Martin:
Since you ask, I'm 70 years old (born before my father graduated from
MIT, having gone "off-to-war," so a man in his mid-20s by then.) I've
never studied at a Catholic school, graduating from UW-Mad in 1970
with a BS and then not completing 2x PhD's there (Molecular Biology)
and UofChicago (Theology.)
This document came to light because we have been tracking down the
early 20th-century "disappearance" of the *internal* senses -- Sensus
Communis, Imagination, Memory and Cogitative Reason -- which had been
at the center of psychology for 2000+ years, in what then became
"modern" psychology. We think that was a serious, even fatal, mistake
(unless engineering humanity was your goal.)
We've figured out that the Jesuits were largely to blame, apparently
due to their affiliation with Suarez, in opposition to Aquinas. So,
when Pope Leo XIII assigned the task of expounding a "Thomist"
psychology at the University of Louvain (after his 1879 /Aeterni
Patris/), under the guidance of later-to-become Cardinal Desire
Mercier, any understanding of these senses was deliberately
short-circuited. As a result, they were "lost."
Julian Peghaire published his "A Forgotten Sense: The Cogitative"
(attached) in 1943, which was a *bombshell* aimed at this deliberate
"forgetting." In 1946, The Modern Schoolman followed up with this
request for a more detailed study of the *external* senses (motivated,
it would seem, by the rise of "phenomenology"), to which Peghaire
attempted to attach a parallel study of the *internal* ones. As best
we can tell, neither were followed through on.
Therefore, that now becomes the task of my Center -- with the help of
anyone hereabouts who would like to be involved . . . !!
To be more than manipulative "techniques" (i.e. domesticated
"psychological warfare"), psychology must have a "philosophical"
grounding (which might not be even known by those involved.) Gregg
knows that and proceeds as best he can, since he has no philosophical
training. A "philosopher" is someone who can "do philosophy" -- which
like Clinical Psychology or power-lifting requires training -- and
that is why this list sometimes attempts to discuss these matters,
even though there are no philosophers subscribed (no, not me, I'm a
biologist, with some theology thrown in.)
An interesting overview of this conundrum is provided by Henryk
Misiak, of Fordham, in his 1961 "The Philosophical Roots of Scientific
Psychology." He draws pictures and makes lists, while rehearsing the
history involved. Perhaps most importantly, on page 51 he provides a
"Diagrammatic Representation of the Main Body-Mind Theories," which he
lists as --
Interactionism: Body and mind are different and separate but influence
each other. (Descartes)
Parallelism: Body and mind are distinct and separate, do not influence
each other but bodily and mental activities are perfectly correlated.
(Leibniz)
Hylomorphism: Body and mind make one complete substance. (Aristotle)
Double-Aspect Theories: Man is an organism which manifests two
different aspects, bodily and mental. (Wundt)
He describes these as versions of "dualism," contrasting it with
philosophical "monism," then divided into "Idealism" ("spiritual soul
is the only substance," Berkeley/Hegel) and "Materialism" ("material
body is the only substance," Hobbes &al.) As versions of "monism,"
materialism and idealism could be thought of as two sides of the "same
coin."
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_Philosophical-2DScientific-2DPsychology-2DHenryk-2D1961-2D01-2D01_dp_B01FKTKN3O&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=hQstgmHI9Mx71hp1TfvOwRH8j-fLAZ_yT0APXYLRc4o&s=sDXkvAd5iZJZqoFlk2EDdIRtbmaYXyjWAkhZGiJQGck&e=
Given the tenor of much of the discussion hereabouts regarding
"science" (as it was defined around the time of Hobbes (1588-1679,
under conditions where "metaphysics" and "religious disputes" were
blocked at the Royal Society) and a general lack of any discussion of
"spirit" or "soul," many (most?) here are likely philosophical
"materialists." Thus a ToK that begins with "energy" and "matter" and
which attempts to "monistically" unify psychology.
I am a philosophical "hylomorphist." How about you . . . ??
Mark
Quoting martin johnson <[log in to unmask]>:
> Mark, tomorrow I will try to respond to your request. This document
> from 1946, does that mean you are my age? I had a course "Perception
> and Cognition" in 1950 at CUNY (City College then.) But I guess
> that was before you were in college (if in NYC it may have been
> Fordum University.) Martin On Dec 6, 2018 3:11 PM, Mark Stahlman
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> ToKers:
>>
>> I'm on this list to study perception. Perception is a topic that, it
>> would seem, few psychologists understand -- typically confusing it
>> with the five "external senses" and often merely assigning it the role
>> as cognitive "input." But it's so much more. This is the locus of
>> where our "behaviors and attitudes" gets shaped by our
>> psycho-technological environment.
>>
>> I'm also an Aristotelian, not a Platonist. So, even though I've
>> studied the area for 20+ years, including attending the "big one," the
>> 2nd "Towards a Science of Consciousness" conference in Tucson in 1996
>> (where I met Dan Dennett, Dave Chalmers, John Searle &al) and I was
>> Julian "Origins of Consciousness" Jaynes last student (1920-97, mentor
>> to Merlin Donald &al), I have little interest in "consciousness."
>>
>> Please find attached an amazing document from 1946. My guess is that
>> very few alive today have read it or even know it exists. It was
>> published in the Thomist journal "The Modern Schoolman: A Quarterly
>> Journal of Philosophy" from St. Louis University, a Jesuit college
>> where Marshall McLuhan once taught (and finished writing his PhD "The
>> Classical Trivium.")
>>
>> It begins by saying (which could just as well be said today, thus the
>> efforts at my Center) --
>>
>> "THOMISTIC PHILOSOPHY has always "paid honor"—to use
>> Maritain's phrase—both to sense knowledge and to the material
>> world. [Based as it was Aristotle's "sense realism."]
>>
>> "Thomism, in common with Platonism, maintains the essential difference
>> between sense and intellect; but it also insists, as against
>> every philosophy of Platonic inspiration, on the intelligibility of
>> material things and on the dependence of human intellect, precisely
>> as human intellect, upon sense data. Problems of sensation and
>> sense knowledge are therefore of capital importance in Thomistic
>> philosophy; indeed they involve crucial issues for any Christian and
>> realistic philosophy. Yet, apparently Neo-Thomism has devoted to
>> these problems neither the extensive research nor the speculative
>> energy that it has given, for example, to the theory of analogy and
>> to the study of intellectual operations. The elaboration of a precise
>> and purified theory of sensation appears to be one of the great tasks
>> facing Thomists today. This elaboration is necessary not only for
>> the proper health and intrinsic development of Thomism itself but
>> for the Thomistic critique of modern philosophy and science. Mari¬
>> tain writes:
>>
>> "The true philosophy of nature pays honour to the mystery of sense
>> perception,
>> and is aware that it only takes place because the boundless cosmos
>> is activated by the First Cause whose motion traverses all physical
>> activities
>> so as to make them produce, at the extreme border where matter
>> awakens to *esse spirituale*, an effect of knowledge on an animated organ.
>> . . . It is instructive here to observe that the rebirth of the philosophy
>> of nature in Germany in our time due to the phenomenological movement,
>> goes, in the case of Mme. Hedwig Conrad-Martius, for instance,
>> and of Plessner and Friedmann, along with a vast effort to rehabilitate
>> sense knowledge. . . . In my eyes [the] existence [of this effort] bears
>> witness to a fundamental and intrinsic need of need of natural
>> philosophy, which
>> is too frequently neglected by modern scholastics.
>>
>> "These considerations led THE MODERN SCHOOLMAN to canvass
>> the opinions of a number of leading American Scholastic philosophers
>> on this point. Their replies indicated a substantial agreement
>> that this problem has been, in general, neglected and treated,
>> sometimes, in a cavalier fashion. THE MODERN SCHOOLMAN,
>> thereupon, with the hope of encouraging constructive discussion and
>> research, requested Professor Yves Simon to prepare an outline of
>> the problems involved and of the order in which they should be
>> studied. We here present Professor Simon's paper together with
>> comments by Father Peghaire. Further discussion by our readers is
>> invited."
>>
>> I invite you to read the rest, if the philosophical implications of
>> *perception* interest you . . . !!
>>
>> Mark
>>
>>
>>
>> ############################
>>
>> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list:
>> write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
>> or click the following link:
>> http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1
>
> ############################
>
> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list:
> write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
> or click the following link:
> http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1
############################
To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1
|
