The Institute for the Psychological Sciences Press – förlag

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was by any reckoning one of the major modern philosophers. Raised as a Catholic in late-19th century Vienna, he later gave up practicing his religion; yet, as journal notes and many anecdotes attest, he remained deeply if ambivalently interested in religion throughout his life. Students of the philosophy of religion are familiar with his lectures on religious belief. For the rest, however, in the vast collection of commentary and criticism that has accumulated over the years, little attention has been paid to his religious interests.In consideration of how far Wittgenstein's Catholic background may have influenced his philosophical reflections on the soul, preeminent author Fergus Kerr explores aspects of Wittgenstein's personal and professional life. Kerr examines many of Wittgenstein's writings and lectures, including his last set of lectures in the mid-1940s at the University of Cambridge on philosophical psychology.Beginning with a largely biographical study of Wittgenstein, Kerr argues that Wittgenstein's philosophy was partly prompted by his strong reaction against what he regarded as an excessively rationalistic type of Catholic apologetics that he was taught in his early school years. His serious interest as a student at Cambridge in experimental psychology and in the works of Freud is documented.In the second half of the book, Kerr expounds Wittgenstein's famous ""Private Language Argument"" - his mockery of the idea that one could have thoughts that are in principle incommunicable. He then discusses three philosophers, John Wisdom, Stanley Cavell, and Richard Eldrige, who have developed Wittgenstein's ideas on self-understanding in ways that should interest students with a desire to rethink psychology in the context of an integrally humanist anthropology of the human person.

The contribution of Christian intelligence to western culture is widely recognized by those committed to the scholarly pursuit of truth, concerned for the welfare of the nation, and dedicated to the preservation and advancement of the permanent achievements of the West. The dignity of the human person and the place of the human person in society, the western polis, have in large part been developed in the context of a Christian culture that continues to offer insights for the development of the human person. This book addresses the place of faith and values in the secular state. Renowned specialists in a wide range of disciplines - philosophy, jurisprudence, psychology, and theology - discuss how the person and the polis are guided by ethics and religion, and how liberty and transcendence interact in human aspirations. The contributors are Hadley Arkes, Romanus Cessario, Robert P. George, Michael Novak, Daniel N. Robinson, Kenneth Schmitz, and Paul C. Vitz. The authors enter into a constructive conversation in an attempt to attain a deeper understanding of the human person through the integration of insights from practical wisdom and Christian faith. The book advances the cause of the human person and society by synthesizing the genuine contributions of the human sciences with an openness to spiritual sources of understanding and practice. Such intelligent dialogues between the sciences, philosophy, and religion - about human dignity and beatitude, moral responsibility and values, law and custom, community and institutions - contribute potent means for nourishing the person and constructing the polis with the insights of reason strengthened by the surety of faith and Christian intelligence.

Western culture and art were not born of unknown parents. Christianity, while receiving its mother tongues and its first canonical texts within Hebrew and Greco-Roman civilizations, has provided its own major contributions to the art and culture of the last two millennia. In this volume, scholars of international reputation, clerics and lay, Catholic and Protestant have reflected on how Christians have dialogued with diverse cultures and religions, even as they forged directions unique to the Gospel.The contributors of ""Christianity and the West"" scrutinize past achievements in order to face the postmodern secularization of western society and the globalization of communication, trade, and travel that claim a right to experimentation, free from long-standing values and detached from communities where the quality of culture and art makes a difference. It is argued that the creative manifestations of culture express the genius of human agents, authors, and artists, but they find their acid test in relationship with the flourishing of human persons and society. However, a human social standard is assured by a divine one. Culture risks becoming destructive when the aesthetic is severed from sources of faith and reason about human origins and ends.In order to face this risk, the present volume explores the interaction between Christianity, art, and culture in the West, especially in fine art and architecture, theatre and cinema, literature and politics. It demonstrates that Christianity has served as a living memory for humanity, above all, concerning the unity of the physical and spiritual dimensions that constitute the human person and culture.

The distinctive contribution that Christianity makes to investigations of culture and science is that of a coherent vision of truth - a unifying truth that takes flight on the two wings of faith and reason. Against methodological reductionism, philosophical nihilism, and postmodern skepticism, such a vision affirms that the unity of truth is ultimate and personal and that science and culture participate therein according to their own geniuses.""On Wings of Faith and Reason"" provides reasons for a unified vision of truth, while giving examples of the roles that faith and reason play in scientific activities and cultural expressions. Contributing authors from the fields of medicine, ethics, philosophy, and theology argue that Christianity makes a difference, not only in providing an understanding of the ultimate origin and end of the human person, but in contributing to practical applications. Christianity offers assurance about the course of scientific and cultural inquiry, while encouraging creative expression and personal excellence in its execution.Against fideists, it is argued that reason has a differentiated role to play in Christian efforts and theological investigations. Against rationalists, it is argued not only that faith builds up reason without making it a-rational or irrational, but also that it is a source of knowledge, the denial of which restricts not only our passive reception and active observation of reality, but also our creative responses to it. The image of two wings affirms that faith and reason exercise distinct roles, not the same role, in a unified flight of knowledge. It refutes the idea that isolated one-dimensional theories of truth will satisfy.The contributors are Jude Dougherty, Kevin L. Flannery, John Haas, Peter Kreeft, Richard John Neuhaus, Edmund Pellegrino, and Robert Sokolowski.

Moral frailty and failings have fascinated thinkers ever since the first records of drama, philosophy, and religion. How can we explain deliberate unethical acts and persistent urges to do evil? How can we account for wrongdoing in the face of intentions to do good? Strident examples of the flawed hero and the divided self raise problems for the psychological understanding of character and virtue. Neither normative principles nor simple accounts of immaturity, errors, and sin are enough to explain them. The difficulty of inculcating character and virtue makes us ask furthermore whether families, communities, and even republics can become havens for civic, moral, and religious growth.Throughout the millennia 'virtue' and 'character' have not only referred to what is best in human beings, but have been misrepresented in ideological propaganda or misconstrued as static habits or compulsive behavior. In the psychosocial and moral domains, these terms indicate not only the stability but also the creative nature of traits that tend toward moral and prosocial action and toward psychological and moral growth, a forward-leaning and interconnecting movement of excellence."" The Psychology of Character and Virtue"" contributes to the renewal of character and virtue theory. As experts in philosophy, ethics, psychology, political theory, and religion, the contributors enact a critical dialogue on the nature, function, and development of the human person, while paying particular attention to the possibility of instilling stable dispositions of moral character. In various ways they all seek to correct partial and excessively negative views on the nature of the human person. They employ Greco-Roman, medieval, modern and contemporary philosophy, Shakespearean drama, the American Founders, and Christian thought in order to make the case that the crux of moral development and education is the integrity of character and the connection of the virtues.

Written for non-specialists, this concise and accessible work by moral philosopher Kevin L. Flannery engages in a careful reflection of the moral issues of greatest importance in the lives of Christians today. After introductory chapters on the relationship between ethics and church teaching, and on the relevance of action theory—the study of the nature and structure of human actions—Flannery applies Aristotle’s and Thomas Aquinas’s theory of human action to the following topics: sexual morality, reproduction, killing and keeping alive, cooperation in the evil acts of others, and conscience. The book treats a number of controversial issues, not so much because they are controversial, but because they usefully explain the philosophical principles underlying church teaching. Flannery considers, for example, whether it is moral for a spouse who has contracted a disease such as HIV or AIDS to make use of a prophylactic during sexual intercourse. Flannery also addresses whether it is moral for a politician to vote in favor of legislation that permits same-sex marriage, or for a family or doctor to withdraw nutrition and hydration from a patient in a vegetative state. A major theme discussed throughout the book is intention and its effect on the moral character of human acts.

Psychology and Philosophy are distinct disciplines, yet close neighbors. Each discipline studies the human being as a single consciousness, and for all of their differences, there is a remarkably intimate relation between their contributions to a truthful understanding of the human person. Philosophy provides a foundation and horizon for the life of consciousness that engages in the very activities so precisely analyzed by psychology. Both the dimensions of philosophical reflection and psychic activity are essential aspects of the integrity and psychic health of the human person - a remarkable being who is unique in its self presence and the most interior of beings, yet also relational with others and the most open to all of being. These properties of relational uniqueness and open interiority shape our actions, which at their best are open to truth and the perfective power of being in general. At the same time the human person at his or her best is conscious of admiration of the panoply of being, and even further, open to adoration of being in its ultimate form - God. In chapter one of ""Person and Psyche"", Kenneth Schmitz reflects upon the general foundation of each and every kind of being, with especial reference to human beings. In chapter two, he addresses the dynamics with which we are endowed in the very origins of our human nature. In chapter three, these two principles are considered in light of the sphere of human freedom, with the value and promise that freedom holds for the human person. It is particularly in the concluding chapter four that Schmitz deliberates upon some of the issues that arise in psychology and psycho-therapy in order to identify their significance for understanding the transcendental characteristics of being, with marked attention to truth, goodness, and beauty. He also searches out the significance of psychological and therapeutic issues for the primitive inclinations with which our human nature is endowed, and takes them up in consideration of that freedom that is the human person's crown and exaltation, even as that freedom penetrates and transforms the human psyche.

In the midst of anti-religious sentiment, how are Christians to accept the type of freedom offered by modern psychology? Renowned theologian Benedict Ashley presents a Christian view of the human person's call to true freedom. Such liberty requires not only overcoming the typical struggles of personal development, but also attaining the healing that, for some, demands the ministrations of psychotherapy. While recognising that the profound vocation of mankind requires spiritual and ethical integration, Ashley treats the major models of human personhood found in contemporary psychology. His mediating model of the human person sets a sound philosophical foundation that serves to integrate a Christian vision of the human person and the work of psychology. The desire for ultimate flourishing serves as the guide for understanding the interrelationship between human embodiedness, rational thought, choice and communal life. Human beings naturally long to know the ultimate origin and end of life and, by the gift of faith, respond to God's call to holiness and perfection. From this perspective, Ashley calls psychologists to be attentive to both the animal and the personal aspects of being human. In contrast to the claims of the new atheists, he argues that coherence is found not in opposing but rather in confirming the fittingness of human openness to transcendence. Throughout the book, he demonstrates how psychotherapeutic models of healing can be rendered compatible with a Christian notion of knowledge, love and action at embodied, personal and interpersonal levels.