Ali Al-Wardi and his critique of the human mind*

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Al-Haidari
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Limited Capacity ◽  
Rational Analysis ◽  
Ibn Khaldun ◽  
Aristotelian Logic ◽  
Karl Mannheim ◽  
The Mind

Ali Al-Wardi was influenced by the philosophical ideas that criticized the assumption that the nature of the human mind is fixed. These ideas come from his reading of Ibn Khaldun, Sigmund Freud and Karl Mannheim. He reinterpreted their ideas of the mind and applied it to Iraqi society and the Iraqi mind. He believes that human nature is egocentric and determined in most actions, motivated by the subconscious. The role of the mind is to justify human behaviour. The mind is one-sided and biased and is untrustworthy. It is only an organ that aids humans in their quest for survival. Also the mind has a limited capacity and is surrounded by a dense rim of values, beliefs and interests. Al-Wardi has launched a relentless campaign against the Aristotelian logic and against reason and rationality. Despite his rational analysis, he could not free himself from the mindset he identified as a farce and did not distinguish between the productive and the instrumental mind.

The Role of Fantasy

2019 ◽  
pp. 339-352
Author(s):  
Alexander Kluge
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Concrete Action ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Original Concept

This chapter focuses on fantasy and reaches back to Alexander Kluge's days as an honorary professor lecturing on film and television at Goethe University Frankfurt in 1973. Kluge explains that fantasy is a divided product in the society. He then looks at what Karl Marx has to say about the original concept of labor. Marx mentions it twice, for example, when he explains that a craftsman, when making something like a chair, first forms an image of the chair in his mind and makes a plan before then setting to work with his hands to make this plan a reality. This is an example of the unified path of labor between the activity of the mind and the activity of the hands. Kluge also discusses the imaginative capacity. Sigmund Freud described this imaginative capacity not only in terms of psychoanalytic theory or out of a specific therapeutic interest. Rather, Freud described it and pursued it on account of a general theoretical interest. Freud said that the law of this imaginative capacity exists in people. It is the law of the human mind. Freud said not only that it is influenced by libidinal control and the negotiation of reality, but also that the brain triggers the perception of actual circumstance and then remembers something from the past, a conflict, a desired situation, or a wish. From there, a projection of a concrete action is cast onto the future.

Remembering the Evolutionary Freud

2006 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan Young
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Psychotic Disorders ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Fundamental Difference ◽  
Evolutionary Origins ◽  
Point Of No Return ◽  
Evolutionary Narratives ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

ArgumentThroughout his career as a writer, Sigmund Freud maintained an interest in the evolutionary origins of the human mind and its neurotic and psychotic disorders. In common with many writers then and now, he believed that the evolutionary past is conserved in the mind and the brain. Today the “evolutionary Freud” is nearly forgotten. Even among Freudians, he is regarded to be a red herring, relevant only to the extent that he diverts attention from the enduring achievements of the authentic Freud. There are three ways to explain these attitudes. First, the evolutionary Freud's key work is the “Overview of the Transference Neurosis” (1915). But it was published at an inopportune moment, forty years after the author's death, during the so-called “Freud wars.” Second, Freud eventually lost interest in the “Overview” and the prospect of a comprehensive evolutionary theory of psychopathology. The publication of The Ego and the Id (1923), introducing Freud's structural theory of the psyche, marked the point of no return. Finally, Freud's evolutionary theory is simply not credible. It is based on just-so stories and a thoroughly discredited evolutionary mechanism, Lamarckian use-inheritance. Explanations one and two are probably correct but also uninteresting. Explanation number three assumes that there is a fundamental difference between Freud's evolutionary narratives (not credible) and the evolutionary accounts of psychopathology that currently circulate in psychiatry and mainstream journals (credible). The assumption is mistaken but worth investigating.

Tetens, Johann Nicolaus (1736–1807)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunter Zoller
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Second Career ◽  
Moses Mendelssohn ◽  
Descriptive Account ◽  
German School ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
School Philosophy ◽  
The Mind

Tetens was a German philosopher, mathematician and physicist, with a second career as a Danish government official, who was active in Northern Germany and Denmark during the second half of the eighteenth century. Together with Johann Heinrich Lambert and Moses Mendelssohn, Tetens forms the transition from the German school philosophy of Leibniz, Wolff and Crusius to the new, critical philosophy of Kant. Tetens’ philosophical work reflects the combined influence of contemporary German, British and French philosophical currents. His main contribution to philosophy is a detailed descriptive account of the principal operations of the human mind that combines psychological, epistemological and metaphysical considerations. While showing a strong empiricist leaning, Tetens rejected the associationist and materialist accounts of the mind, favoured in Britain and France, and insisted on the active, spontaneous role of the mind in the formation and processing of mental contents.

scholarly journals Reform and Religious Heterodoxy in Thomas Robert Malthus’s “Crises” and the First Edition of the Essay on the Principle of Population

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Liberal Education ◽  
Class Relations ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Traditional Class

The first edition of Thomas Robert Malthus’ Essay on the Principle of Population is best understood as an exploration of human nature and the role of necessity in shaping the individual and society.  The author’s liberal education, both from his father and his tutors at Warrington and Cambridge, is evident in his heterodox views on hell, his Lockean conceptualization of the mind, and his Foxite Whig politics.  Malthus’ unpublished essay, “Crises,” his sermons, and the the last two chapters of the Essay (which were excised from subsequent editions) reveal a pragmatic, compassionate side of the young author that was under appreciated by both his contemporary critics and modern historians.  The Essay has been mischaracterized by David McNally (2000) as a “Whig response to Radicalism” and by Patricia James (1979) as a reaction by Malthus against his father’s liberalism.  This article argues that when he wrote the first edition of the Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus was himself a liberal dissenter and Foxite Whig rather than an orthodox Anglican or a Burkean defender of traditional class relations. 

Xunzi in the Light of the Guodian Manuscripts

Early China ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 113-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Rakita Goldin
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Hubei Province ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Warring States ◽  
Proper Values ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Way

This article discusses the several previously unknown Confucian texts discovered in 1993 in a Warring States tomb at Guodian, near Jingmen, Hubei Province. I believe that these works should be understood as doctrinal material deriving from a single tradition of Confucianism and datable to around 300 B.C. Of the surviving literature from the same period, they are closer to the Xunzi than to any other text, and anticipate several characteristic themes in Xunzi's philosophy. These are: the notion of human nature (xing 性),and the controversy over whether the source of morality is internar or “external”; the role of learning (xue 學)and habitual practice (xi 習) in moral development; the content and origin of ritual (li 禮), by which human beings accord with the Way; the conception of the ruler as the mind (xin 心) of the state; and the psychological utility of music (yue 樂) in inculcating proper values.It is especially important for scholars to take note of these connections with Xunzi, in view of the emerging trend to associate the Guodian manuscripts with Zisi, the famous grandson of Confucius, whom Xunzi bitterly criticized.

scholarly journals The existential role of women in The Flies and the dirty hands, by Jean Paul Sartre

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (137) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Majed Jamil NASIF ◽  
Ridha Thamer BAQER
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
The Other ◽  
Politics And Literature ◽  
Dirty Hands ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
The Family ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Second World

          The freedom and the existential engagement represent two essential notions in the mind of the writer Jean-Paul Sartre. It has been presented in a good and clear way by his philosophy or, in a clearer way, by his artworks. More specifically, the two plays of this author, The Flies and the dirty hands, are the mirror that reflects these twos existential notions.           These two plays are the perfect testimonies for the two important periods in the XXth century: before and after the Second World War. These two periods vary in so far, the human mind, politics and literature as are concerned. This variation has followed the historical and the political changes in the world in general and in France in particular.           Even if The Flies and the dirty hands are considered like two different existential dramas, but each one completes the other. The first drama evokes a human mind but, indirectly, another political one, whether the other play evokes the inverse. Oreste and Hugo, the two heroes of our study plays, are the superior heroes who try to save humanity of slavery and submission to injustice. Sartre and his audience place their hopes in these two heroes who search for the freedom through their existential engagement.           In the other hand, the female characters have played an affective role in the dramatic action in the two plays. By its freedom and its existential engagement, the female condition, according to Sartre's vision, searches for proving his human existence and revolting against the authority of the family, the society and the humanity. 

scholarly journals A imaginação como fundamento das ciências experimentais

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Henrique Santos Figueiredo
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Main Aspect ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
The Mind

David Hume, em seus livros Tratado da Natureza Humana e Investigação Acerca do Entendimento Humano, propõe a divisão da mente humana em percepções fortes e vivas, as quais recebem o nome de impressões, e suas cópias, que, por sua vez, recebem o nome de ideias. Estas percepções da mente também se dividem em duas: memória e imaginação. A primeira, com maiores graus de força e vivacidade, e a segunda com menores graus de força e vivacidade. As percepções da mente se relacionam a partir das relações filosóficas, que são princípios de associação e dissociação de ideias. A relação da imaginação com as ciências empíricas é o principal aspecto deste trabalho, de modo que, no decorrer do texto, os aspectos que fomentam esta relação serão trabalhados, ilustrando a importância que tem a imaginação no advento das ciências experimentais. Abstract: David Hume, in his books A Treatise Of Human Nature and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, proposes the division of human mind in in strong, lively perceptions, which are called impressions, and their copies, which, in turn, receive the name of ideas. These perceptions of the mind are also divided into two: memory and imagination. The first, with higher degrees of force and vivacity, and the second with lower degrees of force and vivacity.  The perceptions of the mind are related from the philosophical relations, which are the principles of association and dissociation of ideas. The ratio of the imagination with the empirical sciences is the main aspect of this work, so that, throughout the text, aspects that foster this relationship will be worked out, illustrating the importance of the imagination in the advent of experimental sciences.

scholarly journals Homo metaphysicalis? The biological-rootedness of the metaphysical mind

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cornel W. Du Toit
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
General Introduction ◽  
Knowledge Process ◽  
Changing World

This article gives a general introduction to reasons why metaphysics might be considered a human constant. The basic metaphysical stance is rooted in human nature and human consciousness, being open to change and continually challenged. The biological rootedness of metaphysics relates to human consciousness, human dualisms, language (especially metaphor) and the fact that humans are self-transcending beings. It is suggested that the dualisms humans experience and express are not foreign to nature and part of the knowledge process. It is argued that metaphysical concepts such as unity, holism and relatedness are still necessary for human self-understanding and understanding of reality. The focus on the exclusivity of the human mind (Kant) contributed to the objectification and eventual manipulation of nature in science and technology and culminated in modernism. The existentialist and nihilistic responses that followed were inevitable. The tacit role of metaphysics in physics is indicated with reference to concepts such as nothingness and the quest for unity. Humans are destined to update their metaphysics in an ever-changing world.

Beckett and the Cognitive Method

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Bernini
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Scientific Debate ◽  
Modeling Technology ◽  
Dialogic Interaction ◽  
The Mind

How can literature enhance, parallel or reassess the scientific study of the mind? Or is literature instead limited to the ancillary role of representing cognitive processes? Beckett and the Cognitive Method argues that Beckett’s narrative work, rather than just expressing or rendering cognition and mental states, inaugurates an exploratory use of narrative as an introspective modeling technology (defined as “introspection by simulation”). Through a detailed analysis of Beckett’s entire corpus and published volumes of letters, the book argues that Beckett pioneered a new method of writing to construct (in a mode analogous to scientific inquiry) “models” for the exploration of core laws, processes, and dynamics in the human mind. Marco Bernini integrates models, problems, and interpretive frameworks from contemporary narrative theory, cognitive sciences, phenomenology, and philosophy of mind to make a case for Beckett’s modeling practice of a vast array of processes including: the (narrative) illusion of a sense of self, the hallucinatory quality of inner speech, the dialogic interaction with memories and felt presences, the synesthetic nature of inner experience and mental imagery, the developmental cooperation of language and locomotion, the role of moods and emotions as cognitive drives, the layered complexity of the mind, and the emergent quality of consciousness. Beckett and the Cognitive Method also reflects on how Beckett’s “fictional cognitive models” are transformed into reading, auditory, or spectatorial experiences generating through narrative devices insights on which the sciences can only discursively or descriptively report. As such, the study advocates for their relevance to the contemporary scientific debate toward an interdisciplinary co-modeling of cognition.

scholarly journals Poznanie i wolna wola – dwie podstawowe kategorie antropologii Ambrozjastra

Vox Patrum ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 143-155
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Babiarz
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ongoing Process ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Inner Strength ◽  
The Mind

Ambrosiaster belongs to the Roman school of exegesis. He deserves the atten­tion because of the relations between him and Marius Victorinus, his predecessor, as well as Pelagius and Augustine, his successors. The purpose of the article was to present Ambrosiaster’s anthropology on the basis of his writings. The conclu­sions have been presented in three parts: the elements of human nature, the ratio­nality of knowledge and the scope of free will. The first part shows the process in which the elements of nature are integrated. The spirit plays the decisive role synchronizing both the body and the soul. This dynamic and ongoing process is inspired by the presence of the Holy Spirit. The second part reveals two conditions for gaining knowledge: accepting the limita­tions of the mind and expanding and developing the principle of analogy. The last part presents two ways the free will is practised: by increasing how much one owns, which may be associated with lust, or by strengthening one’s inner strength. The role of the cultural and the ecclesial environment constitutes important infor­mation for the reconstruction of the views of Ambrosiaster. This raises the ques­tion whether – alongside Antioch and Alexandria – one could also talk about the Roman school of exegesis (Marius Victorinus, Ambrosiaster, Pelagius).

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