Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anil Gomes ◽  
Andrew Stephenson
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
The Self ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
Inner Sense ◽  
The Will

The essays in this volume explore those aspects of Kant’s writings which concern issues in the philosophy of mind. This brief introduction briefly introduces each of the essays and says something about how they are connected. The questions the essays address are central to any understanding of Kant’s Critical philosophy. They include: What role does mental processing play in Kant’s account of intuition? In what sense, and in what ways, are intuitions object-dependent? How should we understand the nature of the imagination? What is inner sense, and what does it mean to say that time is the form of inner sense? Can we cognize ourselves through inner sense? How do we self-ascribe our beliefs and what role does self-consciousness play in judgment? Is the will involved in judging? What kind of knowledge can we have of the self? And what kind of knowledge of the self does Kant proscribe?

Kant and the Philosophy of Mind

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
The Self ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
Inner Sense ◽  
Philosophical Project

The essays in this volume explore those aspects of Kant’s writings which concern issues in the philosophy of mind. These issues are central to any understanding of Kant’s Critical philosophy and they bear upon contemporary discussions in the philosophy of mind. Fourteen specially written essays address such questions as: What role does mental processing play in Kant’s account of intuition? In what sense, and in what ways, are intuitions object-dependent? How should we understand the nature of the imagination and inner sense? What is the nature of the self, and in what ways are we aware of ourselves in self-consciousness? These essays showcase the depth of Kant’s writings in the philosophy of mind, and the centrality of those writings to his wider philosophical project. Moreover, they show the continued relevance of Kant’s writings to contemporary debates about the nature of mind and self.

Nihilistic Thinking as the Self-Will of the Mind and the Projects of Its Overcoming

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (10) ◽  
pp. 74-87
Author(s):  
Irina N. Sidorenko
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
The Self ◽  
Spatial Perspective ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Radical Transformation

 The author analyzes the conceptions of ontological nihilism in the works of S. Kierkegaard, F. Nietzsche, M. Heidegger, E. Jünger. On the basis of this analysis, violence is defined as a manifestation of nihilism, of the “will to nothingness” and hypertrophy of the self-will of man. The article demonstrates the importance of the problem of nihilism. The nihilistic thinking of modern man is expressed in the attitude toward a radical transformation of the world from the position of his “absolute” righteousness. The paradox of the current situation is that there is the reverse side of this transformative activity, when there is only the appearance of action and the dilution of responsibility. Confidence in the rightness of own views and beliefs increases the risk of the violent imposition of own vision of reality. Historical and philosophical reconstruction of the conceptions of nihilism allowed to reveal the following projects of its comprehension and resolution: (1) the project of “positing of values,” which consists in the transformation of the evaluation, which is understood as another perspective of positing values, leading to the affirmation of being; (2) the project of overcoming nihilism from the space of temporality, carried out through the resoluteness to accept the historicity of own existence; (3) the project of overcoming nihilism as the oblivion of being from the spatial perspective of the “line,” allowing to realize the “glimpse” of being. The author concludes that it is impossible to solve the problem of violence and its various forms of its manifestation without overcoming “ontological nihilism.” Significant role in solving the problem of ontological violence is assigned to philosophy as a critical and responsible form of thinking, which is capable to help a person to bear the burden of the world, to provide meanings and affirm being, as well as to unite people and resist the fundamentalist claims of exclusivity and rightness.

Kant on Judging and the Will

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Vance Buroker
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
Voluntary Activity ◽  
The Will ◽  
Direct Use

Kant’s Critical philosophy depends on the distinction between theoretical and practical reason, which he borrowed from Aristotle. But unlike Aristotle Kant claims that theoretical reason is subordinate to practical reason. This raises the possibility that theoretical judging could be a voluntary activity. This chapter investigates Kant’s view of the relation between theoretical judgments and the will. Based on Andrew Chignell’s recent work, it is argued that Kant recognizes the legitimate direct use of the will only in judgments he labels Belief (Glaube). With respect to Knowledge, his position is identical to Descartes’s position on clear and distinct perception. An analysis of Kant’s voluntarism regarding the activities of theoretical reason provides a model for subordinating theoretical reason to practical reason.

Expressing the Self

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
The Self ◽  
Epistemic Status ◽  
First Person ◽  
Semantic Categories ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Person Reference ◽  
De Se ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
Cultural Pragmatics

This book addresses different linguistic and philosophical aspects of referring to the self in a wide range of languages from different language families, including Amharic, English, French, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Newari (Sino-Tibetan), Polish, Tariana (Arawak), and Thai. In the domain of speaking about oneself, languages use a myriad of expressions that cut across grammatical and semantic categories, as well as a wide variety of constructions. Languages of Southeast and East Asia famously employ a great number of terms for first-person reference to signal honorification. The number and mixed properties of these terms make them debatable candidates for pronounhood, with many grammar-driven classifications opting to classify them with nouns. Some languages make use of egophors or logophors, and many exhibit an interaction between expressing the self and expressing evidentiality qua the epistemic status of information held from the ego perspective. The volume’s focus on expressing the self, however, is not directly motivated by an interest in the grammar or lexicon, but instead stems from philosophical discussions of the special status of thoughts about oneself, known as de se thoughts. It is this interdisciplinary understanding of expressing the self that underlies this volume, comprising philosophy of mind at one end of the spectrum and cross-cultural pragmatics of self-expression at the other. This unprecedented juxtaposition results in a novel method of approaching de se and de se expressions, in which research methods from linguistics and philosophy inform each other. The importance of this interdisciplinary perspective on expressing the self cannot be overemphasized. Crucially, the volume also demonstrates that linguistic research on first-person reference makes a valuable contribution to research on the self tout court, by exploring the ways in which the self is expressed, and thereby adding to the insights gained through philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science.

‘Frequent Sipping’: Bottled Water, the Will to Health and the Subject of Hydration

2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 72-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kane Race
Keyword(s):  
Bottled Water ◽  
The Self ◽  
Healthy Lifestyles ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Exercise Science ◽  
Scientific Experiment ◽  
Scientific Principles ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Biological Citizenship

This article examines how the formation of markets in bottled water has relied on assembling a particular subject: the subject of hydration. The discourse of hydration is a conspicuous feature of efforts to market bottled water, allowing companies to appeal to scientifically framed principles and ideas of health in order to position the product as an essential component in self-health and healthy lifestyles. Alongside related principles, such as the ‘8 × 8 rule’, hydration has done much to establish new practices of water drinking and consumption in which the consumer appears to be always at risk of dehydration and must engage in practices of ‘frequent sipping’. This article traces the emergence of the concept of hydration from its origins in exercise science and explores its circulation, contemporary uses and purchase. I argue that the appeal to biomedical languages and concepts found in the discourse of hydration connects with much broader ways of conceiving and acting upon the self that have become prevalent in contemporary society – what Rose and Novas call ‘biological citizenship’ – indicating how the ensemble of hydration participates in wider-ranging transformations in forms of rule. The story of hydration reveals how biomedical techniques of the self can be made to double up as ‘market devices’ by offering specific procedures for assessing the self and calculating the body’s needs. In order to grasp these developments, I position the health sciences, and health and fitness in particular, as a potent site of popular culture in which bodies learn to be affected by the procedures of scientific experiment. A critical grasp of this context is best enabled, I argue, by situating the producers and consumers of scientific principles and commercial products as embodied and looking at their interconnection in processes of emergence. Through these means, we can begin to develop a fully materialized account of the question: how have we become so thirsty?

scholarly journals Foucault’s Empire of the Free

2017 ◽  
pp. 94-112
Author(s):  
Richard Alston
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
Critical Position ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
Historical Specificity ◽  
The Will ◽  
Self Knowledge

This essay argues that the engagement with Greece and Rome after The Will to Knowledge allowed Foucault to bring clarity to his conception of limited freedom in complex societies. The Classical fulfilled this function paradoxically by being jarringly different from and integral to the discourses of modern sexuality. Foucault’s engagement with the Classical in The Use of Pleasure and The Care of the Self continued his established method of uncovering the development of a discourse, or set of discourses, over time. He thereby demonstrated the historical specificity of understandings of sexuality and the self. It follows that if the ancient self was a historical construct, then the modern self must also be such. But Foucault’s Classical engagement leads him to an innovative position in which the disciplinary dynamics of ancient self-knowledge offer a practical philosophy. Foucault’s Greek philosophy could have effects through two related mechanisms: the care of the self through askesis (discipline) and the speaking of truth to power through parresia (free speech). Through the rigors of askesis, the self can be rendered an object of analysis and hence a critical position external to the self can be achieved. Externality allows the philosopher to exercise parresia since the constraints of society have been surpassed and consequently offers a prospect of agency and a measure of freedom. The second part of the essay questions the extent of that freedom by reading Foucault against Tacitus, particularly the Agricola and the mutinies episode in the Annales. These episodes show the limitations of parresia and how parresia is bound into the workings of imperial power (and not a position external to that power). In the Tacitean model, externality is a viable political stance (achieved by Agricola), but is problematic ethically. The essay concludes by contrasting Foucauldian and Tacitean models of historical change. 

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sjoerd van Tuinen
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Continental Philosophy ◽  
Human Science ◽  
The Self ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
The Past ◽  
Reflective Thought ◽  
The World

THIS BOOK EXPLORES some of the implications of and opportunities within the speculative turn in continental philosophy from the perspective of art history. Speculation? Besides its only legitimate domain today, that of finance, is this not a thing of the past, when metaphysicians were used to making unverifiable claims about the nature of God, the World and the Self? From Kant to Wittgenstein, critical philosophy has taught us to remain silent on that of which we cannot speak. Likewise, art history has come a long way in establishing itself as a positive human science independent from its metaphysical beginnings. In both cases, enlightened, self-critical and self-reflective thought has worked hard on closing the door to ontology, on reducing the Ideas of reason to ideology and on limiting the domain of knowledge to phenomenal objects. Speculation, it seems, has not been ...

Leading from the Source

2013 ◽  
pp. 14-28
Author(s):  
Tom Karp ◽  
Lars Mortensen Lægreid
Keyword(s):  
Change Agents ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
The Will

In this chapter, the authors ask how a leader should connect to his or her source, and how to couple this connection to acts of taking leadership. Connecting to one’s source of leadership means taking a stand on a defined set of questions. It involves process and content and may be understood as an on-going process of individuation, self-reflection, and development – a leader’s attempt to create, and recreate, his- or her-self. This is the self that regulates the interior condition of the intervener, on which the success of the intervention depends. In addition, if leaders and change agents want to develop they must train their will. The will is the innermost essence of people’s selves; therefore, the discovery of the will means the discovery of people’s true beings, which is the key to leading from the source.

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