The science of psychoanalysis

For psychoanalysis to qualify as scientific psychology, it needs to generate data that can evidentially support theoretical claims. Its methods, therefore, must at least be capable of correcting for biases produced in the data during the process of generating it; and we must be able to use the data in sound forms of inference and reasoning. Critics of psychoanalysis have claimed that it fails on both counts, and thus whatever warrant its claims have derive from other sources. In this article, I discuss three key objections, and then consider their implications together with recent developments in the generation and testing of psychoanalytic theory. The first and most famous is that of ‘suggestion’; if it sticks, clinical data may be biased in a way that renders all inferences from them unreliable. The second, sometimes confused with the first, questions whether the data are or can be used to provide genuine tests of theoretical hypotheses. The third will require us to consider the question of how psychology can reliably infer motives from behavior. I argue that the clinical method of psychoanalysis is defensible against these objections in relation to the psychodynamic model of mind, but not wider metapsychological and etiological claims. Nevertheless, the claim of psychoanalysis to be a science would be strengthened if awareness of the methodological pitfalls and means to avoid them, and alternative theories and their evidence bases, were more widespread. This may require changes in the education of psychoanalysts

Can non-theists appropriately feel existential gratitude?

Does it make sense for non-theists to feel gratitude for their existence? The question arises because gratitude is typically thought to be directed towards a person to whom one is grateful. Hence the theist may be grateful to God for their existence, experienced as a gift. But can the non-believer feel something similar without being irrational? Can there be gratitude for existence but not to anyone? After analysing gratitude and how we can best understand the idea of non-directed gratitude, I discuss the conditions that need to apply for non-directed gratitude to be appropriate. I end by discussing whether theism provides a psychologically richer and more satisfying framework for understanding existential gratitude

Images of Reality: Iris Murdoch's Five Ways from Art to Religion

Art plays a significant role in Iris Murdoch's moral philosophy, a major part of which may be interpreted as a proposal for the revision of religious belief. In this paper, I identify within Murdoch's philosophical writings five distinct but related ways in which great art can assist moral/religious belief and practice: art can reveal to us “the world as we were never able so clearly to see it before”; this revelatory capacity provides us with evidence for the existence of the Good, a metaphor for a transcendent reality of which God was also a symbol; art is a “hall of reflection” in which “everything under the sun can be examined and considered”; art provides us with an analogue for the way in which we should try to perceive our world; and art enables us to transcend our selfish concerns. I consider three possible objections: that Murdoch's theory is not applicable to all forms of art; that the meaning of works of art is often ambiguous; and that there is disagreement about what constitutes a great work of art. I argue that none of these objections are decisive, and that all forms of art have at least the potential to furnish us with important tools for developing the insight required to live a moral/religious life

In Animate Praise: The Heavenly Temple Liturgy of the Apocalypse and the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice

This article engages with contemporary research by drawing out evocative lines of continuity between the description of angelic praise in the heavenly realm in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, and scenes of worship in the celestial temple in the Apocalypse (especially Rev 4-5). Three aspects will be picked-out for detailed scrutiny in this comparative analysis: ● The architecture and plan of the celestial temple ● The animate praise of the celestial architecture and furnishings ● The prominence of 'seven' as a structural principle The article concludes that the celestial temple liturgy of the Apocalypse shares a wealth of conceptual parallels with the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice as both texts visualise the heavenly realm as the interior of a celestial temple re-imagined as a living, animate structure of praise. The 'rhapsodic' meditation on the number seven in both texts suggests that the potential liturgical context of the Apocalypse's reception (Rev 1:10, Lord's Day), analogous to the Sabbath setting of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, may merit renewed investigation

Liberation Theology and Catholic Social Teaching

The affinities as well as the distinguishing features of two accounts of the socio-poliitcal dimensions of the gospel are here examined, in the light of the apparent marginalisation of the 'social question' in the post-conciliar Church. How can these two discourses re-engage with contemporary debate? The concern of philosophers such as Giorgio Agamben with the notion of a 'state of exception', and the idea of a 'realistic utopia' being propounded by post-Rawlsian theorists of economic and social justice, offer two opportunities for this

Disenchantment, Rationality, and the Modernity of Max Weber

Following Aristotle's distinction between theoretical and practical rationality, Max Weber holds that beliefs about the world and actions within the world must follow procedures consistently and be appropriately formed if they are to count as rational. Here, I argue that Weber's account of theoretical and practical rationality, as disclosed through his conception of the disenchantment of the world, displays a confessional architecture consistently structured by a nineteenth century German Protestant outlook. I develop this thesis through a review of the concepts of rationality and disenchantment in Weber's major works and conclude that this conceptual framework depicts a Protestant account of modernity

Emotion and Cognition: Recent developments and Therapeutic Practice

As is widely known, the last twenty-five years have seen an acceleration in the development of theories of emotion. Perhaps less well-known is that the last three years have seen an extended defense of a predominant, although not universally accepted, framework for the understanding of emotion in philosophy and psychology. The central claim of this framework is that emotions are a form of evaluative response to their intentional objects, centrally involving cognition or something akin to cognition, in which the evaluation of the object relates to the concerns, interests, or well-being of the subject. I aim to summarize and review the work of five authors on three of the central themes of this framework, and to note some implications for the understanding of emotion in different psychotherapeutic approaches