|
Contents
Hypothetical Constructs, Circular
Reasoning, and Criteria
Austen Clark, University of Tulsa
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Winter
1983, Volume 4, Number 1, Pages 1–12, ISSN 0271–0137
Two accounts of construct validation
are critically analyzed. One is the claim that such validation
inherently involves circular reasoning; the second is that construct
terms are meaningless unless they are provided with an observational
criterion, so that construct validation is nothing more than validation
against a criterion. Both views are shown to rest on the assumption
that each claim concerning a construct must receive empirical
support which is independent of the rest of the theory, employing
no other theoretical analysis of construct validation emerges.
Some of the implications of this account concerning the definition
of constructs and the use of convergent indicators are sketched.
Requests
for reprints should be sent to Austen Clark, Ph.D., Department
of Philosophy, University of Tulsa, 600 South College Avenue,
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104.
Concepts of Consciousness
Thomas Natsoulas, University of California,
Davis
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Winter
1983, Volume 4, Number 1, Pages 13–59, ISSN 0271–0137
Psychologists again find themselves
at a point in the historical development of their science where
close attention to meanings will be invaluable in overcoming the
conceptual confusions and difficulties of mutual comprehension
that so frequently attend scientific discussions of consciousness.
The present article consists of a sustained effort to improve
our sophistication with respect to some of the main concepts in
terms of which we think about the various referents of the word
consciousness. Each of the six major sections of the article
concentrates on one ordinary concept of consciousness together
with certain constructed concepts from psychology and related
fields- concepts that purport to have approximately the same referent
as the ordinary concept does. The concluding section interrelates
the main concepts that are discussed in the previous sections
by means of four dimensions of meaning: the intersubjectivity
dimension, the objectivation dimension, the apprehension dimension,
and the introspection dimension. Having considered these important
concepts of consciousness closely and made some intensive use
of them, we may hope to put them to effective use in the future
without awkwardness and ambiguity.
Requests
for reprints should be sent to Thomas Natsoulas, Ph.D., Psychology
Department, University of California, Davis, California 95616.
Towards a Reinterpretation of Consciousness:
A study in Humanistic Psychological Theory
in the Perspective of Oriental Mystic Thought
Moazziz Ali Beg, Muslim University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Winter
1983, Volume 4, Number 1, Pages 61-73, ISSN 0271-0137
Humanistic psychological theory
tacitly assumes that an experiential datum does not require the
objective criteria of verifiability and falsifiability. However,
humanistic psychology fails to explain how subjectively arrived-at
meaning provides a valid source of knowledge. In view of its failure,
therefore, a conceptual reinterpretation is presented. This reformulation
entails a theory of knowledge that exists in some oriental orders
of thought. Such a connection seems indispensable for the reconstruction
of humanistic psychological theory outside the sphere of objective
thought models. This intervention inevitably leads to a transformation
of an entire body of facts as regards the role of focal and subsidiary
activity of human consciousness; and thus tends to set aside the
concept of determinate consciousness. Consequently, such intervention
open sup an altogether different line of inquiry regarding the
truth of what is inwardly knowable. It is believed by the oriental
mystics that there is another property of human mind which arises
out of a kind of psychic transmutation - such propensities are,
of course, mere aberrations of oriented perspective of reality.
To understand the nature of indeterminate consciousness, humanistic
psychology must pull itself out of the epistemological confusion
which is inherent in the thought models of Western psychology.
It must reconstruct its theory on a different footing available
in some oriental orders of thought.
Requests
for reprints should be sent to Moazziz Ali Beg, Ph.D., Department
of Psychology, Muslim University, Aligarh, U.P. India.
The Relativity of Psychological Phenomena
Douglas M. Snyder, The Professional
School
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Winter
1983, Volume 4, Number 1, Pages 75-80, ISSN 0271-0137
A principle of relativity concerning
psychological phenomena is proposed. It states, first, that an
individual's perspective is that of which the person is directly,
or immediately, aware. Second, the fundamental structure of perspective
is the individual's direct, or immediate, awareness of self in
the substantive world in which other individuals exist and with
which this person can communicate this awareness through the use
of language. The principle allows for knowledge of psychological
phenomena to be developed from the objective as well as from the
subjective viewpoint. The principle provides the manner in which
these viewpoints are related. Thus, the relativity principle provides
a unified framework for psychology; it is elegant in that it has
widespread application and it parsimonious in nature.
Requests
for reprints should be sent to Douglas M. Snyder, Ph.D., 2322
Ward Street, Berkeley, California 94705.
Operationism and Ideology: Reply
to Kendler
Thomas H. Leahey, Virginia Commonwealth
University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Winter
1983, Volume 4, Number 1, Pages 81-90, ISSN 0271-0137
Operationism and positivism are
treated as a form of ideology: Acceptance of operationism and
positivism excludes without argument other orientations to psychology.
Specifically, it is shown that Realism and Intentionalism are
quietly set aside by operationism and Kendler's nominalistic (i.e.,
positivistic) treatment of meaning. The present paper is therefore
an ideological critique of positivism, and the dangers of ideology
are demonstrated.
Requests
for reprints should be sent to Thomas Leahey, Ph.D., Department
of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia
23284.
Operationism: A
Recipe for Reducing Confusion and Ambiguity
Howard H. Kendler, University of California,
Santa Barbara
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Winter
1983, Volume 4, Number 1, Pages 91-97, ISSN 0271-0137
Leahey's insistence on viewing operationism
within a global philosophical framework prevents him from perceiving
the empirical and theoretical benefits of operational analysis.
He fails to comprehend that the purpose of operationism is not
to achieve what a concept should mean but instead what
a concept, as used, does mean. His treatment of intentionality
as a critical case against operationism proves, upon examination,
to expose the limitations of this concept for a natural-science
psychology. Leahey's hopes of clarifying the methodology of psychology
by the combined use of concept ideology ("false consciousness")
and psychotherapeutic techniques are doomed to failure because
the intrinsic ambiguity of the argument will inevitably substitute
purely rational conclusions for needed empirical evidence.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Howard H. Kendler,
Ph.D., Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa
Barbara, California 93106.
Operationism and the Source of Meaning
in Bridging the Theory/Method of Bifurcation
Joseph F. Rychlak, Purdue University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Winter
1983, Volume 4, Number 1, Pages 99-119, ISSN 0271-0137
After first distinguishing between
the contexts of theory and method in scientific activity, it is
suggested that Leahey views theoretical generation as the ultimate
source of meaning, and Kendler views the empirical method of validation
as the context in which ultimate meanings take root. Operationism
was Bridgman's proposal to clarify meanings which had to bridge
the theory-method gap. Unlike Einstein, who performed thought
experiments, Bridgman stressed empirical experimentation. For
this and other reasons his instrumental form of operationism has
been stressed to the virtual exclusion of paper-pencil or "symbolical"
operations. Machian phenomenalism was influential early in the
evolution of logical positivism. Later, thank to Neurath, a physicalistic
realism supplanted this more idealistic emphasis. Academic psychology
was already committed to a realistic, reductive form of explanation
when its leaders adopted operationism and logical positivism.
The discussion closes with a defense and demonstration of how
it is possible to theorize about behavior in a teleological manner
and yet retain the rigors of operationism and experimental validation
in the methodological context.
Requests
for reprints should be sent to Joseph F. Rychlak, Ph.D., Department
of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette,
Indiana 47907.
Book Review >
The Sex Contract: The Evolution
of Human Behavior.
Helen E. Fisher. New York: William
Morrow and Company, 1982.
Reviewed by Steven E. Connelly, Indiana
State University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Winter
1983, Volume 4, Number 1, Pages 121-122, ISSN 0271-0137
[Note: Early paragraph, no abstract
available.] Helen Fisher cuts across disciplines with such ease
that a major accomplishment of her book will probably go unnoticed.
She presents an overview - the big picture - rarely obtained but
certainly needed to counterbalance the constantly accelerating
specialization in scientific writing. Fisher is quite adept at
synthesis; she moves easily and comfortably from authority to
authority, abstracting Louis Leakey's ideas as expeditiously as
she does Emile Durkheim's. Sociobiology, biosocial anthropology,
psycholinguistics, archaeology, economics - none gain dominance.
The multiple perspectives of special fields and special views
are gracefully integrated into a majestic panorama. Triumphing
over fragmentation is not a mean feat, but Fisher does it so easily,
she generates such lucid prose, that what is pure and clear may
be mistaken for artlessness and simplicity.
Requests
for reprints should be sent to Steven E. Connelly, Ph.D., English
Department, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana 47809.
Book Review >
Holiday of Darkness. A Psychologist's
Personal Journey Out of His Depression.
Norman S. Endler. New York: John Wiley
and Sons, Inc., 1982.
Reviewed by Mark S. Senak, The Institute
of Mind and Behavior
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Winter
1983, Volume 4, number 1, Pages 123-124 ISSN 0271-0137
[Note: First paragraph, no abstract
available.] While in his prime and at a peak in his career, the
author of this book suddenly suffered from what can only be described
as a severe and incapacitating depression. Such a depression is
not uncommon and chances are that if it does not occur in our
own lives, it will occur in the life of someone we know. What
is uncommon is the account of such and experience by a psychologist,
point out the failures and successes of his own profession in
dealing with the problem and discussing it in the personal context
of his own depression. Endler attempts to relate the impact which
the depression had on his life and the various methods of treatment
he underwent by weaving together a personal chronicle of his illness
with a professional and sometimes clinical discussion of the nature
of his depression. In this, he advocates both the use of drugs
and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which is likely to raise
some speculative eyebrows.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Mark S. Senak,
The Institute of Mind and Behavior.
Book Review >
The Sinister First Baseman
and Other Observations.
Eric Walker. Millbrae, California:
Celestial Arts, 1982.
Reviewed by Eoin St. John, Physical
Therapy Systems
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Winter
1983, Volume 4, number 1, Pages 125-126 ISSN 0271-0137
[Note: First paragraph, no abstract
available.] To be sure Americans take their sports seriously.
Sports are, sociologists and psychologists assure us, microcosms
of the cultures which produce them, representing and promoting
the values of those cultures. The Dutch historian Johan Huizinga
took this idea to its limits and declared that play is the foundation
of human culture: civilized man is homo ludens. Sport is
serious, and serious books and journals devoted to analyzing the
social significance of sport have proliferated in the last few
decades: viz. International Review of Sports Sociology, Sport
Sociology Bulletin, Sport and Social Order, Sport Sociology, Social
Aspects of Sport, International Journal of Sport Psychology, Sport
in the Sociocultural Process, and their extremely numerous
brethren.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Eoin St. John,
Physical Therapy Systems, 12939 Westmere, Houston, Texas 77077.
Book Review >
John Donne Biathanatos; A Modern-Spelling
Edition.
Michael Rudick and M. Pabst Battin
(Editors). New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1982.
Reviewed by Richard C. Frushell, Indiana
State University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Winter
1983, Volume 4, number 1, Pages 127-130 ISSN 0271-0137
[Note: First paragraph, no abstract
available.] An English scholar and philosopher respectively, Professors
Rudick and Battin of the University of Utah have served their
disciplines well with this critical edition of John Donne's provocative
discursion on self-killing, Biathanatos (literally forcedeath,
from ...), which the reader soon discovers to mean not only suicide.
First published by his son in 1647 - by which time Donne was sixteen
years in his grave - Biathanatos, completed in 1608, since
that time has been controversial, even if little read in modern
times save by professionals. The 1647 quarto subtitle intimates
boy the reason for its being disputatious as well as Donne's method
in writing the piece; for it is a "Declaration of that Paradox,
or Thesis, that Selfe-homicide is not so naturally Sinne, that
it may never be otherwise. Wherein the Nature, and the extent
of all those Lawes, which seeme to be violated by this Act, are
diligently surveyed." A major English writer of the high
Renaissance, John Donne was also Dr. Donne the Anglican divine
whose essay on self-killing directly beards received notions in
his day about categorical prohibition of that act. Since Biathanatos
is ostensibly the first substantial study printed in English to
engage so originally in such ethical polemics, it has historical
significance, and not the least because of its contribution to
the debate on the subject in the century following Donne's. For
students of English literature and Donne specifically, Biathanatos
is interesting as a demonstration of seventeenth-century dialectical
prose by a celebrated metaphysical poet who was everywhere concerned
with definition and the nature of right action or right inaction.
Biathanatos also provides some evidence of the growth of
an artist's philosophical mind involving the question of literal
living and dying and not only literary figurations about both.
As treatise in moral theology has point today, especially in the
vexed struggles of modern bioethics. There can be little doubt,
then, about the worth of having this book, and Donne's editors
here approach their task seriously and execute it quite expertly.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Richard C. Frushell,
Ph.D., Department of English, Indiana State University, Terre
Haute, Indiana 47809.
Book Review >
The Unique Animal.
Don D. Davis. New York: Prytaneum Press,
1981.
Reviewed by James Bense, University
of California, Davis
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Winter
1983, Volume 4, number 1, Pages 131-133 ISSN 0271-0137
[Note: First paragraph, no abstract
available.] Although it is a truism of the scientific method that
more may be learned from error than confusion, the irony of this
fact becomes especially clear when "confusion" takes
the form of a reductionist proof. In The Unique Animal,
Don D. Davis presents a testable theory which differentiates between
human intelligence and the intelligence of all other animals.
Requests
for reprints should be sent to James Bense, Department of English,
University of California, Davis California 95616.
|
