The Mind-Expanding Potential of Opposing and Contradictory Positions

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-84
Author(s):  
Hubert J. M. Hermans
Keyword(s):  
Learning Process ◽  
The Other ◽  
Breeding Ground ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Inner Dialogue ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind

This chapter explores the connection between inner democracy and inner opposition. Literature shows that human beings function as a vessel of contradictions, but in the context of this book, the claim is made that herein lies exactly the basis for inner opposition and the potential of productive inner dialogue. The acknowledgment that we can hold contradictory positions and use them in a creative way functions as the breeding ground for the development of democracy as a learning process. In addition, a theory is presented here that shows that democracy itself is loaded with contradictions. On the one hand, it leads to emancipation, but on the other, it causes envy and resentment.

Personal Identity and the Idea of a Human Being

1991 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 127-142
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Madell
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Natural Kind ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Personal Approach ◽  
Third Person ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind

The central fact about the problem of personal identity is that it is a problem posed by an apparent dichotomy: the dichotomy between the objective, third-person viewpoint on the one hand and the subjective perspective provided by the first-person viewpoint on the other. Everyone understands that the mind/body problem is precisely the problem of what to do about another apparent dichotomy, the duality comprising states of consciousness on the one hand and physical states of the body on the other. By contrast, contemporary discussions of the problem of personal identity generally display little or no recognition of the divide which to my mind is at the heart of the problem. As a consequence, there has been a relentlessly third-personal approach to the issue, and the consequent proposal of solutions which stand no chance at all of working. I think the idea that the problem is to be clarified by an appeal to the idea of a human being is the latest manifestation of this mistaken approach. I am thinking in particular of the claim that what ought to govern our thinking on this issue is the fact that human beings constitute a natural kind, and that standard members of this kind can be said to have some sort of essence. Related to this is the idea that ‘person’, while not itself a natural kind term, is not a notion which can be framed in entire independence of this natural kind.

The elusory kingdoms of the mind: Glosses on José Luis Caivano’s paper

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Göran Sonesson
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Mind

AbstractPeirce’s best idea, and the one least implemented by himself and his followers, is that of an ethics of terminology. Using this ethics as a tool, we suggest that many Peircean terms are in fact misleading, or, as he said himself at the end of his life, “injurious.” From the point of view of cognitive semiotics, there is no reason to abide by Peirce’s definition of semiosis, but, taking up the two quotes offered by Caivano, we demonstrate that they lead to different results, one being phenomenological and the other formalist. We go on to suggest that Peirce himself cannot have believed in the first definition, because then there could be no point in fallibilism and the community of scholars. In fact, we claim that what the different definitions of the “kingdoms” of nature show is precisely that human beings can liberate themselves from their

Descartes’ Notion of the Mind–Body Union and its Phenomenological Expositions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Heinämaa ◽  
Timo Kaitaro
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Material Basis ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind

The chapter clarifies the connections between Descartes’ discussion of the mind–body union and classical phenomenology of embodiment, as developed by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. It argues that the perplexing twofoldness of Descartes’ account of the mind–body union—interactionistic on the one hand, and holistic on the other—can be explicated and made coherent by phenomenological analyses of the two different attitudes that we can take toward human beings: the naturalistic and the personalistic. In the naturalistic attitude, the human being is understood as a two-layered psycho-physical complex, in which mental states and faculties are founded on the material basis of the body. In the personalistic attitude, the human being forms an expressive whole in which the spiritual and the sensible-material are intertwined. The chapter ends with a discussion of the most important similarities and differences between Descartes’ and Husserl’s conceptions of philosophy as a radical science.

The Seriousness of Doubt and Our Natural Trust in the Senses in the First Meditation

2003 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Macarthur
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Evil Demon ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Senses ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind

In the Synopsis to the Meditations Descartes assures us that ‘extensive doubt… [provides] the easiest route by which the mind may be led away from the senses’ (12). And in the Fifth Replies Descartes adds that it is essential to a proper understanding of the Meditations that ‘the entire testimony of the senses should be regarded as uncertain and even as false’ (350). But to deny our ordinary trust in the senses on the grounds of such ‘hyperbolic’ or ‘metaphysical’ doubts as that one might be dreaming or the victim of an evil demon is, as Descartes himself puts it, quite mad: ‘no sane person has ever seriously doubted that there really is a world and that human beings have bodies’ (16). We seem, then, to be confronted with a dilemma: on the one hand, the skepticism about the senses that we find in the First Meditation must be taken seriously. On the other hand, it is, in some sense, a sham. How, then, are we to understand these doubts?

scholarly journals Two Conceptions of Second Nature

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg W. Bertram
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Open Future ◽  
Second Nature ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Cognitive Activities ◽  
The Open Future ◽  
The One ◽  
First Nature

AbstractThe concept of second nature promises to provide an explanation of how nature and reason can be reconciled. But the concept is laden with ambiguity. On the one hand, second nature is understood as that which binds together all cognitive activities. On the other hand, second nature is conceived of as a kind of nature that can be changed by cognitive activities. The paper tries to investigate this ambiguity by distinguishing a Kantian conception of second nature from a Hegelian conception. It argues that the idea of a transformation from a being of first nature into a being of second nature that stands at the heart of the Kantian conception is mistaken. The Hegelian conception demonstrates that the transformation in question takes place within second nature itself. Thus, the Hegelian conception allows us to understand the way in which second nature is not structurally isomorphic with first nature: It is a process of ongoing selftransformation that is not primarily determined by how the world is, but rather by commitments out of which human beings are bound to the open future.

STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE LEVEL OF ANXIETY DEVELOPMENT ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Vestnik ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 155-160
Author(s):  
А.Е. Малибаева ◽  
Б.К. Кайрат ◽  
А.И. Нуфтиева ◽  
Л.Б. Умбетьярова ◽  
М.С. Кулбаева ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Academic Performance ◽  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Child Anxiety ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
The Other ◽  
Primary School Students ◽  
School Students ◽  
The One ◽  
High Level

В современных стрессовых и негативных внешних экологических условиях растет число неуверенных в себе, эмоционально неустойчивых тревожных детей. В работах А.И.Захаровой, Н.В.Имеладзе, Л.М. Прихожановой говорится, что когда человек постоянно волнуется - возникает паника. Согласно анализу исследований многих авторов, детская тревога, с одной стороны, имеет психодинкамическую природу, с другой-является результатом социализации. По мнению психологов, у учащихся наблюдается высокий уровень тревожности в процессе обучения. В результате изучения данной проблемы установлено, что уровень тревожности и успеваемость ребенка тесно взаимосвязаны. Процесс приобщения детей, пришедших в школу, к процессу обучения тесно связан с процессом паники . In the current stressful and negative external environmental conditions, the number of insecure, emotionally unstable children with anxiety is growing. In the works of A.I. Zakharova, N.V. Imeladze, L.M. Prikhozhan, it is said that when a person is constantly agitated, panic occurs. According to the analysis of the research of many authors, child anxiety, on the one hand, has a psychodynamic nature, and on the other-is the result of socialization. According to psychologists, there is a high level of anxiety in students ' learning process. As a result of the study of this problem, it was found that the level of anxiety and the child's academic performance are closely related. The process of adaptation of children to the learning process is closely related to the panic process. However, the level of anxiety in lower-class students affects the learning process and learning outcomes.

Do Mundo Pedagógico-Filosófico em Wittgenstein

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (55) ◽  
pp. 337-346
Author(s):  
Bárbara Wilson Barra ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Learning Process ◽  
Automatic System ◽  
The Other ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

This dissertation aims to understand, in the light of Wittgenstein’s Investigations, language as a match or a game, whose performance is trained by using certain rules, taking in traditions and those techniques that propel the young shoots to the integration in the world. In order to this, it will be developed the argument that sustains that the learning process, which is incompatible with an automatic system of direct and instantaneous print of information – considering that there is no way that children resemble programmable automata, such as the film Kynodontas simulates –, should go hand in hand with the manner of doing philosophy, given its irreplaceable role in the formation and development, on the one hand, of perspicuity and elucidation, on the other, of thinking, imagination and personality of children. At this point, it must be clear that what is up to educators and tutors is nothing more than introduce the world to the young shoots as it is seen and conceived, through what is known and actually it is, but mainly to invite them to participate in it.

scholarly journals Evolution in the Brain, Evolution in the Mind: The Hierarchical Brain and the Interface between Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-377
Author(s):  
Leonardo Niro Nascimento
Keyword(s):  
Brain Evolution ◽  
The Other ◽  
Common Source ◽  
Evolutionary Models ◽  
Anatomy And Physiology ◽  
Psychodynamically Oriented ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Shed Light

This article first aims to demonstrate the different ways the work of the English neurologist John Hughlings Jackson influenced Freud. It argues that these can be summarized in six points. It is further argued that the framework proposed by Jackson continued to be pursued by twentieth-century neuroscientists such as Papez, MacLean and Panksepp in terms of tripartite hierarchical evolutionary models. Finally, the account presented here aims to shed light on the analogies encountered by psychodynamically oriented neuroscientists, between contemporary accounts of the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system on the one hand, and Freudian models of the mind on the other. These parallels, I will suggest, are not coincidental. They have a historical underpinning, as both accounts most likely originate from a common source: John Hughlings Jackson's tripartite evolutionary hierarchical view of the brain.

Children Have a Right to an Interesting School

1974 ◽  
Vol 156 (3) ◽  
pp. 4-14
Author(s):  
Francis J. Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Learning Process ◽  
The Other ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
American School ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

Historically, the American school has been regarded as an essential vehicle by which the child can prepare for adult success. Despite substantial theoretical argument that childhood learning can both prepare children for later schooling and also be an interesting process in itself, the schools, led more often by “people-activists” rather than “scholar-activists,” have tended on the one hand to be uninteresting or on the other hand to lack depth and substance. The paper argues that every child has a right to an interesting school and goes on to propose that, in its best sense, an interesting school is a place which respects the child's interest in a learning process that is deep and filled with intellectual and emotional substance.

scholarly journals Carbon Valuation: Alternatives, Alternations and Lateral Measures?

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steffen Dalsgaard
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Carbon Offsets ◽  
The Other ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Carbon Markets ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Science Literature ◽  
The One ◽  
Selection Of

This article refers to carbon valuation as the practice of ascribing value to, and assessing the value of, actions and objects in terms of carbon emissions. Due to the pervasiveness of carbon emissions in the actions and objects of everyday lives of human beings, the making of carbon offsets and credits offers almost unlimited repertoires of alternatives to be included in contemporary carbon valuation schemes. Consequently, the article unpacks how discussions of carbon valuation are interpreted through different registers of alternatives - as the commensuration and substitution of variants on the one hand, and the confrontational comparison of radical difference on the other. Through the reading of a wide selection of the social science literature on carbon markets and trading, the article argues that the value of carbon emissions itself depends on the construction of alternative, hypothetical scenarios, and that emissions have become both a moral and a virtual measure pitting diverse forms of actualised actions or objects against each other or against corresponding nonactions and non-objects as alternatives.

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