Kendler addresses three basic and interrelated questions that face all psychologists: What is the subject matter of psychology? What are the criteria for understanding psychological events? What ethical principles underlie the use of psychological knowledge? "[The book's] structure.... only hints at the literate and responsible handling of these current issues.... [it] would be enjoyable to use in teaching." --Psychological Report.

The relationship between psychology and ethics is determined by whether psychology is conceptualized as a natural or a human science. If the former, then psychology is incapable of identifying universal moral imperatives because of the fact/value dichotomy that rejects the possibility of logically deriving moral principles or social policies from factual statements. In addition, the inevitability of moral pluralism raises the question as to how natural science methodology can select moral truths or social policies from a variety of presumed alternatives. (...) In contrast, human science psychology, which emphasizes phenomenological experience as a source of psychological truths, has attempted to bridge the fact/value gap. Upon close examination, this approach has failed to suggest a rule as to how the "correct" set of values can be identified. The conclusion is that facts cannot dictate moral principles or social policies but they can help illuminate their consequences. Policy decisions become the responsibility of a democratic society, not of psychology. (shrink)

A developmental study of free-classification behavior within the age range of 3-1/2 to 19 years indicates that categorical responses, which are characteristic of adult behavior, increase with age while overgeneralized responses, classifications including noncategorical instances, decrease with age. Overdiscriminated responses which are incomplete categorical classifications increase from 3-1/2 to 6 years and then decrease to 19 years of age. These results are discussed within a two-stage theory of conceptual development (Kendler, 1971).

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.1 (2003) 53-55 [Access article in PDF] A Pragmatic Consideration of the Relation between Depression and Melancholia David H. Brendel THE MELANCHOLIA OF THE PAST and the major depression of the present are extraordinarily complex notions that represent different things to different people. With her compelling article "Is This Dame Melancholy? Equating Today's Depression and Past Melancholia," Jennifer Radden makes an important contribution to the (...) debate on whether these concepts are identical, overlapping, or distinct. Exploring both conditions from descriptive and causal points of view, Radden appropriately concludes that fully equating the two of them would constitute a "troubling oversimplification." Her line of reasoning runs as follows. Because past descriptions of melancholia and current descriptions of major depression are marked by dissimilarities (such as the genius and creativity associated with the former and the self-loathing and emphasis on loss associated with the latter), only an underlying causal base common to both conditions would justify our equating them. But the cause (or causes) of melancholia and depression remain mysterious. Thus, although Radden acknowledges that a causal explanation might yield substantial benefits ("research possibilities, further hypotheses, and even hope of prevention, or cure"), she suggests that we remain in a descriptive mode when comparing the two conditions and conclude that they are not one and the same.Radden's argument that past melancholia and contemporary depression are descriptively distinct is convincing and, I think, indisputable. But I would like to challenge and expand upon some of her ideas about considerations of causality and about the role of pragmatic reasoning in working out the relation between melancholia and depression. First of all, although Radden is correct that the cause of many (or perhaps most) depressive states is unknown, she underrates the extent of the empirical knowledge that we have acquired about the causation of depression and, in so doing, undervalues the relevance of causal reasoning to making the melancholia/depression distinction. Recent empirical research has revealed that major depressive episodes can result from brain lesions such as left-sided strokes or metabolic disorders such as hypothyroidism (Yudofsky and Hales 2002). Psychosocial research, moreover, has suggested that stressful life events also can be understood as causes of depression (Kendler, [End Page 53] Karkowski, and Prescott 1999). These findings provide some hope that the identification of causes of various clinical states is a real possibility. Identification of such causes, I believe, could empower us to make some plausible claims about the similarities or differences between past melancholia and current depression. A melancholic individual like van Gogh, for example, had a different illness than a contemporary stroke patient with major depression in a present-day hospital, not only on the basis of descriptive distinctions between their conditions, but also on the basis of the causes of their respective states. Although of course we cannot know the cause of van Gogh's melancholia, we can reasonably assume that it was not the result of a left-sided stroke due to the absence in his case of other clinical deficits that usually result from such a stroke (such as language and motor deficits). Plausible assertions about the causes of melancholic and depressive states would add to the robustness of any claims regarding the distinctness of the conditions.Conversely, careful consideration of the etiology of various clinical presentations might prompt us to hypothesize a shared pathophysiology and thereby lead us to believe that they are essentially identical conditions. It is difficult or impossible to discover a cause of melancholia in individuals who lived in past eras. But we might achieve our goal by comparing well-defined major depression to various forms of what Radden calls "masked depression," such as those seen in cross-cultural settings, where the subjective symptoms of sad mood are absent but numerous somatic signs of depression are observed. If it turned out that major depression and masked depression had the same cause, then differences in their clinical phenomenology would become merely surface differences that belie a shared etiological process. How might one discover the existence of such a process... (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This is the first complete, one-volume English translation of the ancient Chinese text Xunzi, one of the most extensive, sophisticated, and elegant works in the tradition of Confucian thought. Through essays, poetry, dialogues, and anecdotes, the Xunzi articulates a Confucian perspective on ethics, politics, warfare, language, psychology, human nature, ritual, and music, among other topics. Aimed at general readers and students of Chinese thought, Eric Hutton’s translation makes the full text of this important work more accessible in English than ever (...) before. Named for its purported author, the Xunzi has long been neglected compared to works such as the Analects of Confucius and the Mencius. Yet interest in the Xunzi has grown in recent decades, and the text presents a much more systematic vision of the Confucian ideal than the fragmented sayings of Confucius and Mencius. In one famous, explicit contrast to them, the Xunzi argues that human nature is bad. However, it also allows that people can become good through rituals and institutions established by earlier sages. Indeed, the main purpose of the Xunzi is to urge people to become as good as possible, both for their own sakes and for the sake of peace and order in the world. In this edition, key terms are consistently translated to aid understanding and line numbers are provided for easy reference. Other features include a concise introduction, a timeline of early Chinese history, a list of important names and terms, cross-references, brief explanatory notes, a bibliography, and an index. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.