•  15
    Recovering Duty
    Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 29 (3): 159-160. 2022.
    One must freely admit that there is here a sort of circle from which, so it seems, there is no way of escape. In order the order of efficient causes, we assume that we are free so that we may think of ourselves as subject to moral laws in the order of ends. And we think of ourselves as subject to these laws because we have attributed to ourselves freedom of the will. Freedom and self-legislation of the will are both autonomy and are hence reciprocal concepts.Post-traumatic stress disorder stems …Read more
  •  7
    Freedom's Embrace
    Pennsylvania State University Press. 1998.
    To be free is to escape all limitations and obstacles—or so we think at first. But if we probe further, we discover that freedom embraces its own necessities, a set of conditions without which it could not exist. _Freedom's Embrace_ explores these necessities of freedom. J. Melvin Woody surveys competing conceptions of freedom and traces debates about the nature and reality of freedom to confusions about knowledge, humanity, and nature that are rooted in some of the most fundamental assumptions …Read more
  •  49
    When Narrative Fails
    Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 10 (4): 329-345. 2003.
    Lloyd Wells' four examples of loss of self challenge both philosophers and clinicians to ponder just what it is that has been lost in such cases. If a self has been lost, who lost it? And how can personal identity be so insecure that it can be lost in so many different ways? Empiricist thinkers, both Western and Eastern, have questioned the very existence of a self; much recent thought about the nature of the self has converged on notions that it is not a substantial reality, but a narrative, th…Read more
  •  17
    Hegel (review)
    Idealistic Studies 16 (2): 184-185. 1986.
    A critical commentary on Hegel’s entire system built around the structure of the Encyclopedia would be a welcome addition to the English literature. Findlay’s Hegel: A Re-Examination provides a synoptic overview of Hegel’s philosophy, but its scope does not permit close attention to Hegel’s argument. At first glance, Inwood’s Hegel seems to address the need for a more detailed commentary. In a hefty volume of over 500 pages, which was written for Routledge & Kegan Paul’s series on “The Arguments…Read more
  •  117
    Dispensing with the dynamic conscious
    Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 9 (2): 155-157. 2002.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.2 (2002) 155-157 [Access article in PDF] Dispensing With the Dynamic Conscious J. Melvin Woody FREUD'S THEORY OF UNCONSCIOUS mental processes depends upon an extremely narrow conception of consciousness. O'Brien and Jureidini rightly focus attention on the limitations of that conception and argue that it is time to dispense with the resultant conception of the unconscious. Of course, scientists …Read more
  •  38
    The Philosophical Propaedeutic (review)
    Idealistic Studies 19 (3): 276-277. 1989.
    As rector of the Gymnasium at Nuremburg between 1808 and 1811, Hegel attempted to introduce his young students to his system of philosophy in courses spread over three years. Karl Rosenkranz edited Hegel’s course notes and published the results under the title, Philosophische Propaedeutic in his 1840 edition of Hegel’s collected works. English translations of portions of the Propaedeutic by W. T. Harris were published in the 1860’s in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy and have since appeared…Read more
  •  54
    Mourning or Melancholia
    Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 16 (3): 245-247. 2009.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mourning or MelancholiaJ. Melvin Woody (bio)Keywords“objective correlative”, depression, grief, cognitive-affective dissonanceIn a celebrated and controversial critical essay, T.S. Eliot faults Shakespeare's Hamlet on the grounds that the playwright has not provided sufficient “objective correlative” for the moods of his melancholy Dane. For lack of the “complete adequacy of the external to the emotion” that he finds in Shakespeare's…Read more