The Journal of Mind and Behavior

Volume 9, Number 2, Spring 1988

Are "Dialogic" Data Positive?
Salomon Rettig, Hunter College
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Spring 1988, Vol. 9, No. 2, Pages 97-112, ISSN 0271-0137
Studies of laboratory research in the natural sciences have shown the significance of cross-experimenter dialogue in the determination of scientific facts. Behavioral and social scientists have largely ignored that role in the construction of scientific facts. A dialogic data base differs epistemologically from strict behavioral observations because of its retroductive and dialectic character. Its symbolic nature calls for hermeneutic efforts designed to achieve and assess consensual rather than empirical validation. Its ultimate aim is social organization rather than prediction and control. In the view of this distinction, experimental research of human behavior must show the integration of the empirical and dialogic bases of behavioral data so as to more accurately reflect its constructive nature.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Salomon Rettig, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Hunter College of CUNY, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10021.

Relativity, Complementarity, Indeterminacy, and Psychological Theory
Mark Garrison, Kentucky State University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Spring 1988, Vol. 9, No. 2, Pages 113-136, ISSN 0271-0137
Packer distinguishes three modalities of psychological inquiry-rationalism, empiricism, and hermeneutic phenomenology. The incommensurable nature of these modes of inquiry requires a critical assessment of psychological theory. The argument presented here is that none of the modes of inquiry has hegemony over the understanding of psychological events and that each modality is valid in its own right. This apparent crisis of incommensurability can only be resolved with rigorously formulated psychological concepts of relativity, complementarity, and indeterminacy - three crucial concepts drawn from physical sciences. The physical science concepts are described and a preliminary version of a psychological relativity paradigm is proposed. The analysis of the crisis of method requires that the object of inquiry for psychology be reformulated as public action and private experience.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Mark Garrison, Ph.D., Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Kentucky State University, Frankfort, Kentucky 40601.

Information-Processing and Constructivist Models of Cognitive Therapy: A Philosophical Divergence
Willaim J. Lyddon, University of California, Santa Barbara
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Spring 1988, Vol. 9, No. 2, Pages 137-166, ISSN 0271-0137
The primary intent of the present paper is to provide a philosophical and historical context for understanding recent developments in the theory and practice of cognitive therapy - in particular, the emergence of information-processing and constructivist approaches. Toward this end, the logical positivist-Weltanshauugen distinction in the philosophy of science is outlined followed by a brief historical portrayal of psychology's dialectic shifts between exogenic and endogenic perspectives. It is these contrasts that are believed to offer a philosophical basis by which information-processing and constructivist models of cognitive therapy may be differentiated. While information-processing models appear to reflect an ontology and epistemology most closely aligned with an exogenic perspective, constructivist approaches, on the other hand, clearly suggest a philosophical shift toward an endogenic position. It is further proposed that this fundamental philosophical divergence has led each approach to conceptualize client symptomatology, treatment, and the roles of client and therapist in a manner consonant with their respective ontological and epistemological commitments.
Requests for reprints should be sent to William J. Lyddon, Counseling Psychology Program, Department of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106.

Is Any State of Consciousness Self-Intimating?
Thomas Natsoulas, University of California, Davis
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Spring 1988, Vol. 9, No. 2, Pages 167-204, ISSN 0271-0137
While it may be true that (a) not all mental states are components of the stream of consciousness, (b) not all components of the stream of consciousness are intentional objects of direct (reflective) awareness, and (c) not all directly (reflectively) conscious components of the stream of consciousness are self-intimationally so, the question remains whether any components of the stream of consciousness are self-intimating. A component of the stream of consciousness is self-intimating if the owner of the stream is not only aware of each occurrence of the component but also aware of it simply because the component ocurrs, that is, without the owner's having direct (reflective) awareness of the component that is distinct from the component itself.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Thomas Natsoulas, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, California 95616.

Book Review ª Slightly Beyond Skepticism: Social Science and the Search for Morality
Leonard W. Doob. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1987
Reviewed by Ralph L. Rosnow, Temple University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Spring 1988, Vol. 9, No. 2, Pages 205-206, ISSN 0271-0137
[Note: First paragraph, no abstract available.] Throughout a long and distinguished career, Leonard W. Doob has contributed significantly both by his scholarly writings and his gentle tutelage as a journal editor. In this book, he wrestles with another subject of great significance: moral reasoning. Taking his lead from John Dewey's admonition about "the evils which have resulted from severing morals from the actualities of human physiology and psychology" (p. 6), Doob also in effect argues that moral judgments are deficient unless they are linked with knowledge of human needs and capabilities, societal rules and expectations - in other words, not just with philosophy, but also with the subject matter of the social sciences.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Ralph Rosnow, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122.

Book Review ª The Mechanic Muse
Hugh Kenner. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987,
Reviewed by Steven E. Connelly, Indian State University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Spring 1988, Vol. 9, No. 2, Pages 207-210, ISSN 0271-0137
[Note: First paragraph, no abstract available.] Hugh Kenner's The Mechanic Muse explores the "parallel technologies" that literature evolved in response to "what Richard Cork has called The Second Machine Age: the age, say, 1880 to 1930." The book concentrates upon four authors - T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett - but it ranges far and wide in only 131 pages of text, from Aristotle to Tom Wicker, from John Wilkins' frenzied calculations to justify Scriptures's account of Noah's ark to George Boole's progeny: ever-proliferating computer languages.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Steven E. Connelly, Ph.D., Department of English, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana 47809.

Book Review ª Pornography: Marxism, Feminism, and the Future of Sexuality
Alan Sloble. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986
Reviewed by Ellen M. Pederson, Copenhagen, Denmark
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Spring 1988, Vol. 9, No. 2, Pages 211-218, ISSN 0271-0137
[Note: First paragraph, no abstract available.] Why can't men be more like women? Because they would have to become themselves first. Why don't they? Because first they would have to decide who not to be. Why are few women interested in the rest of this exchange? Because few women have much empathy with men.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Ellen M. Pedersen, Jerichausgade 49, 2 DK-1777 Copenhagen V. Denmark.

Book Review ª Dr. Wilkhelm Schultz aus Darmstadt: Inspirator von Karl Marx und Weggefahrte von Georg Buechner
Walter Grab. Frankfurt am Main: Gutenberg Buechergilde, 1987
Reviewed by Gordon Patterson, Florida Institute of Technology
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Spring 1988, Vol. 9, No. 2, Pages 219-220, ISSN 0271-0137
[Note: First paragraph, no abstract available.] The Italian Benedetto Croce once observed that "all History is contemporary history." Croce meant that historians always look on the past from a vantage point in the present. Every historian carries the problems and challenges of his or her time into his or her researches. Past events possess no intrinsic meaning. The past is mute. The burden of history is to make the past speak. Croce judged historians by their success in awakening what was living in the past. To Croce this meant that history writing afforded the opportunity to reveal the concept of liberty realizing itself in human affairs.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Gordon Patterson, Ph.D., Department of Humanities, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida 32901.