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Example research essay topic: Original Work Published Good And Evil - 1,761 words

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... claims. Constructivist theory would equate religion and relativism, construing religion as personal beliefs found by an individual to agree with his or her own needs and interests. The psychology of religion would then be the major focus of inquiry, an exercise in teasing out what caused religious belief or what its purpose was for individuals and groups. That religious belief and practice as a human phenomenon is a proper subject of inquiry using personal construct theory as a methodology is clear in the question as posed by Todd: Just what is the meaning of religious belief to a believer? This meaning may stem from any one of the common dimensions of religiosity: theism, fundamentalism, ritualism, mysticism, church orientation, altruism, idealism, or superstition. (Todd, 1988).

Or, it may be the outcome of fear or a fear of freedom that issues in the general downgrading of the individual and a vilification of the human in the face of a belief in something superhuman (Fromm, 1941 / 1972). Yet, the psychological aspects of religion are not what most religions want to illuminate. Most religions, certainly the major historical ones, claim truth, something beyond mere personal individual belief and independent of, or tangential to, one's upbringing, education, socialization, and so on. The founder of personal construct psychology might be thought to be of direct assistance to present concerns in that his own apparent commitment to Christianity raises the question of how he himself construed his religious belief and how he squared this with his own theory. Yet, even in his apparently most relevant discussion, in his Sin and Psychotherapy (Kelly, 1962 / 1979, p. 165 - 66), he makes no doctrinal evaluations and is in fact relatively unhelpful.

The fall from grace in the Garden of Eden story of the Bible is discussed in the familiar terms of humankind henceforward having to deal alone with the problem of good and evil. Jesus is referred to, in the essay, as much as a wise man as he is referred to as the Son of God. There is as much a tone of familiarity with the Bible as there is a one of commitment to it as revealed truth, as might equally be found in an atheist's or a Marxist's discussion of the Bible. Kelly discusses religion in a somewhat removed fashion, imparting a sense of "Here are some stories that show how some people of olden times attempted to construe the problem of good and evil and the appropriate responses to it"; or "Here are some ways in which both society at large and individuals have personally tried to confront the problem of good and evil. " In general, if it contributes at all to our present discussion, this particular essay yields some support for the manner in which personal construct theory equates religion with relativism. (Kelly, 1965 / 1979, p. 175). In short, then, it would appear that constructivist psychology in general and personal construct theory in particular must result in at least an agnosticism in relation to organized religion and a more general relativistic and humanizing of religious truth and experience. Religious belief, or the acceptance of religious doctrine, must signal on the personal level what Kelly in a different context calls a "hardening of the categories. " On the epistemological level, it must signal an absolutism that is inconsistent with the openness that supports constructivist psychology in general and personal construct theory in particular. (Kelly, 1965 / 1979, p. 187 - 8).

One response at this point is to develop a theory of religion that harmonizes with constructivist psychology. This is a task beyond present interests in pointing up the apparent problem, but at least some suggestions can be offered based on personal construct psychology. One direction is in the work of Hegel, work that leads into a philosophical perspective with which personal construct theory is quite at home (Warren, 1985, 1990). Hegel broke with the dominant theme of some one thousand years of philosophy: the concentration since about A. D. 500 on matters theological and religious.

He suggested that questions of the truth value of religious statements were too difficult to answer and that there was never likely to be agreement on them. Better, he thought, to consider the consequences of religious belief; and the consequences were divisiveness and alienation. Further, this was not true of ancient Greek folk religion, and it was not true of the real message of Jesus. Greek folk religion harmonized Greek society and the different aspects of individual mental life (emotions, thoughts, and behavior), and Jesus taught an ethic of love that the Church perverted into an ethic of authority. In a series of essays belonging to his early period, Hegel analyzed how and why the teaching epitomized in the Sermon on the Mount became distorted. What is of particular interest is Hegel's idea of love. (Hegel, 1965).

Hegel considered that the Kantian moral position was mistaken in that it still placed the basis of morality in commands, either external or internalized commands that this or that behavior is 'good' and must be followed. This was also the interpretation traditionally placed on Jesus' teaching in The Sermon; it is to be understood that Jesus is stressing reverence for the laws. Rather, Hegel argued, some emotions, outlooks, inclinations, and so forth, are naturally good. He developed the idea of love as an emotion that does naturally what would have been commanded as good, should a command have been necessary. Thus, in Jesus' teaching: The Sermon does not teach reverence for the laws; on the contrary, it exhibits that which fulfills the law but annuls it as law and so is something higher than obedience to law and makes law superfluous. From this early period, Hegel was to go on to develop the notion of Sittlichkeit (the ethical life) as contrast with Moral itat (morality).

Each was a psychological concept describing, respectively, a free (autonomous) and an unfree (enslaved) state of mind. The 'good' was thus a state of mind or a "way of going on" of mind that did not need to be commanded and that did not seek to command others. In more familiar terms, we might think of egalitarianism as an attitude of mind that we could contrast with authoritarianism. Hegel's point was that we must look to the 'good' as a quality of mind initially expressed in the concept of love and developing (as he saw the wider ramifications) into the notion of the ethical life. (Hegel, 1965). If these ideas are translated to the realm of what we usually regard as religion, we find a concept of religion that maximizes individual autonomy and regards the natural "going on" of free minds as expressing a religious attitude -- that of love. This attitude of love is then seen as but one aspect of a more complicated way of going on of mind.

More generally still, there is a natural sociality; minds that function in terms of a principle of egalitarianism are not narrowly selfish (not egotistic, though they may be egoistic), but do not seek to impose on others, and their operation leads to harmonious social life. There are echoes of later social theories here, theories such as anarchism, and the libertarian strand in Marxism before it was overtaken and converted to a position of authority. Indeed, some of the early anarchists claimed Jesus as a forerunner of their own views. (Warren, 1989, p. 287). Personal construct theory in particular, and constructivist psychology more generally, would appear to be quite comfortable in this last theoretical milieu.

As suggested elsewhere in respect of personal construct psychology (Warren, 1985, 1989), it fits well with the general phenomenological tradition developing after Hegel and refocusing attention on the complex interactions between mind and society. Phenomenology has also been fertile ground for the development of alternatives to cognitive psychology in the 1970 s. The traditional antagonism between science and religion continues in Western thought. This antagonism would appear to pose a special problem for a theory that accepts the view that individuals construct their own worlds, and in one particular case takes as its model "man the scientist." In rendering religion in terms introduced by one of the most seminal of the Western philosophers, G. W. F.

Hegel, there is a potential for minimizing the problem, within at least personal construct theory, although this might prove difficult if it is seen as the response Todd referred to as a "watering down" of religion to a humanism, and as equating religion with relativism. (Todd, 1988). For constructivist theories, however, it is one direction for a resolution of the continuing antagonism, a direction closer to Todd's suggestion of a rediscovery of religion's experienced reality expressed in a renewed language. We might re-express this, however, as a rediscovery of the essential nature of religion, as the progressive unfolding of love or as a more general principle of unforced, free, spontaneous social life. If this reconstruct is unacceptable, however, then there is an onus on those who would wish to hold to a more objective and transcendental position in relation to religion to indicate how this would not offend the "scientist" model originally propounded for personal construct theory, as well as the implicit relativism of constructivist theory more generally. (Todd, 1988). Words: 3, 228. Bibliography: Feyerabend, P. (1975).

Against method. London: New Left Books. Fromm, E. (1972). The fear of freedom. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul. (Original work published 1941) Hawking, S. W. (1988).

A brief history of time. London: Bantam Books. Hegel, G. W. F. (1965).

On Christianity: Early theological writings. (T. M. Knox, trans. ) New York: Harper Torch books. (Original essays published 1798 - 1799) Kelly, G. A. (1979). Sin and psychotherapy. In B.

Maher (Ed. ), Clinical psychology and personality (pp. 165 - 188). Huntington, NY: Robert E. Krieger. (Original work published 1962) Lakatos, I. , & Musgrave, A. (Eds. ) (1970). Criticism and the growth of knowledge.

Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Mahoney, M. J. (1991). Human change processes: The scientific foundation of psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books. Passmore, J. (1978).

Science and its critics. London: Duckworth. Tesconi, C. A. , & Morris, V. C. (1972). The anti-man culture: Bureau technocracy and the schools.

Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Todd, N. (1988). Religious belief and PCT. In F. Fransella & L. Thomas (Eds. ), Experimenting with personal construct psychology.

London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Warren, W. G. (1990). Personal construct theory and general trends in contemporary philosophy. International Journal of Personal Construct Psychology, 2, 287 - 300.


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Research essay sample on Original Work Published Good And Evil

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