“The Integration of Psychology and Philosophy - Zenit” plus 4 more |
- The Integration of Psychology and Philosophy - Zenit
- Christie on cuts: Philosophy, not specificity - Morris County Daily Record
- Jeffrey Sachs Rails against Ex-Fed Chief Greenspan - Wall Street Journal
- Left Hand releases Warrior IPA - Sioux City Journal
- Spano named artist in residence at Emory - Atlanta Business Chronicle
| The Integration of Psychology and Philosophy - Zenit Posted: 06 Oct 2009 12:48 PM PDT By Genevieve Pollock ARLINGTON, Virginia, OCT. 6, 2009 (Zenit.org).- In an institute founded only a decade ago, scholars are gathering in a quest to remedy an age-old problem: the disintegration of psychology and philosophy, science and Catholic thought. Michael Pakaluk is one of these scholars, a philosophy professor who teaches at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences. He is the author of many scholarly articles and several books, including the Clarendon Aristotle volume on books VIII and IX of the Nicomachean Ethics (1998), and "Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: An Introduction" (Cambridge, 2005). His most recent book, "The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God," is forthcoming with Ignatius Press. In this interview with ZENIT, Pakaluk speaks about an integration project currently under way at the institute, which is bringing together psychology, philosophy and theology in both a theoretical and practical way. ZENIT: What is the project of "integration" that is being pursued at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences? Pakaluk: "Integration" at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences means simply the study of psychology with confidence in the harmony of faith and reason. Clearly, that sort of "integration" can be sought within any discipline, although it is most important -- and potentially the most fruitful -- in areas such as philosophy and psychology, which deal with fundamental realities for human life. John Paul II once remarked in an address to psychiatrists that "by its very nature, your work often brings you to the very threshold of the human mystery." If one adds to this, as an additional premise, the famous statement of "Gaudium et Spes" that "it is only in the mystery of the incarnate Word that the mystery of man is brought to light," it follows by a kind of syllogism that psychology is unavoidably integrative in this sense. ZENIT: If that's what "integration" means, why is the Institute for the Psychological Sciences unique? Isn't integration what every Catholic psychology program should be attempting? Pakaluk: When people used to praise Mother Teresa for being a "living saint," she would downplay this and insist that she was only doing what any Christian should be doing. Likewise, although people praise the Institute for the Psychological Sciences for its uniqueness, it's correct to say -- I believe -- that we are only attempting to do what every psychology department in a Catholic university should be doing. And yet these psychology departments are not doing that. If you don't believe me, go to the Web sites of the well-known, historic Catholic universities, and see how the psychology departments there describe themselves. I was shocked when I tried this the other day for a very famous university. First, the Web site gave a very inadequate definition of psychology, as "the science of human behavior." Then, in the three-page description of the program, one could find not a single word about Christ, man as made in the image of God, the Church, or the Christian understanding of the human person. Not a single word. I then checked every biography of the 20 or more professors in the department, where they described their interests and their research -- and, again, not a single word about the Catholic faith. It wasn't that the professors weren't relating psychology to other areas. One professor's research related psychology to multiculturalism; another connected psychology with work on hormones; another looked at relationships between psychology and feminism; and so on. So they endorsed the principle that psychology is profitably integrated with other areas. But apparently the view of the human person which has been developed in Catholic thought is not one of those areas. Here's a good way of grasping what the Institute for the Psychological Sciences is like. I've known or been a part of seminars held during the summer, where Catholic graduate students and professors in some academic discipline come together for a week or two to discuss connections between the Catholic faith and their discipline. Invariably, the participants say with great excitement that these were among the most invigorating and interesting weeks in their lives -- where all kinds of new ideas were suggested in a spirit of true creative collaboration. At the Institute for the Psychological Sciences, we aim to make that sort of conversation the rule and not a rare exception. ZENIT: It sounds like the integration pursued at the Institute carries along with it a distinctive view of the human person. Can you say more about this? Pakaluk: Yes, at this institute we reject any sort of reductionism, which holds that a human being is "nothing but" an animal or a biological machine; and we affirm in contrast that we have free will and a distinctive power of rationality. We reject that human beings are autonomously individualistic and hold instead with Aristotle and the ancients that we are by nature relational and social. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we reject Cartesianism, which holds that a single human being is in fact a composite of two distinct substances, a body and a mind, and hold that it is important always to see the human person as embodied. We believe that it is important for a clinician not merely to have expertise in particular sciences of man -- such as neurology and ethology -- but also to acquire an understanding of human nature itself, of the sort that perhaps only skilled novelists attain today, if they are really good novelists. Walker Percy writes something about this: "The proper study of man is man, said Pope. But that's a large order, especially nowadays, when there is no such thing as a study of man but two hundred specialties which study this or that aspect of man." One aspect of integration, then, is to arrive at a grasp of the whole reality of the human person by arriving at a grasp of human nature. ZENIT: Is this integration only theoretical, or is it practical as well? Pakaluk: Yes, of course, just as Christianity is dogmatic but also implies a way of life, and a way of relating to others. It should be said that the clinical focus of the Institute for the Psychological Sciences assists this project of integration: The goal of clinical practice is the mental health of the whole person who is the client; thus, the whole person and not some fragment needs to be taken into account. Integration even calls for a new way of pursuing science and putting it to practical work. When I teach "The Abolition of Man" to students here at the institute, I point out the passage in Lewis's third lecture where he calls for a "new Natural Philosophy," which is such that "when it explained it would not explain away," and "whose followers would not be free with the words only and merely -- and I tell them that at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences we are attempting to study one natural reality, at least, in this way. ZENIT: The Institute for the Psychological Sciences is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. That's an important milestone, and yet the Institute has a relatively short history, considering the fact that psychology has existed for hundreds of years. Why have Catholics, it seems, been so slow to take up this task of integration? Pakaluk: It's true that some Protestant programs in psychology, such as at Fuller Theological Seminary, have been speaking of "integration" now for several decades. Yet it's not that Catholics in contrast have been laggards. Recall that generally for the learned world, until relatively recently, psychology was regarded as a branch of philosophy. Psychology acquired an autonomy only through the development of empirical methods which seemed to be distinctive to it; and also, curiously, on account of the influence of Freudianism, which held that the unconscious, because of its non-rationality, was precisely not tractable by philosophy. This view was demolished, however, when in the '60s Thomism was for better or worse rejected by Catholic universities as the main organizing framework for knowledge. Since then there has been a "disintegration" of psychology and philosophy -- and theology --, which the Institute for the Psychological Sciences has lately tried to remedy. ZENIT: Your own expertise is in classical philosophy, especially Aristotle's ethics. How does your expertise fit in with what the institute is trying to do? Pakaluk: The connection between Aristotle's ethics and clinical psychology might seem remote. Yet actually Aristotle's ethical theory proves to be highly relevant to clinical psychology. An entire new movement in clinical psychology, called "positive psychology," is based essentially on a view of the virtues similar to that found in Aristotle: It maintains that psychologists, to their detriment, have paid too much attention to mental illness, and not enough attention to the modes of human flourishing -- the virtues -- which can provide a kind of safeguard against mental illness. Also, Aristotle's theory of friendship corresponds to a deficiency in Thomistic "rational psychology" as traditionally expounded. Thomism is excellent at identifying the "constitution" of human nature -- its powers, habits, and operations -- but, frankly, it is deficient in discussing those things that are most important for mental illness, that is, development and relationships. Pakaluk: No, we have no official philosophers, and we are definitely eclectic. Aristotle and Aquinas are important, but Augustine and Edith Stein no less so, and then too we encourage students to take what they can from less systematic, more intuitive thinkers such as Victor Frankl, Walker Percy, and even G.K. Chesterton. --- --- --- On the Net: Institute for the Psychological Sciences: http://ipsciences.edu/ |
| Christie on cuts: Philosophy, not specificity - Morris County Daily Record Posted: 06 Oct 2009 07:33 AM PDT EDISON Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie renewed his vow to swing the budget ax if elected in four weeks, though he brought sharpened rhetoric rather than a longer list of targets to a campaign stop Monday in Middlesex County. Christie has been pressed for details about his plans for closing a state budget deficit forecast at roughly $8 billion, including in last week's first gubernatorial debate. He has held his ground, emphasizing his governing philosophy control spending, then cut taxes while outlining expenditures under Democratic Gov. Jon S. Corzine he says have been wasteful such as employee health care for people who weren't eligible, overtime and a grant to an education program that continued years after its director had died. "Now that's not going to balance the budget. But what it gives you a look into is the mismanagement that is going on by the Wall Street wizard," Christie said. "Now maybe that didn't matter at Goldman Sachs. Or maybe that's why they fired him at Goldman Sachs." Christie and Corzine are narrowly separated in public-opinion polls, which for months showed Christie with a lead. A wild card in the race is the candidacy of independent Chris Daggett; support for him has narrowed the race even though Corzine's support is stagnant. Corzine didn't have any campaign events Monday, though the election wasn't far off in the background as he addressed the connections between the environment and the economy at a forum in New Brunswick attended by officials from various nearby states. He talked about supporting significant growth in offshore wind production over the next four years. Christie and Corzine each declined in last week's debate to detail how they would cure a structural deficit for next year that nonpartisan legislative analysts have projected at $8 billion to $10 billion. Corzine said he solved a $7 billion problem this year and suggested economic activity may generate more tax revenue than that forecast projects. "You'll hear a lot over the next 29 days," Christie told supporters at his stop at a North Edison library. "You'll hear a lot from people about they want me to be like a CPA like my father and come up with a whole laundry list of all these different things that we're going to do, even though the governor the man in charge, who has the books and records in his hands won't even tell you what he's going to do for the next four years, except to say he won't rule out raising taxes. Other than that, he hasn't told you anything about what he's going to do." Christie told reporters after the event that "governing is about laying out your general philosophical approach" and that voters he meets ask about that, not for him to become more specific. Minutes earlier, though, the last question asked of him by a resident at the Edison library event was a request for specific spending cuts. "This is not a strategy. This is who I am," Christie said. "So people are going to vote on this. And they're going to say either that's enough or it isn't, and if they say it isn't, that's fine. But I'm not going to change who I am or the way I approach these things just because there's some people who write in newspapers that I should." Christie says he'll oppose any tax increases and pledged to cut tax rates, starting with income taxes at all brackets and corporate taxes though not in 2010, he said Monday. He has said since the primary that it's not feasible to cut taxes with a massive deficit looming. "We're not promising to cut taxes in the first year. We're promising we're going to cut taxes over the four-year term," Christie said. "Because right now, with an $8 billion deficit, it's going to be very, very hard to accomplish in the short-term, to be able to do that in the first year I'm in office." Michael Symons: msymons@gannett.com |
| Jeffrey Sachs Rails against Ex-Fed Chief Greenspan - Wall Street Journal Posted: 06 Oct 2009 12:48 PM PDT By Kelly EvansJeffrey Sachs, a prolific economist, author and professor at Columbia University, had unusually harsh words in a speech today at the World Business Forum directed at Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve — placing him with much of the blame for the current financial crisis. (Find more World Business Forum coverage here) The essence of the current downturn is finance, Mr. Sachs said. Its a Wall Street crisis. A crisis made down the block. He said, and if you look under the rubble you can figure out what happened and why. First, a long bout of easy credit championed by Alan Greenspan and the Fed outside of the normal boundaries of monetary policy, which came together with a nearly complete deregulation of the financial sector contrary to almost everything we know about the risks of a highly leveraged financial system. This is flagrant irresponsibility, he said. This isnt a matter of ones market philosophy, just profound irresponsibility. Later, though, he said Mr. Greenspans ideology was possibly at fault, given his Ayn Rand philosophy that markets take care of themselves until he discovered the flaw of his theory later. Mr. Sachs also spoke harshly of the Clinton and Bush administrations. We arrived at this cliff through the aggressively irresponsibility of two U.S. administrations in a row, he said, accusing them of bending to the will of the nations biggest lobbying group — the financial industry. Where were the regulators? Consciously and deliberately kept out of the scene, he said. This led to a bubble financially that was most notable in the housing sectorand Alan Greenspan added fuel to the fire by keeping interest rates around 1% from 2002 through early 2005. You get credit for stopping a Depression but I dont want to give too much credit because the people who stopped it were the people who started it also, said Mr. Sachs. |
| Left Hand releases Warrior IPA - Sioux City Journal Posted: 06 Oct 2009 02:21 PM PDT From a press release - (LONGMONT, CO) – Left Hand Brewing Company's seasonal Warrior IPA disregards your notions about what an IPA should be. Bold, vibrant and beautifully aromatic, Warrior IPA is brewed only once a year using fresh flower Colorado-grown Cascade hops flown in from Rising Sun Farms in Paonia, as well as varieties from the brewery's own hop fields.
True to the brewery's philosophy, a strong malt foundation complements the bright floral hoppiness, allowing for a well-balanced assault on your palate. Warrior IPA is a full-bodied, bronzed beauty that swings at you with 60 IBU's and 6.6% ABV. Respect her and she will respect you. Available in 22 oz bombers and kegs for the fall season. Distributed throughout Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan (western only), Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Illinois, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, Alaska, Alabama (draft only), Florida, Tennessee (Nashville only), Georgia, North Carolina, and select European countries. About Left Hand Brewing Company Tags: ale, beer, ipa, left hand brewing co, warrior |
| Spano named artist in residence at Emory - Atlanta Business Chronicle Posted: 06 Oct 2009 01:45 PM PDT Emory University has named Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Music Director Robert Spano its "Distinguished Artist in Residence." He'll join the university in March 2010 and will co-teach seminars, lecture and present programs on literature, philosophy, science and musicology for three weeks during each of the spring semesters of 2010–2012. He also will participate in several public performances. "The appointment of Robert Spano supports Emory's artistic and creative goals," Emory University President James Wagner said in a news release. "Spano is an invaluable asset to Emory and the Southeast, and, on a global level, a key figure in the arts. He brings to Emory a wealth of knowledge in a wide spectrum of areas and will bring new strength to the artistic collaborations between our academic community and the greater Atlanta community." |
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