This book examines the origins, presence, and implications of scientistic thinking in psychology. Scientism embodies the claim that only knowledge attained by means of natural scientific methods counts as valid and valuable. This perspective increasingly dominates thinking and practice in psychology and is seldom acknowledged as anything other than standard scientific practice. This book seeks to make this intellectual movement explicit and to detail the very real limits in both role and reach of science in psychology. The critical chapters in this volume present an alternative perspective to the scholarly mainstreams of the discipline and will be of value to scholars and students interested in the scientific status and the philosophical bases of psychology as a discipline.

This collection of original essays offers a comprehensive examination of scientific progress, which has been a central topic in recent debates in philosophy of science. Traditionally, debates over scientific progress have focused on different methodological approaches, notably the epistemic and semantic approaches. The chapters in Part I of the book examine these two traditional approaches, as well as the newly revived functional and newly developed noetic approaches. Part II features in-depth case studies of scientific progress from the history of science. The chapters cover individual sciences including physics, chemistry, evolutionary biology, seismology, psychology, sociology, economics, and medicine. Finally, Part III of the book explores important issues from contemporary philosophy of science. These chapters address the implications of scientific progress for the scientific realism/anti-realism debate, incommensurability, values in science, idealisation, scientific speculation, interdisciplinarity, and scientific perspectivalism. New Philosophical Perspectives on Scientific Progress will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working on the history and philosophy of science.

Preface It was shortly after I had graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1980, with a PhD Degree specializing in fracture mechanics and failure analysis of materials and structures, that I discovered the dire need for this book. This undertaking began to take shape in the early 1980s with the Middle East aflame, devastated by what some viewed as a holy war, and with millennialists prophesying the end of days by the year 2000 C. E. After publishing and co-authoring 87 scientific and industrial reports, and technical papers, many of which were in national and international magazines on the subject of failure analysis of metals and fracture mechanics of aircraft structures, I came to realize that consequences of failures of the human spirit are far more devastating than failures of metals and aircraft structures. But now at the outset of the 21st century the world is still experiencing turmoil and devastation by wars spreading like wildfire, with Jews, Christians and Moslems at each other's throats in seemingly never ending battles and ugly strife. Some call it war on terror, others speak of wars of clashing cultures, crusades, jihad, etc., etc., etc. One cant help but wonder how this saga of 99% misery and 1% heroism will ever come to an end. Only the gullible would attempt to explain the ongoing world conflict among People of the Book: Jews, Christians and Moslems, based on the course of events during the past few years, or even the past few decades. This is where this book comes in with a rigorous, rationalized, and hopefully convincing critical assessment of a never-before-explored, most innate aspect of the human nature, and that is its obsession with hijacking of the religion of God. For better understanding of the root cause of the ongoing conflict among People of the Book, who are supposed to be worshipping the same God, we need to take a step back, take a deep breath, and reflect rationally, while ignoring all rhetoric and emotional bias in researching the past three thousand years of religious history. And this is exactly what I did in writing this three-volume book. More specifically, this book is addressing the religion of God to whom every human being from among the so-called People of the Book today turns in prayer. Whether soldiers or civilians, when they are caught in the midst of the ongoing grisly and devastating wars, some would pray to Yahweh, others call upon Jesus Christ, while Moslem brethren whisper the name of Allah upon taking their last breath. Who is that God? And why is He so shrouded with mystery? Is He truly One and the Same God for all these people? Or are we suffering from some self-delusions and possibly hallucinations that may be the senseless products of our ancient religious fabrications and mythmaking. Going back in time three thousand years brings us to one very special night, when God was said to have come down in person onto Mount Sinai to have a close encounter with human beings through direct speech. This three-volume book examines the course of religious events from that magic and apocalyptic moment onwards till this day. It took me twenty years of research to show that men who practiced hijacking long before they had wings have been quite active over the past three thousand years engaging in the lucrative business of hijacking the religion of God. All three religious persuasions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam suffered the dire consequences of miserably failing to heed the words of our Merciful and Patient God. No irony intended here in calling it a business, and indeed a lucrative one, because it brings the hijackers: power, enormous wealth, and often glory, all of which, in the sight of God translate, respectively into: arrogance, greed, and most certainly infamy. In developing the extensive critical review of religion presented herein, detailing the respective histories of the selected three religious persuasions: Jud

This updated edition of The Oxford Handbook of Psychology and Spirituality codifies the leading empirical evidence in the support and application of postmaterial psychological science. Lisa J. Miller has gathered together a group of ground-breaking scholars to showcase their work of many decades that has come further to fruition in the past ten years with the collective momentum of a Spiritual Renaissance in Psychological Science. With new and updated chapters from leading scholars in psychology, medicine, physics, and biology, the Handbook is an interdisciplinary reference for a rapidly emerging approach to contemporary science. Highlighting fresh ideas and supporting science, this overarching work provides both a foundation and a roadmap for what is truly a new ideological age.

Routledge International Handbook of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology is a compilation of works by leading scholars in theoretical and philosophical psychology that offers critical analyses of, and alternatives to, current theories and philosophies typically taken for granted in mainstream psychology. Within their chapters, the expert authors briefly describe accepted theories and philosophies before explaining their problems and exploring fresh, new ideas for practice and research. These alternative ideas offer thought-provoking ways of reinterpreting many aspects of human existence often studied by psychologists. Organized into five sections, the volume covers the discipline of psychology in general, various subdisciplines (e.g., positive psychology and human development), concepts of self and identity as well as research and practice. Together the chapters present a set of alternative ideas that have the potential to take the field of psychology in fruitful directions not anticipated in more traditional theory and research. This handbook will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of the theory, assumptions, and history of psychology.

An exercise in Open Philosophy -- a worldview open to the full range of human experience including science, spirituality and traditional philosophy. Naturalism is exposed as a closed, a priori worldview. God is not an alternative to, but the completion of, scientific explanation. The foundations and data of evolution do not show randomness, but Mind in nature. Evolution aims at verifiable targets and develops means in advance of need. While God is proven deductively, the fine-tuning argument makes a strong case despite the anthropic principle. The rules of evidence are discussed critically before reviewing data on mind ranging from neuroscience, connectionism, & cybernetics to introspection, parapsychology, near death experiences & mysticism -- even I-Thou relationships. Current theories are inadequate to important data points. Traditional philosophy suggests a single substance, two-subsystem theory integrating a data processing brain and an intentional, immaterial soul to solve the mind-body problem.

The Distributed Functions of Emergency Management and Homeland Security outlines the roles and responsibilities of various individuals and agencies involved in homeland security and all aspects of emergency management. Each chapter focuses on the practical and applied aspects of a range of public servants in various departments and the organizations that they represent. Rather than presenting a theoretical exploration alone, the book examines the practical knowledge and hands-on skills related to various functions and how their decisions and actions play into the larger framework of safety and security —in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Every professional has a unique and integral part to play in fulfilling their roles and obligations, whether it be in relation to prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response or recovery operations. Personnel that frequently come to mind in such scenarios include emergency managers, geographers and land-use planners, EMTs and paramedics, fire fighters, police officers, public health officials, nurses, public administrators, and public information officers. And while these individuals are integral to homeland security and emergency management, there are other professionals that also perform essential duties that—while they aren’t first-to-mind—are vital to efforts relating to terrorism and disasters; this includes pilots in the aviation sector, the military, attorneys, psychologists, and forensic professionals serving in pathology, DNA, and dentistry roles. Chapters provide a holistic rendering of the homeland security and emergency management landscape to present all these various professional capabilities and contributions. This includes how current functions are coordinated as well as how future efforts might change relative to a more proactive, all-hazards and holistic approach. As such, the book will be a useful resource for students and practitioners to understand the dynamic professions—and various disciplines and fields—that impact disaster and terrorism preparedness and response capabilities.

This book brings together the central tenets of William Stern’s critical personalism. Presented for the first time for an English-speaking audience, this selection of original translations and essays encapsulates the critical framework of Stern’s personalistic psychology. The selected works highlight the philosophical basis of Stern’s personalistic views, illustrate their relevance in domains of theoretical and practical importance in psychology, and reveal Stern’s critical stance on certain methodological trends that were gaining favor within psychology during his lifetime. Lamiell’s own chapters contextualise the translations by providing an overview of the most basic tenets of critical personalism, and offering a commentary on paradigmatic commitments within scientific psychology’s mainstream that began to impede Stern’s efforts prior to his death, and that remain obstacles to personalistic thinking in the discipline today. Largely ignored by his contemporaries, this work forms part of an emerging body of scholarship that seeks to reintroduce Stern’s thinking into contemporary psychology. The book is intended for academically oriented scholars with interests in historical, theoretical and philosophical issues in psychology.

In The Human Image in Helmuth Plessner, Pierre Bourdieu, and Psychocentric Culture, Isaac E. Catt offers a unique criticism of naturalistic reductions of humans to animals, to neuro substrates and to DNA. Catt explores a new interpretation of Plessner and Bourdieu, revealing the combinatory logic of semiotic phenomenology in both and their common problematic of communication. Through an emergent synthesis of philosophical anthropology and communicology, this book provides a basis for criticism of the failed mechanistic medical model in psychiatry, a fresh argument for reconceptualizing psychiatry as a human science, and for construction of a new ecological image of communicative being. Throughout the book, alternative attempts to transcend dualisms such as cybernetics, anti-anthropocentrism, and biosemiotics are revealed to risk reification of the very objects of their analysis. Scholars of communication, semiotics, philosophy, psychiatry, cultural studies, mental distress, and psychology will find this book of particular interest.