Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Blog

Science and Religion: Toward Common Ground

By Edward F. Kelly   

        Conflicts between science and religion have erupted intermittently since the first stirrings of modern science over four centuries ago, and the past year has witnessed searing new attacks on religion by Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and other defenders of Enlightenment rationalism. Critics like these clearly regard themselves, like science itself, as marshalling the intellectual virtues of reason and objectivity against retreating forces of irrational authority and superstition. In their view science has conclusively demonstrated that we human beings are nothing but complicated biological machines. Everything we are and do is in principle explainable in terms of our biology, chemistry, and physics. Mind and consciousness are generated by—or in some mysterious way identical with—neurophysiological processes occurring in brains. Mental causation, volition, and the “self” are illusions, by-products of the grinding of our neural machinery. And because we are entirely the product of this machinery, we are necessarily extinguished, totally and finally, by the death and dissolution of our bodies. To think anything different is to abandon centuries of cumulative scientific progress and revert to the primitive supernaturalist beliefs of bygone times. Period, end of story.

          In reality things are less clear-cut and much more interesting. My intent here is not to side with the institutionalized religions against science. All seem imperfect human creations, and I do not adhere personally to any. But I do believe that real understanding of human nature will be achieved only by expanding current scientific orthodoxy in directions broadly compatible with the central impulse of religion as characterized by the great American psychologist and philosopher William James in his classic Varieties of Religious Experience, and I further believe that the primary obstacles to doing so reside within science itself.

      The word “fundamentalism” probably evokes for most of us only images of bomb-wielding Islamic terrorists and other examples of religious extremism, but fundamentalism exists within science as well. When scientific opinion hardens into dogma it becomes scientism, which is essentially a secular faith and no longer science. Galileo was persecuted by the Inquisition, but in modern times the main opposition to new scientific ideas has derived not from religious orthodoxies but from other scientists for whom contemporary opinion established the limits of the possible.

      Consider in this light the question of post-mortem survival. The notion that aspects of mind and personality survive bodily death is central to the world’s great religions yet scorned as impossible by present-day establishment science. But few participants in this contentious debate have any inkling that there exists a large scientific literature collectively suggesting that at least some of us, under largely unknown conditions and for some unknown period of time, do in fact survive. The primary threat to this interpretation, ironically, has nothing to do with the quality of the evidence—problems of fraud, credulity, errors of observation or memory, and the like—but with the difficulty of excluding non-survivalist interpretations based solely upon supernormal (“psi”-based or parapsychological) processes involving living persons. The voluminous evidence for such processes includes both spontaneous cases and experimental studies, and in my opinion has long since passed the threshold where competent persons who take the trouble to study it in depth and with an open mind will routinely conclude that these things exist as facts of nature. Indeed, future generations of historians, philosophers, and sociologists will undoubtedly make a good living trying to understand why it took so long for scientists in general to accept this conclusion.

      Either horn of this interpretive dilemma — survival or psi — is lethal to current materialist orthodoxy, which undoubtedly helps explain the hostility of its advocates to both. But many other psychological phenomena pose similarly difficult challenges to conventional ways of thinking. Conditions such as cardiac arrest and general anesthesia, for example, abolish brain conditions regarded by most neurophysiologists as necessary for full consciousness, yet thousands of patients have reported extraordinarily vivid, life-transforming experiences that occurred under these circumstances. Even the most fundamental aspects of everyday mental life including memory, volition, and the qualitative “feels” of consciousness remain unexplained. Everything points, I believe, to the need for an enlarged scientific psychology that can accommodate “transpersonal” or spiritual aspects of human nature without loss of rigor.

      There are more things under Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in today’s mainstream materialist philosophy, and huge questions that so far have been addressed primarily by the world’s great religions are to some degree accessible to the methods of science. There is middle ground between science and the religions as presently constituted, and noisy partisans on both sides ought to know this! As William James himself declared in A Pluralistic Universe, his last book, “Let empiricism once become associated with religion, as hitherto, through some strange misunderstanding, it has been associated with irreligion, and I believe that a new era of religion as well as philosophy will be ready to begin.”

Edward F. Kelly is a Research Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He is also the lead author of Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century.

Sexism in Philosophy

By Karen Warren

Sexism (and particular ways male-bias in philosophy continues) is indeed alive in Philosophy. For a wonderful, first-person account of the nature, practices and effects of sexism in philosophy on women philosophers (including women past Presidents of the American Philosophical Association), I encourage people to read the (first of its a kind) edited volume by Linda Alcoff on stories of well-known women philosophers, Singing in the Fire: Stories of Women in Philosophy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003). See also a recent exchange on the web-based Inside Higher Education news site: http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/09/10/philos . The continued problem and reality of "the absence of women in philosophy" is particularly evident in the courses taught and textbooks used in the history of philosophy. The so-called "recovery project"--a scholarly endeavor begun by a handful of women philosophers in the 1980's--continues to unearth the names and texts of several hundred women philosophers that span the traditional philosophical time periods (Ancient, Medieval, Modern and Contemporary philosophy). This project has resulted in increasing numbers of books on women philosophers in the history of Western philosophy.

Nonetheless, to my knowledge, there has not been one book/textbook that includes (in the same book) women philosophers alongside their historical men philosopher contemporaries. (This is in contrast to the exceptionally few textbooks in the history of Western philosophy that include some women philosophers, even though they remain a disproportionately low number relative to the number of men philosophers included in the same book, especially from 600 B.C.E. to 1500 A.C.E.) A book that will correct that--what I think is the first book of its kind in any language--is the book Gendering the History of Western Philosophy: Pairs of Men and Women Philosophers from the 4th Century B.C.E. to the Present, with Lead Essay, Chapter Introductions and Commentaries, ed. Karen J. Warren (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, forthcoming Spring 2008). The commentaries in this book are written by "commentators" who are experts on "the inclusion" of women philosophers in the history of Western philosophy; many were among those who began or contributed to "the recovery project" at its earliest stage. Their scholarship in this book and elsewhere contributes to the resolution of the male-gender bias exclusion of women in the history of "our" discipline-- an exclusion that continues, often unnoticed, by the majority of those who teach and write in the area of the history of Western philosophy. 

With the publication of Gendering the History of Western Philosophy in 2008, it will no longer be scholarly acceptable or accurate to teach courses in the history of Western philosophy by using familiar but totally or largely gender-exclusive books, as if there were no women philosophers during the past 2600 years.

Ingmar Bergman, 1918-2007: An Appreciation

by Thorsten Botz-Bornstein

Ingmar Bergman passed away on July 30, 2007 at the age of 89. As soon as the sad news got around, the world honored his oeuvre as that of one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema. In Sweden flags were flown half-mast and the nation was aware that it had lost its most famous son. In this context, some Swedish journals could not ignore the fact that the Bergman phenomenon has something uncanny (or should we say Bergmanesque?) about it: in a way, this artist, who exposed themes that are familiar to every Swede, had been “too large” for this small country.

Foreign journals, on the other hand, seldom mentioned details about Bergman’s cultural context. As a matter of fact, explorations into this theme are rare; just as rare as philosophical examinations of Bergman’s films, though his films are (as everybody agrees) as profound and metaphysical as the work of, say, French existentialist writers.

The death of this giant produces an uncanny feeling: there is a gap between the explicit concreteness with which Bergman described the relationships between “real” (Swedish) humans, and his abstract way of sticking out of a culture to which he is so strongly linked and at the same time not linked at all. The most uncanny of all questions can thus be formulated like this: is Bergman too big not only for the Swedes but also for everybody else?

Bergman is indeed full of contradictions. Seemingly mainly preoccupied with his own pains and indifferent about “influences,” he is at the same time recognized as an integral component of European cinema. When he received the Erasmus Prize for his artistic contribution to European culture he declared, in the official speech that he held, that in his opinion European culture would simply not exist. This was perhaps, as wrote Vernon Young, the “most sovereign discourtesy publicly committed by any artist in our time” because the Erasmus Prize is explicitly awarded for the “intensification of European spiritual life.”

But there are more contradictions. Bergman was highly professional though at the same time widely “self-taught;” he was cultivated and profound though he preferred to describe himself modestly as an “entertainer;” his films are vernacularly savage though speaking at the same time the artistic language of an international bourgeoisie; throughout his career Bergman remained internationally influential though he clung at the same time to an outside position from which the world can be observed rather than changed.

If we really want to understand Bergman we should perhaps catch up some basic understanding about the evolutionary process of culture through a dialectical exchange between periphery and centre. First of all, instead of putting Bergman into the mausoleum of great directors we should try to perceive his work through the cultural context established by, for example, Mauritz Stiller (the Finnish-Swedish film director who “discovered” Greta Garbo), Victor Sjöstrom, or the Dane Carl Dreyer. Then, Bergman can be studied as the perhaps unique case of an artist who not only came from the periphery but who stayed in the periphery without turning the periphery into a center. Bergman influenced the center from the periphery and this is indeed uncanny or simply Bergmanesque.

Thorsten Botz-Bornstein is professor of philosophy at Zhejiang University, China. He is the author of the upcoming book Films and Dreams: Tarkovsky, Bergman, Sokurov, Kubrick, and Wong Kar-Wai.

The Greatest Humanitarian since Gandhi: A Memorial to Albert Ellis

By Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D.

Ross H. Miller, Ph.D., Senior Editor of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, has asked if I would write a memorial to Dr. Albert Ellis, who died on Tuesday at the age of 93. Dr. Miller expressed hope that my memories of him might be comforting to other travelers of life. It is with sadness, humility, and honor that I recount a part of my personal history that was deeply touched by this quiet hero.

This past spring, Rowman published my book, The New Rational Therapy: Thinking Your Way to Serenity, Success, and Profound Happiness.  Albert Ellis wrote the preface, and my dedication read, “to my friend and mentor, Albert Ellis, who has supported, taught, and inspired me in countless ways.”  These words are meager alongside the magnitude of this man’s gift to humanity. I am here speaking of the psychological revolution he started in the 1950’s, which changed the face of contemporary psychology forever.  Standing firm against the currents of the strongly entrenched Freudian tradition, it was his unique brand of psychotherapy known as Rational-Emotive Behavior therapy (REBT) that redirected psychology from a lengthy psychoanalytic process delving into unconscious motivation arising from past, traumatic experiences to a relatively short-term therapy focusing on thinking and doing in the here-and-now.

In fact, a survey conducted by the American Psychological Association ranked Albert Ellis above Sigmund Freud as the second most influential psychologist in history. Carl Rogers came in first, and Freud Third.

In memoriam to Albert Ellis, The New York Times had the following to say:

"Irreverent, charismatic, he was called the Lenny Bruce of psychotherapy. In popular Friday evening seminars that ran for decades, he counseled, prodded, provoked and entertained groups of 100 or more students, psychologists and others looking for answers, often lacing his comments with obscenities for effect."

Yet, speaking of Albert Ellis in these terms fails to capture the depths of humanity behind his stage presence. What I will always cherish in this man is his predilection for kindness; his genuineness in caring for the plights of others, the manner in which he resonated emotionally with others during their hardest times. What the New York Times failed to mention (among other things) was that the book he was working on (and unfortunately never completed) before his death was a book on the emotion of love.

I came to know Albert Ellis during a difficult time in my life after my father’s death. My father had suffered a lethal heart attack at the age of 60. At the moment of his heart attack, the phone failed to work (due to a phone line that was not operational). My mother had to run next door to call 911. By the time the paramedics arrived, my father had passed.

I was 28 at the time, nearing the end of a one-year, post-doctoral fellowship, and I was confronting a very bleak job market in the field of academic philosophy. Yet I continued to work, publish, and eventually found a permanent job in academia. Emotionally I was numb. Having never stopped to grieve, I had not given myself an opportunity to curse the universe, damn the phone company, and unleash the fury that simmered inside me.  I was functionally robotic for about seven years.

After my father’s death, I began to formulate an approach to behavioral and emotional problems that used logic and philosophy to correct irrational thinking (a form of REBT now known as Logic-Based Therapy). At the time, I was unaware of the work of Albert Ellis, which antedated my own by about three decades. At the prompting of my wife, Gale S. Cohen, a mental health counselor, I began to study Ellis’ theory. Its keynote was the Stoic principle that it isn’t the events in our lives that upset us, but rather the irrational ideas we generate about these events.

Albert Ellis had systematically cataloged the same irrational ideas I was using to disturb myself. As a philosopher, I was trained to think rationally and logically, and ironically it was my demand to think rationally that kept me in a state of emotional turmoil. Dr. Ellis taught that people primarily cause their own emotional and behavioral disturbances by demanding perfection in a universe that is far less than perfect. In refusing to recognize that philosophers too are fallible, irrational creatures, I prevented myself from working through my anger.

However, once I gave myself permission to be human, I became angry at the universe. I damned the universe over the death of my father, and demanded that such awful things never happen, at least to me. Once I had given myself the opportunity to vent these irrational beliefs, I was in a position to expose and work them through. In this way, utilizing the cognitive behavioral tools of REBT, I was able to rescue myself from the abyss of unhappiness.

I first met Albert Ellis about two decades ago when I enrolled in his REBT certification program and trained under him. Remarkably prolific, having written over eighty books, he was always there to inspire me in my work, read and offer commentary on what I had written, and to promptly answer my queries. He was both mentor and friend. After the death of my father, when I was confused and uncertain about my future, Albert Ellis was there for me as he was for the millions of people who have profited from his incredibly effective self-help books.

In 1959, Dr. Ellis founded the Albert Ellis Institute in Manhattan to advance his theory of REBT. He lived frugally upstairs from the Institute, took a salary of $12,000 per year, donated most of his book royalties to the Institute, and even purchased the building on its behalf. It is therefore sadly ironic that, in 2005, some of the individuals he had mentored and brought to the Institute cancelled his celebrated Friday Night Workshops and ousted him from the Board.  However, Dr. Ellis filed suit against the Institute and, in 2006, the New York Supreme Court reinstated him. The Court argued that the alleged reasons for removing him from the board without notice were “disingenuous."

This past spring, I visited him as he lay ill, in a weakened condition in a New York nursing facility, with his devoted wife, Debbie Ellis, by his side.  I held his hand, he looked into my eyes, and eventually he fell asleep holding my hand.

For me, the world now has an indelibly empty place without him; yet it is so much the better for his having been in it. I mourn his death, but not in the same way I mourned the death of my father. I know well what he would tell me about such destructive, self-defeating ideation. And his legacy lives on.  Albert Ellis didn’t leave biological children, but he has nurtured disciples who have formed an REBT Network dedicated to carrying on his life’s work.

The New York Times compared him to Lenny Bruce. But there is another comparison that better captures the essense of this incredibly kind man. In 2004, in the off Broadway play, Trumbo, starring Paul Newman, Albert Ellis was heralded as "the greatest humanitarian since Gandhi." This is just how he deserves to be remembered.

Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D., is executive co-director and co-founder of the American Society for Philosophy, Counseling, and Psychotherapy; professor and chair at the Indian River College; editor-in-chief and founder of The International Journal of Applied Philosophy and The International Journal of Philosophical Practice.

 

Health Care and SiCKO

Say what you will about Michael Moore and his controversial movies, but his newest, “SiCKO” is going to get a lot of people talking. Health care reform is shaping up to be a major issue in the coming presidential elections, with Senators Obama and Edwards preaching universal health care and Sen. Clinton reworking her past health care reform attempts. What “SiCKO” will do is help expand the idea of serious health care reform past DC political junkies and into the mainstream.

Do we really have the worst health care system in the western world, as Michael Moore would have us believe? Is major change in our current system even possible? If you’re interested in learning more about the issues raised in “SiCKO”, Health Care Half-Truths: Too Many Myths, Not Enough Reality is a great comprehensive overview. Written by the provost of the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine and a Health Policy Analyst at UVA, reading this thoroughly researched book will ensure that your opinions on health care reform are informed by more than just one source.

One aspect of corruption in our medical care that was left out of “SiCKO” is the coalition of pharmaceutical companies and doctors at the expense of medical ethics. Hooked: How Medicine’s Dependence on the Pharmaceutical Industry Undermines Professional Ethics addresses just that. Doctors get all kinds of perks from the pharmaceutical industry, from pens to baseball tickets to attention and ego-stroking. All of this gets in the way of doctors making decisions that are good for the patient, including the case of the woman who was on nine medications from the American doctor and was able to cut back to five after getting care overseas.

This is an open forum, and we welcome discussion on this and any other issues posted in this blog. Have you read the books and disagree with their points? Do you know more about the benefits/drawbacks of our current health care system? Comment below!

Kenneth Dorter wins Canadian Philosophical Association/ Broadview Press Prize in the History of Philosophy

Lexington Books would like to congratulate Kenneth Dorter on winning Canadian Philosophical Association/ Broadview Press Prize in the History of Philosophy with his new book The Transformation of Plato's Republic. Ken Dorter, in  passage-by-passage analysis, traces Plato's depiction of how the most basic forms of human functioning and social justice contain the seed of their evolution into increasingly complex structures, as well as the seed of their degeneration. Kenneth Dorter is professor of philosophy at University of Guelph, and his book was also a CHOICE Outstanding Title for 2006.  Congratulations Dr. Dorter!

Richard Rorty, preeminent American philosopher, dies at age 75

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers shares in the sadness over the loss of the American philosopher, Richard Rorty, who died on June 8.  In addition to the New York Times' obituary (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/obituaries/11rorty.html?ex=1339214400&en=74964b043eba78bd&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), please also read Scott McLemee's tribute on InsideHigherEd:  http://insidehighered.com/views/2007/06/13/mclemee).  Rowman & Littlefield is pleased to have published several books on Rorty's thought, including:  Richard Rorty: Politics and Vision by Christopher Voparil (2006); Richard Rorty: Education, Philosophy, and Politics, ed. by Michael Peters and Paulo Ghiraldelli; and A Pragmatist's Progress: Richard Rorty and American Intellectual History, ed. by John Pettegrew.