The metaphysics of psychology and a dialectical perspective

2020 ◽  
pp. 095935432097549
Author(s):  
Manolis Dafermos
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Exact Science ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Dynamic Nature ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
Dialectical Perspective

This article aims to examine the relation between psychology and metaphysics. Despite psychology’s claim of being an exact science, like physics, it contains an implicit commitment to metaphysical assumptions, such as ahistorical universalism, ontological dualism, abstract individualism, and the fragmentation of the human mind. This paper proposes a dialectical perspective as a way to overcome the unidimensional examination of psychological phenomena as the sum of independent, fixed, and static elements. By revealing the shortcomings of reductionism and elementarism, dialectics highlight the complex and dynamic nature of psychological processes and provide an original way of conceptualizing crucial theoretical and methodological issues of psychology as a discipline.

Personality research—challenges for the future

1990 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Magnusson
Keyword(s):  
Individual Development ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Biological Factors ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Personality Psychology ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
The Past ◽  
Personality Research ◽  
Individual Functioning ◽  
Emotional System

This article is about the lessons that can be learned from the mistakes of the past. After a critical, constructive analysis of current theorizing and research, important directions of future personality psychology are described against the background of a general theoretical framework. It is argued that individual functioning cannot be understood or explained if the environmental factors that are operating in the individual's interactions with the environment and the biological factors that are constantly interacting with the cognitive‐emotional system are not considered. Finally, the article focuses on conceptual and methodological issues that are of major importance for further progress in personality psychology, viz. (a) the match between level of psychological processes and type of data, (b) the nature of psychological phenomena studied in terms of variables, (c) the use of chronological age as the marker of individual development, and (d) the comparison between a variable and a person approach.

scholarly journals Bad World: The Negativity Bias in International Politics

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 96-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic D.P. Johnson ◽  
Dominic Tierney
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Negative Information ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Negativity Bias ◽  
Positive Information ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
New Research

A major puzzle in international relations is why states privilege negative over positive information. States tend to inflate threats, exhibit loss aversion, and learn more from failures than from successes. Rationalist accounts fail to explain this phenomenon, because systematically overweighting bad over good may in fact undermine state interests. New research in psychology, however, offers an explanation. The “negativity bias” has emerged as a fundamental principle of the human mind, in which people's response to positive and negative information is asymmetric. Negative factors have greater effects than positive factors across a wide range of psychological phenomena, including cognition, motivation, emotion, information processing, decision-making, learning, and memory. Put simply, bad is stronger than good. Scholars have long pointed to the role of positive biases, such as overconfidence, in causing war, but negative biases are actually more pervasive and may represent a core explanation for patterns of conflict. Positive and negative dispositions apply in different contexts. People privilege negative information about the external environment and other actors, but positive information about themselves. The coexistence of biases can increase the potential for conflict. Decisionmakers simultaneously exaggerate the severity of threats and exhibit overconfidence about their capacity to deal with them. Overall, the negativity bias is a potent force in human judgment and decisionmaking, with important implications for international relations theory and practice.

scholarly journals Homoseksualiteit: Die kerk, die tradisie en die Bybel – homofobie en sarkofobie en die evangelie

2004 ◽  
Vol 60 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yolanda Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Social ◽  
Dialectical Perspective ◽  
The Church ◽  
Church Tradition

Homosexuality: Church, tradition, and the Bible – homophobia, sarcophobia, and the gospelThe article demonstrates a trend in the current debate on the church’s attitude towards homosexuality, namely that exegetical results supersede authentic faith experiences of gays. It shows that this trend causes an untenable tension between the dialectical notions sola fidei and sola Scriptura. Such an unacceptable tension contributes to the social psychological phenomena of homophobia and sarcophobia. The article investigates this empirical approach (theoretical reason) to homo-sexuality from the dialectical perspective of a theological approach (practical reason). The latter includes an investigation of the epistemological processes behind exegetes’ diverse use of Scripture. The article aims to show that homophobia in society and church, and the sarcophobia of homosexuals can be challenged and healed if the church holds on to the dialectic between sola fidei and sola Scriptura and the dialectic between pastoral concerns and the engagement with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Dialectical Phenomena and Processes of the Mind

2007 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry M. Vyner
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Functional Identity ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Stream Of Consciousness ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
Central Elements ◽  
Group A ◽  
Considerable Length ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Do So

For the last 14 years, the author has been interviewing Tibetan lamas at considerable length about their experiences of their own mind in meditation for the purposes of: 1) developing a formal descriptive science of the phenomena that appear in the stream of consciousness; and 2) using that descriptive science to describe the defining characteristics of the healthy human mind. This paper will present the central elements of the descriptive science of the stream of consciousness that has been generated by these interviews. It will do so as a means of making the case that the psychological processes that appear in the stream of consciousness have, as a group, a coherent functional identity. This paper will also present representative excerpts from the interviews from which the descriptive science has been derived.

Can Science Explain the Human Mind? Intuitive Judgments About the Limits of Science

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Gottlieb ◽  
Tania Lombrozo
Keyword(s):  
Science Education ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
The Public ◽  
Science Education Policy ◽  
Scientific Explanations ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Intuitive Judgments ◽  
Conscious Will

Can science explain romantic love, morality, and religious belief? We documented intuitive beliefs about the limits of science in explaining the human mind. We considered both epistemic evaluations (concerning whether science could possibly fully explain a given psychological phenomenon) and nonepistemic judgments (concerning whether scientific explanations for a given phenomenon would generate discomfort), and we identified factors that characterize phenomena judged to fall beyond the scope of science. Across six studies, we found that participants were more likely to judge scientific explanations for psychological phenomena to be impossible and uncomfortable when, among other factors, they support first-person, introspective access (e.g., feeling empathetic as opposed to reaching for objects), contribute to making humans exceptional (e.g., appreciating music as opposed to forgetfulness), and involve conscious will (e.g., acting immorally as opposed to having headaches). These judgments about the scope of science have implications for science education, policy, and the public reception of psychological science.

scholarly journals The Phenomenon of Human Mind Slip in Rapid Writing Chinese Characters

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 66
Author(s):  
Xiaoying Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Language ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Chinese Characters ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Psychological Phenomenon ◽  
Writing Chinese

The slip-over phenomenon is a very interesting feature in rapid writing Chinese characters, a unique psychological phenomenon in Chinese language. Most of the slip-over characters appear in set phrases. It is just like a walking man, when he is in a hurry he would sometimes run one or two steps. Since most Chinese characters contain radicals, slip-over phenomenon occurs quite frequently. In this paper the author lists four groups of slip-over characters and analyzes their psychological processes. The author holds that this study is useful, in some ways, in their use in computers.

Hartley, David (1705–1757)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard C. Allen
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Present Moment ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Physiological Processes ◽  
Body Experiences ◽  
The Mind

David Hartley’s Observations on Man, His Frame, His Duty, and His Expectations (1749) offers an inclusive study of human beings, one that brings together neuro-physiology, cognitive and moral psychology, and theology. According to Hartley, the ‘frame’ of body and brain grounds consciousness, so that mind is not something separate from body. Experiences of happiness and suffering combine to shape a person’s evolving sense of self, and this self may grow into awareness of our duty to act always out of love. Expectations of one’s place in the vastness of time help bring this growth about, for these put into perspective the pleasures and pains of the present moment. ‘Association’ is the central principle unifying Hartley’s Observations on Man At the end of the first volume, Hartley makes a bold statement: if an organism ‘could be endued with the most simple kinds of sensation, [it] might also arrive at all that intelligence of which the human mind is possessed’ (17949, vol. 1: Conclusion). Just as association can account for the ‘mind’ of a jellyfish, so also can the theory account for the forms of intelligence that go into living complete human lives. Association first names the physiological processes that generate ideas, and then the psychological processes by which perceptions, emotions, and thoughts fuse or break apart. These processes involve mastering the skilled (‘decomplex’) actions that fill our daily lives, as well as the acts by which the self forms and transforms, as we grow in sympathy, ‘theopathy’ and the moral sense.

Münsterberg, Hugo (1863–1916)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Gerow
Keyword(s):  
William James ◽  
Forensic Psychology ◽  
Motion Pictures ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Attention And Memory ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Applied Psychology ◽  
Psychological Study ◽  
American Psychologist

Hugo Münsterberg was a German American psychologist whose pioneering work in applied psychology led him to investigate such topics as forensic psychology, industrial efficiency, and even the motion pictures. Born in Germany, he studied psychology under Wilhelm Mundt (1832–1920) before being invited to teach at Harvard by William James (1842–1910). While making important contributions to experimental and clinical psychology from a behaviorist standpoint, his belief in applied psychology made him a prominent contributor to popular magazines, commenting on the contributions of psychology to industrial organization (as a Taylorist), business, science, education, and criminology. In terms of Modernism, his greatest contribution was as the author of The Photoplay: A Psychological Study (1916), one of the first theoretical examinations of the cinema. While defending film as an art through a neo-Kantian analysis of its differences from both other media and physical reality, Münsterberg in particular argued the parallels between emergent filmic devices such as the close-up and flashbacks, and psychological processes like attention and memory. Cinema was a superior art because of this, becoming aesthetic in Kant’s sense—disinterested and purposive without purpose—because it was not a slavish reproduction of reality, but rather an embodiment of the workings of the human mind. Münsterberg’s approach to film influenced later attempts to understand the medium through psychology and spectatorship.

scholarly journals A Budget of Paradoxes (Continued from page 54)

1866 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 176-188
Author(s):  
A. De Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
The Other ◽  
Exact Science ◽  
Large Section ◽  
Short Line ◽  
Special Points

Old and new logic contrasted: being an attempt to elucidate, for ordinary comprehension, bow Lord Bacon delivered the human mind from its 2,000 years' enslavement under Aristotle. By Justin renan. London, 1839, 12mo.Logic, though the other exact science, has not had the sort of assailants who have clustered about mathematics. There is a sect which disputes the utility of logic, but there are no special points, like the quadrature of the circle, which excite dispute among those who admit other things. The old story about Aristotle having one logic to trammel us, and Bacon another to set us free—always laughed at by those who really knew either Aristotle or Bacon—now begins to be understood by a large section of the educated world. The author of this tract connects the old logic with the indecencies of the classical writers, and the new with moral purity: he appeals to women, who, “when they see plainly the demoralizing tendency of syllogistic logic, they will, no doubt, exert their powerful influence against it, and support the Baconian method.” This is the only work against logic which I can introduce, but it is a rare one, I mean in contents, I quote the author's idea of a syllogism:—“The basis of this system is the syllogism. This is a form of couching the substance of your argument or investigation into one short line or sentence—then corroborating or supporting it in another, and drawing your conclusion or proof in a third.”

scholarly journals The Power of Predictions: An Emerging Paradigm for Psychological Research

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 280-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Benjamin Hutchinson ◽  
Lisa Feldman Barrett
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Mind ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Predictive Processes ◽  
The Brain

In the last two decades, neuroscience studies have suggested that various psychological phenomena are produced by predictive processes in the brain. When considered together, these studies form a coherent, neurobiologically inspired program for guiding psychological research about the mind and behavior. In this article, we consider the common assumptions and hypotheses that unify an emerging framework and discuss the ramifications of such a framework, both for improving the replicability and robustness of psychological research and for renewing psychological theory by suggesting an alternative ontology of the human mind.

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