Composite Subjectivity and Psychological Subjects

2019 ◽  
pp. 229-269
Author(s):  
Luke Roelofs
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Dissociative Identity Disorder ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Everyday Experiences

This chapter is about how to combine subjects of experience as they are understood by the psychological theory of personal identity (Neo-Lockeanism). On this theory subjects are not the systems which generate mental states, but are instead constructs defined by the patterns of continuity among mental states. This requires considering how component and composite subjects can be individuated from one another, how they can develop self-consciousness, and how they can display agency. This results in a combinationist account of what is going on in everyday experiences of inner conflict and in dissociative identity disorder—an account which can recognize the conflicting or dissociated parts as subjects in their own right, but also as forming a composite subject with a greater or lesser degree of unity.

Vagueness

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kit Fine
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Mental States ◽  
General Idea ◽  
Sorites Paradox ◽  
Local Phenomenon ◽  
Intrinsic Feature

The book is about the problem of vagueness. It begins by discussing some of the existing views on vagueness and then explains why they have not been thought to be satisfactory. It then outlines a new account of vagueness, based on the general idea that vagueness is a global rather than a local phenomenon. In other words, the vagueness of an expression or object is not an intrinsic feature of the object or an expression but a matter of how it relates to other objects and expression. The development of this idea leads to a new semantics and logic for vagueness. The semantics and logic are then applied to a number of issues, including the sorites paradox, the transparency or luminosity of mental states, and personal identity. It is shown that the view allows one to hew to a much more intuitive position on these various issues.

scholarly journals Emergent Individuals and the Resurrection

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy O'Connor ◽  
Jonathan D. Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Number Of Authors

We present an original emergent individuals view of human persons, on which persons are substantial biological unities that exemplify metaphysically emergent mental states. We argue that this view allows for a coherent model of identity-preserving resurrection from the dead consistent with orthodox Christian doctrine, one that improves upon alternatives accounts recently proposed by a number of authors. Our model is a variant of the “falling elevator” model advanced by Dean Zimmerman that, unlike Zimmerman’s, does not require a closest continuer account of personal identity. We end by raising some remaining theological concerns. 

Soul and Body

2019 ◽  
pp. 65-99
Author(s):  
Edward Slingerland
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Material World ◽  
Physical Body ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Afterlife Beliefs ◽  
Qualitative Distinction

This chapter presents traditional archaeological and textual evidence against the strong soul-body holist position—that is, the claim that the early Chinese lacked any sense of a qualitative distinction between an immaterial soul and a physical body. This evidence includes afterlife beliefs as gleaned from mortuary practices and textual evidence drawn from both the received corpus and archaeologically recovered texts. The early Chinese appear to have distinguished between a relatively corporeal, physical body and a relatively incorporeal soul (or set of souls). The former was part of a material, visible world and was viewed ultimately as peripheral to the essence of one’s personal identity. The latter was the focus of ancestor cults, sacrifices, and oracles, and partook of an invisible, numinous world, qualitatively distinct from our own. The “specialness” of the next world and the beings that inhabited it lent to them, and to items and practices associated with them, a degree of numinosity that is not at all alien to conceptions of the holy or sacred in Judeo-Christian traditions. The chapter concludes with the argument that soul-body dualism is ultimately parasitic on basic mind-body dualism, which sees mental states or consciousness as somehow qualitatively distinct from the material world of things.

Personal Identity and Identity Disorders

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen R. L. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Dissociative Identity Disorder ◽  
Multiple Personality Disorder ◽  
Demonic Possession ◽  
Multiple Personality ◽  
History Of

There are people where two or more personalities seem to have independent-and sometimes mutually forgetful-control of the same bodily individual. This chapter gives a brief account of the history of the diagnosis of "Multiple Personality Disorder" or (the more recent label) "Dissociative Identity Disorder", and the conflicting judgment of therapists, lawyers, and philosophers as to whether this is a real syndrome. It is suggested that the diagnosis may be therapeutically helpful for some other disturbances, including anorexia, even if it does not carry the strong metaphysical moral that some have supposed. The cases are of interest to philosophers as they purport to represent "real -life" difficulties for standard theories of "personal identity." The chapter argues that the diagnosis (and its rejection) depend on prior assumptions about such identity, and so don't easily confirm or rebut any available theory, including more ancient theories about demonic possession.

scholarly journals Personal identifiability of user tracking data during observation of 360-degree VR video

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Roman Miller ◽  
Fernanda Herrera ◽  
Hanseul Jun ◽  
James A. Landay ◽  
Jeremy N. Bailenson
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Tracking Data ◽  
Medical Conditions ◽  
Consumer Market ◽  
The Public

Abstract Virtual reality (VR) is a technology that is gaining traction in the consumer market. With it comes an unprecedented ability to track body motions. These body motions are diagnostic of personal identity, medical conditions, and mental states. Previous work has focused on the identifiability of body motions in idealized situations in which some action is chosen by the study designer. In contrast, our work tests the identifiability of users under typical VR viewing circumstances, with no specially designed identifying task. Out of a pool of 511 participants, the system identifies 95% of users correctly when trained on less than 5 min of tracking data per person. We argue these results show nonverbal data should be understood by the public and by researchers as personally identifying data.

scholarly journals Possession in Macapat Tulak Balak

2021 ◽  
pp. 236-242
Author(s):  
. Hartono
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Spiritual Experience ◽  
Ethnographic Approach ◽  
Human Ability ◽  
Split Personality

This paper used an ethnographic approach to examine the phenomenon of possession in the ritual of baby birth with the chanting of macapat tulak balak. This paper sought to describe the phenomenon of possession experienced by the singer of macapat tulak balak and to explain how society perceives the phenomenon that occurs. To analyze the problem of possession, phenomenological aspects, possession phenomena, metaphysical studies and ritual aspects were used. Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology was used to describe the phenomenon of possession. The phenomenon of possession and unconsciousness was explored with the approach of Carl Gustav Jung’s psychological theory. Aristotle’s metaphysical studies were used to analyze the “being as being” and “the divine”. In addition, Marret’s theory of extraordinary powers and Otto’s about human attitudes towards the occult were also examined. Ritual aspects were discussed through Van Gennep’s theoretical approach to religious ceremonies. This research produced several formulas as follows: the phenomenon of possession of the chanting of macapat tulak balak is interpreted by the community as an event that actually happened. This phenomenon is caused by several factors, namely: who is chanting, the chanter’s spiritual experience, who is possessed, and macapat tulak balak. In psychology, possession is called a dissociative trance or split personality, which is a change in consciousness characterized by a change in personal identity that has been existing with a new identity. Matters related to the occultation of the phenomenon of possession are included in the study of “the divine”, meaning that no human ability can reach it. Keywords: phenomenon, possession, macapat tulak balak, ritual

John Stuart Mill

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominique Kuenzle
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Mental States ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Philosophical Thinking ◽  
Moral Quality ◽  
Set Up ◽  
And Function

Philosophical thinking about pleasure today, especially in the context of normative ethics, is deeply influenced by the concept’s function within Bentham’s and Mill’s utilitarianism, according to which the moral quality of any action depends on its tendency to “maximize pleasure” and “minimize pain.” According to Mill’s own philosophy of science and language, the content and function of “pleasure” is determined by its role in scientific induction, specifically within the associationist psychological theory Mill shares with his father, James Mill. Pleasures, it turns out, are qualities of sensations with inductive links to other mental states, the power to explain actions, and the potential for being physiologically explained. The semantic content of “pleasure” as a general name, and thus the content of the moral precepts set up by Mill’s principle of utility, must be thought of as responsive to inductive progress in associationist psychology, ethology, and neuroscience.

The Phenomenon of Vagueness

Vagueness ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 45-70
Author(s):  
Kit Fine
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Mental States ◽  
The Face ◽  
Transcendental Illusion ◽  
Margin For Error ◽  
Over Time ◽  
What Matters

The theory outlined in Chapter 2 is applied to three problems: the sorites puzzle; the Luminosity of mental states; and personal identity in the face of fission. We attempt to solve the sorites puzzle by distinguishing the principle of Tolerance from the Cut-Off principle and we argue that the plausibility of the sorites argument arises from a sort of transcendental illusion. We attempt to defend the Luminosity of the mental by showing that it is compatible with the Margin for Error principle, once that principle is properly formulated. Finally, we deal with the case of fission by taking the original person to be weakly identical, i.e. not distinct, from his offspring. This then enables us to reconnect the notions of survival and what matters to the identity of a person over time. None of these solutions would be possible without the adoption of our distinctive logic of vagueness.

Mental States as Social Discourse

1992 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 45-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Warwick Mules
Keyword(s):  
Recent Article ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Social Discourse ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Social Settings ◽  
The Status

In a recent article published in this journal, Lea (1991) argues against psychological theory which proposes access to mental states through empirical investigation. His argument depends upon demonstrating certain logical flaws in the arguments of proponents of this kind of empiricism, thereby ruling their conclusions out of court. In response to Lea, I will show that empirical investigation of mental states is possible only when undertaken as a reflexive theoretical practice. Unlike Lea's argument which remains within the Cartesian/Kantian paradigm of a priori structures and categories, an argument based on reflexive theoretical practice takes account of the grounded conditions under which knowledge becomes validated in social settings, involving close attention to the status of language in context of use. I will show that certain elisions in Lea's argument, particularly in his invocation of Wittgenstein's work on language use, eliminates for him the possibility of dealing with language in this manner. Furthermore, I will also show in the course of undertaking the above tasks, that Lea's mode of augment is itself perfectly consistent with the form of apriori theorizing he wishes to reject.

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