Actually, let me offer one reflection here that just popped.

 

I remember having a reaction to them framing the ToK System as “risky”. There are two reasons that frame makes sense. First, it is new, people don’t understand it well, and psychologists are trained to think like empirical scientists, who think in terms of formal models that can make predictions that can be falsified. So, they approach the ToK that way.

 

But the more straight forward way is to start with JII Dynamics (i.e., Justification Investment and Influence) as a description of human mental behavior. That is, human mental behavior should be a function of justification, investment and influence. If you do that, then you see immediately that it is not a risky frame at all. The authors, like every academic paper, are engaged in a process of justification and investment in an influence matrix of relevant others in a larger context of socio-linguistic justification systems.

 

In other words, as this blog suggest, start with the folk psychology end (i.e., beliefs, desires, actions in a relational world), translate to JII Dynamics and then move from there. That is about as concrete as it gets.

Best,
G  

 

 

Hi Folks,

  If anyone is interested in an academic paper on a Friday in early August (will be surprised if a single hand is raised on that offer 😊), here is a 2014 paper that randomly came across my feed. It explores the unification of psychology and does a fairly deep dive into the ToK’s frame. I was interesting reading this morning, given that I probably had not looked at it since it came out. For example, I am much more attuned to “ontology” and “metaphysics” these days than back then, so I read that with different eyes.

 

  One thing I did not do, which I almost certainly should have if my goal was to advance this thing academically, was to respond in writing to every work that summarized the ToK. I was not terribly energized by that, but it likely would have been a road to many more publications and attention. (Instead, I back channeled Marsh and ended up working with him a bit behind the scenes). That said, I am very happy with the road I am on. If I had followed the conventional path where the ToK took me, I almost certainly would not have stumbled into the Garden and Coin additions, and thus would not have developed a truly comprehensive synthetic philosophy.

Best,
G

___________________________________________

Gregg Henriques, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Graduate Psychology
216 Johnston Hall
MSC 7401
James Madison University
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