No. 25. It will appear in Causation, Coherence, and Concepts. A Collection of Essays of mine. (shrink)

Proceedings of the First Conference of the International Society for Hermeneutics and Science.

The focus of this paper is on Kant and on a text which has often been drawn upon when talking about the present situation of philosophy at university, namely his 'The Conflict of the Faculties' of 1798. Kant’s claims, though not applicable to the contemporary situation directly, can indeed be worked out in a way which can assign a distinct and clearly identifiable role for university-based philosophy. I need to emphasize, though, that I am not suggesting that this is the (...) only way Kant’s thoughts in this respect can be adapted to and utilized for such an account. Quite the contrary, Kant’s text offers a manifold of highly important options here. In my article I will seek to establish the following claims: a) Kant, in his later years, which therefore amounts to something like his “mature” position, subscribed to a conception of a public use of reason which mainly referred to the Faculties of Philosophy at universities. b) Kant’s dismissal of philosophy according to the school conception of it must not be taken as a dismissal of academic philosophy altogether. Philosophy practiced at university by professionals is vital for Kant to build philosophy as a fully worked out discipline and to answer questions revolving around the issue of the compatibility of the theoretical standpoint and Kant’s own moral theory. c) Neither a) nor b) can be immediately applied to the contemporary situation we find ourselves in. Combining elements of a) and b), however, a possible route for the actualization of Kant’s ideas may open up. At least one of the functions for which university-based philosophy is uniquely qualified is the assessment of the implications of progress in the natural sciences for the conception of a moral standpoint in general, and as such for a core element of our self-understanding as rational beings. (shrink)

The article offers a critical analysis of the cognitive science of religion (CSR) as applied to new and quasi-religious movements, and uncovers implicit conceptual and theoretical commitments of the approach. A discussion of CSR’s application to new religious movement (NRM) case studies (charismatic leadership, paradise representations, Aḥmadiyya, and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness) identifies concerns about the theorized relationship between CSR and wider socio-cultural factors, and proposals for CSR’s implication in wider processes are discussed. The main (...) discussion analyses three themes in recent work relating CSR to religious and religion-like activities that extend and reframe the model. These include (1) identification of distinctive and accessible cognitive pathways associated with new forms of religious belief and practice (in particular in ‘New Age’ movements), (2) application of CSR to movements and practices outside traditional definitions of religion (near death experiences, conspiracy theories, virtual reality), and (3) engaging CSR in wider cultural processes and negotiations (religion in healthcare settings, and the definition of the study of esoteric religious traditions within academic domains). The conclusion identifies two particular findings: (1) that application of CSR in these areas renders underlying cognitive processes more available to scrutiny and (2) that CSR is employed to identify and enlarge the category of religion. The conclusion suggests that the study of CSR in its application to NRMs and quasi-religion identifies a wide field of common and overlapping themes and interests in which CSR is a more active operand than is commonly assumed. (shrink)

In a world that peers over the brink of disaster more often than not it is difficult to find specific assignments for the scholarly community. One speaks of peace and brotherhood only to realize that for many the only real hope of making a contribution may seem to be in a field of scientific specialization seemingly irrelevant to social causes and problems. Yet the history of man since the beginnings of science in the days of the Greeks does not support (...) this gloomy thesis. Time and again we have seen science precipitate social trends or changes in the humanistic beliefs that have a significant effect on the scientific community. Not infrequently the theoretical scientist, triggered by society's changing goals and understandings, finds ultimate satisfaction in the work of his colleagues in engineering and the other applied fields. Thus the major debate in mid-nineteenth century in which the evidence of natural history and geology at variance with the Biblical feats provided not only courage to a timid Darwin but the kind of audience that was needed to fit his theories into the broad public dialogue on these topics. The impact of "Darwinism" was felt far beyond the scientific community. It affected social thought, upset religious certainties and greatly affected the teaching of science. (shrink)

Carroll shaped the corporate social responsibility discourse into a four-dimensional pyramid framework, which was later adapted to corporate citizenship and sustainability approaches. The four layers of the pyramid—structured from foundation to apex as economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities—drew considerable managerial attention. An important criticism of the economic foundation of the Carroll pyramid concerns the identification and ordering of the four dimensions, which are inadequately justified theoretically. The authors of this article propose an alternative approach that builds on the public (...) value concept, which integrates a microfoundation of psychological research into basic human needs. Drawing on their Swiss Dialogue process, the authors argue that a four-dimensional pyramid does have heuristic value for managers. The advantage of this alternative pyramid logic is that it may be contingently adapted to different cultural contexts, because it allows adaptive internal reordering. (shrink)

Drawn from the contributions to the 9th international “Consciousness Reframed” research conference held at University of Applied Arts Vienna in 2008, this publication aims for a timely re-definition of contemporary syncretic inquiries into the fields of art, science, technology and society through theory and practice alike, reframing the concept of innovation in its relationship to progress and change within the context of perception and its transformation. It comprises a wide range of outstanding expertise and insights of artists, architects, (...) performers, musicians, writers, scientists, and scholars. Among the authors from at least 20 countries are most prominently Roy Ascott, Gerald Bast, Jim Gimzewski, Pierre Lévy, Ryohei Nakatsu, Michael Punt, Ruth Schnell, Barbara Maria Stafford, Alfred Vendl, Victoria Vesna and Peter Weibel. The publication includes full papers and a DVD, edited by Ruth Schnell, with short video extracts of the event and accompanying visual reference. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 237 [Access article in PDF] News and Views The 1999 Meeting of the Japan Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies James HeisigNanzan Institute for Religion and CultureThe 18th Annual Meeting of the Japan Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies was held in Kyoto from 21 to 23 August 1999. Discussions centered around three papers delivered under the general theme of "Nature, Self, and Spirituality."Watanabe Manabu addressed the (...) strain of arbitrariness in Jung's idea of the Self, demonstrating how the meaning of the term changed according to context and to developmental stages of Jung's thinking, with religious dimension growing ever stronger. In a complementary paper, Jim Heisig suggested that prying Jung's notion of the Self open and liberating it from its monotheistic assumptions in the light of the experiences and worldview of present-day religious experience could serve not only to reawaken interest in analytical psychology but also to draw the Buddhist-Christian encounter closer to the spirituality of the age. Horio Tsutomu focused his paper on the notion of spirituality in the writings of D. T. Suzuki. As always, the papers, responses, and a selection of the discussions will be published in the pages of the Japanese journal Daijozen.The general theme will carry over to the annual meeting for the year 2000 and the sessions planned for the coming Sixth International Conference of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies in Tacoma.... (shrink)

Successful innovations are deemed to be necessary requisites for enterprise success. On the other hand, works council participation and employee participation are judged differently as either fostering employee and enterprise benefits or only the former or even none. Both forms of participation have found diverging theoretical and empirical argumentations regarding innovations. Here, we argue and show empirically that both forms of participation deliver positive contributions to innovation success, economically and employee-related, substantiated with qualitative reports from 36 process innovation cases (...) and quantitative data from 44 cases. Qualitative case analyses reveal different profiles of works council participation depending on the innovation type. Independent of the innovation types, more successful innovations are marked by more intensive participation. Quantitative examinations of a causal model with path analysis specify how this is achieved: works council and employee participation further the growth of appropriate knowledge and the former also raises the coordination capability; both are essential preconditions for innovation success. A direct impact of works councils on innovation success complements the indirect effects. The slightly modified path analysis explains 53% of the innovation success variance. (shrink)

The Wiley Handbook of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology presents a comprehensive exploration of the wide range of methodological approaches utilized in the contemporary field of theoretical and philosophical psychology. The Wiley Handbook of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology presents a comprehensive exploration of the wide range of methodological approaches utilized in the contemporary field of theoretical and philosophical psychology. Gathers together for the first time all the approaches and methods that define scholarly practice (...) in theoretical and philosophical psychology Chapters explore various philosophical and conceptual approaches, historical approaches, narrative approaches to the nature of human conduct, mixed-method studies of psychology and psychological inquiry, and various theoretical bases of contemporary psychotherapeutic practices Features contributions from ten Past Presidents of the Society of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, along with several Past Presidents of other relevant societies. (shrink)

The book Anti-Corruption in Management Research and Business School Classrooms aims at presenting the topic of anti-corruption activities throughout management research as well as in the process of educating future business leaders and practitioners in business schools in different parts of the globe. Simultaneously the book deepens the topic of anti-corruption in selected cultures and societies. The volume consists of four parts and includes three themes. The first part is the "Introduction" and subsequent parts are as follows: "Teaching business ethics (...) and anti-corruption--across curriculum and beyond", "Fostering integrity in higher education", and "Anti-corruption as a topic of research." This book is authored by a range of international scientists and experts in management research and management education, with a diversity of cultural and professional backgrounds. It is therefore believed that this broad experience and expertise will give the readers the new light for the significance of teaching and researching in the area of anti-corruption. (shrink)

The existence of superstition and religious beliefs in most, if not all, human societies is puzzling for behavioral ecology. These phenomena bring about various fitness costs ranging from burial objects to celibacy, and these costs are not outweighed by any obvious benefits. In an attempt to resolve this problem, we present a verbal model describing how humans and other organisms learn from the observation of coincidence (associative learning). As in statistical analysis, learning organisms need rules to distinguish between real patterns (...) and randomness. These rules, which we argue are equivalent to setting the level of α for rejection of the null hypothesis in statistics, are governed by risk management as well as by comparison to previous experiences. Risk management means that the cost of a possible type I error (superstition) has to be traded off against the cost of a possible type II error (ignorance). This trade-off implies that the occurrence of superstitious beliefs is an inevitable consequence of an organism’s ability to learn from observation of coincidence. Comparison with previous experiences (as in Bayesian statistics) improves the chances of making the right decision. While this Bayesian approach is found in most learning organisms, humans have evolved a unique ability to judge from experiences whether a candidate subject has the power to mechanistically cause the observed effect. Such “strong” causal thinking evolved because it allowed humans to understand and manipulate their environment. Strong causal thinking, however, involves the generation of hypotheses about underlying mechanisms (i.e., beliefs). Assuming that natural selection has favored individuals that learn quicker and more successfully than others owing to (1) active search to detect patterns and (2) the desire to explain these patterns mechanistically, we suggest that superstition has evolved as a by-product of the first, and that belief has evolved as a by-product of the second. (shrink)

Neuroethics studies the ethical, social, and legal issues raised by actual or expected advances in neuroscience. The relevant fields in neuroscience include, but are not limited to, neuroimaging, cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychopharmacology, neurogenetics, and neuropsychiatry. For many, neuroethics is best understood as a subcategory of bioethics, and although not all agree, for the purposes of the present collection of articles, this definition is assumed. Although bioethics as a field of study started in the early 1970s as a normative enterprise, mainly practiced (...) by philosophers and theologians, it has since become truly inter- and multidisciplinary, comprising also law, sociology, psychology, gender studies, disability studies, anthropology, history, and many other approaches. What we particularly wanted to do in this issue, however, was to find the most pertinent questions of neuroethics from the viewpoint of philosophy, and the call for papers was drafted accordingly.Tuija Takala, Ph.D., is Academy Research Fellow at the Academy of Finland and Adjunct Professor of Social and Moral Philosophy at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She is president-elect of the European Society for Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care and holds a number of international editorial positions. Her current research interests lie in the conceptual, methodological, and theoretical aspects of philosophical bioethics.FootnotesThe editorial work for this special issue was supported by my project Neuroscience and Norms: Ethical and Legal Aspects of Norms in Neuroimaging / Ethical Concepts and Norms funded by the Academy of Finland. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Children’s Home Musical Experiences Across the World ed. by Beatriz Ilari, Susan YoungAmy Christine BeegleBeatriz Ilari and Susan Young, eds., Children’s Home Musical Experiences Across the World (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2016)Historically, most studies of children’s musical learning have been informed by stage theories of developmental psychology and focused on school music or private instrumental lesson contexts. Over the past few decades, scholars have conducted research (...) that increasingly explores children’s involvement with music in contexts outside of formal learning settings, utilizing methods and models from ethnomusicology, sociology, social psychology, and/or cultural psychology. Nine individually authored chapters in the volume, Children’s Home Musical Experiences Across the World, edited by Beatriz Ilari and Susan Young, convey results, applications, and extensions of one such project that reaches beyond the conventional ethnographic music education study.The bulk of this collection contains findings and interpretations from a collaborative project called MyPlace, MyMusic, followed by several additional chapters that provide descriptions and narratives from subsequent related projects. The original project included fourteen scholars from the International Society of Music Education-Early Childhood Commission, who conducted in-home observations and interviews with parents and children in order to examine the nature of, influences on, and meaning of musical activities that took place in the homes of middle-class seven-year-olds in diverse locations, including Brazil, Denmark, [End Page 105] Greece, Israel, Kenya, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, Taiwan, the U.K., and the United States.Importantly, the project’s designers attempted to avoid complications of transcultural developments by asking each researcher to select children whose families had not recently migrated to their country/locality. The seventeen participating children from twelve countries were also of the same ethnicity and lived in the same “locality” as each researcher in order to ease communication during in-home observations and interviews. Results shed light on issues of children’s family life, schooling, identity, gender, and social class.This project presents a unique contribution to the field of music education in a number of ways. First, most previous studies of music in the homes of children have centered around preschoolers, toddlers, and infants, whereas the present project focuses on seven-year-old children, whose age places them on the cusp of crossing from early to middle childhood. Second, most previous music education researchers have considered issues of social class, ethnicity, and race as independent variables, but the methodology for this project calls for observation and description of each child in his or her home first, followed by comparison of the “cases” to each other. Third, the researchers utilize a Wiki platform to share and collaboratively interpret data collected from home lives of children (photographs, video and audio recordings, texts, and pdf files) among researchers from different countries.The volume is organized into three major sections. Susan Young and Jèssica Pérez-Moreno set the scene in the first two chapters by describing the theoretical underpinnings and methodology for the MyPlace, MyMusic project. The second section of the book includes four chapters in which several individual researchers interpret the project’s data based upon the themes of children’s private musical worlds; belonging/identity/gendered meanings of children’s music making; perspectives and influences of parents; and the role of social class on children’s musical lives. The last three chapters of the book provide detailed descriptions of projects and extensions that developed after the MyPlace, MyMusic project.Following the introductory chapter, in which Ilari and Young explain the background, rationale, goals, and methods of the MyPlace, MyMusic project and provide a reader-friendly table that presents the cultural background and “sources of musical stimulation in the home” for each participating child,1 Susan Young outlines the theoretical and analytical frameworks for the project in the first chapter. Rather than viewing children’s learning as developing and socializing into adulthood, the project researchers were encouraged to look at children as being instead of becoming, as subjects, rather than objects of research, and as having opportunities for agency that are contextual. This theoretical framework stems from the field of Childhood Studies (as cultivated in Scandinavia [End Page 106] and... (shrink)

A showcase for the diversity of Jungian thought around the globe _Post-Jungians Today_ is based on the central tenet that analytical psychologists have a strong contribution to make to the prominent debates in today's postmodern society. In developing the original insights of Jung himself, post-Jungians are committed to an approach that does not focus exclusively on psychic reality but also takes into account the realities of the outer world. In this book leading figures in the international Jungian community (...) explore how analytical psychologists can be relevant participants in social and political debates on topics such as gender, ethnicity and sexuality. The growth of the Jungian school beyond affluent Western Europe broadens the scope of the book introducing discussion of the effects of poverty in developing countries. In its examination of current clinical and theoretical developments within analytical psychology _Post-Jungians Today_ reflects the social, cultural and professional differences that exist in the Jungian community worldwide. This is a book for anyone interested in the influence of Jungian thought in today's world, and in the future of the Jungian enterprise. (shrink)

Our encounters with the physical world are filled with miraculous puzzles-wind appears from somewhere, heavy objects float on oceans, yet smaller objects go to the bottom of our water-filled buckets. As adults, instead of confronting a whole world, we are reduced to driving from one parking garage to another. The Child's Conception of Physical Causality, part of the very beginning of the ground-breaking work of the Swiss naturalist Jean Piaget, is filled with creative experimental ideas for probing the most sophisticated (...) ways of thinking in children. The strength of Piaget's research is evident in this collection of empirical data, systematically organized by tasks that illuminate how things work. Piaget's data are remarkably rich. In his new introduction, Jaan Valsiner observes that Piaget had no grand theoretical aims, yet the book's simple power cannot be ignored. Piaget's great contribution to developmental psychology was his "clinical method"-a tactic that integrated relevant aspects of naturalistic experiment, interview, and observation. Through this systematic inquiry, we gain insight into children's thinking. Reading Piaget will encourage the contemporary reader to think about the unity of psychological phenomena and their theoretical underpinnings. His wealth of creative experimental ideas probes into the most sophisticated ways of thinking in children. Technologies change, yet the creative curiosity of children remains basically unhindered by the consumer society. Piaget's data preserve the reality of the original phenomena. As such, this work will provide a wealth of information for developmental psychologists and those involved in the field of experimental science. Jean Piaget is known for investigations of thought processes. He was professor at Geneva University and director of the International Center for Epistemology. He is the author of The Language and Thought of the Child, Judgment and Reasoning in the Child, The Origin of Intelligence in Children, and The Early Growth of Logic in the Child. Jaan Valsiner is professor of psychology at Clark University, and a recognized authority on the life and work of Piaget. (shrink)

This guide accompanies the following article: Matthew Kieran, ‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value’. Philosophy Compass 1/2 (2006): pp. 129–143, doi: 10.1111/j.1747‐9991.2006.00019.x Author’s Introduction Up until fairly recently it was philosophical orthodoxy – at least within analytic aesthetics broadly construed – to hold that the appreciation and evaluation of works as art and moral considerations pertaining to them are conceptually distinct. However, following on from the idea that artistic value is (...) broader than aesthetic value, the last 15 years has seen an explosion of interest in exploring possible inter‐relations between the appreciative and ethical character of works as art. Consideration of these issues has a distinguished philosophical history but as the Compass survey article suggests (‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)Moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value.’Philosophy Compass 1.2 (2006): 129–43), it is only very recently that figures in the field have returned to it to develop more precisely what they take the relationships to be and why. Consensus is, unsurprisingly, lacking. The reinvigoration of the issues has led sophisticated formalists or autonomists to mount a more considered defence of the idea that aesthetic and literary values are indeed conceptually distinct from the justification or otherwise of the moral perspective or views endorsed in a work (Topic I). The challenges presented by such a defence are many but amongst them are appeals to critical practice (Lamarque and Olsen), scepticism about whether or not art really can give us bona fide knowledge (Stolnitz) and the recognition that truth often seems to be far removed from what it is we value in our appreciation of works (Lamarque). One way to motivate consideration of the relevance of a work’s moral character to its artistic value concerns the phenomena of imaginative resistance. At least sometimes it would seem that, as Hume originally suggested, we either cannot or will not enter imaginatively into the perspective solicited by a work due to its morally problematic character (Topic II). In some cases, it would seem that as a matter of psychological fact, we cannot do so since it is impossible for us to imagine how it could be that a certain attitude or action is morally permissible or good (Walton). The question then is whether or not this is a function of morality in particular or constraints on imaginative possibility more generally and what else is involved. At other times, the phenomena seem to be driven by a moral reluctance to allow ourselves to enter into the dramatic perspective involved (Moran) or evaluation of the attitude expressed (Stokes). Nonetheless, it is far from obvious that this is so of all the attitudes or responses we judge to be morally problematic. After all, it looks like we can and indeed often do suspend or background particular cognitive and moral commitments in engaging with all sorts of works (Nichols and Weinberg). If the moral character of a work interacts with how we appreciate and evaluate them, then the pressing question is this: is there any systematic account of the relationship available to us? One way is to consider the relationship between our emotional responses to works and their moral character (Topic III). After all, art works often solicit various emotional responses from us to follow the work and make use of moral concepts in so doing (Carroll). Indeed, whether or not a work merits the sought for emotional responses often seems to be internally related to ethical considerations (Gaut). Yet, it is not obvious that we should apply our moral concepts or respond emotionally in our imaginative engagement with works as art as we should in real life (Kieran, Jacobson). A different route is via the thought that art can convey knowledge (Topic IV). There might be particular kinds of moral knowledge art distinctively suited to conveying (Nussbaum) or it may just be that art does so particularly effectively (Carroll, Gaut, Kieran). Either way where this can be tied to the artistic means and appreciation of a work it would seem that to cultivate moral understanding contributes to the value of a work and to betray misunderstanding is a defect. Without denying the relevance of the moral character of a work some authors have wanted to claim that sometimes the immoral aspect of a work can contribute to rather than lessen its artistic value (Topic V). One route is to claim that there is no systematic theoretical account of the relationship available and what the right thing to say is depends on the particular case involved (Jacobson). Another involves the claim that this is so when the defect connects up in an appropriate way to one of the values of art. Thus, it has been claimed, only where a work reveals something which adds to intelligibility, knowledge or understanding in virtue of its morally problematic aspect can this be so (Kieran). The latter position looks like it could in principle be held whilst nonetheless maintaining that the typical or standard relationship is as the moralists would have it. Yet perhaps allowing valence change for such reasons is less a mark of principled explanation and more a function of downright inconsistency or incoherence (Harold). The topics themselves and suggested readings given below follow the structure articulated above as further amplified in the Compass survey article. The design and structure given below can be easily compressed or expanded further. Author Recommends 1 Carroll, Noël. ‘Art, Narrative and Moral Understanding.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 126–60. 2 This article develops the idea that engaging with narrative art calls on moral concepts and emotions and can thereby clarify our moral understanding. 2 Carroll, Noël. Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. 4 Part IV consists of six distinct essays on questions concerning the inter‐relations between art and morality including the essay cited above and the author’s articulation and defence of moderate moralism. 3 Gaut, Berys. ‘The Ethical Criticism of Art.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 182–203. 4 Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. 7 This monograph provides the most exhaustive treatment of the issues and defends the claim that, where relevant, whenever a work is morally flawed it is of lesser value as art and wherever it is morally virtuous the work’s value as art is enhanced. Chapters 7 and 8 defend concern ethical knowledge and chapter 10 is a development of the article cited above concerning emotional responses. Chapter 3 also gives a useful conceptual map of the issues and options in the debate. 5 Jacobson, Daniel. ‘In Praise of Immoral Art.’Philosophical Topics 25 (1997): 155–99. 9 A wide ranging and extended treatment of relevant issues which objects to generalising moral treatments of our responses to art works and defends the idea that particular works can be better because of rather than despite their moral defects. 6 Kieran, Matthew. ‘Forbidden Knowledge: The Challenge of Cognitive Immoralism.’Art and Morality. Ed. Sebastian Gardner and José Luis Bermúdez. London: Routledge, 2003. 56–73. 11 A general argument for immoralism is elaborated by outlining when, where and why a work’s morally problematic character can contribute to its artistic value for principled reasons (through enhancing moral understanding). 7 Kieran, Matthew. Revealing Art. London: Routledge, 2005. Chapter 4. 13 This chapter argues against both aestheticism and straightforward moralism about art, elaborating a defence of immoralism in relation to visual art whilst ranging over issues from pornographic art to the nature and demands of different genres in art. 8 Lamarque, Peter. ‘Cognitive Values in the Arts: Marking the Boundaries.’ Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, 127–39. 15 This article concisely outlines and defends a sophisticated aestheticism that denies the importance of truth to artistic value. 9 Stolnitz, Jerome. ‘On the Cognitive Triviality of Art.’British Journal of Aesthetics 32.3 (1992): 191–200. 17 This article articulates and defends the claim that no knowledge of any interesting or significant kind can be afforded by works appreciated and evaluated as art. 10 Walton, Kendall. ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, I.’Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. 68 (1994): 27–51. 19 This article builds on some comments from Hume to develop the idea that when engaging with fictions it seems impossible imaginatively to enter into radically deviant moral attitudes. Online Materials ‘Aesthetics and Ethics: The State of the Art.’American Society of Aesthetics online (Jeffrey Dean):. ‘Art, Censorship and Morality’ downloadable podcast of Nigel Warburton interviewing Matthew Kieran at Tate Britain (BBC/ou Open2.net as part of the Ethics Bites series):. ‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)Moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value.’Philosophy Compass 1.2 (2006): 129–43 (Matthew Kieran):. ‘Ethical Criticism of Art.’Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Ella Peek):. ‘Fascinating Fascism.’New York Review of Books Piece Discussing Leni Riefenstahl (Susan Sontag):. ‘The Beheading of St. John the Baptist (1450s), Giovanni de Paolo’ (Tom Lubbock):. Vladimir Nabokov and Lionel Trilling discuss Lolita (CBS):. Sample Syllabus Topic I Autonomism/aestheticism • Anderson, James C. and Jeffrey T. Dean. ‘Moderate Autonomism.’British Journal of Aesthetics 38.2 (1998): 150–66. • Beardsley, Monroe. Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1958. Chapter 12. • Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Judgement.Trans. James Creed Meredith. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1952 [1790]. • Lamarque, Peter. ‘Cognitive Values in the Arts: Marking the Boundaries.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, 127–39. • ——. ‘Tragedy and Moral Value.’Australasian Journal of Philosophy 73.2 (1995): 239–49. • Lamarque, Peter and Stein Olsen. Truth, Fiction and Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Chapter 10. • Stolnitz, Jerome. ‘On the Cognitive Triviality of Art.’British Journal of Aesthetics 32.3 (1992): 191–200. Topic II Imaginative Capacities, Intelligibility and Resistance • Moran, Richard. ‘The Expression of Feeling in Imagination.’Philosophical Review 103.1 (1994): 75–106. • Nichols, Shaun. ‘Just the Imagination: Why Imagining Doesn’t Behave Like Believing’. Mind & Language 21.4 (2006): 459–74. • Stokes, Dustin. ‘The Evaluative Character of Imaginative Resistance’. British Journal of Aesthetics 46.4 (2006): 387–405. • Tanner, Michael. ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, II’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 68 (1994): 51–66. • Walton, Kendall (1994). ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, I’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 68 (1994): 27–51. • Weinberg, Jonathan. ‘Configuring the Cognitive Imagination.’New Waves in Aesthetics. Eds. K. Stock and K. Thomson‐Jones. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 203–23. Topic III Moralism and Emotions • Carroll, Noël. ‘Moderate Moralism.’British Journal of Aesthetics 36.3 (1996): 223–37. • Carroll, Noël. ‘Art, Narrative and Moral Understanding.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.126–60. • Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Chapter 10. • ——. ‘The Ethical Criticism of Art.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 182–203. • Hume, David. ‘Of the Standard of Taste.’Selected Essays. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993 [1757]. 133–53. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Emotions, Art and Immorality.’Oxford Handbook to the Philosophy of Emotions. Ed. Peter Goldie. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. 681–703. • Tolstoy, Leo. What is Art?. London: Penguin, 2004. Chapters 5 and 15. Topic IV Moralism and Knowledge • Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. M. Heath. London: Penguin, 1996 [367–322 BC]. • Carroll, Noël. ‘The Wheel of Virtue: Art, Literature and Moral Knowledge.’Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60.1 (2002): 3–26. • Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Chapters 7 and 8. • Gaut, Berys. ‘Art and Cognition.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 115–26. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Art, Imagination and the Cultivation of Morals.’Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 54.4 (1996): 337–51. • Nussbaum, Martha. ‘Finely Aware and Richly Responsible: Literature and the Moral Imagination.’Love’s Knowledge. New York: Oxford UP, 1990. 148–68. • Plato. The Republic. Trans. D. Lee. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974. Book 10. Topic V Immoralist Contextualism • Harold, James. ‘Immoralism and the Valence Constraint.’British Journal of Aesthetics 48.1 (2008): 45–64. • Jacobson, Daniel. ‘In Praise of Immoral Art.’Philosophical Topics 25 (1997): 155–99. • ——. ‘Ethical Criticism and the Vices of Moderation.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 342–55. • John, Eileen. ‘Artistic Value and Moral Opportunism.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 331–41. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Forbidden Knowledge:The Challenge of Cognitive Immoralism.’Art and Morality. Ed. Sebastian Gardner and José Luis Bermúdez. London: Routledge, 2003. 56–73. • Kieran, Matthew. Revealing Art. London: Routledge, 2005. Chapter 4. • Patridge, Stephanie. ‘Moral Vices as Artistic Virtues: Eugene Onegin and Alice.’Philosophia 36.2 (2008): 181–93. Focus Questions 1 What is the strongest argument for the claim that the moral character of a work is not relevant to its artistic value? Does artistic or literary criticism tend to concern itself with the truth or morality of works? If so, in what ways? If not, why do you think this is? 2 What different explanations might there be for difficulty with or resistance to imaginatively entering into attitudes you take to be immoral? How might this relate to the way our imaginings work as contrasted with belief? How might different literary or artistic treatments of the same subject matter make a difference? 3 How do narrative works draw on our moral concepts and responses? Can we suspend our normal moral commitments or application of moral concepts in responding emotionally to art works? Should we respond emotionally to art works as we ought to respond to real world events we witness? Why? Why not? 4 How, if at all, do art works convey moral understanding? How, if at all, is this related to the kinds of moral knowledge art works can teach or reveal to us? When, where and why might this be tied to the artistic value of a work? How can we tell where a work enhances our moral understanding as opposed to misleading or distorting it? 5 What art works do you value overall as art which commend or endorse moral values and attitudes that you do not? Is appreciation of them always marred or lessened by the morally dubious aspect? If not, what explains the differences in evaluation? What, if anything, might you learn by engaging with works which endorse moral attitudes or apply moral concepts different from those you take to be justified? How, if at all, might this connect up with what makes them valuable as art? (shrink)