The deployment of the Albanian admirative as well as the evidential particles kinse ‘allegedly’ and gjoja ‘supposedly’ in Kosovar electronic news sources to render either dubitative or neutral reports — depending on both the source and the timing — contributed to the project of an independent Kosovo. The usages can be divided into three periods: 1994–1997, 1998–1999, and post-1999. During the first period, usage was exclusively dubitative and deployed for Serbian news sources. During the second period, which corresponded to (...) the intensification of the armed uprising, usage shifted to neutrality, and during the third period, after the NATO bombing campaign, it returned somewhat to dubitativity, this time aimed at UN and NATO sources. The discussion demonstrates how pragmatics and grammatical categories contribute to the construction of political narratives and argues that a socially informed linguistic analysis is crucial to understanding how politics is performed in the world. (shrink)

This thesis introduces the Problem of Consciousness as an antinomy between Physicalism and Primitivism about the phenomenal. I argue that Primitivism is implausible, but is supported by two conceptual gaps. The ‘–tivity gap’ holds that physical states are objective and phenomenal states are subjective, and that there is no entailment from the objective to the subjective. The ‘–trinsicality gap’ holds that physical properties are extrinsic and phenomenal qualities are intrinsic, and that there is no entailment from the extrinsic to the (...) intrinsic. Stoljar’s Epistemic View (EV) suggests that we have a limited conception of the physical world, and that the apparent inexplicability of consciousness is merely a symptom of our ignorance. I argue that EV must satisfy two conditions which require it to specify the content of our ignorance. EV’s best hope is a Russellian appeal to our ignorance of intrinsic physical properties. After arguing in favour of this ignorance claim, I show how it undermines the –trinsicality gap. However, I suggest that the –tivity gap cannot be dealt with by the Russellian ignorance hypothesis, nor by any other version of EV. However, I then argue that the Russellian ignorance hypothesis can still be deployed as half of a hybrid account of the phenomenal. Representationalist theories of consciousness have difficulty with the –trinsicality gap, but show promise with the –tivity gap. Specifically, Kriegel’s Self-Representationalism indicates that there can indeed be an entailment from objective physical states to subjective phenomenal states. This paves the way for my hybrid account of consciousness: the subjectivity of a phenomenal state is the product of its self-representational structure, and the qualitative character of a phenomenal state is the product of the epistemically inaccessible intrinsic physical properties involved in its implementation. (shrink)

If public self-expression is a crucial feature of democracy, how might it work on the democratic – or at least, mass – medium par excellence, television? Television talk shows often allow ‘ordinary’ participants the opportunity to express themselves, i.e. deploy identities, feelings and opinions, presumably to further their own ends. This article uses speech act theory and Bakhtinian genre theory to analyze the talk on Jan Publiek, a Flemish talk show. This close reading helps to determine how two of (...) the 20 ‘ordinary’ participants co-created shifting and even contradictory identities with other participants, the host, the producers, the conventions of television talk shows and larger discourses such as those of gender and class. In these two cases, the participants seem mostly to fail in employing the medium of Jan Publiekto achieve their stated aims. The authors claim that while discourses may never be completely transparent, their means of functioning can still be better understood. All participants of television – producers, actors, viewers, media scholars – can benefit from the kind of media literacy to which this article contributes. (shrink)

This paper focuses on representations by and deployments of the four Palestinian women who during the first four months of 2002 killed themselves in organized attacks against Israeli military personnel or civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories or Israel. The paper addresses the manner in which these militant women produced and situated themselves as gendered-political subjects, and argues that their self-representations and acts were deployed by individuals and groups in the region to reflect and articulate other gendered–political subjectivities that (...) at times undermined or rearticulated patriarchal religio-nationalist understandings of gender and women in relation to corporeality, authenticity, and community. The data analysed include photographs, narrative representations in television and newspaper media, the messages the women left behind, and secondary sources. (shrink)

One of the main obstacles to the realization of intentions for future actions and to the successful pursuit of long-term goals is lack of self-control. But, what does it mean to engage in self-controlled behaviour? On a motivational construal of self-control, self-control involves resisting our competing temptations, impulses, and urges in order to do what we deem to be best. The conflict we face is between our better judgments or intentions and “hot” motivational forces that drive (...) or compel us to act in opposing ways. In contrast, on an executive construal of self-control, the emphasis is not on overcoming temptation, but on overriding or inhibiting “cold” automatically triggered routines and habits that are at odds with what we intend to do. Our general aim in this chapter is to contribute to the development of an overarching theory of self-control by exploring ways in which these two apparently competing frameworks can be reconciled. We propose that self-control is best understood as a hybrid set of skills. We draw on recent work on expert motor skill to highlight important ways in which experts differ from novices in the capacities they deploy and the ways in which they deploy them. We consider analogies (and disanalogies) between the domain of sports expertise and the domain of self-control. We end by considering how such a hybrid approach can help us reconcile a motivational and an executive approach to self-control. (shrink)

This paper examines self-legitimation in selected speeches of Abubakar Shekau, the longest-serving leader of Boko Haram terrorists (BHT). The article analyses seven of the speeches Shekau delivered during his reign as the BHT leader between 2009 and 2021, using f4analyse as a coding tool and Theo van Leeuwen’s (2008. Discourse and practice: New tools for critical discourse analysis) Discourse Legitimation approach to discourse analysis. The analysis discloses that Shekau uses three legitimation strategies: authorisation, moralisation and rationalisation to justify the (...) actions and practices of BHT. The three legitimation strategies are linguistically realised through positive self-presentation strategy by engaging in self-glorification, personalising and collectivising victory, and claiming and announcing success to legitimate the mission of the group in carrying out the struggle. The strategies are deployed to positively present Abubakar Shekau as fighting a legitimate struggle. (shrink)

Recent work on self organization promises an explanation of complex order which is independent of adaptation. Self-organizing systems are complex systems of simple units, projecting order as a consequence of localized and generally nonlinear interactions between these units. Stuart Kauffman offers one variation on the theme of self-organization, offering what he calls a ``statistical mechanics'' for complex systems. This paper explores the explanatory strategies deployed in this ``statistical mechanics,'' initially focusing on the autonomy of statistical explanation as (...) it applies in evolutionary settings and then turning to Kauffman's analysis. Two primary morals emerge as a consequence of this examination: first, the view that adaptation and self-organization should be seen as competing theories or models is misleading and simplistic; and second, while we need a synthesis treating self-organization and adaptation as geared toward different problems, at different levels of organization, and deploying different methods, we do not yet have such a synthesis. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to shed light on two somewhat underappreciated theories, which, by drawing attention to the embodied and relational nature of the self, both went beyond the disembodied and individualist paradigm long before most current leading approaches in the field. The paper first considers the routes out of the crisis of this paradigm proposed by care ethics. The first part focuses mainly on Carol Gilligan’s relational account of subjectivity, which served as an inspiration for (...) the development of care ethics as a moral theory, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of her account. In the next step, the paper sets out to compare the view of the self deployed by care ethics with Donald Winnicott’s account of the transitional area of play. The paper argues that both care ethics and Winnicott’s theory make it possible to understand human subjectivity as at the same time dependent and mature, ambivalent and integrated, vulnerable and responsible, relational and non-arbitrary. Winnicott and care ethicists jointly demonstrate that it is neither an absolute symbiosis with others, nor a total separation from them, that is decisive for the well-being of an individual and a social field. Rather, it is beneficial and morally desirable to cultivate concrete interpersonal relationships in the area of complex relationality. The paper concludes that the crisis of the disembodied and individualistic paradigm of the self cannot be overcome by an uncritical emphasis on the positive function of relational, embodied and supra-individual aspects of human existence. Though essential, these aspects are at the same time complex and developmentally conditioned. (shrink)

"No philosophical dictum is better known than Descartes's assertion about the intimate relation between thinking and existing. What remains unknown is how we are to understand the 'I' who thinks and exists. This book is about the ways that the concept of an 'I' or a 'self' has been developed and deployed at different times in the history of Western Philosophy. It also offers a striking contrast case, the 'interconnected' self, who appears in some expressions of African Philosophy. (...) Appealing to philosophy to illuminate the concept of a 'self' may seem unnecessary. Anyone who can read this book is a self, so why can we not just tailor a concept to fit what we already know about ourselves? This objection has considerable force and provides a constraint on efforts to fashion a self-concept. Although there is a sense of 'self-knowledge' in which it is said to require a lifetime of serious effort to achieve, what is at issue here is simply knowing that one is a self"--. (shrink)

Like many other discussions regarding the nature of self-awareness in Classical Indian philosophical traditions, the commentators of Patañjali’s Yogaśāstra deployed the metaphor of light or luminosity to defend the position that consciousness is self-reflexive. In this paper I discuss the way the commentarial tradition of Classical Yoga misinterpreted Patañjali’s notion of self-reflexivity and articulate his account of self-awareness based on Vyāsa’s preferred metaphor of space (ākāśa). I also show how Patañjali´s notion of self-awareness could be (...) understood in terms of “spaciousness” by using Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception and Dan Zahavi’s studies on the first-person perspective. (shrink)

Philosophy as Fiction seeks to account for the peculiar power of philosophical literature by taking as its case study the paradigmatic generic hybrid of the twentieth century, Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. At once philosophical--in that it presents claims, and even deploys arguments concerning such traditionally philosophical issues as knowledge, self-deception, selfhood, love, friendship, and art--and literary, in that its situations are imaginary and its stylization inescapably prominent, Proust's novel presents us with a conundrum. How should it (...) be read? Can the two discursive structures co-exist, or must philosophy inevitably undermine literature (by sapping the narrative of its vitality) and literature undermine philosophy (by placing its claims in the mouth of an often unreliable narrator)? In the case of Proust at least, the result is greater than the sum of its parts. Not only can a coherent, distinctive philosophical system be extracted from the Recherche, once the narrator's periodic waywardness is taken into account; not only does a powerfully original style pervade its every nook, overtly reinforcing some theories and covertly exemplifying others; but aspects of the philosophy also serve literary ends, contributing more to character than to conceptual framework. What is more, aspects of the aesthetics serve philosophical ends, enabling a reader to engage in an active manner with an alternative art of living. Unlike the "essay" Proust might have written, his novel grants us the opportunity to use it as a practice ground for cooperation among our faculties, for the careful sifting of memories, for the complex procedures involved in self-fashioning, and for the related art of self-deception. It is only because the narrator's insights do not always add up--a weakness, so long as one treats the novel as a straightforward treatise--that it can produce its training effect, a feature that turns out to be its ultimate strength. (shrink)

The idea of self-forgiveness poses a serious challenge to any philosopher interested in giving a general account of forgiveness. On the one hand, it is an uncontroversial part of our common psychological and moral discourse. On the other, any account of self-forgiveness is inconsistent with any general account of forgiveness which implies that only the victim of an offense can forgive. To avoid this conclusion, one must either challenge the particular claims that preclude self-forgiveness or offer an (...) independently plausible account of self-forgiveness. I deploy both strategies in this article, explaining what self-forgiveness is and how it is possible. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Central to the United Nations Framework setting out the human rights responsibilities of corporations proposed by John Ruggie is the principle that corporations have a responsibility to respect human rights in their operations whether or not doing so is required by law and whether or not human rights laws are actively enforced. Ruggie proposes that corporations should respect this principle in their strategic management and day-to-day operations for reasons of corporate (enlightened) self-interest. This paper identifies this as a serious (...) weakness and argues that identifying the responsibility to respect human rights as an explicitly ethical obligation to be respected for that reason would provide a much stronger justificatory foundation for respecting the principle seen from a corporate perspective, given that corporations are accountable to their shareholders for their deployment of the firm’s financial resources. (shrink)

Frequent observation: sexualities, self‐surveillance, confession and the construction of the active patient Following Foucault’s analyses of the development of the disciplinary power of the medical gaze, this paper describes the themes that are relocating the ‘active patient’ as the central object of health scrutiny by professionals. A key element in these discourses has been the deployment of power through disciplinary knowledge and techniques of social control through ritual forms of confession, thereby positing the patient/client as the subject of (...) self‐surveillance. The individual is also engaged their own sexuality, performativity and ‘truths’ of sexual experience. These Foucauldian insights have constructed the notion of surveillance medicine, whereby with the assistance of professional technologies, not only the patient’s body but also the ‘self’ can be probed through incitement to confess. However, the actor is not docile; resistances to disciplinary techniques are evident and within the professional practices of the clinic, there is resistance to the power of the erotic. The paper draws on recent research on the social construction of male sexualities in the fields of genitourinary practice, and explores how the ceremonial practices of the clinic engage with the rise of surveillance medicine and the medicalisation of everyday life. The individual actor is exhorted to engage in increased sexual and medical self‐surveillance and to be recruited in the project of becoming an ‘active patient’. It concludes with an examination of some of the implications this surveillance of self may have for practitioners in terms of power and the professional lens through which the sexualised, symbolic body is viewed. (shrink)

Theoretical debates around the concept of self-deception revolve around identifying the conditions for a behavior to qualify as self-deception. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that various candidate features—such as intent, belief change, and motive—are treated as sufficient, but non-necessary, conditions according to the lay concept of self-deception. This led us to ask whether there are multiple lay concepts, such that different participants endorse competing theories (the disagreement view), or whether individual participants assign partial weight to various features (...) and consequently waver in cases of middling similarity (the conflict view). In Experiment 3, by-participant regression models uncovered that most participants additively consider multiple characteristics of the prototype of self-deception, while only a minority of participants treat a characteristic (or a combination thereof) as necessary and sufficient. In sum, by disambiguating interpersonal disagreement and intrapersonal conflict in a within-subjects design, the present experiments indicate that the lay concept may primarily exhibit a prototype structure. In closing, we suggest that future research deploying this method may help to explain why experimental research on philosophical concepts often engenders partial support for competing theories. (shrink)

Although the most common understanding of suicide is intentional self-killing, this conception either rules out someone who lacks mental capacity being classed as a suicide or, if acting intentionally is meant to include this sort of case, then what it means to act intentionally is so weak that intention is not a necessary condition of suicide. This has implications in health care, and has a further bearing on issues such as assisted suicide and health insurance. In this paper, I (...) argue that intention is not a necessary condition of suicide at all. Rather, I develop a novel approach that deploys the structure of a homicide taxonomy to classify and characterise suicides to arrive at a conceptually robust understanding of suicide. According to my analysis of suicide, an agent is the proximate cause of his death. Suicide is ‘self-killing,’ rather than ‘intentional self-killing.’ Adopting this understanding of suicide performs several functions: We acquire an external standard to assess diverging analyses on specific cases by appealing to homologous homicides. Following such a taxonomy differentiates types of suicides. This approach has application in addressing negative connotations about suicide. As a robust view, adding intention is an unnecessary complication. It is more consistent with psychological and sociological assessments of suicide than ‘intentional self-killing.’ It has useful applications in informing public policy. This paper’s focus is on classifying types of suicides, rather than on the moral permissibility or on underlying causes of suicidal ideation and behaviour. (shrink)

This article analyzes narratives about encounters between police officers and domestic violence victim/survivors in the context of domestic violence calls. Narratives are sites in which individuals create relationships between themselves and others, oriented around a set of unfolding events. Narrative is a motivated, engaged retelling of prior or anticipated events produced in interaction with others, in a particular context stocked with constraints and affordances. In the process of telling stories, identities emerge. In order to understand the relationship between narrative and (...) identity, I analyze stories told about police interactions with domestic violence victim/survivors from the perspectives of both the police and the victim/survivors. Working empirically with a data set of 48 interviews, I use critical discourse analysis and discourse analysis to analyze the ways both groups narrate domestic violence and confrontations with police officers, the ways they create story worlds stocked with characters, the ways story characters are formed and deployed, and the ways those characters are positioned against/with/by the storyteller, allowing the storyteller’s identity to emerge. This article is an analysis of the relationship between the storyteller and the story world and the storyteller’s process of constructing an/other in order to position in relation to that other. Ultimately, I argue that identity emerges for the storyteller in the way she or he constructs characters in a story and then positions in relation to those characters. (shrink)

The ideas of mindfulness and no-self are intimately connected in Buddhist philosophy. This is because, in Buddhist Philosophy, the practice of mindfulness leads to the realization that there is no self. In contemporary mindfulness in psychology, the no-self theory has not played such a basic role. An outline of Buddhist philosophy is given showing how the ‘root delusion’ of having a self lies at the base of human suffering and how mindfulness, when appropriately deployed, enables one (...) to free oneself from this delusion and thus achieve psychological well-being. This is not to say that mindfulness based interventions do not help to alleviate suffering. Nor is it to say that people working in these areas should not use mindfulness in their own way. It is only to say that by ignoring the no-self experience, teachers and practioners are falling short of achieving what mindfulness was originally employed to achieve. (shrink)

Snoek, like other commentators, conflates some of my neural claims with those of the Brain Disease Model of Addiction. But she sees other details of my modeling with precision and depth. I welcome her emphasis on individual and developmental differences in addicts' capacity to recognize and deploy their personal agency. In fact we agree that belief in personal agency is a critical first step to cultivating it. Yet I wish to steer away from the disease nomenclature, to give that belief (...) its best chance to flourish. (shrink)

1. The present paper is a continuation of my “Self-Ownership, World Ownership, and Equality,” which began with a description of the political philosophy of Robert Nozick. I contended in that essay that the foundational claim of Nozick's philosophy is the thesis of self-ownership, which says that each person is the morally rightful owner of his own person and powers, and, consequently, that each is free to use those powers as he wishes, provided that he does not deploy them (...) aggressively against others. To be sure, he may not harm others, and he may, if necessary, be forced not to harm them, but he should never be forced to help them, as people are in fact forced to help others, according to Nozick, by redistributive taxation. (shrink)

The opposition between learning as a process of self-cultivation and learning as a form of vocational training for the workplace is becoming ever more deeply entrenched in the twenty-first-century university. In language education in particular, the distinction between these two competing aims influences the way in which educators approach curriculum design and inevitably shapes the attitudes learners bring to the classroom. In this article, we contest what we see as the overly simplistic opposition between Bildung and Ausbildung by deploying (...) a conception of play that suspends the pragmatic demands of everyday existence. We argue that when learning activities are envisaged as a form of free-flowing, playful exploration, skills-based language training can be understood as an experience of Bildung in which the language learner creatively renegotiates their own identity through an encounter with both their own values and those of the target culture. (shrink)

The disposition effect refers to the tendency of investors to sell winners too early and hold on to losers too long, which is one of the most documented and robust decision biases. However, few studies have looked beyond demographic and social factors on the disposition effect. The current study investigated the association between financial self-efficacy (one’s belief about their personal capability in ultimate financial goals achieving), versatile cognitive style (an individual’s capability in deploying the experiential or rational mode in (...) ways that are contextually appropriate), and the disposition effect. A total of 285 employees from finance-related business completed anonymous questionnaires regarding financial self-efficacy, rational-experiential inventory, and the disposition effect. Our findings revealed that financial self-efficacy was significantly and positively associated with versatile cognitive style and the disposition effect. Further, versatile cognitive style partially mediated the relationship between financial self-efficacy and the disposition effect. Our findings provide valuable guidance for individual investors to make financial decisions based on their characteristics. (shrink)

Davidson and Burge have claimed that the conditions under which self-knowledge is possessed are such that externalism poses no obstacle to their being met by ordinary speakers and thinkers. On their accounts. no such person could fail to possess self-knowledge. But we do from time to time attribute to each other such failures; so we should prefer to their accounts an account that preserves first person authority while allowing us to make sense of what appear to be true (...) attributions of such failures.While the core idea behind Davidson’s and Burge’s accounts appears inadequate to this task, I argue that it can be deployed in such a way as to deliver the desired result. What makes this possible is that two attitude-types can differ as follows: the self-knowledge required for an utterance to be a Φing that p is different from the self-knowledge required for it to be a Ψing that p. (shrink)

American physicians are increasingly concerned that they are losing professional control. Other analysts of medical power argue that physicians have too much power. This essay argues that current analyses are grounded in a structuralist reading of power. Deploying Michel Foucault's "care of the self" and rhetorician Raymie McKerrow's "critical rhetoric," this essay claims that medical power is better understood as a way that medical actors take on power through rhetoric rather than a force that has power over medical actors. (...) Through a close reading of an essay by Senator Bill Frist, this paper argues that physicians experience a process of "subjection" wherein they are both agents of and objects of medical power as it is combined with state and corporate power in the American "war on terror." This alternative mode of analyzing medical power has implications for our collective understanding of its operations and the means by which we propose alternative enactments of medical power. (shrink)

This paper elucidates and rationalizes the ethical governance system for healthcare AI research, as outlined in the ‘Research Ethics Guidelines for AI Researchers in Healthcare’ published by the South Korean government in August 2023. In developing the guidelines, a four-phase clinical trial process was expanded to six stages for healthcare AI research: preliminary ethics review (stage 1); creating datasets (stage 2); model development (stage 3); training, validation, and evaluation (stage 4); application (stage 5); and post-deployment monitoring (stage 6). Researchers (...) identified similarities between clinical trials and healthcare AI research, particularly in research subjects, management and regulations, and application of research results. In the step-by-step articulation of ethical requirements, this similarity benefits from a reliable and flexible use of existing research ethics governance resources, research management, and regulatory functions. In contrast to clinical trials, this procedural approach to healthcare AI research governance effectively highlights the distinct characteristics of healthcare AI research in research and development process, evaluation of results, and modifiability of findings. The model exhibits limitations, primarily in its reliance on self-regulation and lack of clear delineation of responsibilities. While formulated through multidisciplinary deliberations, its application in the research field remains untested. To overcome the limitations, the researchers’ ongoing efforts for educating AI researchers and public and the revision of the guidelines are expected to contribute to establish an ethical research governance framework for healthcare AI research in the South Korean context in the future. (shrink)

Drawing on an exploratory study of urban food self-provisioning (FSP) in China, this article argues that progress in sustainability scholarship can be accelerated by embracing a greater diversity of framings of sustainability. It brings four important empirical findings concerning the prevalence of Chinese urban FSP, the social diversity of its practitioners, their primarily non-economic motivations, and production methods meeting the criteria for organic food that are deployed by more than a third of urban food growers. On this basis, the (...) article highlights the importance of greater attention to identifying and valuing ‘already existing sustainability’ in non-Western contexts, rather than privileging Western conceptualizations of sustainability that promise sustainability innovation in the future. (shrink)

The article presents the conditions for the self-deployment of a globalized world as a set of complex of social systems under conditions of instability. The globalized world as a self-deployment of complex of hierarchical systems under conditions of uncertainty, information stochasticity and "balancing on the brink of chaos" is an integral part of increasing the efficiency of the management system as a whole. The main purpose of the article is the conceptualization of the self-deployment (...) of the globalized world as a set of complex social systems under conditions of stochasticity and "balancing on the verge of chaos”. The term "self-deployment" of complex social systems under conditions of uncertainty and instability reveals the transitions of quality from one state to another. Used methodology - systemic, structural-functional and synergetic methods and approaches that allow to analyze the conditions of instability and uncertainty. The synergetic-reflexive model of management as a complex social system consists of a set of nonlinear processes, in particular dynamic chaos as some of the most complex ordering. The research is based on the following objectives: to reveal the essence of self-deployment and its main stages; determine the role played by autopoiesis in the structuring of social systems as integral units. On the basis of the proposed methods, the conceptual-categorical apparatus necessary for the conceptualization of the self-deployment of the globalized world as a complex of complex social systems is clarified. the synergetic-reflexive model of control necessary for solving problems of stochastic, uncertainty and "balancing on the edge of chaos" is analyzed. The scientific novelty of the research in identifying the ways to overcome disorganization, instability, "balancing on the verge of chaos" and the transition to a stable stage in the development of the social system. This allows us to conclude that the basis of self-deployment of the globalized world as a set of complex social systems is autopoiesis, self-regulation and self-organization, which are aimed at solving problems of uncertainty, information stochasticity and "balancing on the verge of chaos". (shrink)

Although several studies provide evidence that trait self-control contributes to subjective well-being, the self-control strategies that promotes happiness and life satisfaction remains unknown. The present study aims to shed light on this relation by investigating the mediating role of four self-control strategies: situation selection, attentional deployment, reappraisal, and inhibition. To test the hypothesis that self-control strategies mediate trait self-control’s effect on well-being, an online questionnaire on trait self-control, self-control strategies, and cognitive and (...) affective well-being was administered to 4,036 participants from four countries (ages 18–65 and 56.4% female), whose responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Our analysis replicates previous studies that trait self-control positively relates to subjective well-being. Moreover, our analysis provides evidence that this relation is indeed mediated by the tendency to employ particular self-control strategies. Attentional deployment and reappraisal positively relate to subjective well-being, whereas inhibition exhibits a negative relation. Situation selection was unrelated to subjective well-being. The incorporation of self-control strategies represents the first attempt to empirically disentangle the positive relation between trait self-control and subjective well-being. The heterogeneous effects of self-control strategies suggest the importance of obtaining a better understanding of which aspects of trait self-control positively contributes to subjective well-being. (shrink)

This essay In this essay develops and defends the view that a “self “ is nothing but a creature that bears the property of selfhood, where bearing selfhood is, in turn, nothing but having the capacity to deploy self-representations. Self-representations, it is argued, are very special things. They are distinguished from other sorts of representations,not by what they represent – mysterious inner entities called selves, say -- but by how they represent what they represent. A self-representation (...) represents nothing but a living human animal but it does do in a special way. It follows that a "self" is not a thing that a living human animals has or contains within, but something a living human animal is. The view defended represents a principled middle ground between Cartesianism and Factionalism or Eliminativism about the self. (shrink)

Richard Rorty is one of the principal architects of a new way of thinking about liberalism. He calls his way “liberal ironism”: it is a postmodern liberalism, without Enlightenment rationalism, without the hopeless and finally enervating aspiration to discover an a historical philosophical foundation for liberal principles and practices. The postmodern liberal ironist, unlike the classical liberal rationalist, “faces up to the contingency of his or her own most central beliefs and desires,” says Rorty, including the characteristic liberal belief that (...) “cruelty is the worst thing we do.” Such postmodern liberals frankly admit the apparently unhappy consequence of that essential “contingency,” that “there is no neutral, noncircular way to defend” liberal ways, no good argument to deploy against “Nazi and Marxist enemies of liberalism”; but no such argument is needed, says Rorty, since loyalty to one's own community is morality enough, even where that loyalty is without foundation. Here, I begin with a few words about Rorty's postmodern liberalism, as preface to a discussion of the effects of postmodern doctrines on liberal moral psychology. (shrink)

I will be concerned in these pages with the views that Gilbert Harman puts forward in his immensely stimulating paper Self-Reflexive Thoughts.¹ Harman maintains that self referential thoughts are possible, and also that they are useful. I applaud both of these claims. An example of a self referential thought is the thought that every thought, including this present one, has a logical structure. I feel sure that this thought exists, for I have entertained it on a number (...) of occasions. Moreover, I feel that it is extremely useful. Without deploying it, how could we tell the whole truth about the nature of thoughts? (shrink)

One important lesson of Roberts' target article may be potentially obscured for some by the title's reference to “self-experimentation.” At the core of this work, the key investigative resource is sustained and systematic observation, not experimentation, and it is deployed in a fashion not necessarily restricted to self-examination. There is an important reminder here of a strategically important, but neglected, relationship between observation and experiment.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.4 (2003) 361-367 [Access article in PDF] Psychopathology and Two Kinds of Narrative Account of the Self Tim Thornton Keywords self, narrative, reductionism, embodiment, Dennett, Strawson, McDowell The self plays an important role in psycho pathology. Conditions such as dementia raise the question of how much loss of memory and awareness there can be before there is, if ever, also a loss (...) of the self. Syndromes such as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) or Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) raise the possibility of a fragmentation of one self into a number of selves. Depersonalization disorder suggests a kind of diminution both of the sense of self and the reality of the world. Symptoms such as thought insertion suggest a different kind of fragmentation of the coherence of thought within a self.At the same time there is something prima facie paradoxical about the very idea of the fragmentation or loss of self. It seems to be one thing for a self to suffer loss, quite another to think of the self as being lost. Although the experiences or beliefs had or entertained by a self might be disordered or chaotic, how can a self be anything other than whole and seem real and whole to itself?The narrative approach to the self looks like a tool purpose built to shed light on some aspects of psychopathology. The papers in this issue have examined its application to four revealing case histories and questioned its effectiveness in accounting for features of psychopathology. But in this short note I wish to stand back from the particular cases discussed in previous papers and to shed light on the general approach by setting out two contrasting versions of it. Crudely put, the first forges a connection between the concepts of self and personality; the second between the concepts of self and person. I will use the contrast between these two to draw some general lessons for the philosophy of psychopathology. Dennett's Austere Narrative Account I will start with Dennett's influential version of a narrative account of the self. His central idea is that the very idea of a self should be understood as dependent on a particular kind of interpretative strategy. Roughly, this contrasts with the idea that it is a more basic datum calling out for notice prior to adopting a specific theoretical perspective.Dennett suggests an analogy with centers of gravity both to outline the consequences of this view for the reality of selves, and the connection between the self and the interpretative strategy involved. [End Page 361] A center of gravity is just an abstractum. It's just a fictional object. But when I say it's a fictional object, I do not mean to disparage it; it's a wonderful fictional object, and it has a perfectly legitimate place within serious, sober, echt physical science. (Dennett 1992) The concept of a center of gravity is deployed within a branch of physics to describe and predict the behavior of physical systems acting under physical forces. It is the theoretical context that determines the nature of centers of gravity; at the same time, they contribute to that broader context. Dennett stresses that they are abstract or calculation-bound theoretical objects to contrast with objects that are also theoretically posited but causally interactive, such as microphysical particles (Dennett 1987, 53).Dennett has also used the analogy with abstracta to account for mental states such as beliefs, desires, and other propositional attitudes, which he suggests are ascribed using a particular interpretative strategy: the "Intentional Stance" (Dennett 1987, 13-42). The suggestion is that by showing the necessity of adopting that stance to make sense of human behavior he can defend a form of objectivity about mental states even while rejecting the industrial-strength realism that requires identifying mental states with physical, and thus causally interactive, internal states.Selves are given similar treatment. Like centers of gravity or mental states, they are theoretical, even fictional, entities articulated within an interpretative theoretical stance: A self is also an abstract object, a theorist's fiction... (shrink)

Timothy Brown's piece "Building Intricate Partnerships with Neurotechnology" makes a valuable contribution to ethical discussion of questions about human identity and agency raised by Deep Brain Stimulation. The paper brings together a number of relational approaches to narrative identity and autonomy, drawing on first-personal empirical accounts, to extend a relational account of agency to include neurostimulators. In doing so, it builds on the contributions relational approaches have made to making sense of changes to aspects of selfhood following neurological intervention while (...) also helpfully reframing concerns away from the threat that DBS may pose to aspects of self-hood. This approach directs... (shrink)

This article examines Pauline Kleingeld’s “volitional self-contradiction” (VSC) interpretation of Kant’s formula of universal law. It begins in §1 with an outline of Kleingeld’s interpretation and then proceeds in §2 to raise some worries about how the interpretation handles Kant’s egoism example. §3 considers VSC’s handling of the false promise example comparing it in §4 with the Logical/Causal Law (LCL) interpretation, which arguably does better than its VSC competitor in handling this example. §5 deploys the LCL interpretation to consider (...) the related objections that the VSC interpretation is “superfluous” or at least “misguided” as a (formal) criterion of the permissibility of action on a maxim. These objections, it is argued, help reveal two distinct roles for contradictions in Kant’s applications of the formula of universal law – one for delivering moral judgments and one reflective of a formal coherence constraint on all deliberation having psychological significance for agents who contemplate violating duty. Disentangling these helps reveal some of the complexity in the use to which Kant puts the formula of universal law in his sample applications revealing the true significance of what Kleingeld refers to as volitional self-contradiction. In §6 is summary. (shrink)

The convergence of computing, sensing, and communication technology will soon permit large-scale deployment of self-driving vehicles. This will in turn permit a radical transformation of traffic control technology. This paper makes a case for the importance of addressing questions of social justice in this transformation, and sketches a preliminary framework for doing so. We explain how new forms of traffic control technology have potential implications for several dimensions of social justice, including safety, sustainability, privacy, efficiency, and equal access. (...) Our central focus is on efficiency and equal access as desiderata for traffic control design. We explain the limitations of conventional traffic control in meeting these desiderata, and sketch a preliminary vision for a next-generation traffic control tailored to address better the demands of social justice. One component of this vision is cooperative, hierarchically distributed self-organization among vehicles. Another component of this vision is a priority system enabling selection of priority levels by the user for each vehicle trip in the network, based on the supporting structure of non-monetary credits. (shrink)

Here it is shown that 'vacant nature' is deployed as sign in Anglo-American landscape representation of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries to support a Cartesian imaginary of spatial extension. The referent of this imaginary is variously denoted as 'America' (John Locke), the 'north west' (Jefferson), the 'wilderness' (Ralph Waldo Emerson), and the 'frontier' (Frederick Jackson Turner) but throughout it is essentially the same 'vacant' landscape; its function is to produce a site and space of appearance for an imperial self, (...) an isolate pursuing self-extension through commodity production and consumption. This spatial representation—the predecessor of the abstract space of shopping malls, interstates, commercial advertising, global markets, office buildings, and suburbs—is contrasted with 'place,' a space shaped by topography, collective memory, and ecological constraint. (shrink)

Philosophy premises itself on the ideals of openness and continuous self-renewal. And yet, the story of philosophy has been an endless struggle against the violence of systematic exclusion and erasure. This article deploys the principle of openness as an analytic category to reflect on the broader question of epistemic decolonisation and the imperative this imposes on the practice of philosophy. There are important ontological, epistemological, and ethical dimensions to the principle of openness with a bearing on the enterprise and (...) how to conceptualise its future. Whether at the global level or within a specific individual tradition, the principle of openness is about the reconfiguration of philosophy itself and restoring its richness and diversity. For the African philosopher, this entails assuming responsibility for the ongoing task of articulating ‘what philosophy is and what it can be’ within the context of Africa’s own history, its problematics, and priority questions. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article, I demonstrate how Louise Bourgeois used her artworks not only to better understand herself but also to cultivate a self capable of taking control of and reshaping the material of her past. Exploring her artworks in the context of Michel Foucault's understanding of technologies of the self, I both contribute to the appreciation of Bourgeois’ work and show how visual artworks can be used to understand, cultivate, and transform aspects of the self. Foucault's understanding (...) of our subjectivity, as formed and deployed by power tactics, suggests the need for the formation of new subjectivities as a tactic of resistance. While his view of subjectivity as contingently created allows for the possibility that it could be different, his understanding of the conditions of its creation in terms of power tactics seems to constrain the possibilities for alternative subjectivities. I argue that artworks can help us understand the contingency of our subjectivity and illustrate how something new can be created out of existing conditions, in ways that may disrupt those very conditions. Further, in addition to bringing us to an awareness of the possibility of creating new subjectivities, artworks can directly contribute to this process for both artists and audience members. Turning to Foucault's own understanding of Stoic writing practices as a means of knowing and controlling the self, I use Bourgeois’ work to illustrate how artworks can operate as technologies of the self, which work directly on the self, extending Foucault's understanding of the role of writing to consider the particular contribution that visual artworks can make. I explore how the visual form, sculptural medium, and materials of Louise Bourgeois’ works contribute to their operation as technologies of the self which can allow one to relate to oneself differently. (shrink)

Purpose. Based on the anthropocentric approach to the analysis of visual self-presentations of Artemisia Gentileschi in paintings, to present the artwork as self-objectifications of the artist, which give rise to a new cultural reality and are at the same time a means of knowing the essence of man. Theoretical basis. The principles and methods of philosophical and anthropological research in combination with biographical, historical and comparative, iconographic, figurative and stylistic methods were used when writing the article. Among philosophical (...) and anthropological methods the principle of anthropological reduction was used, based on which the works by Artemisia Gentileschi were analyzed as her self-objectification, principle of extrapolation of a separate fact of the painter’s life and anthropological interpretation of art evolution, when an attempt is made to know their creator through a series of chronological consistent works as figurative objectification. The biographical method was used when working with data on the painter’s life, iconographic and figurative stylistic – when analyzing the art visuals: self-portraits, allegories and narrative paintings. The analytical work was carried out in stages as transition from an iconographic interpretation of paintings with gradual elimination of art and style characteristics as extra-anthropological cultural constants with subsequent anthropological reduction of cultural image. Originality consists in the author’s method of analyzing the works of visual art in terms of anthropocentric approach, as well as in considering the artwork by Artemisia Gentileschi as her self-objectification as such that give rise to a new cultural reality. Conclusions. The artworks by Artemisia Gentileschi in diachronic deployment can be seen as the painter’s self-objectification, which traces the evolution of self-expression from a person with traditional self-perception by social gender stereotypes to the phenomenon of personal life, which will determine further evolution of her self-identification and extirpation of sense of shame through virtual revenge, repentance, guilt, and formation of component of the painter’s identity as exemption from social gender prejudices and stereotypes on roles and standards of behavior socially assigned to women. (shrink)

This essay provides a close reading of Kierkegaard’s later signed text, For Self-Examination. While many of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous texts often are selected for their philosophically explicit engagements with Hegelian philosophy, I use Hegel’s dialectic of lordship and bondage to draw out how Kierkegaard circumvents it in this one. I first provide historical context, noting how Kierkegaard turned to earnest works after his public humiliation in the Copenhagen newspaper, undermining his ability to deploy irony effectively. Second, I briefly develop Hegel’s (...) lordship and bondage dialectic as a model for how selfhood is constituted through work and labor. Third, I dwell with a close reading of Kierkegaard’s book both in its composition and in its interpretation, bringing out how it donates grace rather than work (à la Hegel) to the reader’s attempt at self-realization. I conclude by noting one challenge to Kierkegaard’s ideal of addressing the “single individual” from the perspective of intersectional analysis. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it seeks to demonstrate how Kierkegaard’s deployment of the idea of earnestness can furnish a sort of tonal “unity” to a narrative understanding of the Kierkegaardian self, which gestures toward a solution to the problem of how a narrative self can be unified over time and over a multiplicity of projects and plans. Second, this paper aims to give further richness to the recent work of Patrick Stokes, who argues (...) that the narrative self needs to be supplemented by what he calls a naked self. This paper then argues that because there are these two dimensions to selfhood—the narrative person and the naked self—the Kierkegaardian individual is in a fundamental way not so much a matter of identity as of contradiction or internal tension. (shrink)

Due to the increasing concern about gender equity in the U.S., song lyrics with political activism are receiving more attention. As reflected through lyrics and the artist’s tumultuous life events, ‘thank u, next,’ Ariana Grande’s fifth album, has been reviewed by media outlets, such as Billboard as mirroring Grande’s public persona of self-empowerment. iTunes (2019) describes the album as Grande’s embraced position of – ‘complex, independent, tenacious and flawed.’ This study investigates how these claims came about by adopting Fairclough’s (...) Critical Discourse Analysis three-dimensional framework. It examines how the discourse of self-empowerment is portrayed in her lyrics, and what linguistic strategies are deployed to portray the discourse. This study hopes to add texture to existing literature by examining the production of young women’s empowerment ideology and the meanings of neoliberal feminism in relations to the use of language in song lyrics. Linguistic strategies such as the use of metaphors, overstatements and presupposition manipulation have been investigated through textual, and social analyses of the songs to demonstrate the ideological concepts of a ‘self-empowered woman’. The concepts found include independence, self-love/growth, owning of sexuality, and being needy. The concepts also revealed that Grande’s lyrics mostly support ideals of gender equity and female empowerment. (shrink)

The paper takes its cue from the emergence in our society of a new view of the adolescent, which a branch of the psychological literature has spelled out in terms of a passage from Oedipus to Narcissus. It is argued that pre-college ethics education should engage with this passage by deploying educational strategies modelled according to the Care of the Self paradigm but revisiting it through Kierkegaard’s idea of repetition. The latter prevents that paradigm from fostering a sort of (...) aestheticization of ethical life and allows us to mobilize it in ethics education. Against this backdrop two pedagogical methods—autobiographical writing and essay writing—are discussed as possible tools for a Care-of-the-Self-oriented education. (shrink)

Armed Forces personnel are exposed to traumatic experiences during their work; therefore, they are at risk of developing emotional difficulties such as post-traumatic stress disorder, following traumatic experiences. Despite evidence to suggest that self-compassion is effective in reducing the symptoms of PTSD, and greater levels of self-compassion are associated with enhanced resilience, self-compassion in armed forces personnel and armed forces veterans remains under-researched. As a result, it is not known if therapeutic approaches that use self-compassion interventions (...) are an acceptable and effective treatment for this population. Having previously shown that a one-off self-compassion exercise has temporary beneficial psychophysiological effects in non-clinical participants, we conducted this proof-of concept study to investigate whether this exercise is equally beneficial in veterans who had experienced deployment to a combat zone. Additionally, we examined if brief a self-compassion exercise can temporarily reduce hyperarousal symptoms and increase feelings of social connectedness. The current study also investigated the association between PTSD symptom severity, emotion regulation, and self-compassion in 56 veterans. All participants listened to a loving-kindness meditation for self-compassion and psychophysiological recordings were taken throughout. Psychophysiological effects were observed including heart-rate, skin conductance, and heart-rate variability to determine associations with PTSD and changes in response associated with the self-compassion induction. PTSD symptom severity, dispositional emotion regulation, and self-compassion were measured, and participants also completed state measures of hyperarousal and social connectedness before and after the LKM-S. The findings partially demonstrated that self-compassion can be elicited in a veteran population but there were considerable individual differences in psychophysiological responses. The findings are discussed in light of existing theories of PTSD and self-compassion and the implications of using self-compassion based psychological approaches with veterans. (shrink)

In Interstitial Soundings, Cynthia R. Nielsen brings music and philosophy into a fruitful and mutually illuminating dialogue. Topics discussed include the following: music's dynamic ontology, performers and improvisers as co-composers, the communal character of music, jazz as hybrid and socially constructed, the sociopolitical import of bebop, Afro-modernism and its strategic deployments, jazz and racialized practices, continuities between Michel Foucault's discussion of self-making and creating one's musical voice, Alasdair MacIntyre on practice, and how one might harmonize MacIntyre's notion of virtue (...) development with Foucauldian resistance strategies. (shrink)

To meet the shifting needs and preferences of the contemporary sales workforce, sales organizations are deploying idiosyncratic deals (I-deals), or mutually beneficial individualized workplace arrangements between salespeople and the organization. However, research is lacking on how, and under what conditions, I-deals facilitate work engagement and performance among salespeople. In this study, based on analysis of data gathered from 221 business-to-business salespeople, we demonstrate that I-deals are positively related to two foci of salesperson work engagement (i.e., social engagement and change engagement) (...) and salesperson performance. Furthermore, we find that ethical self-leadership, which is driven by ethical leadership, functions as an internal self-governance mechanism that strengthens the impact of I-deals on salesperson work engagement. Based on these results, we delineate novel theoretical and practical implications on the role of I-deals in facilitating effective sales talent management. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Self Between: From Freud to the New Social Psychology of FranceAndrew J. McKennaThe Self Between: From Freud to the New Social Psychology of France, by Eugene Webb; ix & 268 pp. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993, $35.00.That psychology and sociology are one science is the fundamental premise guiding Eugene Webb’s The Self Between, which he defines early on as “a self constituted (...) dynamically and continuously by the relationships it finds itself involved i n.” The “new social psychology of France” designated by his subtitle is mostly the one inspired by René Girard’s mimetic model of human behavior, to which four of Webb’s seven chapters are specifically devoted.Girard’s idea, which he learned from our literary masterpieces, is that human desire is mimetic, that it imitates other desires in its choice of objects and in pursuit of their possession. As desires converge on a single object, the locus of conflict will be between subjects rather within their individual psyches, a consequence that motivates Girard’s ongoing critique of Freudian psychoanalysis.But Freud’s theories are everywhere disputed in this book, which reports reliably on the devastating critiques advanced by François Roustang, Marie Balmary, and Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen. Roustang has convincingly (and entertainingly) uncovered Freud’s blindness to the pathologies of transference and discipleship investing the foundation of psychoanalysis. A pattern of rivalry for recognition and preeminence guides Freud’s career in a way that is reenacted around Lacan. Balmary, somewhat a Lacanian her self, has turned psychoanalytic theory against Freud to explore his own family secrets, while severely questioning the master’s bid for a universal theory pursued via self-analysis amidst a period of emotional upheaval. And Borch-Jacobsen has shown how th e dynamics of hypnosis that Freud rejected early on were brought back as transference, while arguing for his own part that mimetic identification with the other, rather than any primordial drives, is what brings the subject into being. These informat ive chapters help bring us up to date on significant debates that have developed since Lacan drew the French intellectual world, and so many Americans after it, into the orbit of psychoanalysis.But by far the bulk of Webb’s attention goes to Girard’s work and to that of [End Page 191] scholars and practitioners who have sought to extend it further in the social sciences. Principle among them is Jean-Michel Oughourlian, whose Puppet of Desire (translated by Webb in 1991) demonstrates how the mimetic model plays out in psychotherapy, notably in the workings of hypnotism and somnambulism, in cases of demonic possession, and in obsessional neurosis. In each case, the subject is unwitt ingly captive of another’s desire in a way that produces behavioral anomalies and disorders that are nonetheless available to lucid, jargon-free diagnosis. What is appealing here is the deployment of a rational explanation for irrational behavior, once we grasp the paradoxical rationale of desire; equally appealing prospects of actual healing are outlined here and at the end of the book, where possibilities of freedom and responsibility are resurrected from a technical vocabulary that smothers them.Girard’s idea of the self as relation, as interdividuality, rather than as a discreet unit, has social and political dimensions to which we only find tantalizing allusions in his works. They have been pursued with acumen by such writers as André Orléan, Paul Dumouchel and especially Jean-Pierre Dupuy, who figures importantly among those aligning systems theory with theories of social and economic organization. Like Borch-Jacobsen and Roustang, Dupuy restores due attention to concep tions of crowd behavior outlined at the end of the last century by Tarde and Le Bon, whose best insights Freud studiously discarded.This is richly interdisciplinary work, strongly suggesting that we variously redraw and erase lines defining academic fields. Occam’s razor flicks often and decisively in these pages, which restore needed balance to the effects of some wild er French imports. Webb brings no new ideas of his own to this capable synthesis, but his accurate report will help guide researchers toward major recent developments in France around and mostly beyond Freudian psychoanalysis... (shrink)

To meet the shifting needs and preferences of the contemporary sales workforce, sales organizations are deploying idiosyncratic deals (I-deals), or mutually beneficial individualized workplace arrangements between salespeople and the organization. However, research is lacking on how, and under what conditions, I-deals facilitate work engagement and performance among salespeople. In this study, based on analysis of data gathered from 221 business-to-business salespeople, we demonstrate that I-deals are positively related to two foci of salesperson work engagement (i.e., social engagement and change engagement) (...) and salesperson performance. Furthermore, we find that ethical self-leadership, which is driven by ethical leadership, functions as an internal self-governance mechanism that strengthens the impact of I-deals on salesperson work engagement. Based on these results, we delineate novel theoretical and practical implications on the role of I-deals in facilitating effective sales talent management. (shrink)

[First paragraphs: This essay takes its practical orientation from my experiences as a member of a philosophy reading group on death row at Riverbend Maximum Security Penitentiary in Nashville, Tennessee. Its theoretical orientation comes from W. E. B. Du Bois’ lecture-turned-essay, “Criteria of Negro Art,” which argues that the realm of aesthetics is vitally important in the war against racial discrimination in the United States. And since, according to Michele Alexander’s critically-acclaimed The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age (...) of Colorblindness, the prison system should be the primary front today in this war, my essay’s ultimate aim is t/o articulate a new criterion of the present-day “Negro” art being created by a prison population that is still overwhelmingly constituted by persons of color. In my first section, I will show how Du Bois’ insights in “Criteria of Negro Art” remain relevant today, especially in the prison context, and argue that it is thus appropriate for my new criterion to be shaped by his distinctive conception of “propaganda.” In my second section, through a close reading of two texts by Michel Foucault (the pivotal thinker of modern imprisonment), I will flesh out this new criterion, “self-torsion,” defined as the effect of prisoners’ attempts at self-care within a prison system that distorts those attempts into further exploitation of both prisoners and the outside world that imprisons them. And my final section, in an attempt to illustrate this new criterion’s efficacy as a form of propagandistic resistance to contemporary racism, will deploy self-torsion as a critique of two artworks created by imprisoned members of my reading group at Riverbend penitentiary. (shrink)