Steven James Bartlett (born 1945) is an American philosopher and psychologist notable for his studies in epistemology and the theory of reflexivity, and for his work on the psychology of human aggression and destructiveness, and the shortcomings of psychological normality. His findings challenge the assumption that psychological normality should serve as a standard for good mental health. He is the author or editor of more than 20 books and research monographs as well as many papers published in professional journals in the fields of epistemology, psychology, mathematical logic, and philosophy of science.
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Biography
Bartlett was born in Mexico City. He is the son of American author and artist Paul Alexander Bartlett and his wife, American poet Elizabeth Bartlett. Steven James Bartlett received his B.A. in 1965 from Raymond College, an Oxford-style honors college of the University of the Pacific, his M.A. in philosophy in 1968 from the University of California, Santa Barbara, his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1971 from the Université de Paris, and later engaged in postdoctoral study in clinical psychology at Saint Louis University, 1975–77, and Washington University in St. Louis, 1983–84.
Prior to high school, Bartlett attended schools both in the United States and in Mexico while his father undertook a study of some 350 haciendas throughout Mexico. Bartlett showed unusual aptitude, skipping a grade in grammar school, attending college concomitantly while still in high school, and completing his undergraduate degree in three years, followed by a succession of scholarships and fellowships during undergraduate and graduate study.
Bartlett served as professor at the University of Florida, 1971–72, and at the University of Hartford, 1972–74; was appointed research fellow at the Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung der Lebensbedingungen der wissenschaftlich-technischen Welt in Starnberg, Germany, 1974–75; served as consultant for the RAND-National Science Foundation Project in Regional Analysis and Management of Environmental Systems, 1975–78; served as professor at Saint Louis University, 1975–84; was Associate Editor of The Modern Schoolman, 1975–84, Member of the advisory board of the Dutch journal Methodology and Science, 1976–95, Member of the Global Advisory Board of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies, 2005- ; and has received honorary faculty appointments at Willamette University, 1988- , and at Oregon State University, 1988- . Bartlett is Trustee and Director of Publications for the international non-profit organization, Literary Olympics, Inc., 1994- .
He is married to Karen Margo Bartlett (Germanist, cellist, and viola da gambist), daughter of Shirley Love and physicist Allan W. Love, designer of the antenna line feed for the Arecibo Observatory's radio telescope.
Recognition and importance
Bartlett has received recognition in both disciplines of philosophy and psychology. He is the author or editor of more than 20 books and research monographs, and many papers published in professional journals. His research has been funded under grants by the National Science Foundation, the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, the Alliance Française, the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Lilly Endowment, and others. His work in both disciplines has been supported by well-known authors and researchers including Paul Ricoeur, Robert Hutchins, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, Thomas Szasz, M. Scott Peck, Irving Greenberg, and others. Bartlett's work has been translated into German, Portuguese, French, and Polish.
Principal areas of research
As described in further detail in the sections that follow, Bartlett's research and publications can be divided into two main groups: studies in philosophy and studies in clinical psychology. In philosophy, his research has focused on the theory of reflexivity, self-referential argumentation, and the metatheory of reference and identification. In clinical psychology, his research has focused on human pathology as it is expressed in genocide, the Holocaust, war, terrorism, obedience, hatred, human ecological destruction, and human conceptual pathology. In addition, Bartlett's research in clinical psychology has sought to develop our understanding of what he calls human moral intelligence, as well as of the psychology of peer review and editorial bias, the phenomenology of hatred, the psychology of mediocrity, and the psychology of stupidity. He has challenged the conventional understanding and treatment of mental disorders as promoted by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Bartlett's publishing record and biographical information show that his work developed during the following approximate periods:
1964–1974, studies in phenomenology
1975–1988, studies relating to the metalogic of reference
1989–2011, studies relating to clinical psychology
2012- , further work relating to the metalogic of reference
Research and publications in philosophy
Beginning with Bartlett's doctoral dissertation, whose doctoral jury members were French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (dissertation director), Belgian mathematical logician Jean Ladrière, and Belgian philosopher Alphonse de Waehlens, Bartlett developed an approach to the study of philosophical problems by means of a therapy for concepts. The approach took the form of a self-validating phenomenological epistemology whose purpose is the identification and correction of many conceptually self-undermining errors that Bartlett classified as conceptual pathologies. He applied the resulting methodology to a number of traditionally understood epistemological problems, as well as to portions of everyday, conventional conceptual vocabulary, to show that many of these must be recognized to be self-referentially inconsistent. He characterized the resulting methodology as self-validating in the sense that it cannot not be accepted without self-referential inconsistency.
Bartlett first formulated his revisionary methodology within a phenomenological framework in which the concept of reference plays a logically primitive role; he later separated his approach to conceptual therapy from phenomenology. This took the form of a theoretically neutral metalogic of reference.
In 2021, Bartlett's most extensive and complex work in philosophy was published, Critique of Impure Reason: Horizons of Possibility and Meaning. This massive study of nearly 900 pages develops and extends his earlier work relating to conceptual therapy and the metalogic of reference. Its principal objective is to formulate a logically compelling method that makes it possible to recognize the unavoidable boundaries—Bartlett calls these the "horizons"—of our conceptual frameworks so we may avoid the conceptual confusions that result when attempts are made to transgress beyond what is possible and meaningful. The Critique of Impure Reason then applies the method to a wide group of conceptually basic concepts (for example, space, time, causality, consciousness, the self, other minds, etc.) that play a central role in major philosophical questions and problems, and many of which are also relied upon in ordinary thinking and are used in the formulation of many scientific theories
Bartlett has contributed to the field of study the general theory of reflexivity, which investigates the properties of systems capable of self-reference. As Bartlett has described, there are many such systems, ranging from reflexive formal systems in mathematics and in mathematical logic, to self-referential systems in artificial intelligence and the theory of computation, to self-referential systems that are physiologically based — an advanced example being that of human self-awareness and the capacity to reflect on that awareness. Secondary applications arise in connection with breakdowns in reflexive functioning found in certain psychopathologies.
Research and publications in clinical psychology
Bartlett's studies relating to clinical psychology have focused on the following areas:
In 2005, Bartlett's book The Pathology of Man: A Study of Human Evil was published. The 200,000-word study applies the science of pathology to the human species in order to identify and describe many dispositionally-based pathologies that afflict our species, often without our awareness. A central purpose of the book is to bring together and discuss the work of twentieth century psychologists, psychiatrists, ethologists, psychologically focused historians, and others who have studied the underlying psychology of human aggression and destructiveness. The conclusions of the study emphasize that human pathology has many originating factors, that people obtain varied cognitive and emotional gratifications from such pathology, and that human pathology is a normal human condition and is therefore generally intractable, at least at this stage of human development. Bartlett describes how deficits in what he defines as moral intelligence combine with the psychology of stupidity, which together form major contributors to the psychological shortcomings that result in human pathology. In critical responses to the book, the study was commended by The Journal of Analytical Psychology: "Bartlett is a lucid, painstaking and illuminating writer. This is certainly a classic work of reference in the field." The Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic appraised the book as "a challenging and thought provoking approach that makes a significant contribution to an aspect of human psychopathology that is rarely or so comprehensively addressed." About the book, M. Scott Peck commented: "[T]he study of evil is just beginning and you are a pioneer." Eric Zillmer, Carl R. Pacifico Professor of Neuropsychology at Drexel University, commended the book: "Steven James Bartlett's The Pathology of Man marks the most comprehensive examination of evil to date. Drawing from different fields of study, including psychology and epistemology, Bartlett sets out on a Tour de Force of delineating the parameters on human evil.... The resulting text is a most welcome addition to the field and provides for fascinating reading. The Pathology of Man is a timely, scholarly, and important piece of work that should appeal to anyone who is interested in understanding human evil." Author and President of the Jewish Life Network Irving Greenberg commented: "This book is stunning, upsetting, gripping.... [T]he book is a moral act of the highest order. These...comments would be incomplete without mentioning the erudition, the intellectual insight and playfulness, the gallows humor and the self-restraint which deepen and lighten this book." Since the publication of The Pathology of Man, Bartlett has published a series of further books and papers related to the same and related subjects.