The Whole Person

Mark Bickhard is the Henry R. Luce Professor in Cognitive Robotics and the Philosophy of Knowledge at Lehigh University, and is affiliated with the Departments of Philosophy and Psychology. His work ranges from process metaphysics and emergence to consciousness, cognition, language, and functional models of brain processes, to persons and social ontologies. Bickhard’s work on cognition features a model of cognition as emergent in agent processes for interacting with the world.

• Section 1: Naturalism and Emergence1. Introduction2. Naturalism3. Background Metaphysics and Epistemology4. Through The Twentieth Century and The Contemporary Scene5. Metaphysics and EmergenceSection 2: Biological Foundations6. Overview of Biological Foundations7. The Emergence of Normativity8. A Macroevolutionary Ratchet: Basic Species Capacities for Homo SapiensSection 3: Minds and Persons: Aspects, Specializations, Developments, and Further Emergent9. The Mentality of Homo Sapiens10. Persons: The Emergence of Homo-SociusSection 4: Reflexive Consistencies of the Model11. Reflexive Consistencies: IntroductionSection 5: Concluding Discussion12. Naturalistic Ontological Psychology

"This ambitious, yet unpretentious, carefully constructed and argued book is a must read for anyone with serious interest in the nature of persons and the psychology of personhood. Mark Bickhard’s The Whole Person is a sustained and convincing narrative about our individual and collective evolution and emergence as the unique beings that we are. Of particular interest is his account of the emergence of persons as homo-socius. Here, Professor Bickhard captures key, but often overlooked, historical, sociocultural, and socio-developmental dynamics and processes that make us who we are—a species constantly interacting with each other and the world in a never-ending process of mutual co-constitution. By theorizing a process metaphysics replete with emergent normativity that does not clash with a naturalistic ontological psychology, Bickhard takes a giant step toward seeing ourselves as we are and as we might become."— Jack Martin, Professor Emeritus, Simon Fraser University"A typical psychological theory offers narrow generalizations about data sets obtained by semi-proprietary empirical methods. The basic empirical research on which such theories have depended is in crisis: tremendous effort has gone into ill-motivated studies, applying statistics inappropriately to inadequate samples, too often generating irreproducible results. The kind of theory that psychology needs is broad and deep, pays no respect to boundaries between specialties, makes falsifiable predictions, and answers to arguments in principle. The Whole Person presents just such a theory; psychologists, whether their aim is to extend it and support it or to challenge it and refute it, will benefit from studying it closely."— Robert L. Campbell, Professor (Emeritus), Psychology, Clemson University"There are three challenges that the discipline of psychology faces. One is to grapple with contemporary movements in evolution and science that challenge the way psychologists tend to do their research. Another is the challenge that comes from global interconnectedness, which is that we have to take into account how culture and cultural variance entwine with psychological phenomena. The third is that psychology is not really a discipline per se and it is fractured into many different silos, which means that it is rare to see much-needed work that is broad in scope. The brilliance of Mark's book: "The Whole Person"is that it engages with very sophisticated and cutting edge science to offer a broad account of human psychology that is exactly what we need in current psychological theorizing. The book generatively weaves together important ideas from evolutionary and biological thought with a sophisticated understanding of human sociocultural life. The result is a work of tremendous scope that will inspire researchers to revise their research programs and generate new lines of inquiry." — Jim Cresswell, Professor at Ambrose University and Editor of the Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology (APA"Mark Bickhard’s magnum opus, The Whole Person, is an exhilarating, comprehensive re-orientation of our methods, models and understanding of human being, behaviour and agency. Bickhard’s ‘Interactivism’ develops a sophisticated thermodynamic model of how (inter alia) biological organisms are at all possible, including how organisms can sense, perceive and behave effectively within their environs. Interactivism centrally addresses issues of physiological and psychological processes to understand (inter alia) how our physiology and psychology can subserve normative issues of validity, including reference, ascription, accuracy, truth and (cognitive) justification. The Whole Person is lucid, fascinating, penetrating and justifiedly heterodox; this landmark work should be widely and deeply read across the disciplines engaged in cognitive sciences, cognitive psychology and philosophy of knowledge." – Kenneth R. Westphal, M.A.E., Professor of Philosophy (ret.)