Richard Williams | Brigham Young University (original) (raw)
Papers by Richard Williams
The FARMS Review
Williams reviews the apostasy and the loss of three key components of the gospel: an understandin... more Williams reviews the apostasy and the loss of three key components of the gospel: an understanding of the nature of God, apostolic authority, and the fulness of the gifts of the Spirit. He argues that these three aspects of the gospel largely influence our understanding of faith, reason, knowledge, and truth.
Journal of Mind and Behavior, 1995
On Hijacking Science, 2018
THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY AND THE SPIRIT OF PSYCHIATRY : RESTORATION OR DISSOCIATION?
On Hijacking Science, 2018
Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 2020
Recent decades have witnessed a profound increase in scholarly work and scientific research condu... more Recent decades have witnessed a profound increase in scholarly work and scientific research conducted under the banner of evolutionary psychology. Although evolutionary psychologists typically disavow any historical or conceptual link to the political or scientific project of eugenics, or at the very least downplay the current relevance of such linkages, a growing number of evolutionary thinkers have begun to embrace a biological science of cognitive and moral enhancement. This article examines some of the ways in which advocates of enhancement assume human agency as central to their project even as their naturalistic explanations of human behavior deny that agency. The article also argues that the utopian moral project that animates the evolutionary enhancement movement is undercut by the materialist metaphysics that undergirds the neo-Darwinian worldview employed to ground the project in the first place, a metaphysics that relativizes and ultimately rejects any meaningful morality...
Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 2019
Many scientists and philosophers of science have argued that metaphysical naturalism and methodol... more Many scientists and philosophers of science have argued that metaphysical naturalism and methodological naturalism represent distinct and separable philosophical commitments. This claim is true in the sense that metaphysics and epistemology reflect different philosophical projects. The major question of interest to psychologists, however, is whether at the pragmatic level of research designed to discover the psychological sphere in which we live our lives, the metaphysical and the methodological realms are so tightly interwoven that some important aspects of our humanity cannot be faithfully revealed without distortion, or even missed altogether. This paper argues that, in light of its intellectual origins, methodological naturalism is informed by metaphysical naturalism at the level of its formulation, and, thereby, is by its nature more apt to reveal phenomena of certain ontological types and less apt to faithfully reveal phenomena of other ontological types. In
Journal of Psychology and Theology, 2000
Spiritual self-identity, one of four factors in the centrality model of self-identity (D. Pederse... more Spiritual self-identity, one of four factors in the centrality model of self-identity (D. Pedersen, 1994), is seemingly related to religious orientation (i.e., religion as a means, end, or quest) and religious attitude (i.e., affect, cognitions, and conation associated with religion or religious activity). The relationships among these variables were explored with the Who Am I? scale, the Religious Life Inventory, and the Religious Attitude Questionnaire, respectively. Three hundred fifteen undergraduate students from four universities participated in the study. Those with high scores on spiritual self-identity scored significantly higher on the ends orientation and significantly lower on the means and quest orientations. They also manifested higher scores on the affect and conation scales regarding religious matters. Participants manifesting low spiritual self-identity exhibited an opposite pattern of scores. These findings suggest that spiritual self-identity is a salient feature ...
The present study evaluated the efficacy of a four-week seminar which emphasized the principles o... more The present study evaluated the efficacy of a four-week seminar which emphasized the principles of Agentive Theory. This theory, compatible with theories of a phenomenological-existential perspective, was first developed by C. T. Warner. Agentive Theorists/Therapists emphasize that our negative emotions (depression, anger, etc.), are assertions or judgments we make and not feelings which happen to us, and thus call for control or expression. Forty-eight outpatients who sought help with personal/emotional problems from a department of behavioral medicine were assigned to either a Treatment or Waiting-list Control Group. Following a four-week treatment seminar, the Treatment Group made significantly greater improvement than the Waiting-list Control Group with respect to general mental health, somatization, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, psychoticism and anger reduction.
Theory & Psychology, 2013
This paper argues that the prevailing theories, models, and explanations of contemporary psycholo... more This paper argues that the prevailing theories, models, and explanations of contemporary psychology, in large part because they reflect the assumptions of reductive naturalism, provide an understanding of our human being such that aspiration—to the higher, the more noble, and the more meaningful—becomes not only unreasonable, but impossible. Indeed, such thinking in the discipline marks the death of aspiration. The paper further argues, following the work of Unamuno, Levinas, and Marion, that genuine aspiration is possible and reasonable only in the context of a temporal continuity of the soul, the existence of an other to whom we are obligated, and the possibility of loving with no expectation of reciprocity. Such a context, in turn, is possible only under a particular set of assumptions about our human being that operate on the ontological level. These assumptions, which include that we are innately possessed of meaningful intelligence, that we can, in fact, anticipate temporal co...
Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 1994
Contemporary psychology has dealt with the problem of human agency in the terms and categories ma... more Contemporary psychology has dealt with the problem of human agency in the terms and categories made available to it from its modernist heritage. Agency has been taken to be some capacity of essentially private minds to weigh alternatives and choose from among them. This paper argues that this conception ultimately fails since such weighing and choosing always require grounds that reach beyond private consciousness. An alternative conceptualization of agency as living truthfully is proposed. This concept of agency is exemplified and distinguished from "volition," which is much closer to the more traditional view of agency as the capacity to choose from among alternatives. Finally, the paper offers a grounding for agency in ethics, suggesting neither traditional notions, which are grounded in traditional metaphysics, nor postmodern notions, which accept ethical relativity, can render satisfactory accounts of human agency. I. INTRODUCTION However problematic it may be to characterize an intellectual movement or an era with a single word, the term "modernism" is commonly employed to describe the thrust of philosophical endeavor since Descartes. Rene Descartes, as the acclaimed father of modernism, occupies a pivotal point in the Western intellectual tradition. His work seems to have expressed not only the questions to be pursued, but the parameters within which answers would be sought, by philosophers, and to a great extent, by scientists, until well into the twentieth century. Modernism, as heir to the Cartesian project, is still very much the dominant point of view in the intellectual tradition in which contemporary psychology is situated. That Descartes's project was taken up, in one form or another, by such preeminent thinkers as David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Edmund Husserl, is testimony of the extent of its influence. That the This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
American Psychologist, 1987
Page 1. functioning of the totality of articulation practices (cf. Barratt, 1985). It is this pro... more Page 1. functioning of the totality of articulation practices (cf. Barratt, 1985). It is this problem of ideology, the possibility that "language" actively masks the reality of our psychic being, that Faul-coner and W'dliams failed to address. ...
The FARMS Review
Williams reviews the apostasy and the loss of three key components of the gospel: an understandin... more Williams reviews the apostasy and the loss of three key components of the gospel: an understanding of the nature of God, apostolic authority, and the fulness of the gifts of the Spirit. He argues that these three aspects of the gospel largely influence our understanding of faith, reason, knowledge, and truth.
Journal of Mind and Behavior, 1995
On Hijacking Science, 2018
THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY AND THE SPIRIT OF PSYCHIATRY : RESTORATION OR DISSOCIATION?
On Hijacking Science, 2018
Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 2020
Recent decades have witnessed a profound increase in scholarly work and scientific research condu... more Recent decades have witnessed a profound increase in scholarly work and scientific research conducted under the banner of evolutionary psychology. Although evolutionary psychologists typically disavow any historical or conceptual link to the political or scientific project of eugenics, or at the very least downplay the current relevance of such linkages, a growing number of evolutionary thinkers have begun to embrace a biological science of cognitive and moral enhancement. This article examines some of the ways in which advocates of enhancement assume human agency as central to their project even as their naturalistic explanations of human behavior deny that agency. The article also argues that the utopian moral project that animates the evolutionary enhancement movement is undercut by the materialist metaphysics that undergirds the neo-Darwinian worldview employed to ground the project in the first place, a metaphysics that relativizes and ultimately rejects any meaningful morality...
Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 2019
Many scientists and philosophers of science have argued that metaphysical naturalism and methodol... more Many scientists and philosophers of science have argued that metaphysical naturalism and methodological naturalism represent distinct and separable philosophical commitments. This claim is true in the sense that metaphysics and epistemology reflect different philosophical projects. The major question of interest to psychologists, however, is whether at the pragmatic level of research designed to discover the psychological sphere in which we live our lives, the metaphysical and the methodological realms are so tightly interwoven that some important aspects of our humanity cannot be faithfully revealed without distortion, or even missed altogether. This paper argues that, in light of its intellectual origins, methodological naturalism is informed by metaphysical naturalism at the level of its formulation, and, thereby, is by its nature more apt to reveal phenomena of certain ontological types and less apt to faithfully reveal phenomena of other ontological types. In
Journal of Psychology and Theology, 2000
Spiritual self-identity, one of four factors in the centrality model of self-identity (D. Pederse... more Spiritual self-identity, one of four factors in the centrality model of self-identity (D. Pedersen, 1994), is seemingly related to religious orientation (i.e., religion as a means, end, or quest) and religious attitude (i.e., affect, cognitions, and conation associated with religion or religious activity). The relationships among these variables were explored with the Who Am I? scale, the Religious Life Inventory, and the Religious Attitude Questionnaire, respectively. Three hundred fifteen undergraduate students from four universities participated in the study. Those with high scores on spiritual self-identity scored significantly higher on the ends orientation and significantly lower on the means and quest orientations. They also manifested higher scores on the affect and conation scales regarding religious matters. Participants manifesting low spiritual self-identity exhibited an opposite pattern of scores. These findings suggest that spiritual self-identity is a salient feature ...
The present study evaluated the efficacy of a four-week seminar which emphasized the principles o... more The present study evaluated the efficacy of a four-week seminar which emphasized the principles of Agentive Theory. This theory, compatible with theories of a phenomenological-existential perspective, was first developed by C. T. Warner. Agentive Theorists/Therapists emphasize that our negative emotions (depression, anger, etc.), are assertions or judgments we make and not feelings which happen to us, and thus call for control or expression. Forty-eight outpatients who sought help with personal/emotional problems from a department of behavioral medicine were assigned to either a Treatment or Waiting-list Control Group. Following a four-week treatment seminar, the Treatment Group made significantly greater improvement than the Waiting-list Control Group with respect to general mental health, somatization, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, psychoticism and anger reduction.
Theory & Psychology, 2013
This paper argues that the prevailing theories, models, and explanations of contemporary psycholo... more This paper argues that the prevailing theories, models, and explanations of contemporary psychology, in large part because they reflect the assumptions of reductive naturalism, provide an understanding of our human being such that aspiration—to the higher, the more noble, and the more meaningful—becomes not only unreasonable, but impossible. Indeed, such thinking in the discipline marks the death of aspiration. The paper further argues, following the work of Unamuno, Levinas, and Marion, that genuine aspiration is possible and reasonable only in the context of a temporal continuity of the soul, the existence of an other to whom we are obligated, and the possibility of loving with no expectation of reciprocity. Such a context, in turn, is possible only under a particular set of assumptions about our human being that operate on the ontological level. These assumptions, which include that we are innately possessed of meaningful intelligence, that we can, in fact, anticipate temporal co...
Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 1994
Contemporary psychology has dealt with the problem of human agency in the terms and categories ma... more Contemporary psychology has dealt with the problem of human agency in the terms and categories made available to it from its modernist heritage. Agency has been taken to be some capacity of essentially private minds to weigh alternatives and choose from among them. This paper argues that this conception ultimately fails since such weighing and choosing always require grounds that reach beyond private consciousness. An alternative conceptualization of agency as living truthfully is proposed. This concept of agency is exemplified and distinguished from "volition," which is much closer to the more traditional view of agency as the capacity to choose from among alternatives. Finally, the paper offers a grounding for agency in ethics, suggesting neither traditional notions, which are grounded in traditional metaphysics, nor postmodern notions, which accept ethical relativity, can render satisfactory accounts of human agency. I. INTRODUCTION However problematic it may be to characterize an intellectual movement or an era with a single word, the term "modernism" is commonly employed to describe the thrust of philosophical endeavor since Descartes. Rene Descartes, as the acclaimed father of modernism, occupies a pivotal point in the Western intellectual tradition. His work seems to have expressed not only the questions to be pursued, but the parameters within which answers would be sought, by philosophers, and to a great extent, by scientists, until well into the twentieth century. Modernism, as heir to the Cartesian project, is still very much the dominant point of view in the intellectual tradition in which contemporary psychology is situated. That Descartes's project was taken up, in one form or another, by such preeminent thinkers as David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Edmund Husserl, is testimony of the extent of its influence. That the This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
American Psychologist, 1987
Page 1. functioning of the totality of articulation practices (cf. Barratt, 1985). It is this pro... more Page 1. functioning of the totality of articulation practices (cf. Barratt, 1985). It is this problem of ideology, the possibility that "language" actively masks the reality of our psychic being, that Faul-coner and W'dliams failed to address. ...