El trasfondo romántico del concepto de religión de Max Scheler

En la modernidad, la reflexión moral ha estado influida por orientaciones fundamentadas en la razón y en el sentimiento. Dos ejemplares de estas orientaciones son la Ilustración y el Romanticismo, respectivamente. El desarrollo de estos movimientos culturales e intelectuales está asociado a las demandas por los derechos políticos y sociales, junto a la insistencia en la importancia de la solidaridad y la hermandad en el desarrollo de las comunidades. Este artículo de reflexión presenta una perspectiva interpretativa del concepto de religión de Max Scheler La reflexión está enfocada en las raíces románticas de la propuesta Scheleriana, derivadas de la discusión moderna entre el Racionalismo y el Romanticismo. Adicionalmente, se presenta el contexto político y social al que responde la conceptualización de Scheler: Como resultado de esta reflexión, se concluye que el concepto de religión de Scheler reivindica la importancia de los valores y el compromiso moral frente a las crisis políticas que sufrió Europa a inicios del siglo XX.

In modernity moral reflection has been influenced by orientations grounded in reason and in feeling. Two exemplars of these orientations are the Enlightenment and Romanticism, respectively The development of these cultural and intellectual movements is associated with demands for social and political rights, together with the insistence in the importance of solidarity and brotherhood in the development of communities. This reflection paper presents an interpretative perspective of Max Scheler's concept of religion. The reflection is focused on the romantic roots of the Schelerian proposal, derived from the modern discussion between Rationalism and Romanticism. Additionally the political and social context to which Scheler's conceptualization responds is presented. As a result of this reflection, it is concluded that Scheler's concept of religion claims the importance of values and moral commitment against Europe's political crises at the beginning of the 20th century.

Na modernidade, a reflexão moral foi influenciada por orientações baseadas na razão e no sentimento. Dois exemplos dessas orientações são o Iluminismo e o Romantismo, respectivamente. O desenvolvimento desses movimentos culturais e intelectuais está associado a demandas por direitos políticos e sociais, juntamente com a insistência na importância da solidariedade e da fraternidade no desenvolvimento das comunidades. Este artigo de reflexão apresenta uma perspectiva interpretativa sobre o conceito de religião de Max Scheler O foco da reflexão são as raízes românticas da abordagem scheleriana, derivadas da discussão moderna entre racionalismo e romantismo. Além disso, é apresentado o contexto político e social ao qual a conceitualização de Scheler responde. Como resultado dessa reflexão, conclui-se que o conceito de religião de Scheler reivindica a importância dos valores e do compromisso moral diante das crises políticas sofridas pela Europa no início do século XX.

Making sense of domain specificity.

The notion of domain specificity plays a central role in some of the most important debates in cognitive science. Yet, despite the widespread reliance on domain specificity in recent theorizing in cognitive science, this notion remains elusive. Critics have claimed that the notion of domain specificity can't bear the theoretical weight that has been put on it and that it should be abandoned. Even its most steadfast proponents have highlighted puzzles and tensions that arise once one tries to go beyond an initial intuitive sketch of what domain specificity involves. In this paper, we address these concerns head on by developing an account of what it means for a cognitive mechanism to be domain specific that overcomes the obstacles that have made domain specificity seem so problematic. We then apply this understanding of domain specificity to one of the key debates that it has figured prominently in-the rationalism-empiricism debate concerning the origins of cognitive traits-and introduce several related theoretical notions that work alongside domain specificity in helping to clarify what makes a view more (or less) rationalist. This example illustrates how the notion of domain specificity can, and should, continue to play a central role in ongoing debates in cognitive science.

Feeling and Calculation: The Impact of Lay Rationalism Thinking Mode on Mental Budgeting.

Mental budgeting is a cognitive process that helps individuals control consumption expenditures. Previous literature has shown that mental budgeting is influenced by people's cognitive capabilities and emotions, which indicates a potential influence of thinking modes on mental budgeting. Under the view of lay rationalism, the present three studies investigated the relationship between thinking modes (i.e., calculation-based thinking and feeling-based thinking) and mental budgeting, as well as the moderating effect of product types that participants consume. It was found that, first, the scores of lay rationalism, which indicate calculation-based thinking, were positively correlated with the mental budgeting levels of college students (Study 1a) and newcomers in the workplace (Study 1b); second, the activation of calculation-based thinking (vs. feeling-based thinking) decreased participants' consumption willingness (Study 2); and third, the calculation-based thinking exhibited a stronger binding effect in participants who consumed only hedonic products than in participants who consumed only utilitarian products (Study 2). The results demonstrated the effects of lay rationalism thinking mode and product types on mental budgeting, which highlighted different implications for consumers and merchants. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-03689-5.

Rationalism or Intuitionism: How Does Internet Use Affect the Perceptions of Social Fairness among Middle-Aged Groups in China?

BACKGROUND: In the digital age, the Internet has profoundly affected our production and life, which in turn has affected our mental health. However, little research has been conducted on when and how Internet use (IU) affects social fairness perception (SFP). METHODS: Using the data of Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) 2015, this paper identifies the causal effect of IU on Chinese middle-aged people's SFP through Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression and the instrumental variable (IV) method, and uses the Sobel and Bootstrap Test for mediation analysis. RESULTS: IU not only directly reduces Chinese people's SFP by channeling their social emotions, but also indirectly decreases SFP through the inspiration of government trust. However, inconsistent with some previous studies, social comparison mainly has a partial masking effect on the causality between IU and SFP. CONCLUSIONS: The significant negative impact of IU on SFP is the result of the combination of rationalism and intuitionism.

Moral Agency, Rules, and Temporality in People Who Are Diagnosed With Mild Forms of Autism: In Defense of a Sentimentalist View.

The origin of moral agency is a much-debated issue. While rationalists or Kantians have argued that moral agency is rooted in reason, sentimentalists or Humeans have ascribed its origin to empathic feelings. This debate between rationalists and sentimentalists still stands with respect to persons with mental disorders, such as individuals diagnosed with mild forms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), without intellectual impairment. Individuals with ASD are typically regarded as moral agents, however their ability for empathy remains debated. The goal of this paper is to investigate the mechanisms of moral actions in people with ASD, by finding arguments for the origin of their moral actions, supporting either the sentimentalist or the rationalist view of the dispute. We propose to revisit the debate using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to study the autobiographies of individuals with High-Functioning Autism (HFA) and Asperger Syndrome (AS). While conducting the systematic analysis of 10 autobiographies, we re-examined both the rationalist and the sentimentalist positions, considering the links between empathic feelings and moral agency. The investigation of the temporal dimensions of emotional experiences, an aspect overlooked by previous research, indicated that individuals with ASD empathize with others, but in different ways as compared to neurotypicals. A relationship between emotional experience and the type of moral agency exhibited by individuals with forms of ASD was established. As a consequence, our analyses support the sentimentalist stance on moral action.

The role of religion in mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic: the Malaysian multi-faith perspectives.

Social distancing is crucial in breaking the cycle of transmission of COVID-19. However, many religions require the faithful to congregate. In Malaysia, the number of COVID-19 cases spiked up from below 30 in February 2020 to more than a thousand a month later. The sudden increase was mostly linked to a large Islamic gathering attended by 16,000 near the capital, Kuala Lumpur. Another large COVID-19 cluster was from a church gathering in Kuching, Sarawak. Within a few weeks, Malaysia became the worst hit country by COVID-19 in Southeast Asia. While religious leaders have advised social distancing among their congregants, the belief that "God is our shield" is often cited for gathering. There is a need to promote sound decision-making among religious adherents so that they will not prioritize their loyalty to the subjective interpretation of religion over evidence-based medicine. Malaysia, a multi-cultural and multi-faith country, is an example of how religious beliefs could strongly influence health behaviours at individual and community levels. In this article, we detail the religious aspects of COVID-19 prevention and control in Malaysia and discuss the possible role of religious organizations in encouraging sound decision-making among religious adherents in mitigating this crisis. We make recommendations on how to promote a partnership between the healthcare system and religious organizations, and how religion and faith could be integrated into health promotion channels and resources in the response of COVID-19 and future communicable diseases.

[Rationalism and mystification. On the formal pathetic of being against]. / Rationalismus und Mystifikation: Zur formalen Pathetik des Dagegenseins.

The article presents the results of the interpretation of qualitative interviews with coronavirus critics. It focuses on the forms of social criticism manifested in the interviews. The analysis (1) shows that the critique is based on a rationalistic ideal of crisis resolution. The fact that the coronavirus crisis, from this point of view, is not dealt with rationally is seen as an indication that there is something fundamentally wrong with it. It is this problem that the conspirituality of the critics reacts to: a combination of conspiracy theory and esoteric ideas whose unity is based on the interest in the mysterious. The analysis (2) allows to determine the specific style of the critique of counter-measures as formal pathetics: Substantially, it remains relatively empty, while rhetorically it is emphasized all the more emphatically. The rhetorical means are the most drastic comparisons possible, the romanticism of the heroic resistance and the claim to be committed to the well-being of children. Finally, (3) we put forward a socio-theoretical embedding of the critique of counter-measures, which assumes with Eisenstadt that modern society is characterized by an erosion of the foundations of all certainty. This leads to a fundamental credibility problem, manifesting itself in the loss of confidence in central social institutions (politics, science, medicine, media). The criticism of counter-measures expresses that in an ideal-typical way.

The Future of Computational Linguistics: On Beyond Alchemy.

Over the decades, fashions in Computational Linguistics have changed again and again, with major shifts in motivations, methods and applications. When digital computers first appeared, linguistic analysis adopted the new methods of information theory, which accorded well with the ideas that dominated psychology and philosophy. Then came formal language theory and the idea of AI as applied logic, in sync with the development of cognitive science. That was followed by a revival of 1950s-style empiricism-AI as applied statistics-which in turn was followed by the age of deep nets. There are signs that the climate is changing again, and we offer some thoughts about paths forward, especially for younger researchers who will soon be the leaders.

Selection by consequence: A response to Hayes and Fryling (2019).

The paper by Hayes and Fryling (2019) seeks to inform readers that the Kantorian system of Interbehaviorism has been misunderstood and misrepresented by contextual behavior scientists. Furthermore, these authors suggest that much is to be gained by embracing the system developed by Kantor, most importantly that being large scale system building efforts. We disagree with this position, and find the Kantorian system to be of questionable relevancy and at risk of potential extinction within the behavioral community. We also have concerns that perhaps the insights provided by Hayes and Fryling will fail in recruitment of additional members to the Interbehavioral cause. Although the overarching theme of Interbehaviorism is present within emerging dynamical approaches to behavior science, adopting the vernacular of Kantor may be unnecessary to continue his tradition. We recommend allowing empirical selection to run its course in determining the eventual fate of Kantor's Interbehaviorism.

Medicine and Healing in the Pre-Socratic Thought - A Brief Analysis of Magic and Rationalism in Ancient Herbal Therapy.

BACKGROUND: Medicine has gone through many schools of thought before arriving in the version we see in our world today. In the beginning, it was based on religion, superstition, and magic plants for therapy. This approach was practiced for many centuries until a period of cultural development arrived. This change occurred in the ancient Greek era, when new theories on nature arose: physiokratia emerged to describe the nature of humanity, including its genesis and supporting phenomena. From the various mystical traditions, we have come to understand the natural phenomena that surround the universe, thanks to the knowledge of the "hidden causes" that emerged due to this trend of philosophical thought. METHODS: We studied ancient texts to determine the common roots between myth, therapy, and religion of medical cultures in the pre-Hippocratic era and the era of pre-Socratic philosophers. RESULTS: This study is focused on the period of time before and during pre-Socratic thought, showing that there are many similarities in the approach of therapy for various diseases in that era. The Greek contribution to Western medicine was in the development of a rational system of thought that has been transmitted in medical culture. This attempt to interpret humanity was called philosophy. Hippocrates, who came after the pre-Socratics, changed the old approach to patients. When the approach to medical diagnosis and healing changed, it affected the therapy of other ancient cultures. The ancient Greeks were influenced by other civilizations' approaches to therapy, especially with the use of plants and the different mythological and religious outlooks connected to this use. Despite the emergence of pre- Socratic rationalism, supernatural beliefs remained even when the use of herbs was no longer practiced in direct connection to their origins in myth and magic. The first detachment of magic therapy occurred later with the father of medicine, Hippocrates. CONCLUSION: The ancient Greeks invented the rationalist doctrine, which influenced medicine. Thus, the birth of philosophy, through its many stages, has influenced therapeutic patterns in medicine, especially with medicinal herbs.

Methodological Individualism: Still a Useful Methodology for the Social Sciences?

This paper explains the role of methodological individualism as a methodology for the social sciences by briefly discussing its forerunners in economics and sociology, especially in the works of Carl Menger and Max Weber, followed by some comments on Karl Popper's and other critical rationalists' contributions as well as rational choice theories. Some recent arguments against methodological rationalism are then provided, including counterarguments, mainly based on exemplary work by economists and sociologists. This paper proposes a scheme for analyses using (weak) methodological individualism, in particular, arguing that evolutionary approaches to the explanation of economic and other social phenomena that accord with methodological individualism suggest that it is a successful and progressive methodology for economics and sociology.

Does Postmodernism Really Entail a Disregard for the Truth? Similarities and Differences in Postmodern and Critical Rationalist Conceptualizations of Truth, Progress, and Empirical Research Methods.

Within this article, I will compare postmodernist and critical rationalist conceptualizations of epistemological key concepts such as truth, progress, and research methods. An analysis of Gergen's program for a postmodern psychology shows that a naïve positivist understanding of truth is clearly incompatible with his postmodernist approach, whereas a correctly understood falsificationist use of truth as a guiding ideal may not be. However, postmodernists are often content with a diversity of voices as the endpoint of scientific activities, whereas critical rationalists such as Popper would put more emphasis on attempts to reach a common understanding. The differences between critical rationalists such as Popper and Deutsch and postmodernists such as Gergen are more complicated when it comes to conceptualizations of progress: whereas, postmodernists do not deny the existence of some forms of progress such as technological innovation, they argue that the modernist grand narrative, which views Western culture and the corresponding technological revolutions as being equal to epistemological progress and societal and political progress per se, has become untenable. Debates on possible negative consequences of modern technology are one example of evidence for this. Here, critical rationalists tend to engage in a legitimization discourse, sensu Lyotard, and to defend Western culture with all its deficiencies as a necessary precondition for evolutionary epistemic as well as societal and political progress, although they would agree with large parts of the postmodern critique of modernism. Postmodernists and critical rationalists would both agree that psychology as a field would benefit greatly, among other things, from a transition from a methods-oriented approach to scientific knowledge to a more problem-oriented approach, and from less methodological dogmatism. Taken together, postmodernism and critical rationalism may not be as irreconcilable as it may seem at first glance.

Learning, Memory, and Syntactic Bootstrapping: A Meditation.

Lila Gleitman's body of work on word learning raises an apparent paradox. Whereas work on syntactic bootstrapping depends on learners retaining information about the set of distributional contexts that a word occurs in, work on identifying a word's referent suggests that learners do not retain information about the set of extralinguistic contexts that a word occurs in. I argue that this asymmetry derives from the architecture of the language faculty. Learners expect words with similar meanings to have similar distributions, and so learning depends on a memory for syntactic environments. The referential context in which a word is used is less constrained and hence contributes less to the memories that drive word learning.

Perceptual Input Is Not Conceptual Content.

Can we represent number approximately? A seductive reductionist notion is that participants in number tasks rely on continuous extent cues (e.g., area) and therefore that the representations underlying performance lack numerical content. I suggest that this notion embraces a misconception: that perceptual input determines conceptual content.

Rationalism, Empiricism, and Evidence-Based Medicine: A Call for a New Galenic Synthesis.

Thirty years after the rise of the evidence-based medicine (EBM) movement, formal training in philosophy remains poorly represented among medical students and their educators. In this paper, I argue that EBM’s reception in this context has resulted in a privileging of empiricism over rationalism in clinical reasoning with unintended consequences for medical practice. After a limited review of the history of medical epistemology, I argue that a solution to this problem can be found in the method of the 2nd-century Roman physician Galen, who brought empiricism and rationalism together in a synthesis anticipating the scientific method. Next, I review several of the problems that have been identified as resulting from a staunch commitment to empiricism in medical practice. Finally, I conclude that greater epistemological awareness in the medical community would precipitate a Galenic shift toward a more epistemically balanced, scientific approach to clinical research.

Role of Spontaneous Brain Activity in Explicit and Implicit Aspects of Cognitive Flexibility under Socially Conflicting Situations: A Resting-state fMRI Study using Fractional Amplitude of Low-frequency Fluctuations.

We are constantly exposed to socially conflicting situations in everyday life, and cognitive flexibility is essential for adaptively coping with such difficulties. Flexible goal choice and pursuit are not exclusively conscious, and therefore cognitive flexibility involves both explicit and implicit forms of processing. However, it is unclear how individual differences in explicit and implicit aspects of flexibility are associated with neural activity in a resting state. Here, we measured intrinsic fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF) by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (RS-fMRI) as an indicator of regional brain spontaneous activity, together with explicit and implicit aspects of cognitive flexibility using the Cognitive Flexibility Scale (CFS) and Implicit Association Test (IAT). Consistent with the dual processing theory, there was a strong association between explicit aspects of flexibility (CFS score) and "rationalism" thinking style and between implicit aspects (IAT effect) and "experientialism." The level of explicit flexibility was also correlated with fALFF values in the left lateral prefrontal cortex, whereas the level of implicit flexibility was correlated with fALFF values in the right cerebellum. Furthermore, the fALFF values in both regions predicted individual preference for flexible decision-making strategy in a vignettes simulation task. These results add to our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying flexible decision-making for solving social conflicts. More generally, our findings highlight the utility of RS-fMRI combined with both explicit and implicit psychometric measures for better understanding individual differences in social cognition.

Persistent misunderstandings about evidence-based (sorry: informed!) policy-making.

BACKGROUND: The field of research on knowledge mobilization and evidence-informed policy-making has seen enduring debates related to various fundamental assumptions such as the definition of 'evidence', the relative validity of various research methods, the actual role of evidence to inform policy-making, etc. In many cases, these discussions serve a useful purpose, but they also stem from serious disagreement on methodological and epistemological issues. DISCUSSION: This essay reviews the rationale for evidence-informed policy-making by examining some of the common claims made about the aims and practices of this perspective on public policy. Supplementing the existing justifications for evidence-based policy making, we argue in favor of a greater inclusion of research evidence in the policy process but in a structured fashion, based on methodological considerations. In this respect, we present an overview of the intricate relation between policy questions and appropriate research designs. SUMMARY: By closely examining the relation between research questions and research designs, we claim that the usual points of disagreement are mitigated. For instance, when focusing on the variety of research designs that can answer a range of policy questions, the common critical claim about 'RCT-based policy-making' seems to lose some, if not all of its grip.

The rise of western rationalism: Paul Feyerabend's story.

I summarize certain aspects of Paul Feyerabend's account of the development of Western rationalism, show the ways in which that account is supposed to run up against an alternative, that of Karl Popper, and then try to give a preliminary comparison of the two. My interest is primarily in whether what Feyerabend called his 'story' constitutes a possible history of our epistemic concepts and their trajectory. I express some grave reservations about that story, and about Feyerabend's framework, finding Popper's views less problematic here. However, I also suggest that one important aspect of Feyerabend's material, his treatment of religious belief, can be given an interpretation which makes it tenable, and perhaps preferable to a Popperian approach.

Reasons for relativism: Feyerabend on the 'Rise of Rationalism' in ancient Greece.

This paper argues that essential features of Feyerabend's philosophy, namely his radicalization of critical rationalism and his turn to relativism, could be understood better in the light of his engagement with early Greek thought. In contrast to his earlier, Popperian views he came to see the Homeric worldview as a genuine alternative, which was not falsified by the Presocratics. Unlike socio-psychological and externalist accounts my reading of his published and unpublished material suggests that his alternative reconstruction of the ancient beginnings of the Western scientific tradition motivate and justify his moderate Protagorean relativism.

Activity Theories and the Ontology of Psychology: Learning from Danish and Russian Experiences.

Psychology has permanent problems of theoretical coherence and practical, analytic and critical efficiency. It is claimed that Activity Theory (AT) with roots in a long European philosophical tradition and continued in Russian AT is a first step to remedy this. A Danish version of AT may have a key to exceed some, mostly implicit, ontological restrictions in traditional AT and free it from an embracement of functionalism and mechanicism, rooted in Renaissance Physics. The analysis goes back to Aristotle's understanding of the freely moving animal in its ecology and introduces some dualities in the encounter between subject and object which replace the dualistic dichotomies traditionally splitting Psychology in Naturwissenschaft vs. Geisteswissenshaft. This also implies a "Copernican turn" of Cartesian dualism. The perspectives are to give place for a phenomenology of meaning without cutting human psyche out of Nature and to open Psychology to its domain.