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Articles 1 - 14 of 14
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Meaning And Modality, Jesse Fitts
Meaning And Modality, Jesse Fitts
Doctoral Dissertations
I intended to write four papers whose topics faintly concerned separate issues in meaning and modality. As it turned out, chapters 1-3 all roughly concern the same topic: propositions. While I argue for two different theses in chapters 1 and 2, I try to understand the changing propositions literature in both. In addition to arguing for the respective theses in chapters 1 and 2, accounting for this change is a parallel goal for the chapters taken together. Chapter 3 examines particular propositional roles---the objects of the attitudes and the objects of credence. Finally, chapter 4 changes the subject to the …
The Return Of Perennial Perspectives? Why Transpersonal Psychology Should Remain Open To Essentialism, Steve Taylor
The Return Of Perennial Perspectives? Why Transpersonal Psychology Should Remain Open To Essentialism, Steve Taylor
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
In reply to Hartelius’s (2016) response to my paper “From Philosophy to Phenomenology: The Argument for a ‘Soft’ Perennialism” (Taylor, 2016a), I provide arguments in support of my model from contemporary scholars of mysticism, who advocate a move from a philosophically-based perennialism to a phenomenologically-based essentialism. This discussion illustrates that perennialist perspectives are far from outmoded. I discuss the metaphysical aspects of my model, suggesting that there is no reason why transpersonal psychology should not address metaphysical issues, as long as they are secondary to phenomenological issues, and as long as they are based on evidence rather than wholly speculative. …
Keeping The Account Open: On Metaphysical Mistrust In Transpersonal Psychology (A Response To Hartelius, 2017), Steve Taylor
Keeping The Account Open: On Metaphysical Mistrust In Transpersonal Psychology (A Response To Hartelius, 2017), Steve Taylor
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
In response to Hartelius (2017), I suggest that the evidence for perennialism or essentialism can be tested, and is publicly accessible, through engagement with the spiritual practices that have given rise to cross-cultural mystical experiences with common characteristics. This suggests that essentialism could be included in transpersonal psychology (and psychology in general). I suggest that there is no reason why transpersonal psychology should exclude metaphysical claims, as long as they are inferred or implied by research and evidence, explicitly stated and viewed as secondary. It is impossible to avoid metaphysics, and it is important for transpersonal psychologists (and all psychologists …
Taylor’S Soft Perennialism: Psychology Or New Age Spiritual Vision?, Glenn Hartelius
Taylor’S Soft Perennialism: Psychology Or New Age Spiritual Vision?, Glenn Hartelius
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
Taylor has responded to critiques of his soft perennialism model in relationship to what he has called awakening experiences. The fact that some individuals have this type of experience away from the context of religion or spirituality, according to soft perennialism, is explained by a sort of landscape of experience representing the diverse ways in which one may engage with and experience this essential beingness. While this inspiring vision could possibly be true, just as numerous other speculations about ultimate reality might be true; however, the evidence advanced in support of soft perennialism notion is not valid in the context …
Moving Beyond Materialism: Can Transpersonal Psychology Contribute To Cultural Transformation?, Steve Taylor
Moving Beyond Materialism: Can Transpersonal Psychology Contribute To Cultural Transformation?, Steve Taylor
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
The issue of whether it is possible to separate science and metaphysics is discussed, with reference to William James and the writings of quantum physicists. The metaphysical framework of scientific materialism is analysed and some of its key assumptions are identified. It is suggested that these assumptions are becoming increasingly untenable, as is evident by the advocacy of post-materialist science by some contemporary scientists. The main appeal of transpersonal psychology to students and practitioners is arguably its lack of allegiance to a materialist metaphysics. Rather than allying itself to the metaphysical paradigm of naturalistic science or attempting to bracket out …
Retrieving Realism: A Whiteheadian Wager, Matthew T. Segall
Retrieving Realism: A Whiteheadian Wager, Matthew T. Segall
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
This essay argues that the organic realism of Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) provides a viable alternative to anti-realist tendencies in modern and postmodern philosophy since Descartes. The metaphysical merits of Whitehead’s philosophy of organism are unpacked in conversation with Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Taylor’s recent book Retrieving Realism (2015). Like Dreyfus and Taylor, Whitehead’s philosophical project was motivated by a desire to heal the modern epistemic wound separating soul from world in order to put human consciousness back into meaningful contact with reality. While Dreyfus and Taylor’s book succeeds in articulating the problem cogently, its still too phenomenological answer remains …
Taylor's Soft Perennialism: A Primer Of Perennial Flaws In Transpersonal Scholarship, Glenn Hartelius, Glenn Hartelius
Taylor's Soft Perennialism: A Primer Of Perennial Flaws In Transpersonal Scholarship, Glenn Hartelius, Glenn Hartelius
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
This response to Taylor's essay in this issue concludes that his notion of soft perennialism is unworkable and shows no promise as a theory to explain spiritual diversity. Numerous specific shortcomings of the paper are described, then it is used as basis for identifying three broad categories of error that occur in some transpersonal scholarship. Examples from Taylor's paper are supplemented with similar errors in papers by other transpersonal scholars.
Inception And Ibn 'Arabi, Oludamini Ogunnaike
Inception And Ibn 'Arabi, Oludamini Ogunnaike
Journal of Religion & Film
Many philosophers, playwrights, artists, sages, and scholars throughout the ages have entertained and developed the concept of life being a "but a dream." Few works, however, have explored this topic with as much depth and subtlety as the 13thC Andalusian Muslim mystic, Ibn 'Arabi. Similarly, few works of art explore this theme as thoroughly and engagingly as Chistopher Nolan's 2010 film Inception. This paper presents the writings of Ibn 'Arabi and Nolan's film as a pair of mirrors, in which one can contemplate the other. As such, the present work is equally a commentary on the film based on …
Politics And Heidegger: Aristotle, Superman, And Žižek, Babette Babich
Politics And Heidegger: Aristotle, Superman, And Žižek, Babette Babich
Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections
This essay discusses Heidegger's thinking on the political and technology in the context of metaphysics in an age that is increasingly directed to both technology and the imaginary or the virtual. The context of Aristotelian phronesis is traced back to Aristotle's youth in Macedonia and the circumstance of war and world conquest, to the allure of a comic book character (that would be the Action Comic's figure of Superman) and the cinematic seduction of a pair of eyeglasses to conclude with a review of Latour's network actants and Žižek on Marxism (and Occupy Wall Street).
Objects, Properties, And Functions, Robert J. Stainton
Objects, Properties, And Functions, Robert J. Stainton
Robert J. Stainton
Objects are contrasted with properties, by means of examples, non-linguistic hallmarks, and linguistic correspondents. Hard cases of objects which are in some respects akin to properties are considered, but the idea that properties simply are another kind of object is rejected. Finally, properties are seen to be interchangeable with a certain kind of function.
Intelligence And Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Ibpp Editor
Intelligence And Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Ibpp Editor
International Bulletin of Political Psychology
The author discusses the ramifications of the lack of epistemological underpinnings from which the rightness or wrongness regarding WMD in Iraq can be constructed and adjudicated.
Reduction, Elimination, And The Mental, Justin Schwartz
Reduction, Elimination, And The Mental, Justin Schwartz
Justin Schwartz
The antireductionist arguments of many philosophers for example, Fodor and Davidson, are motivated by a worry that successful reduction (whatever that would be) would eliminate rather than conserve or explain the mental. This worry derives from an misunderstanding of the classic deductive nomological empiricist account of reduction. Although this account does not, in fact, underwrite "cognitive suicide," it should be rejected as positivist baggage. Philosophy of psychology and mind needs to have more detailed attention to issues of reduction on philosophy of sciences and natural scientific analogies that serve as models for reduction. I consider a range of central cases …
Indigenous Philosophy In The Valley Of Mexico, John F. Newcomer
Indigenous Philosophy In The Valley Of Mexico, John F. Newcomer
Philosophy ETDs
This study has been undertaken in the hope of helping to open new avenues of research in both philosophy and anthropology, avenues that have heretofore been largely overlooked. It has used as an example the pre-Conquest culture-complex of the Valley of Mexico. It is not intended to be an exhaustive exposition of every aspect of that complex, for that would take it out of the realm of philosophy and too far into that of anthropology. It is rather an examination of the salient features of Aztec culture in a philosophical light. It begins with a discussion of primitive philosophy in …
The Voice Of The Phi Sigma -- 1885 -- Volume 07, No. 03, Phi Sigma
The Voice Of The Phi Sigma -- 1885 -- Volume 07, No. 03, Phi Sigma
The Voice of the Phi Sigma
This item is part of the Phi Sigma collection at the College Archives & Special Collections department of Columbia College Chicago. Contact archives@colum.edu for more information and to view the collection.