본 논문은 디지털 미디어 사회 속에 나타나는 빈도 높게 나타나는 폐쇄적인 형태의 소통행위가 갖는 분열적 자기의식의 강화로 인한 인간소외의 고립과 단절의 문제를 장자의 철학사상에서 강조되는 자유와 해방의 정신과 연계하여 고찰하는 것을 목적으로 한다.BR 디지털 미디어를 기반으로 하는 현대의 생활세계에서 디지털 네트워크 기술과 정보의 발달은 인간의 소통방식을 새롭게 변모하게 만드는 중요한 역할을 한다. 그리고 이것은 디지털 디바이스를 통해 이루어지는 현대의 소통행위에 대한 가치와 의미의 중요성을 말하는 것이기도 하다. 이 점에서 변화된 디지털 미디어 사회 속에서 이루어지는 디지털 네트워크에 접속, 즉 디지털 네트워크에 (...) 접속을 유지(log-in)하고, 반응하는 것은 자신의 존재성을 확인하고, 확보해가는 사회적 의미의 관계맺음에 해당하는 동시에 소통의 장(場)이 된다. 하지만 디지털 네트워크에 접속하지 않는 것(log-off)은 사회적 의미의 관계맺음이 차단된 단절과 고립의 의미가 된다.BR 더욱이 고도로 향상된 디지털 네트워크 기술과 정보를 기반으로 하는 디지털 가상 세계의 초시간적이고, 초공간적인 형태의 소통성은 끊임없는 접속의 소통행위를 강제하는 하나의 억압적 기제가 된다. 그리고 이것은 자신 스스로를 디지털 네트워크 속에 가두고, 그 속에서 자신의 존재성을 확인하며 강화시켜 나아가는 폐쇄적인 형태의 고립된 자기의식을 강화하는 한편 자기의식의 분열을 조장하는 주된 원인이 된다.BR 그러므로 자유로운 세계의 소통성을 확보하기 위한 일환으로 고착화된 자기의식의 타파(자아 해체)를 통해 무대(無待)의 자유정신을 회복할 것을 강조하는 장자의 철학사상은 우리사회가 직면하고 있는 디지털 미디어 사회의 분열적 자기의식의 강화, 즉 디지털 네트워크에 종속된 폐쇄적인 형태의 소통행위가 갖는 자기의식의 고립과 분열성에 문제를 이해하고, 문제의 해결을 위한 방안을 모색할 수 있는 계기가 된다. (shrink)

Buddhist ethics generally favour attention over action, and mental cultivation as the means of ethical transformation. Buddhaghosa’s treatment of samādhi – meditation – in the Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga) exemplifies this view that practices of attention are morally transforming. His detailed discussion of which forms of attentional exercises are transformative to whom reveal that edifying attention is directed to impersonal reality rather than persons – even when the Buddha is our object of attention. In successful meditation, we do not just (...) recognise reality and ourselves as devoid of essence; we experience it as such – and in the experiencing, become so ourselves. (shrink)

Users of psychedelic drugs often report that their sense of being a self or ‘I’ distinct from the rest of the world has diminished or altogether dissolved. Neuroscientific study of such ‘ego dissolution’ experiences offers a window onto the nature of self-awareness. We argue that ego dissolution is best explained by an account that explains self-awareness as resulting from the integrated functioning of hierarchical predictive models which posit the existence of a stable and unchanging entity (...) to which representations are bound. Combining recent work on the ‘integrative self' and the phenomenon of self-binding with predictive processing principles yields an explanation of ego dissolution according to which self-representation is a useful Cartesian fiction: an ultimately false representation of a simple and enduring substance to which attributes are bound which serves to integrate and unify cognitive processing across levels and domains. The self-model is not a mere narrative posit, as some have suggested; it has a more robust and ubiquitous cognitive function than that. But this does not mean, as others have claimed, that the self-model has the right attributes to qualify as a self. It performs some of the right kinds of functions, but it is not the right kind of entity. Ego dissolution experiences reveal that the self-model plays an important binding function in cognitive processing, but the self does not exist. (shrink)

There is converging evidence that high doses of hallucinogenic drugs can produce significant alterations of self-experience, described as the dissolution of the sense of self and the loss of boundaries between self and world. This article discusses the relevance of this phenomenon, known as “drug-induced ego dissolution (DIED)”, for cognitive neuroscience, psychology and philosophy of mind. Data from self-report questionnaires suggest that three neuropharmacological classes of drugs can induce ego dissolution: classical psychedelics, dissociative (...) anesthetics and agonists of the kappa opioid receptor (KOR). While these substances act on different neurotransmitter receptors, they all produce strong subjective effects that can be compared to the symptoms of acute psychosis, including ego dissolution. It has been suggested that neuroimaging of DIED can indirectly shed light on the neural correlates of the self. While this line of inquiry is promising, its results must be interpreted with caution. First, neural correlates of ego dissolution might reveal the necessary neurophysiological conditions for the maintenance of the sense of self, but it is more doubtful that this method can reveal its minimally sufficient conditions. Second, it is necessary to define the relevant notion of self at play in the phenomenon of DIED. This article suggests that DIED consists in the disruption of subpersonal processes underlying the “minimal” or “embodied” self, i.e., the basic experience of being a self rooted in multimodal integration of self-related stimuli. This hypothesis is consistent with Bayesian models of phenomenal selfhood, according to which the subjective structure of conscious experience ultimately results from the optimization of predictions in perception and action. Finally, it is argued that DIED is also of particular interest for philosophy of mind. On the one hand, it challenges theories according to which consciousness always involves self-awareness. On the other hand, it suggests that ordinary conscious experience might involve a minimal kind of self-awareness rooted in multisensory processing, which is what appears to fade away during DIED. (shrink)

It is often claimed that a minimal form of self-awareness is constitutive of our conscious experience. Some have considered that such a claim is plausible for our ordinary experiences but false when considered unrestrictedly on the basis of the empirical evidence from altered states. In this paper I want to reject such a reasoning. This requires, first, a proper understanding of a minimal form of self-awareness – one that makes it plausible that minimal self-awareness is part of (...) our ordinary experiences. I will argue that it should be understood as Perspectival First-Person Awareness : a non-conceptual identification-free self-attribution that defines the first-person perspective for our conscious experience. I will offer a detailed characterization of PFP-Awareness in semantic and epistemological terms. With this tool in hand, I will review the empirical literature on altered states. I will focus on psychedelics, meditation and dreams, as they have been claimed to present the clearest cases in favor of a radical disruption of self-awareness. I will show that the rejection of the idea that minimal self-awareness is constitutive of our experience on the basis of this evidence is unfounded, for two main reasons. First, although there are good grounds to think that some forms of self-awareness that typically accompany our ordinary experiences are compromised, they do not support the claim that PFP-Awareness is absent. Secondly, the reports that could make us think of a radical disruption of self-awareness are most probably due to a confirmation bias – and hence we should mistrust them – derived from the expectations and metaphysical views of their subjects. (shrink)

In his book Autonomous Knowledge J. Adam Carter argues that the possibility of radical cognitive enhancement shows the need for epistemology to be significantly updated. Reflection on the possibility of such enhancement shows that doxastic autonomy matters. If a belief fails to be autonomous, it cannot qualify as knowledge. Sects. 1-3 of this paper introduce the key components of Carter's autonomy framework and his considerations on the value of knowledge (including his proposed solution to the value problem, i.e. the challenge (...) of accounting for why knowledge has greater value than any of its proper parts). Sects. 4-7 offer a critical appraisal of Carter's framework. We are not convinced that Carter has succeeded in showing that there is an autonomous belief condition on knowledge. In this paper, however, we shall not engage with this issue. Instead, for the sake of our critical discussion, we shall assume that autonomous belief is a condition on knowledge and engage Carter on a cluster of issues concerning axiology. (shrink)

A Window to the (Dissolved) Self? : Psychedelic Ego-dissolution as a Case of Minimal Self-consciousness.

Aims: The experience of a compromised sense of ‘self’, termed ego-dissolution, is a key feature of the psychedelic experience and acute psychosis. This study aimed to validate the Ego-Dissolution Inventory (EDI), a new 8-item self-report scale designed to measure ego-dissolution. Additionally, we aimed to investigate the specificity of the relationship between psychedelics and ego-dissolution. Method: Sixteen items relating to altered ego-consciousness were included in an internet questionnaire; 8 relating to the experience of ego-dissolution (...) (comprising the EDI), and 8 relating to the antithetical experience of increased self-assuredness. Items were rated using a visual analogue scale. Participants answered the questionnaire for experiences with classical psychedelic drugs, cocaine or alcohol. They also answered the 7 questions from the Mystical Experiences Questionnaire (MEQ) relating to the experience of unity with one’s surroundings. Results: 691 participants completed the questionnaire, providing data for 1828 drug experiences (1043 psychedelics. 377 cocaine. 408 alcohol). Exploratory factor analysis demonstrated that the 8 EDI items loaded exclusively onto a single common factor, which was orthogonal to a second factor comprised of the items relating to increased self-assuredness (rho= -.110), demonstrating discriminant validity. The EDI correlated strongly with our measure of unitive experience (rho =.735), demonstrating convergent validity. EDI internal consistency was excellent (Cronbach’s alpha 0.93). Three analyses confirmed the specificity of ego-dissolution for experiences occasioned by psychedelic drugs. Firstly, EDI score correlated with drug-dose for psychedelic drugs (rho=.371), but not for cocaine (rho=.115) or alcohol (rho=-0.055). Secondly, the linear regression line relating the subjective intensity of the experience to EDI was significantly steeper for psychedelics (unstandardized B coefficient= 0.701) compared with cocaine (0.135) or alcohol (0.144). Finally, a binary support vector machine classifier identified experiences occasioned by psychedelic drugs vs. cocaine or alcohol with over 85% accuracy using ratings of ego-dissolution and ego-inflation alone. Conclusions: Our results demonstrate the psychometric structure, internal consistency and construct validity of the EDI. Moreover, we demonstrate the close relationship between ego-dissolution and the psychedelic experience. The EDI will facilitate the study of the neuronal correlates of ego-dissolution, which is relevant for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and our understanding of psychosis. (shrink)

In Nietzsche's "mature" texts, we are witnessing a complete dissolution of the subject. At first glance, however, this appears highly paradoxical (Wotling 2015), leading some commentators to suggest that there is a real contradiction in Nietzsche's work (Gardner 2009), insofar as the author never ceases to speak of himself and at the same time invites his reader to become who he is. Are we to understand, then, that any self is illusory and constitutes a metaphysical illusion, i.e., that (...) the becoming in which we are always caught according to Nietzsche must make any position of a self impossible, and at the very least diminishing? Following in the footsteps of Alexander Nehamas (1985), we believe that we can overcome the contradiction identified by S. Gardner by showing that Nietzsche's conception of the self is not "realistic", but precisely also fictional and dynamically positive at the same time. (shrink)

Debates over the significance of the particle concept, and the problem of locality-how do we represent localized phenomena?-appear to presuppose that particles and observed phenomena are things rather than events. Well-known theorems (Hergerfelt, Reeh-Schlieder), and a recent variant of Hergerfelt's theorem due to David Malement, present a problem of locality only given the tacit appeal to the concept of thing, in fact an individual, in a sense contrary to particle indistinguishability. There is no difficulty with the particle concept per se, (...) but it is a global construction more than one step removed from events actually observed, which are represented by local integrals over self-adjoint field densities. (shrink)

Moral-theoretical categories have almost disappeared from the theoretical vocabulary of sociology. Neither perceptions of legitimacy nor perceptions of injustice, neither moral argument nor normative consensus now play a significant role in explaining the social order. Instead the object of sociological inquiry is understood either according to the pattern of anonymous self-organization processes or as the result of cooperation among strategically-oriented actors; accordingly, the disciplinary role models are biology or economics, whose conceptual models appear suited to explain such a complex (...) process as the reproduction of societies. One may easily get the impression that current sociology wishes to finally bid farewell to the generation of its founding fathers; since from Weber and Durkheim to Talcott Parsons, it was a settled matter that an adequate basic conception of the social world could only be derived using the concepts, models, or hypotheses of moral theory – practical philosophy was, so to speak, the foundation and guiding discipline for classical sociology. After the “Theory of Communicative Action”– the last grand sketch of a complete social theory based on the sources of practical philosophy – all this seems to have been forgotten. In any event, it could until recently appear that with Habermas’ book the tradition of a normatively oriented sociology has come to an end. It is mostly due to the efforts of a small group of researchers in France – which assembled around Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot – that there continues to be a strand within social theory that employs sources of moral philosophy. Having emerged from an internal critique of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology, the works of this highly productive circle, probing ever new directions, seek to explain the integration of our societies through the interplay of different moral convictions.1 The foundational text of this sociological school is the study On Justification, originally published in 1991.2 This book, which has meanwhile also been published in German,3 deserves careful consideration not least because it represents the most interesting attempt of the more recent past to give sociology a basis in moral philosophy. (shrink)

This philosophical investigation is motivated by the common association between happiness and self-transcendence, and a question posed by Freud: “Why is it so hard for men to be happy?” I consider the answers given in three key texts from the psychoanalytic tradition, Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents, and Abraham Maslow’s The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. Based on a distinction between opposing forms of self-transcendence, ego-actualisation and ego-dissolution, the authors articulate (...) the relation between self-transcendence and happiness in different, but equally unsatisfactory, ways. In all three texts, a dominant ideological framing is discernible, which prioritises the present/positive and ignores the work of the absent/negative, ironically leaving us with a sense of futility concerning the pursuit of happiness. I propose that an approach influenced by Lacanian ideas, which acknowledges the role played by unhappiness in producing happiness, plausibly challenges the traditional conception of happiness that places it out of human reach as the effect of a perfectly self-transcendent state. Instead, understood as the effect of resistance to the notion of self-transcendence as self-perfection, happiness, while still difficult to achieve because it requires another kind of self-transcendence, becomes attainable here and now by ordinary individuals. (shrink)

The topic of this contribution is the tension between the everyday dichotomy of nature and technology and the nanotechnological understanding of the world. It is essential to nanotechnology that nature and technology not be categorically opposed as the manmade and the non-manmade, but rather regarded as parts of a structurally identical whole. After the introduction, I will address three points: In a brief first section I will formulate a few questions and a thesis about the nanotechnological developments that can be (...) expected to come. In the main section I will assess four aspects of everyday understanding of nature and technology that are used to legitimate nanotechnology. Finally I will discuss whether an everyday understanding of nature can be conceived as a critical authority with respect to the nanotechnology program. (shrink)

In recent years, the scientific study of meditation and psychedelic drugs has seen remarkable developments. The increased focus on meditation in cognitive neuroscience has led to a cross-cultural classification of standard meditation styles validated by functional and structural neuroanatomical data. Meanwhile, the renaissance of psychedelic research has shed light on the neurophysiology of altered states of consciousness induced by classical psychedelics, such as psilocybin and LSD, whose effects are mainly mediated by agonism of serotonin receptors. Few attempts have been made (...) at bridging these two domains of inquiry, despite intriguing evidence of overlap between the phenomenology and neurophysiology of meditation practice and psychedelic states. In particular, many contemplative traditions explicitly aim at dissolving the sense of self by eliciting altered states of consciousness through meditation, while classical psychedelics are known to produce significant disruptions of self-consciousness, a phenomenon known as drug-induced ego dissolution. In this article, we discuss available evidence regarding convergences and differences between phenomenological and neurophysiological data on meditation practice and psychedelic drug-induced states, with a particular emphasis on alterations of self-experience. While both meditation and psychedelics may disrupt self-consciousness and underlying neural processes, we emphasize that neither meditation nor psychedelic states can be conceived as simple, uniform categories. Moreover, we suggest that there are important phenomenological differences even between conscious states described as experiences of self-loss. As a result, we propose that self-consciousness may be best construed as a multidimensional construct, and that “self-loss,” far from being an unequivocal phenomenon, can take several forms. Indeed, various aspects of self-consciousness, including narrative aspects linked to autobiographical memory, self-related thoughts and mental time travel, and embodied aspects rooted in multisensory processes, may be differently affected by psychedelics and meditation practices. Finally, we consider long-term outcomes of experiences of self-loss induced by meditation and psychedelics on individual traits and prosocial behavior. We call for caution regarding the problematic conflation of temporary states of self-loss with “selflessness” as a behavioral or social trait, although there is preliminary evidence that correlations between short-term experiences of self-loss and long-term trait alterations may exist. (shrink)

Regenerative medicine requires living cells in order for it to work. The process involves a biologist entering the body, cutting into its flesh and taking away a part of it in order to return with an improvement. In other words, to optimize the body it first needs to be deconstructed. This process is demonstrated in the project ‘Hair in Vitro’. However, the fact that it is difficult to reconcile oneself with such a ‘disfigurement’ testifies to a certain sacredness surrounding the (...) body in western culture, where its wholeness and completeness is still fundamental. Nevertheless, could one argue for the idea of an intimate, individual body; of an identity that is preponderantly distinguished and separated from the other world (especially if a human is to be acknowledged as being immersed in the world); where things reciprocally belong to each other in such a manner that they constitute the same flesh of the world? The genetic profile of an individual is actually a much more complex assemblage than a profile of just one species. Micro-organisms not only live as components of the body, but also traverse from it into the environment, and vice versa. An exchange of living substances is constantly taking place. The horny layer of the skin is thus something of a vibrant exchange market; it is a region of the dissolution of identity: interiority extends out to exteriority and exteriority goes into interiority. Concepts of interiority and exteriority become senseless here: the body and the environment are intertwined; the body disperses into the milieu, and the milieu spreads onto and into the body. With the deconstruction of the notions of the boundaries of the body and the body as a closed distinguished substance, the idea of the wholeness of the organism has lost a great deal of sense. The body should not just be considered as a multitude, but its notion should denote openness, exchangeability, traversabilty and permeability. Its structure is, in short, rhizomatic – the body is a rhizome. A body is a temporary locus of a particular organization of life. It is not a closed entity, but rather a drizzling identity. The delimitation of the body is constructed, and therefore where it ends up is drawn arbitrarily. Regenerative medicine derives from the notion of a body as a composition: a dissembling and re-assembling of bodies, as well as a restarting, delaying and slowing down of life processes. A performative installation with growing human organs such as ‘Initiation’ discloses this notion, positioning the observer into the dispersed body. A body dissolved in a milieu – a fertile yard – where human remains are given suitable living conditions for the afterlife; a platform of life where the life that once belonged to the body has emancipated itself. It thus becomes the living other of the body with which the self gets confronted. However, this life is also the body’s own identity. (shrink)

Freud’s discussion of uncanny [unheimlich] experiences focuses on their peculiar ambivalence. On his view, the uncanny is a paradoxical feeling of both familiarity and alienation. While Freud’s analysis of this paradoxical feeling does succeed in explaining it away, it does little to explain it. One might expect a psychoanalytical demystification of the real experience that is hidden behind the superstitious overtones of uncanny experiences. Instead, the uncanny is attributed rather anti- climactically to the combination of a previous superstition (maintained unconsciously) (...) and an entirely coincidental verification of that superstition. The implication is that there is no uncanny per se. There is no distinctive category of experience, the unique character of which tends to cause or encourage superstitious beliefs; rather, such beliefs are prerequisite to having the experience. In other words, the experience suits the belief, and not vice-versa. The uncanny is the fantasized verification of a repressed fantasy. It involves a breakdown of the reality principle and the projection of beliefs into the external world, rather than a peculiarity of feeling that can be linked intrinsically to a specific category of experience. I do not intend to reject this analysis in its entirety. The basic structure, repression and return, is sound. However, Freud’s analysis of the uncanny, which resolves uncanny ambivalence into the separate categories of consciousness and unconsciousness, merely reinstates the problematical opposition of das heimliche and das unheimliche, familiar and unfamiliar, within the mind rather than in the external world. The coincidence of the two feelings in uncanny experience cannot be explained without an intervening stage between repression and return. I will suggest that Freud’s characterization of uncanniness as the return, in superstition, of the repressed is a misplacement of the experience of uncanniness. The aesthetical feeling is the cause of, but not identical to, the projected superstitions and ideas which surround it. An explanation of the feeling of uncanniness must fall not on the side of the repressed, but on the side of consciousness. The import of my position is that the feeling of uncanniness refers, in a manner of speaking, to something “real,” rather than merely to infantile ideas projected upon the external world. Freud’s explanation makes the unconscious a kind of scapegoat to be blamed for imposing fundamentally irrational beliefs into our interpretation of present experience, in that way preserving a model of the conscious ego as autonomous, fundamentally attuned to reality and ultimately independent of the unconscious. I will argue, on the contrary, that the experience of the uncanny is not merely a falling back into irrational or infantile beliefs, but an experience of a deep disunity in personhood that rightly causes us to question our everyday confidence in the unity, independence, and rationality of our conscious sense of self. The ambivalence of the feeling has its source in an irresolvable ambivalence that can exist in consciousness, and not simply in an analytically resolvable psychical ambivalence between consciousness and the unconscious. (shrink)

Despite the fact that psychedelics were proscribed from medical research half a century ago, recent, early-phase trials on psychedelics have suggested that they bring novel benefits to patients in the treatment of several mental and substance use disorders. When beneficial, the psychedelic experience is characterized by features unlike those of other psychiatric and medical treatments. These include senses of losing self-importance, ineffable knowledge, feelings of unity and connection with others and encountering ‘deep’ reality or God. In addition to symptom (...) relief, psychedelic experiences often lead to significant changes in a patient’s personality and worldview. Focusing on the case of psilocybin, we argue that the peculiar features of psychedelics pose certain novel risks, which warrant an enhanced informed consent process–one that is more comprehensive than what may be typical for other psychiatric medications. We highlight key issues that should be focused on during the consent process and suggest discussion prompts for enhanced consent in psychedelic psychiatry. Finally, we respond to potential objections before concluding with a discussion of ethical considerations that will arise as psychedelics proceed from highly controlled research environments into mainstream clinical psychiatry. (shrink)

Since its first appearance in 1821/22, The Christian Faith has had a fractious history of reception. It implements decisive departures for theology, founding the possibility to speak about God on human freedom. It recognises the role of historical consciousness, and the need to relate to advances in the natural sciences. The study investigates the early critiques of Schleiermacher’s analysis of the feeling of utter dependence, of his conception of Christ as the archetype of the God-consciousness, and of his doctrine of (...) God in terms of absolute causality. It reconstructs the revisions carried out in the second edition of 1830/31 as a break-through to a transcendental argumentation. Does Schleiermacher’s elaboration of the anthropological turn in theology leave it defenseless against the dissolution of faith in a saving God in Feuerbach’s projection thesis? Does it offer a naturalising account of religion? And where does the interconnectedness of nature established by God leave what was prized by the Romantics, human individuality? Ongoing objections and new constellations of questions are examined in their relevance for a modern theology that spells out faith in God as a practical self-understanding. “Maureen Junker-Kenny’s book is an outstanding presentation of Schleiermacher’s theology. She attends not only to the development of his method from the first to the second edition of The Christian Faith, but also to his concrete interpretation of Creation, Christology, Redemption, Theological Anthropology, especially human freedom, and his understanding of God. The book has an exceptional value in the way she relates Schleiermacher not only to his contemporaries, but also contemporary concerns. Schleiermacher’s theology is shown in its relation to the modernity of his age, but also the ongoing modernity of today. The book has a depth and breath that make it indispensable not only for historical theology, but also contemporary constructive theology.” – Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, Harvard Divinity School “In Self, Christ and God in Schleiermacher’s Dogmatics. A Theology Reconceived for Modernity, Maureen Junker-Kenny proves herself to be not only a distinguished interpreter of Schleiermacher’s work, but a creative practitioner in her own right of his dialogical method. Elegantly conceived and beautifully written, the book shows how Schleiermacher connected the different aspects of his thought—form/content, structure/doctrine, piety/critical rigor—into a coherent system. Self, Christ and God in Schleiermacher’s Dogmatics is now the only guide to Schleiermacher’s magnum opus, Christian Faith, anyone needs.” – Christine Helmer, Northwestern University, Chicago. (shrink)

Can we who have been touched by the scientific, intellectual, and experimental revolutions of modern and contemporary times still believe with and degree of coherence and consistency that we as individual persons are immortal. Indeed, is there even good cause to hope that we are? In examining the present relationship of reason to faith, can we find justifying reasons for faith? These are the central questions in Self, God, and Immortality, a compelling exercise in philosophical theology. Drawing upon the (...) works of William James and the principles of American Pragmatism, Eugene Fontinell extrapolates carefully from "data given in experience" to a model of the cosmic process open to the idea that individual identity may survive bodily dissolution. Presupposing that the possibility of personal immortality has been established in the first part, the second part of the essay is concerned with desirability. Here, Fontinell shows that, far from diverting attention and energies from the crucial tasks confronting us here and now, such belief can be energizing and life enhancing. The wider importance of Self, God, and Immortality lies in its pressing both immortality-believers and terminality-believers to explore both the metaphysical presuppositions and the lived consequences of their beliefs. It is the author's expressed hope that such explorations, rather than impeding, will stimulate co-operative efforts to create a richer and more humane community. (shrink)

A renowned philosopher of the mind, also known for his groundbreaking work on Buddhism and cognitive science, Evan Thompson combines the latest neuroscience research on sleep, dreaming, and meditation with Indian and Western philosophy of the mind, casting new light on the self and its relation to the brain. Thompson shows how the self is a changing process, not a static thing. When we are awake we identify with our body, but if we let our mind wander or (...) daydream, we project a mentally imagined self into the remembered past or anticipated future. As we fall asleep, the impression of being a bounded self distinct from the world dissolves, but the self reappears in the dream state. If we have a lucid dream, we no longer identify only with the self within the dream. Our sense of self now includes our dreaming self, the "I" as dreamer. Finally, as we meditate--either in the waking state or in a lucid dream--we can observe whatever images or thoughts arise and how we tend to identify with them as "me." We can also experience sheer awareness itself, distinct from the changing contents that make up our image of the self. Contemplative traditions say that we can learn to let go of the self, so that when we die we can witness its dissolution with equanimity. Thompson weaves together neuroscience, philosophy, and personal narrative to depict these transformations, adding uncommon depth to life's profound questions. Contemplative experience comes to illuminate scientific findings, and scientific evidence enriches the vast knowledge acquired by contemplatives. (shrink)

In the beginning: introduction -- This I believe: preview -- This they believe: other views -- Where it begins: anatomy and environment -- Where it began: evolution -- What is it?: consciousness -- There was the word: self-consciousness and language -- See here: attention -- Perhaps to dream: sleep -- x=2y: representation -- The dance of life: movement -- They all fall down: dissolution of function -- Been there, done that: experience -- Which have eyes and see not: (...) stimulus hierarchy -- Buy one, get one free: volition -- Play it again: speculative reprise -- In the end: conclusion. (shrink)

Modern skepticism can be usefully divided into two camps: the Cartesian and the Humean.1 Cartesian skepticism is a matter of a theoretical doubt that has little or no practical import in our everyday lives. Its employment concerns whether or not we can achieve a special kind of certain knowledge – something Descartes calls “scientia” 2—that is far removed from our everyday aims or standards of epistemic appraisal. Alternatively, Humean skepticism engages the ancient skeptical concern with whether we have good reason, (...) or any reason at all, for our beliefs, including the common or garden beliefs that are presupposed in our ordinary practical affairs. On this traditional conception, philosophical doubt is a projection of everyday doubt and the lessons of the study are potentially lessons for the street. In this paper I shall focus on the Humean strain of skepticism whose focus concerns whether we have adequate reasons for our beliefs. Henceforth when I speak of skepticism it is this variety of skepticism that I am primarily referring to.3 I want to relate skepticism, so understood, to two kinds of self-knowledge. I shall argue that the failure of past solutions and dissolutions of skepticism to provide a satisfying response to the skeptic can be accounted for in terms of two stances that we can take towards our own.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bataille and Mysticism: A “Dazzling Dissolution”Amy Hollywood (bio)Within Georges Bataille’s texts of the late 1930s and 1940s, in particular those later brought together in the tripartite Atheological Summa, he repeatedly suggests that his primary models for writing and experience are the texts of the Christian and non-Western mystical traditions (often represented, in Bataille, by women’s writings) and those of Friedrich Nietzsche. 1 Inner Experience opens with evocations of (...) Nietzsche, and the final volume of the trilogy, On Nietzsche, is “devoted” to his work. References to mystical writings occur throughout Inner Experience and Guilty, and significant portions of both texts can be read as providing “guides” for inner experience analogous to the “itineraries” of Angela of Foligno (d. 1309) and Teresa of Avila (d. 1582) or as spiritual daybooks like those of Mechthild of Magdeburg (d. ca. 1275). These models are, I think, the key to understanding Bataille’s own writing strategies in the Atheological Summa. 2 Despite their apparent divergence, moreover, Bataille insists that mystical and Nietzschean texts reflect and are constitutive of the same experience and writing practice.Like both Nietzsche and the mystics, Bataille’s “antigeneric” writing mixes genres and styles within and between texts. 3 Throughout the course of his career, experience and writing are in a constant state of movement, flux, or chaos (to echo Bataille’s self-description in On Nietzsche). The Atheological Summa encapsulates within what purport to be three unified books the diversity of genres and styles that run throughout Bataille’s corpus as a whole. They contain ample quotation of Nietzsche’s texts and those of the mystics—undigested hunks and fragments of these allusive writings 4 —together with philosophical reflections, confessional meditations, diary fragments, letters, and, at the end of On Nietzsche, a set of six brief historical and theoretical appendices. Anything broaching traditional textual commentary is reserved for the margins of these nonbooks. Like many mystics, particularly women who were denied access to the traditional genres of sermon, biblical commentary, and philosophical or theological treatise, and like Nietzsche, who eschews and subverts traditional genre distinctions, Bataille comments and critiques through practice rather than exposition. Although Bataille acknowledges the oddity of his coupling the mystics and Nietzsche, he also rigorously defends it, arguing for a mystical and ecstatic experience in Nietzsche’s work. 5 As I hope to show, Bataille’s [End Page 74] experience of the failures of mysticism and of Nietzsche speak to each other and lead to Bataille’s necessary apostasy as his true discipleship.Repetition of the divergences between Bataille and the mystics, first stated by Bataille himself in Inner Experience, has become something of a commonplace, yet his claims have not been sufficiently explored or challenged. So, for example, Alain Arnauld and Giséle Excoffon-Lafarge unproblematically assert that despite all proximities between Bataille’s texts and those of the mystics, they differ in their aims or aimlessness. Michel Surya joins a host of other scholars whose primary concern is to demonstrate (against the insinuations of Sartre, made now almost fifty years ago) that Bataille was not a Christian. Whereas the mystics’ path ends with the divine encounter, Bataille renounces all objects, aims, or end for his quest and his desire. 6 Most importantly, he rejects all idealism and any hope for salvation. Bataille himself insists on his divergence from the Christian mystics in Inner Experience and Guilty. At the same time, his citations and mimings of central texts from the Christian mystical tradition show that what fascinates him within these writings is precisely the moment in which the soul desires “to live without a why,” embracing the suffering of hell—understood as the absence of/from the “object” of desire—as desire. 7 In a move later echoed by Jacques Lacan, Bataille claims that some medieval mystics attained that beyond of which he writes, but without knowing anything about it: “Exuberance is the point where we let go of Christianity. Angela of Foligno attained it and described it, but didn’t know it.” 8Commentators follow Bataille in resisting his identification with the mystics, then, whereas Nietzsche is a less troubling model for Bataille and his readers. In fact, Bataille... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Pragmatist in Paris: Frédéric Rauh’s “Task of Dissolution”Richard HornerIntroductionRichard Rorty has suggested that we think of “pragmatism in the professorial sense” as “just a repudiation of the quest for certainty and foundations.” 1 In other words think of a pragmatist as someone who links the quest for privileged method with the quest for foundational knowledge and gives up both. As Rorty explained several years ago,If one believes, (...) as I do, that the traditional ideas of “an absolute (‘objective’) conception of reality” and of “scientific method” are neither clear nor useful, then one will see the interlocked questions “What should be the method of the social sciences?” and “What are the criteria of an objective moral theory?” as badly posed. 2Pragmatists not only give up the quest for grounding, foundations, or essences, then, but they also understand that the dissolution of essences leads in turn to “the dissolution of inquiry into a self-reweaving web of beliefs.” If this “seems wacky to you,” Rorty notes, “consider that such a dissolution is a natural and [End Page 289] easy consequence of a generalized antiessentialism.” 3 Whether he speaks in terms of foundations or essences, Rorty’s message remains the same: pragmatists not only let go of the quest for foundations, they also let go of the quest for privileged method.Perhaps the principle difficulty with this way of defining pragmatism is that not very many people seem to qualify as pragmatists. What Rorty has been able to do with remarkable consistency, others have been less willing and less able to do. There are, of course, still numerous foundationalists among us who are explicit about their commitment to the quest for foundations and to the quest for method that accompanies it. While anti-foundationalism may be all the rage, “it would be too much to say that the foundationalist argument lies in ruins. It is in fact remarkably resilient and resourceful in the face of attacks against it.” 4 Furthermore, even where the “death of foundationalism” is a given, 5 the quest for method continues to hold interest. To cite only one notable example among many, Jürgen Habermas may have successfully resisted the seductive attraction of the quest for Letzbegründung or ultimate foundations, but he clearly remains committed to “a metahermeneutical analysis” of communication, the purpose of which is “to identify universals and thus to produce a type of theoretical knowledge.” 6 This kind of “anti-foundationalist theory hope,” 7 can be found among Deweyan pragmatists as well. While many of them let go of the quest for foundations with relative ease, they find it difficult to abandon the quest for method 8 or to allow the epistemological enterprise to succumb to Rorty’s “vulgar pragmatism.” 9 Furthermore, in doing so they believe that Dewey would have sided with them rather than with Rorty.Given the difficulty in identifying pragmatists who have consistently abandoned both quests, it is especially striking to discover Frédéric Rauh practicing “pragmatism in the professorial sense” in the philosophy section of the Faculté [End Page 290] des lettres of the Sorbonne and Ecole normale supérieure during the first decade of the twentieth century. While this period of French history certainly produced intellectuals who were sympathetic to the American pragmatists, these intellectuals were, as Durkheim noted, “far from subscribing to all their theses.” 10 Renouvier, for instance, remained, in James’s own words, “too classic in the general rationalism of his procedure.” 11 Similarly, James’s good friend Boutroux, though “simpatico” toward American pragmatism, also “betrayed... a philosophical inheritance quite foreign to that of James.” 12 Ralph Barton Perry, comes to a similar conclusion with regard to Bergson, writing that Bergson and James “exchanged salutations and gifts, and then proceeded on their way. In no sense did they coincide either as systems or in their particular theorems.” 13 Apparent alliances, then, emerge finally as “misalliances,” showing that “what has passed as pragmatism in European philosophical thought has not been distinctive of the essential and most important features of American pragmatism.” 14 Whatever their affinities with pragmatism may have been and whatever their contributions to dissolving the... (shrink)

Hermann Cohen's Logic of Pure Knowledge and G. W. F. Hegel's Science of Logic each use in their way the means of thought of negation and contradiction to unfold the philosophical dynamic: a fragile interplay between self-endangerment and self-preservation of thought. Here, the proximity and difference of the two authors are extended. The proximity lies in methodological negativism. The difference is in the significance of the principle of continuity. According to Cohen and Hegel as well, thinking proceeds exclusively, (...) as Kant called it, synthetically. The exclusion of contradiction, limited to analytical judgments, has only marginal significance. But the commonality does not eliminate the differences. As Hegel puts it, contradiction is a principle of mediation and finally results in "self-dissolution"; it carries within itself a direction of logical "reconciliation." Per Cohen, contradiction is a principle of "annihilation" of approaches to a determination that threatens any form of "identity." The turn Hegel put in contradiction itself, regarding in it a unity of positivity and negativity, has no direct counterpart in Cohen. Nevertheless, for him, too, the "judgment of contradiction" becomes the active basis of all cognitive thought. By exercising a contradiction-destroying "activity," the judgment of contradiction "protects," indeed "generates," the real possibility of cognition. The annihilation of the non-identical sets free the fundamental "judgment of origin" with which cognition finds its beginning. The principle of continuity taken over from Leibniz corresponds to it. Just this principle has now again no direct correspondence with Hegel. (shrink)

This Comment argues that Stephen Bush's critique of Georges Bataille's meditative practice fails to recognize how the disruption of the self, and the challenge to goal-oriented activity that comprise the heart of that practice, serve as an ethical limit that protects against sadistic and violent engagement with the world. The ethical disposition fostered by Bataille's practice is a dissolution of the self.

Psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin, LSD and DMT are known to induce powerful alterations in phenomenology. Perhaps of most philosophical and scientific interest is their capacity to disrupt and even “dissolve” one of the most primary features of normal experience: that of being a self. Such “peak” or “mystical” experiences are of increasing interest for their potentially transformative therapeutic value. While empirical research is underway, a theoretical conception of the mechanisms underpinning these experiences remains elusive. In the following paper, (...) psychedelic-induced ego-dissolution is accounted for within an active inference framework, as a collapse in the “temporal thickness” of an agent’s deep temporal model, as a result of lowered precision on high-level priors. The argument here is composed of three moves: first, a view of the self-model is proposed as arising within a temporally deep generative model of an embodied organism navigating an affordance landscape in the service of allostasis. Next, a view of the action of psychedelics as lowering the precision of high-level priors within the generative model is unpacked in terms of a high Bayesian learning rate. Finally, the relaxation of high-level priors is argued to cause a “collapse” in the temporal thickness of the generative model, resulting in a collapse in the self-model and a loss of the ordinary sense of being a self. This account has implications for our understanding of ordinary self-consciousness and disruptions in self-consciousness present in psychosis, autism, depression, and dissociative disorders. The philosophical, theoretical and therapeutic implications of this account are touched upon. (shrink)

In this chapter, I consider the unity of self-consciousness and objectivity. Starting from the notion that the objective character and the self-conscious character of thought seem in tension, I discuss Sebastian Rödl’s Self-Consciousness and Objectivity and his thesis that this tension is merely apparent. This resolution suggests an immediate route to absolute idealism. I recall two Hegelian objections against such an immediate route. Against this background, it transpires that the dissolution of the apparent opposition of objectivity (...) and self-consciousness can only be a preliminary step, opening our eyes to an actual opposition animating the pursuit of knowledge: the opposition of knowledge of nature and self-knowledge. This actual opposition cannot be removed as merely apparent and instead has to be sublated through articulation of its speculative unity. I consider two paradigms for the exposition of such a speculative unity: Kant’s account of judgments of beauty, and Hegel’s account of the speculative unity of life and self-consciousness. I close by contrasting these two approaches with Rödl’s characterization, which strikes me as one-sided. Absolute idealism, properly understood, requires us to develop the speculative unity of knowledge of nature and self-knowledge from both sides, showing us that knowledge of nature is self-knowledge, but equally: that self-knowledge requires knowledge of ourselves as nature. (shrink)

The authors argue that Erving Goffman developed concepts that contribute to an understanding of historical changes in the construction of the self and enable us to see the new forms that self-construction is taking in a society driven by consumption, marketing, and media. These concepts include: commercial realism; dramatic scripting; hyper-ritualization; the glimpse; and the dissolution or undermining of the real, the authentic, and the autonomous. By placing Goffman's under-discussed work, Gender Advertisements, in rapprochement with the work (...) of Guy Debord, Jean Baudrillard, and Fredric Jameson, we draw out shared concerns over the ways that the self becomes externally defined and incoherent in advanced consumer capitalism. We then turn to Goffman's “Territories of the Self” in order to show that Goffman balances his historicist analysis with a theory of a self that can maintain its coherence amidst the fragmenting forces of the media and the consumer society. Thus we document the continuing relevance of Goffman's thought for cultural and media analysis in contemporary consumer society. (shrink)

This article attempts to present a reconstructive interpretation of the utopian self as portrayed in the writings of the young Marx. The main currents of interpretation claim that utopian society enhances individual liberty. However, the argument of this article is that Marx’s utopia entails the opposite, namely, the dissolution of the self. If human alienation in relation to nature is to be overcome, then the difference between man and nature must simply be annihilated. Thus, the utopian (...) class='Hi'>self appropriates and masters nature completely and turns it into something that is identical to man himself. Likewise, the alienation inherent in human relations is eliminated through the disappearance of the differences between people. This means that individuality is annihilated in the utopian society; if the supersession of alienation means doing away with the difference between the self, the others and nature, then it also means the end of human liberty. (shrink)

How to model non-egoic experiences – mental events with phenomenal aspects that lack a felt self – has become an interesting research question. The main source of evidence for the existence of such non-egoic experiences are self-ascriptions of non-egoic experiences. In these, a person says about herself that she underwent an episode where she was conscious but lacked a feeling of self. Some interpret these as accurate reports, but this is questionable. Thomas Metzinger, Rocco Gennaro, and Charles (...) Foster have hinted at the self-defeating nature of such statements if we take them to be genuine reports: Apparently, the reporter explicitly denies her existence during the selfless experience, but implicitly affirms her existence as a witness to that selfless experience in order to give a first-person report about it. So the content of such a report conflicts with the pragmatics of reporting. If all self-ascriptions of non-egoic experiences are self-defeating in this way, then they cannot count as evidence for the existence of non-egoic experiences. Here, I map out why such strong conclusions do not directly follow: What look like self-ascriptions of non-egoic experiences may occur for a number of reasons. Only some explanations for such utterances rely on a change in consciousness. Of those that do rely on a change in consciousness, only one is incoherent. But its alternatives do not lead to contradictions. I argue that the most likely change in phenomenality that leads to self-ascriptions of non-egoic experiences is not one where a felt self disappears, but where it expands. (shrink)

In this study the relationship between philosophy and literature is explored by means of an examination of ideas about language, the subject and ethics in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Robert Musil and Oğuz Atay.

This article argues that there is no performative self-contradiction involved in reports of selfless consciousness, at least in the non-pathological sense of the term. This is because what is central to the experience of selfless consciousness is a different kind of relation of the self with the rest of the world and, therefore, it is not a case of dissolution or decimation of the self. Such an understanding of selflessness can easily distinguish spiritual selflessness from pathological (...) forms such as depersonalisation. This article seeks to provide an explanation for why reports are made of there being no self or subjectivity by appealing to the notion of attentional saliency. (shrink)

Wittgenstein demystified the notion of 'observational self-knowledge'. He dislodged the long-standing conception that we have privileged access to our impressions, sensations and feelings through introspection, and more precisely eliminated knowing as the kind of awareness that normally characterizes our first-person present-tense psychological statements. He was not thereby questioning our awareness of our emotions or sensations, but debunking the notion that we come to that awareness via any epistemic route. This makes the spontaneous linguistic articulation of our sensations and impressions (...) nondescriptive. Not descriptions, but expressions that seem more akin to behaviour than to language. I suggest that Wittgenstein uncovered a new species of speech acts. Far from the prearranged consecration of words into performatives, utterances are deeds through their very spontaneity. This gives language a new aura: the aura of the reflex action. I argue, against Peter Hacker, that spontaneous utterances have the categorial status of deeds. This has no reductive consequences in that I do not suggest that one category is reduced to another, but that the boundary between them is porous. This explodes the myth of an explanatory gap between the traditionally distinct categories of saying (or thinking) and doing, or of mind and body. (shrink)

Certainly many in “Western” philosophy and psychology have conceived of the human subject in the Cartesian or neo-Cartesian tradition, as a self subsisting, self identical, monadic consciousness or Ego, which is to say as an essentially unchanging, substantial subject, initially isolated or separate from the world and others. On the other hand Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu and other “non-Western” traditions, adopting a more holistic approach, have argued that such a reified,atomistic and hypostatized conception of the self is illusory. (...) However, suggesting that from at least since the time of Hume, and later, in Hegel, there has been an alternative “Western” view of consciousness, self-consciousness and identity, the development of which can be traced through the Phenomenology, Existentialism and Poststructuralism of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Derrida and others, the paper attempts to show how this evolving view may now contribute to a sophisticated and nuanced understanding and confirmation of the wisdom of “non-Western” conceptions. (shrink)

How one transcends the self depends on the self that experiences it. Is it instigated or sought, does it happen by accident, or by an act of Grace? Is it common or rare? Is it brought on by the ingestion of psychedelic agents or by meditation or by being overcome by fear or merely by caring more about the welfare of others than oneself? Is it transcendence to experience a shift of perspective or dissolution of the (...) class='Hi'>self? In the pages that follow, each of these paths is explored in nine ways, each unique unto itself. None of them deal with absolute self-transcendence, which should be no surprise, for, as I’ve indicated, there would no longer a self or person to record or communicate the event. Many of them deal the transcendence of self-consciousness, my own included, but only two describe the ingestion of mind-altering psychedelics to catalyze the event. One sees self-construction from the ground-up, as it were, as a form of transcending a previous self that has disintegrated. One looks to acts of kindness to sidestep the illusion of self-consciousness. Two, at least, look to creative experience in the arts as a way to connect with universal spontaneity, but in very different ways. The others refer to what might be called spiritual experiences that, though thirsted for or sought, arrive unexpectedly, almost like a gift. (shrink)

A considerable number of Italian high schools, specifically those classified as liceo, offer a program for the final three years in which the history of Western philosophy is taught from its beginnings through to the 20th century. However, little attention is given to the philosophy of mind, even in the final year, while teachers of history and literature emphasise the dissolution of the self as a key theme for understanding 20th-century culture, often referencing authors like James Joyce, Marcel (...) Proust, and Luigi Pirandello. The rejection of the self is perhaps presented as a cultural hallmark of the 20th century, yet it is frequently overlooked that, from both psychological and philosophical perspectives, this idea is not new. David Hume, for instance, was a prominent critic of the idea of the self as far back as the 18th century. Moreover, the very authors who questioned the consistency of the self still recognised its presence and activity in the experiences they depicted—albeit as a diminished self. The subject, as portrayed in these narratives, though disrupted and fragmented, was still identified as a self and identified itself as such. Recent studies support the hypothesis that a subject finds complete identity only within a narrative dimension, through a personal internalised story that one constructs about oneself, driven by the need to recognise oneself as the subject of one’s experiences and the agent of one’s actions. Therefore, a thorough revision of the concept of the ‘self’ is necessary to make it a central theme in high school curricula, a revision that is best approached through philosophical analysis. (shrink)

This article reads a selection of films by Todd Haynes - Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987), Velvet Goldmine (1998) and I'm Not There (2007) - through the post-structuralist lens of Deleuzian theorising about the self as a networked singularity rather than an essential subject. The overall aim of the piece is to consider Haynes' films as artefacts that require the participatory audience to be involved in their making. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's concept of the schizo is addressed (...) to investigate how a schizo consciousness can be opened by the Event of viewing art that uses incommensurable extremes of meta-textual referentiality. Further to this productive opening, I examine how such post-structuralist ontology can necessitate ethical concern. I conclude that Todd Haynes' film-making is specifically schizoanalytical in that it opens instances wherein the non-essential non-subject can encounter the vertigo of falling away from representation. I contend that this experience and the post-structuralist world view conveyed through it, is radically ethical because it resists the annihilation of possibility that is inherent to essentialism. (shrink)

While there is a great diversity of treatments of other minds and inter-subjectivity within both analytic and continental philosophy, this article specifies some of the core structural differences between these treatments. Although there is no canonical account of the problem of other minds that can be baldly stated and that is exhaustive of both traditions, the problem(s) of other minds can be loosely defined in family resemblances terms. It seems to have: (1) an epistemological dimension (How do we know that (...) others exist? Can we justifiably claim to know that they do?); (2) an ontological dimension that incorporates issues having to do with personal identity (What is the structure of our world such that inter-subjectivity is possible? What are the fundamental aspects of our relations to others? How do they impact upon our self-identity?); and (3) A conceptual dimension in that it depends on one's answer to the question what is a mind (How does the mind – or the concept of 'mind'– relate to the brain, the body and the world?). While these three issues are co-imbricated, I will claim that analytic engagements with the problem of other minds focus on (1), whereas continental philosophers focus far more on (2). In addition, this article will also point to various other downstream consequences of this, including the preoccupation with embodiment and forms of expressivism that feature heavily in various forms of continental philosophy, and which generally aim to ground our relations with others in a pre-reflective manner of inhabiting the world that is said to be the condition of reflection and knowledge. (shrink)

Ecrivain bilingue, Cioran a conçu deux oeuvres distinctes qui expriment différemment les deux visages de son existence et ses deux patries. Il a mis en relief deux topoï : la Roumanie - lieu de désastre - et la France - espace d'altérité. Il a esquissé la portraiture de l'être, libéré aussi bien qu'entravé par le mot.

Dust was first raised over the problem of the self when Descartes illegitimately passed from the Cogito to the res cogitans. The modern substantial conception began with him and future theories did not try to understand the nature of the self. Rather, they took a stand in favour of or in opposition to the substantial conception. A fallacious dilemma thus arose, according to which philosophers have to choose between a substantial self or no self at all. (...) The origin of the substantial conception of the mind and the story of its slow dissolution through Locke and Berkeley before it reached the Humean peak is too well known to be retold again. Let me only dwell a little on the extremes of the process which at the same time represent the two horns of the dilemma: Descartes and Hume. (shrink)

This article considers the relationship between subjectivity and representational form. More specifically, it discusses the transformation in self-representation between life and death by the artist Roger de la Fresnaye, reflecting his modernist articulations of life to pre-modern, classicist figurations of death. For the artist, modernity could not bear the demands that dying made upon representation, as unable to fully accord death a sign. Modernity's dissolution of the subject annihilated the very permanence of identity and presence that death guaranteed, (...) but without its covenant of ritual and history. Instead, classicism provided a coherent anterior body, another face from which he could speak after death: ?one? would always be present to speak for him. The face therefore addresses culture through its specific appeal to, and demand of, time, space, and history. (shrink)

Resumen: Vivimos tiempos en los que se ha pasado de concebir un acto de educar que proponía una relación medial a un acto de educar inscrito en una globalización que dicta la disolución del sujeto en una esfera vasta e impersonal. Esto nos ha portado a analizar el yo del alumnado que hoy acude a las aulas. A partir de una revisión teórica basada en el análisis hermenéutico de contenido y confrontación con la literatura sobre el tema, los resultados principales (...) se centran en una reformulación del yo que pasa por la revalorización de la complementariedad latente entre la subjetividad heredada y la subjetividad del hiperindividualismo. A pesar de encontrarnos en la era de la globalización, el artículo explicita que la educación no dispondría de muchas ejecuciones prácticas si en ella no se desarrollara un cierto grado de tropismo hacia la individualidad. En consecuencia, el yo, a pesar de ser habitante de colectividades atomizadas, concluimos que debe consolidarse como un antídoto, adaptado a la segmentación de las formas de vida de cada contexto, aunque este se encuentre condicionado por el consumismo y por las necesidades que dicta la civilización tecnológica.: We live in times when we have passed from conceiving an act of educating that proposed a medial relationship to an act of globalized education that dictates the dissolution of the subject in a vast and impersonal sphere. This has led us to analyse the self of the students who attend the classrooms today. Theoretical revision based on the hermeneutic analysis of content and confrontation with literature on the topic, the main results focus on a reformulation of the self that goes through the revaluation of the latent complementarity between the inherited subjectivity and the subjectivity of hyper-individualism. Despite being in the era of globalization, the article explicates that education would not have many practical executions if it did not develop a certain degree of tropism towards individuality. Consequently, the self, despite being an inhabitant of atomized collectivities, must be consolidated as an antidote, adapted to the segmentation of the ways of life of each context, although this is conditioned by consumerism and by the needs dictated by the technological civilization. (shrink)

I am interested in those vices which appear on lists of ‘deadly sins’, not from any theological point of view but because of the insight revealed in their selection as being ‘death to the soul’, which I understand as ‘corruptive of the self’. ‘Corruption’ is here to be taken in a literal sense as ‘destruction or dissolution of the constitution of a thing which makes that thing what it is’. Such corruption is to be found in the structure (...) of the will. Aquinas thought that vice consists in desire gone wrong because uncontrolled by reason. Perhaps what follows can be seen as an interpretation and filling out of this view. (shrink)