Hans V. Rappard. Psychology as self-knowledge: The development of the concept of the mind in German rationalistic psychology and its relevance today. Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1979, pp. 195. (Reviewed by Arthur L. Blumenthal)

1980 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 390-392
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Mind

Self-Knowledge

2021 ◽  
pp. 179-193
Author(s):  
Mattia Riccardi
Keyword(s):  
Traditional Conception ◽  
Reliable Source ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Mind

This chapter is concerned with Nietzsche’s scepticism about introspective knowledge. More precisely, it is claimed that Nietzsche rejects the traditional conception of introspective self-knowledge as something that is direct and privileged. To the contrary, he argues that self-knowledge is interpretive, for it is obtained by applying to oneself the same folk-psychological framework we apply in order to read the mind of other people. Furthermore, and relatedly, Nietzsche claims that introspective self-knowledge involves a falsification of what we actually think and do. Finally, it is argued that Nietzsche does not conclude from this that self-knowledge is impossible, but rather that third-person psychological and genealogical inquiry about oneself is a more reliable source of self-knowledge than introspection.

Who Do You Think You Are?

2020 ◽  
pp. 51-57
Author(s):  
Nicolas Bommarito
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
What Works ◽  
Special Challenge ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Tools And Methods

This chapter explores self-knowledge, which is critical for solving the practical problems involved in getting through life. An awareness of your own quirks, character, and preferences is important for figuring out what works for you. However, self-knowledge is also tricky because it is especially elusive. People commonly learn about themselves only indirectly; often it is only by reading the reactions of others that people can see how harsh, kind, or annoying they are. It is also because when trying to know the self, the thing the individual is trying to see is the very thing that does the looking. Buddhism offers many evocative images to illustrate this special challenge: Just as a knife cannot cut itself, the mind cannot be directed toward itself. This makes knowing the self, especially in a deep way, an especially difficult task. Knowing the self thus requires special kinds of tools and methods. The chapter then considers the concept of Buddha Nature.

scholarly journals Gregory Skovoroda’s Philosophy of Education: the Difference of a Modern Vision

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Gomilko
Keyword(s):  
Research University ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Philosophy Of Education ◽  
Specific Situation ◽  
Critical Position ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Modern Vision ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
The Mind

The article is devoted to the analysis of the modern character of the Gregory Skovoroda’s philosophy of education. Unlike his contemporaries, he focuses on connections of philosophy and moral virtue. This position contradicts the tendency of a modern institutionalization of philosophy in the way of one more discipline of the modern research university. However, Skovoroda’s critical position does not put into question the modern content of his philosophy. On the contrary, Skovoroda’s understanding of philosophy reveals the salvific ways of its cognitive and practical rehabilitation. It is because his philosophy teaches people to be wise not only the university campus but in all spheres of their own lives. That is why he speaks not just of philosophy, but of the “philosophy of the heart”. Contrary to Christian thought, he believes that human’s transformation is possible not through faith and suffering, but through the discovery a “new body” on the ground of self-knowledge and love for oneself. Unlike the modern classical philosophy, Skovoroda considers self-knowledge, not as a function of mind alone, and the heart as a dichotomy to the mind. In accordance with contemporary educational theories based on the idea of anthropotechnical turn in philosophy, Skovoroda deems the heart an instrument for enhancing the mind. Involving the heart into the sphere of rational increases the thinking of knowledge about the specific situation of its embodiment and the cognitive capabilities of its carrier. According to Skovoroda, an important consequence of such human transformations should be the overcoming of fear and hatred of the “other”.

Transparency and Self-Knowledge

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Byrne
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
First Person ◽  
Unified Theory ◽  
Gareth Evans ◽  
Weak Evidence ◽  
The World ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Emotion Memory

T&SK sets out and defends a theory of self-knowledge—knowledge of one’s mental states. Inspired by Gareth Evans’ discussion of self-knowledge in his The Varieties of Reference, the basic idea is that one comes to know that one is in a mental state M by an inference from a worldly or environmental premise to the conclusion that one is in M. (Typically the worldly premise will not be about anything mental.) The mind, on this account, is “transparent”: self-knowledge is achieved by an “outward glance” at the corresponding tract of the world, not by an “inward glance” at one’s own mind. Belief is the clearest case, with the inference being from ‘p’ to ‘I believe that p.’ One serious problem with this idea is that the inference seems terrible, because ‘p’ is at best very weak evidence that one believes that p. Another is that the idea seems not to generalize. For example, what is the worldly premise corresponding to ‘I intend to ϕ‎,’ or ‘I feel a pain’? T&SK argues that both problems can be solved, and explains how the account covers perception, sensation, desire, intention, emotion, memory, imagination, and thought. The result is a unified theory of self-knowledge that explains the epistemic security of beliefs about one’s mental states (privileged access), as well as the fact that one has a special first-person way of knowing about one’s mental states (peculiar access).

Dooyeweerd, Herman (1894–1977)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Bolt
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
North America ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Rational Thought ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Doctrine Of Creation ◽  
Legal Theorist

A Dutch philosopher and legal theorist, Herman Dooyeweerd challenged the Enlightenment ideal of autonomous rational thought and sought a religious foundation for philosophy. Religious self-knowledge, he contended, is the necessary condition of all knowing. Dooyeweerd proposed an elaborate ontology of physical and social reality based on the Christian doctrine of creation. His thought has been influential among Calvinists in The Netherlands, North America and South Africa.

In the Ruins of Self-Knowledge

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garry L. Hagberg
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Psychology ◽  
Final Point ◽  
Philosophical Significance ◽  
Sources Of Knowledge ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Mind

Oedipus Tyrannus is an exacting study in philosophical psychology, portraying a mind that oscillates between competing conceptions of the sources of knowledge, between layered self-deception and moments of self-knowledge, and between competing self-narratives or self-descriptions. This essay explores the philosophical significance of this play by examining these inner tensions as they manifest in thought, word, and deed. This significance is described in terms of a self gradually becoming able to imagine itself and to describe itself in ways initially believed to be the imagining and describing of an unknown other, where a kind of “spectral presence” by steps becomes ever closer to the mind of Oedipus. This culminates at the final point where that imagined presence comes to correspond identically and tragically with the uncovered self that is the true Oedipus.

The Limits of Self-Knowledge

1974 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Audi
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
Epistemic Authority ◽  
General View ◽  
Mental Life ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Mind

Hume maintained that “since all actions and sensations of the mind are known to us by consciousness, they must necessarily appear in every particular what they are, and be what they appear.” Descartes maintained a very similar doctrine, and Locke and Berkeley held at least part of the doctrine. I shall not try to set out precisely what any of these philosophers thought about self-knowledge; I cite them simply as proponents of the general view which I shall be examining in this paper: namely, that each of us has a special epistemic authority about his own mental life. This view is still widely held, particularly in the form of the thesis that one's sincere avowals of current mental states are incorrigible, i.e., such that, necessarily, no one ever has overriding reason to think them false.

There is No Searching for the Self: Self-Knowledge in Book Ten of Augustine’s De Trinitate

Phronesis ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 280-300
Author(s):  
Mateusz Stróżyński
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
De Trinitate ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Mind

Abstract This article explores the conception of self-knowledge in book 10 of Augustine’s De Trinitate. Augustine starts from the worry in Plato’s Meno that one cannot search for something entirely unknown and engages with Plotinus, Ennead 5.3 in developing his own understanding of the mind’s self-knowledge. He concludes that this knowledge is paradoxical in nature: it is necessary and, at the same time, futile; and it is separated from the knowledge of God. Augustine reaches this point by rejecting the Aristotelian identity of the knower with the known, as well as by grounding self-knowledge in the fact of the mind’s intimate presence to itself. Ultimately, self-knowledge appears to be an ‘objectless’ knowledge, a knowledge that the mind exists rather than knowledge of what the mind is.

On Order

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saint Augustine
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Bernard Lonergan ◽  
Augustine Of Hippo ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Third ◽  
Intellectual Quality ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Cassiciacum Dialogues

The first four works written by St. Augustine of Hippo after his conversion to Christianity are dialogues that have influenced prominent thinkers from Boethius to Bernard Lonergan. Usually called the “Cassiciacum dialogues,” these four works are of a high literary and intellectual quality, combining Ciceronian and neo-Platonic philosophy, Roman comedy and Vergilian poetry, and early Christian theology. They are also, arguably, Augustine's most charming works, exhibiting his whimsical levity and ironic wryness. This book is the third work in this tetralogy, and it is Augustine's only work explicitly devoted to theodicy, the reconciliation of Almighty God's goodness with evil's existence. In this dialogue, Augustine argues that a certain kind of self-knowledge is the key to unlocking the answers to theodicy's vexing questions, and he devotes the latter half of the dialogue to an excursus on the liberal arts as disciplines that will help strengthen the mind to know itself and God.

scholarly journals “The Golden Age of Patristics”: Hellenophonic Patristic Discourse in the 4th–6th Centuries

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 22-30
Author(s):  
Д. С. Верланов
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
True Knowledge ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Church

In the early 4th century the Roman Empire suffered a number of important socio-political changes. TheEdict of Milan (313), having recognised in full the existence of the Church and its rights for worship, declaredreligions toleration, and put the end to the era of persecutions, but at the same time actualised and reinforced thestruggle of ideas between Christians and pagans. This controversy between Christians and pagans contributedimmensely to process of the becoming of Christian intellectual culture. In order to answer the most burningquestions and challenges of the time, the fathers of the Church deepened understanding and interpretation ofthe message of the Bible, created a large moral and ascetic literature, designed the dogmatic system. The mainpurpose of the present study is to specify the origins and main directions of patristic thought. In order to dothis I examine how fathers of the Church solve complex philosophical and theological issues, focusing on theepistemic aspect of the issue.According to the patristic tradition, the first step to acquire the true knowledge is to cleanse the self fromevery impurity of sin and passions. It is attained through keeping God’s commandments and maintaining asceticefforts. The sign of correct spiritual growth is a specific ability to penetrate into nature of things, which thefathers call “διάκρισις”. The fathers of the Church and Christian writers of the epoch recognise this ability asa religio-intuitive. One who receives this gift of divine grace becomes able of self-knowledge, distinguishingbetween good and evil, and understanding of the will of God. A Christian who possesses it becomes fully awareof personal spiritual condition, and as a result becomes capable to make the right choice of the way of salvation.There are two sources of the knowledge of God: natural (from the experience of being into the world) andsupernatural (divine revelation). The cognitive process therefore has two major aspects: sensual and speculative.The senses allow knowing God from his creation, as the mind or intellect enables man to contemplating ofincorporeal. The latter aspect enables one to self-knowledge or introspection and contemplation of the mind orsoul, which has been created in the image and likeness of God.The clarification of the Hellenophonic patristic discourse in 4th–6th centuries, on a large scale, allowsreconstructing another important phenomenon of this period, known as the “Golden Age” of Patristics.

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