For this reason also the question is asked, whether happiness is to be acquired by learning or by habituation or some other sort of training, or comes in virtue of some divine providence or again by chance. Now if there is any gift of the gods to men, it is reasonable that happiness should be god-given, and most surely god-given of all human things inasmuch as it is the best. But this question would perhaps be more appropriate to another inquiry; (...) happiness seems, however, even if it is not god-sent but comes as a result of virtue and some process of learning or training, to be among the most god-like things; for that which is the prize and end of virtue seems to be the best thing in the world, and something godlike... (shrink)

In my article, “Why Psychology Hasn’t Kept Its Promises” , I argued that psychology hasn’t become the science its practitioners had hoped because psychologists continue to focus on mentalistic constructs and they adhere to a methodology that emphasizes statistical inference over experimental analysis. I concluded that in order to better keep their promise of a psychological science, psychologists should return to studying the relationship between observed behavior and its context with the type of experimental analysis that characterizes the other experimental (...) sciences. In his reply, Lana suggests that there may be aspects of human social and verbal behavior that are so complex that we may not be able to carry out a solid experimental analysis, thus limiting what we can discover about our own nature. Lana concludes that the methodologies needed to understand these more complex social relationships are hermeneutic and historical rather than experimental in nature. I concur with Lana both that an experimental analysis of much of human behavior may not be possible and that psychologists must, therefore, rely on complementary descriptive, interpretive, and historical analyses. I argue, however, that the interpretive language and the historical hindsight must be based on a foundation of basic principles derived from the systematic experimental analysis of behavior. (shrink)

This essay posits that psychology’s general lack of respect as a science stems from two related problems: the continued focus on conceptually vague mentalistic constructs and the adherence to a methodology that emphasizes statistical inference over experimental analysis. The lack of a thoroughgoing experimental analysis has so far prevented psychologists from discovering a set of foundational principles thus inhibiting them from being able to predict and control individual behavior. Psychologists can remake their conceptual and methodological foundations by focusing on the (...) relationship between observed behavior and its context and by adopting methods of experimentation that would aid in the discovery of orderly functional relationships. This knowledge could be used to more parsimoniously explain complex behavior, including cognitive phenomena, and to more effectively solve practical problems. (shrink)

Jaswal & Akhtar provide several quotes ostensibly from people with autism but obtained via the discredited techniques of Facilitated Communication and the Rapid Prompting Method, and they do not acknowledge the use of these techniques. As a result, their argument is substantially less convincing than they assert, and the article lacks transparency.

If someone comes to my house, saying, "Here is a bone; I hope Obrecht likes it," I might answer with a deductive argument: "You may rest assured on that score. Obrecht is a dog, and all dogs like bones; therefore Obrecht will like it." We may formalize this argument as follows: Let G be the bone, O be Obrecht, D be the class of dogs, B be the class of bones, and, finally, let L be the class of ordered pairs (...) such that x likes y. The premises are then: x ∈ D ⋅ y ∈ B ⋅ ⊃ ∈ L) G ∈ B O ∈ D. (shrink)

1848 is a watershed in Dutch political and intellectual history. In the wake of liberalism positivism and empiricism dominated Dutch philosophy. In this paper it is argued that Spinoza’s philosophy played an important part in developing a liberal Weltanschauung. Dutch Spinozism started with the theological dissertation of Johannes van Vloten, who from the 1860s onwards became the great pamphleteer of Spinozism. However due to his break with Christianity he remained an exception in Dutch intellectual life. The Utrecht professor of philosophy (...) Cornelis Willem Opzoomer and his friend the classical scholar D. Burger jr., for example, propagated a liberal Christianity purged from its mythical elements. Adopting Schleiermacher’s example Opzoomer developed a morality inspired by Ethics V. In 1850 he turned to J. S. Mill and A. Comte. From that year onwards he justified the methodological unity of the natural and ‘moral’ sciences in Spinoza’s doctrine of the passions. According to Burger the Ethics contains an obsolete metaphysics, but due to its morality consistent with science the book deserves a large 19th-century readership. In 1858 he translated Spinoza’s main work into Dutch. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dieu comme soi-même: connaissance de soi et connaissance de Dieu selon Thomas d’Aquin: l’herméneutique d’Ambroise Gardeil by Camille de BelloyThomas M. Osborne Jr.Dieu comme soi-même: connaissance de soi et connaissance de Dieu selon Thomas d’Aquin: l’herméneutique d’Ambroise Gardeil. By Camille de Belloy, O.P. Paris: Vrin, 2014. Pp. 297. €32.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-2-7116-2605-2.This book is a discussion of La Structure de l’âme et l’expérience mystique (1927) by Ambroise Gardeil (...) (1859–1931). In this two-volume work of mystical theology, Gardeil explains the material cause of the experiential knowledge that comes from the gift of wisdom, which is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. La Structure is the third book in a trilogy that focuses on the supernatural knowledge of God, beginning with apologetics in La Crédibilité et l’apologétique (1st ed. 1908), and continuing with the nature of revelation in Le Donné révélé et la théologie (1st ed. 1910). In La Structure, Gardeil develops the thesis that there is an analogy between experiential self-knowledge and the mystical experiential knowledge of God. In the course of his inquiry, Gardeil touches upon philosophical and theological problems concerning self-knowledge, intentionality, the structure of the mind (mens), God’s indwelling in the souls of the just, and the relationship between faith and the gift of wisdom. De Belloy’s new volume is on Gardeil’s presentation of this analogy and its reception by his contemporaries.De Belloy considers largely the issues that surround self-knowledge, the structure of the soul, and mystical experience. He draws together material from Gardeil’s own sources, Gardeil’s contemporaries, and subsequent Thomistic scholarship. He sheds light on the issues themselves, the historical context, and different hermeneutical strategies in Thomism. According to De Belloy, this twentieth-century Thomistic and largely Dominican discussion is important for contemporary philosophers and theologians. To shed light on the context, De Belloy considers a lengthy three-part “Examen de conscience” in Revue Thomiste (1928–29), in which Gardeil responded to published and unpublished comments by his fellow Dominicans Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange (a former student), Marie-Dominique Roland-Gosselin (Le Saulchoir), and Albino González Menéndez-Reigada, as well as a young student, Jean Daujat. De Belloy remarks that Maritain’s discussion of Gardeil in The Degrees of Knowledge to some extent attempts to harmonize the substance of Gardeil’s work with Garrigou-Lagrange’s critical comments. De Belloy emphasizes the interaction between Gardeil and Roland-Gosselin, and at the end of his volume, includes their previously unpublished correspondence.Although De Belloy often notes the difficulty of reading Gardeil’s neo-Scholastic prose, it seems to me that the non-native French reader will find Gardeil more accessible than De Belloy, especially when the latter draws on writers such as Henri Bergson and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Moreover, De Belloy’s discussion is easier to follow if one has already read and is familiar with the four parts of Gardeil’s La Structure. In part 1, Gardeil addresses the structure of mind or spirit (mens), and in particular considers Augustine’s [End Page 472] three main, threefold divisions of the soul in De Trinitate (mens, notitia, amor; memoria [sui], intelligentia, voluntas; memoria [Dei], intelligentia, amor) and Aquinas’s own interpretation and appropriation of these divisions. In part 2, Gardeil describes the way in which sanctifying grace, a created quality that is distinct from the infused virtues, causes the soul’s conformity to God’s essence. In part 3, he discusses God’s presence within the souls of the just and agrees with previous Thomists that God is especially present to the just as an object of faith and love. In part 4, he applies the previous discussion to the structure of mystical knowledge. This last part is the culmination of the entire work, as it addresses the analogy between self-knowledge and the knowledge of God that was defended by earlier Dominican Thomists such as John of St. Thomas (1589–1644) and Thomas de Vallgornera (c. 1595–1665).Part... (shrink)

In working his way through his complex conception of the relation of fiction and reality, [Henry] James thus found the unconscious moral dimension inextricably embedded within "realism" itself. In following the threads of realism back to consciousness itself, James invariably found there intertwined with its roots those aspects and elements that other theorists kept carefully separate. By exploring experience to its source, he found imagination. By following objective life from "out there" to conception, he found individual vision. By following (...) the seeming oneness of the passing show back to perception, he found infinite variation and multiplicity. By following the uncolored flux and flow of events to their embodiment in the fictional medium, he found coloration of personality. And by following the "felt life" back to the artist's "prime sensibility", James found there the "moral sense" and the "enveloping air of the artist's humanity"—that which gives "the last touch to the worth of a work." James E. Miller, Jr., professor of English at the University of Chicago, is the author of A Critical Guide to Leaves of Grass; Walt Whitman; F. Scott Fitzgerald: His Art and His Technique; J.D. Salinger; Theory of Fiction: Henry James; and numerous articles on American literature and education. He contributed "Catcher In and Out of History" to Critical Inquiry, Spring 1977. (shrink)

One might presume that elite educational environments, including colleges and universities, have been the exclusive venues for rhetorical theory. Rhetorical theory typically takes the form of published treatises, monographs, and essays. Thus, the status of theorist would have been denied to, among others, African Americans during the nineteenth century because they were not afforded opportunities to become literate or, even if literate, not admitted into realms of elite literacy. But there are the seeds of a competing story, particularly regarding the (...) narratives written by Frederick Douglass. Henry Louis Gates Jr., for example, has stated that Douglass used... (shrink)

"The professional memoir of Henry Burroughs--former president of the White House Press Photographers Association, chairman of the Senate Standing Committee for Photographers, and "shooter" for the Associated Press for thirty-three years--whose career docu.