Self-Consciousness as a Living Kind: On the Fourth Chapter of Hegel's Phenomenology

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Lucian Ionel
Keyword(s):  
Life Form ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Phenomenology Of Spirit ◽  
Unity Of Consciousness ◽  
Social Form ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Living Being

Abstract This paper discusses Hegel's conception of self-consciousness in the fourth chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit. It argues that Hegel articulates self-consciousness as a living being's capacity to conceive of itself in light of the life-form it instantiates. I start by critically reassessing the prevalent readings of the Self-Consciousness chapter, each of which focuses on one of three constitutive aspects of self-consciousness: sociality, corporeality or practicality. Second, I reconstruct how the opening of the chapter aims to reveal that the initial rift between the sensory and the conceptual capacities of consciousness is resolved by the unity of consciousness as a life-form. Third, I discuss the specification of this life-form as Geist and argue that, by introducing the notion of Geist, Hegel indicates that the generic capacity of the human being to conceive of itself in light of its life-form always particularizes itself in a conception of human life that determines a historic and social form of life. Fourth, I outline how the master-slave dialectic illustrates the interdependency between sensory and conceptual capacities. Hegel's tale undermines the assumption of a self-contained capacity for reason by displaying how conceptual capacities, actualized by a living being, rely from the outset on objective constraints. I conclude by contending that the Self-Consciousness chapter paves the way for the central role that the idea of life plays in the Logic in exemplifying the objectivity of the concept.

scholarly journals Crueldade consentida – Crítica à razão antropocêntrica

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laerte Fernando LEVAI
Keyword(s):  
Teaching Methods ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Environmental Resources ◽  
Animal Life ◽  
Law System ◽  
Scientific Experiments ◽  
The Law ◽  
Animal Violence ◽  
Living Being

Despite the fact that the Brazilian Constitution is against animal violence, protecting<br />the fauna integrity, actually it does not work. However, our law system allows cruel acts and<br />accepts the violence done by those who consider themselves rational and superior. Just watch<br />the evil reality at the streets, public shows (circus) and farms, where the animals suffer and<br />are exploited to their limits. Also watch the pain of the animals that are part of an industrial<br />production, the horror at the slaughter houses and the scientific experiments laboratories. It<br />means that we have a contradiction.<br />Blind and cold, we live in a world that lacks justice. The cycle of the human life is limited<br />to personal ambitions, selfish actions and superfluous pleasures. There’s no space to<br />compassion. Under this anthropocentric view, the nature of the animals is no more important<br />and becomes economic or environmental resources. Our system, by rejecting the essence of<br />each living being, defends the fauna only for the purpose the human interests. The animals<br />are treated like merchandise, resources or consumption goods and the law denies them the<br />right to be sensitive. It must be changed, there can be no more silent before so much oppression.<br />For many centuries the human being has been dominating, torturing, killing and exterminating<br />other species, because of economic, commercial, cultural and gastronomic interests or just<br />sadism. The history shows that our relationship with the animals is marked by fanatism,<br />supersticions, ignorance and indifference. It’s a Ministério Público function, as a social<br />transforming agent, to fight against this situation. We must admit the animals presence in<br />the sphere of the human moralities, allowing them to have rights. The question is not only of<br />the law, but philosophic. It’s primordial that we review our teaching methods, searching for<br />a formula to respect the essence of animal life no matter what it is. Without a doubt, this<br />way is far from the anthropocentrism.

scholarly journals A Psycho-Pragmatic Study of Self-Identity of Kurdish EFL Learners in Kurdistan Region

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 99
Author(s):  
Ayad Hameed Mahmood ◽  
Zana Mahmood Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Kurdistan Region ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Learning English

This paper is an extract from a PhD dissertation on the impacts of learning English on the self-identity of Kurdish EFL learners. Language is a distinctive feature of human being. Similarly, identity is considered as a sign humans are recognized by. So, scrutinizing the relationship between these two related components of human life is revealing. Most of the research papers in this area focus on how language is used as a tool to express someone’s identity. However, this research focuses on how the process of learning English makes possible changes, if any, in the learners’ self-identity. A Likert-questionnaire of 30 questions is given to 150 EFL learners from three main universities to understand the differences that might happen in the learners’ self-identity as a result of learning English. Finally, some conclusions are drawn based on the collected data and the references are documented.

scholarly journals MÍSTICA E DIREITOS HUMANOS

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (115) ◽  
pp. 375
Author(s):  
Manfredo Araújo de Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Mystic Experience

O artigo se propõe explicitar o horizonte de compreensão antropológico a partir de onde se procura exprimir a inteligibilidade da fé e da experiência mística e sua vinculação à problemática dos direitos humanos. Vai concentrar-se na elucidação da constituição ontológica do ser pessoal que é sua abertura intencional à totalidade do ser e assim em última instância sua abertura a Deus. Daqui se compreende a fé como acolhida da autocomunicação de Deus ao ser humano e de seu projeto amoroso para a vida humana e a mística enquanto experiência intensificada do encontro com Deus, o que nos conduz à compreensão da exigência de promoção da vida.ABSTRACT: The article intends to explain the horizon of anthropological understanding starting from where one tries to express the intelligibility of the faith and of the mystic experience and its relation to the problem of human rights. It will concentrate on the elucidation of the ontological constitution of the personal being that is his intentional opening to the being’s totality and, likewise, ultimately to his opening to God. The faith is then understood as reception of the self communication of God to the human being and of his loving project for the human life and the mystic while intensified experience of the encounter with God that leads us to the understanding of the demand of the promotion of life.

McDowell, John Henry (1942–)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas H. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Life Form ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
University Of Pittsburgh ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Theory Of Meaning ◽  
The University

McDowell taught philosophy at Oxford from 1967 to 1986, where he established himself as a key figure in analytic philosophy, mounting forceful arguments in favour of a realist stance in the theory of meaning, philosophy of mind and metaethics, and challenging a variety of noncognitivist and antirealist positions that had become orthodox in those fields. In 1986 he took up a position at the University of Pittsburgh, where he has worked since. In his most highly acclaimed work, Mind and World (1994), McDowell sought to diagnose a transcendental anxiety, characteristic of modern philosophy, in which it seems mysterious that thought is answerable to reality at all. McDowell’s proposed cure for the anxiety turned on embracing the idea that there is no gap between reality and the reach of thought, no contact with reality that does not bring conceptual capacities into play, capacities that are acquired not by magic but naturally through education into a form of life. Much of McDowell’s work since Mind and World has been aimed at clarifying and refining the idea that conceptual capacities permeate the human life form. Increasingly, he has turned to Sellars, Kant and Hegel for guidance in pursuing that task.

The meaning of life between the self and the normative process of self-realisation

Human Affairs ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 489-496
Author(s):  
Giovanna Caruso
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Meaning Of Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
Philosophical Investigation ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Fundamental Feature ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Self Reference

Abstract Self-research becomes a starting point for the question about the human being in contemporary anthropological approaches. Accordingly, human life is not viewed anymore as the theoretical object of philosophical investigation, but as the concrete performative execution of the individual’s life. Following this existential paradigm, this paper shows, on the basis of Heidegger’s ‘analytic of Dasein’ and Angehrn’s ‘hermeneutic of the self,’ that the meaning of life can be identified with the process of self-realization much more than with any possible meaningful achievements, engagements or qualities. In fact, understanding human being as a self-interpreting being, Heidegger grasps human life based on the analysis of the ‘understanding,’ the ‘mineness’ and the ‘potentiality-to-Being’ as one’s own reflexive process of self-reference. Angehrn discloses this process as an endless self-understanding process, during which the self forms itself, and defines it as the process that characterizes human being. In this sense, the human being is ‘condemned to meaning.’ By grasping man as such a process, one fundamental feature is expressed: his constitutive unfathomability. For the task of becoming, the self comes from the self that has to become. This means that the self is constantly in the process of becoming self-existent and exists only as this process and remains unfathomable to man in his completeness. In this infinite process of self-realization, in this task of becoming oneself consists the meaning of life. And here, its normative-reflexive character arises. For the ‘must’ to become self has its origin in the self that has to become.

scholarly journals Natural goodness and the political form of human life

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 565-592
Author(s):  
Jan Müller
Keyword(s):  
Explicit Form ◽  
Life Form ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Natural Goodness ◽  
Human Practices ◽  
Political Form

Ethical Naturalism attempts to explain the objective normativity effective in human practices by reference to the relation between a living individual and the life-form it exhibits. This explanation falls short in the case of human beings (1) - not merely because of their essential rationality, but because the idea of normativity implicit in practice is dependent on the form of normativity?s being made explicit (2). I argue that this explicit form of normativity?s force and claim - the law in general - implies a tension between an explicit norm?s claim to absoluteness and the particularity of the situational case it is applied to. This tension may seem to produce an inherent violence corrupting the very idea of objective normativity inherent in the human form of life (3); in fact, it shows that the human form of life is essentially political. That the human form of life is essentially political does not contradict the idea of objective normativity - provided that this objectivity is not derived from a conception of ?natural goodness?, but rather from the actuality of human practice and its principle, justice (4).

PENGEMBANGAN KEILMUAN INTEGRATIF DI UNIVERSITAS ISLAM NEGERI

1970 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 385-402
Author(s):  
Zainal Arifin
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Scientific Development ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Advanced Science ◽  
Epistemological Basis ◽  
Integrative Science

This paper attempts to analyze the development of integrative science at two Islamic universities, namely UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta and UIN Malang. The changes are not just ordinary administrative changes, but based on the epistemological basis of integrated scientific development between science and Islam. The changing of IAIN Sunan Kalijaga and STAIN Malang also showed a new relationship between science (general sciences) and Islam, which requiresmutual relations, mutual dialogue, mutual reinforcement to solve the problems of postmodern human life. The purpose of this relation is to create the graduates who are capable of competing in the postmodern world that increasingly sophisticated and advanced science and technology, in addition, the value of religionbased morality is not abandoned, so they become the holistic human being. Tulisan ini mencoba menganalisis pengembangan keilmuan integratif pada dua universitas Islam negeri, yaitu UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta dan UIN Malang. Perubahan keduanya bukanlah hanya perubahan administrasi biasa, tapi didasari oleh basis epistemologi pengembangan keilmuan terintegrasi antara sains dan Islam. Perubahan IAIN Sunan Kalijaga dan STAIN Malang juga menunjukkan adanya relasi baru antara sains (ilmu-ilmu umum) dan Islam, yaitu relasi saling membutuhkan, saling berdialog, saling menguatkan untuk menyelesaikan problema kehidupan manusia postmodern ini. Tujuan relasi ini untuk mewujudkan lulusan yang mampu bersaing di dunia postmodern yang semakin canggih dan maju ilmu pengetahuan dan teknologinya, selain itu nilai moralitas yang berbasis agama tidak ditinggalkan, sehingga menjadi manusia yang utuh.

The Status of Mind and Intellect in Digital Environment

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-143
Author(s):  
Elena I. Yaroslavtseva
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Cognitive Activity ◽  
Memory Loss ◽  
Natural Material ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Connection To Nature ◽  
Digital World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Natural Foundation ◽  
The Impact

The article examines the impact of digitalization on human life and intellectual experience. The development of computer technology demands an understanding of new aspects of human development and requires a capability to overcome not only external conditions but also ourselves. Entering a new level of development cannot imply a complete rejection of previous dispositions, but should be accompanied by reflection on personal experience and by the quest for new forms of interaction in society and with nature. Communicative and cognitive activity of a person has an ontological basis and relies on processes that actually evolve in nature. Therefore, the creation of new objects is always associated with the properties of natural material and gives rise to new points of support in the development of man. The more audacious his projects, the more important it is to preserve this connection to nature. It is always the human being who turns out to be the initiator who knows how to solve problems. The conformity of complex technical systems to nature is not only a goal but also a value of meaningful construction of development perspectives. The key to the nature orientation of the modern digital world is the human being himself, who keeps all the secrets of the culture of his natural development. Therefore, the proposed by the Russian philosopher V.S. Stepin post-non-classical approach, based on the principle of “human-sizedness,” is an important contribution to contemporary research because it draws attention to the “human – machine” communication, to the relationship between a person and technological systems he created. The article concludes that during digital transformation, a cultural conflict arises: in an effort to solve the problems of the future, a person equips his life with devices that are designed to support him, to expand his functionality, but at the same time, the boundaries of humanity become dissolved and the forms of human activity undergo simplification. Transhumanism engages society in the fight against fears of vulnerability and memory loss and ignores the flexibility and sustainability of natural foundation.

How to grow a self: development of the self in a Bayesian brain

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateusz Wozniak
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Body Representation ◽  
Developmental Trajectory ◽  
The Self ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Bayesian Brain ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Complex Forms

The last two decades have brought several attempts to explain the self as a part of the Bayesian brain, typically within the framework of predictive coding. However, none of these attempts have looked comprehensively at the developmental aspect of self-representation. The goal of this paper is to argue that looking at the developmental trajectory is crucial for understanding the structure of an adult self-representation. The paper argues that the emergence of the self should be understood as an instance of conceptual development, which in the context of a Bayesian brain can be understood as a process of acquisition of new internal models of hidden causes of sensory input. The paper proposes how such models might emerge and develop over the course of human life by looking at different stages of development of bodily and extra-bodily self-representations. It argues that the self arises gradually in a series of discrete steps: from first-person multisensory representations of one’s body to third-person multisensory body representation, and from basic forms of the extended and social selves to progressively more complex forms of abstract self-representation. It discusses how each of them might emerge based on domain-general learning mechanisms, while also taking into account the potential role of innate representations. Finally it suggests how the conceptual structure of self-representation might inform the debate about the structure of self-consciousness.

THE KILLER OF NATURE – ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-295
Author(s):  
Ekta Sharma
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Public ◽  
Summary Paper ◽  
Living Being

The Presented summary paper target is to draw the attention of the public to the benefits of Environment and how we are connected to the Environment. To show that if there’s any change in the Environmental conditions, then how the conditions change in human beings lives. Living Being, whether a Human Being or Animals or plants,  are all directly or indirectly Dependent on the Environment for their Survival. When asked truly it can be said that none of the living being can survive without the presence of Environment. It is difficult to find absolutely natural environments, and it is common that the naturalness varies in a continuum, from ideally 100% natural in one extreme to 0% natural in the other. More precisely, we can consider the different aspects or components of an environment, and see that their degree of naturalness is not uniform.

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