For decades, psychological research has heavily favored quantitative over qualitative methods. One reason for this imbalance is the perception that quantitative methods follow from a post-positivist paradigm, which guides mainstream psychology, whereas qualitative methods follow from a constructivist paradigm. However, methods and paradigms are independent, and embracing qualitative methods within mainstream psychology is one way of addressing the generalizability crisis.

This six volume backlist collection brings together an assortment of seminal works by highly influential British philosopher A. C. Ewing. This comprehensive and diverse collection encompasses a fantastic selection of his work in the field of moral philosophy and the history of philosophy; ranging from the definition of good, through to his views on punishment and a study on the work of Emmanuel Kant. Spanning more than 30 years in Professor Ewing’s distinguished career, the reissued volumes in this (...) collection, originally published between 1924 and 1959, offer a thorough and engaging insight into Professor Ewing’s work. (shrink)

We welcome Blair's argument that the relationship between fluid cognition and other aspects of intelligence should be an important focus of research, but are less convinced by his arguments that fluid intelligence is dissociable from general intelligence. This is due to confusions between (a) crystallized skills and g, and (b) universal and differential constructs. (Published Online April 5 2006).

I do not think that the existence of God can be proved or even that the main justification for the belief can be found in argument in the ordinary sense of that term, but I think two of the three which have, since Kant at least, been classified as the traditional arguments of natural theology have some force and are worthy of serious consideration. This consideration I shall now proceed to give. I cannot say this of the remaining one of (...) the arguments, the ‘ontological proof’, which I shall therefore not discuss here. (shrink)

A little while ago I thought the ontological argument dead and buried beyond any possible hope of resurrection and no philosophical event has caused me much greater surprise than its revival by a member of the very linguistic school to whose line of thinking it seemed most alien and who were held to have given it its quietus once for all. I am tempted to welcome any relapse into metaphysics by a member of this school as being some sign of (...) grace, but on this issue I must for once take sides with the prevailing tradition against at least this kind of metaphysics. Let me make clear, however, what it is I am combating. The term ‘ontological argument’ has been used for arguments which its original supporters would certainly not have recognised as theirs. It has been used for instance to stand for the claim that it is an essential presupposition of thought that what we must think is true of the real, a claim which could not be used to prove the existence of God unless we had available another proof that we really must think that God exists. It has been used for kinds of ‘idealist’ arguments which I do not want to discuss here. It has been used for the argument that the idea of a perfect being cannot be explained as derived from any other idea and must therefore be explained as produced in us by a being who really is perfect, an argument which appears in Descartes side by side with the ontological argument but which he carefully distinguishes from it. (shrink)

First published in 1924, this book examines one of the main philosophical debates of the period. Focusing on Kant’s proof of causality, A.C. Ewing promotes its validity not only for the physical but also for the "psychological" sphere. The subject is of importance, for the problem of causality for Kant constituted the crucial test of his philosophy, the most significant of the Kantian categories. The author believes that Kant’s statement of his proof, while too much bound up with other (...) parts of his particular system of philosophy, may be restated "in a form which it can stand by itself and make a good claim for acceptance on all schools of thought". (shrink)

A. C. Ewing; IX—May Can-Statements Be Analysed Deterministically?, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 64, Issue 1, 1 June 1964, Pages 157–176, http.

In Britain and, I think, America at least the “idealist movement” in philosophy is very widely regarded as a spent force, as a subject only for historical study. There are indeed different definitions of “idealism.” The term was defined explicitly by at least one distinguished British philosopher as covering “all those philosophies which agree in maintaining that spiritual values have a determining voice in the ordering of the universe.” This doctrine, though unfortunately less vocal than it was, has by no (...) means died out, and will not as long as there are theists who talk about God in any but a subjectivist sense. But a theist would not usually be called an idealist unless he based his theism on a particular kind of approach to the problems of metaphysics. Further, the term “idealist” would also be applied to a pessimist like Schopenhauer, for whom evil rather than good was conceived as predominant and whose philosophy could certainly not be described in the above terms. Some would apply it to philosophers who did not make any positive metaphysical assertion but only insisted that we had to reduce the concept of physical objects to a concept for organising human experience. Like -isms in general the term “idealism” has therefore a distinctly varied connotation; but in its most characteristic and influential form it was an attempt to give a philosophical proof of the essential doctrines of religion or at least of something which, though not identical with orthodox Christianity, provided an adequate substitute for it, being the philosophical truth which the teachings of the Church metaphorically expressed. (shrink)

Cet artide soutient que la causation enveloppe une connexion logique ; car : a) toutes les régularités que nous rencontrons dans la nature seraient d’incroyables coïncidences s’il n’y avait quelque raison pour les expliquer ; b) toute induction suppose que nous avons le droit de conclure de la cause à l’effet et vice-versa ; mais nous ne pouvons avoir le droit d’arriver à une conclusion en partant de prémisses qui n’impliquent pas la conclusion. Si cette vue est acceptée, il nous (...) faut penser que le monde participe à la nature d’un système rationnel plus qu’on ne le croit ordinairement aujourd’hui. (shrink)

This article is a discussion of the relationships of objectivity of value with subjectivist and naturalist ethics. the author considers and clarifies both the subjectivist and the naturalist views of ethics and how they assert judgments in relation to the objectivity of ethical values, and the role of intuition in terms of achievement of agreement that affirms the objectivity of ethical values. (staff).