Appreciative Musings on Normative Thoughts, Normative Feelings, Normative Actions
| العنوان: | Appreciative Musings on Normative Thoughts, Normative Feelings, Normative Actions |
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| المؤلفون: | Michael Pakaluk, Craig Steven Titus, Paul C. Vitz, Frank J. Moncher |
| المصدر: | Journal of Psychology and Theology. 37:194-203 |
| بيانات النشر: | SAGE Publications, 2009. |
| سنة النشر: | 2009 |
| مصطلحات موضوعية: | Human spirit, Pragmatism, media_common.quotation_subject, Religious studies, Philosophical anthropology, Injustice, Epistemology, Premise, Normative, Normative statement, Sociology, Psychoanalytic theory, General Psychology, media_common |
| الوصف: | This article consists of appreciative reflections upon Hoffman and Strawn's article, Normative Thoughts, Normative Feelings, Normative Actions: A Protestant, Relational Psychoanalytic Reply to E. Christian Brugger and the Faculty of the Institute for the Psychological Sciences (IPS). In the article, Hoffman and Strawn, although expressing broad agreement with Brugger, discuss six areas of apparent disagreement. The authors of the present response maintain that, with only a few exceptions, the disagreements are generally not substantive but based on avoidable misunderstandings. Nonetheless, a careful consideration of these disagreements serves to clarify the importance of philosophical anthropology for psychology. ********** The essayist G.K. Chesterton once wrote, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that "for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy" (1909, p. 15)--since Chesterton believed that a person's thoughts, feelings, and actions were governed by his or her basic presuppositions and first principles. In an article entitled Anthropological Foundations for Clinical Psychology: A Proposal, E. Christian Brugger (2008) and the faculty of the Institute for the Psychological Sciences argued that something similar applies, but to an even greater degree, as regards a clinical psychologist. A patient may reasonably want to know not simply the clinician's professional qualifications, but also the understanding of the human person (that is, the "philosophical anthropology") which the clinician has adopted--as, indeed, in practice a clinician will inevitably adopt such an anthropology. Since some vision of the human person is unavoidable, one might as well be explicit and therefore critical about it. Brugger proposed one such explicit anthropology, drawn from the Catholic tradition. He deliberately put forward these views in the form of a "proposal," in order to invite critical comments. We are grateful that Hoffman and Strawn (2009) have so quickly taken up this invitation and offered criticisms in their article, Normative Thoughts, Normative Feelings, Normative Actions: A Protestant, Relational Psychoanalytic Reply to E. Christian Brugger and the Faculty of IPS. Hoffman and Strawn (2009) express firm agreement on the need to make one's anthropology explicit. Indeed, for them the importance of this goes far beyond the therapist-patient relationship: "Christian sub-cultures, and culture at large, are adrift on seas of pragmatism that engulf the human spirit in solution-seeking activities based on inadequate theological and anthropological assumptions (p. 126)." They furthermore state that they "principally embrace" the eight premises of Brugger's model. Nonetheless, they find six points of disagreement, in relation to which they favor "alternative perspectives." (1) One might reasonably leave the matter there: Brugger proposed a model; Hoffman and Strawn offered friendly criticisms in the context of general agreement with the model; and perfect consensus in such matters is not to be expected. However, because most of those points of disagreement, we believe, involve avoidable misunderstandings, rather than unavoidable differences in outlook or "perspective," we regard it as worthwhile to offer a few clarifying comments in reply, and by way of expressing our appreciation. These misunderstandings arise in some cases, we concede, from an imperfect manner of expression, but in other cases they seem based on a misinterpretation. Hoffman and Strawn's first disagreement concerns our premise 1.3, "since God is a knowing and loving communion of persons (a Trinity of Persons), humans are created as persons, to know all truth, especially about God, and to live in loving communion with God and other persons." They challenge the connection drawn there between human knowledge and communion with God: We find Brugger's linking of this gnosis with koinonia to be a gloss that does injustice to the primacy of human relationality and are reminded of the Apostle Paul's admonition, ". … |
| تدمد: | 2328-1162 0091-6471 |
| DOI: | 10.1177/009164710903700305 |
| URL الوصول: | https://explore.openaire.eu/search/publication?articleId=doi_________::f4d6cc67ed61c60dad87e3b3938c32ad https://doi.org/10.1177/009164710903700305 |
| Rights: | CLOSED |
| رقم الانضمام: | edsair.doi...........f4d6cc67ed61c60dad87e3b3938c32ad |
| قاعدة البيانات: | OpenAIRE |
| تدمد: | 23281162 00916471 |
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| DOI: | 10.1177/009164710903700305 |