Expressing the self

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kasia M. Jaszczolt ◽  
Maciej Witek
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cognitive Significance ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
De Se ◽  
Linguistic Conventions ◽  
The One ◽  
Self Reference

In this chapter Kasia M. Jaszczolt and Maciej Witek discuss the cognitive significance of the devices used to communicate de se thoughts and argue (and also partially empirically demonstrate) that, pace some extant proposals and pace the dominant presumption in semantics and philosophy of language, there is no evidence that natural languages use different kinds of expressions for externalizing different aspects of self-reference. On the basis of their empirical results from Polish, as well as evidence from a range of other languages and some theoretical argumentation, they sketch a possible future model founded on a correlation between speech-act types, interlocutors’ goals, and associated linguistic conventions on the one hand and expression type on the other. An additional corollary of this research is further justification for the claim of functional indexicality defended for example in Chapter 12 of this volume.

Expressing the self in Japanese

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodanthi Christofaki
Keyword(s):  
Critical Assessment ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Linguistic Relativity ◽  
First Person ◽  
Person Reference ◽  
De Se ◽  
Expressive Content ◽  
The One ◽  
Self Reference

Christofaki’s chapter provides an analysis of terms used for first-person reference in Japanese, addressing the question of how de se thought is expressed in a language with a multitude of expressions for self-reference, and in particular what aspects of the self such expressions map to. The analysis shows that in addition to the direct reference account, predicated of first-person pronouns in languages such as English, these terms also convey rich conceptual and expressive content and as such defy the standard Kaplanian (1989) classification. The chapter next moves to a critical assessment of the plausibility of a linguistic relativity account of the self which has been based on these data, and supports a universalist view instead, on which, on the one hand, different aspects (or facets) of the self are distinguished, but on the other they sum up to a cross-culturally comparable self.

Stories and the Self

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Krause ◽  
Markus Appel
Keyword(s):  
Meta Analysis ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Lower Degree ◽  
Contrast Effects ◽  
Self Perception ◽  
Self Perceptions ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Implicit And Explicit

Abstract. Two experiments examined the influence of stories on recipients’ self-perceptions. Extending prior theory and research, our focus was on assimilation effects (i.e., changes in self-perception in line with a protagonist’s traits) as well as on contrast effects (i.e., changes in self-perception in contrast to a protagonist’s traits). In Experiment 1 ( N = 113), implicit and explicit conscientiousness were assessed after participants read a story about either a diligent or a negligent student. Moderation analyses showed that highly transported participants and participants with lower counterarguing scores assimilate the depicted traits of a story protagonist, as indicated by explicit, self-reported conscientiousness ratings. Participants, who were more critical toward a story (i.e., higher counterarguing) and with a lower degree of transportation, showed contrast effects. In Experiment 2 ( N = 103), we manipulated transportation and counterarguing, but we could not identify an effect on participants’ self-ascribed level of conscientiousness. A mini meta-analysis across both experiments revealed significant positive overall associations between transportation and counterarguing on the one hand and story-consistent self-reported conscientiousness on the other hand.

Keeping Company with Sondheim’s Women

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stacy Wolf
Keyword(s):  
Musical Theater ◽  
Married Couples ◽  
Feminist Perspective ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

This chapter examines the eight female characters inCompany, what they do in the musical, and how they function in the show’s dramaturgy, and argues that they elicit the quintessential challenge of analyzing musical theater from a feminist perspective. On the one hand, the women tend to be stereotypically, even msogynistically portrayed. On the other hand, each character offers the actor a tremendous performance opportunity in portraying a complicated psychology, primarily communicated through richly expressive music and sophisticated lyrics. In this groundbreaking 1970 ensemble musical about a bachelor’s encounters with five married couples and three girlfriends, Sondheim’s female characters occupy a striking range of types within one show. From the bitter, acerbic, thrice-married Joanne to the reluctant bride-to-be Amy, and from the self-described “dumb” “stewardess” April to the free-spirited Marta,Company’s eight women are distillations of femininity, precisely sketched in the short, singular scenes in which they appear.

scholarly journals Self-referential false associations: A self-enhanced constructive effect for verbal but not pictorial stimuli

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182110097
Author(s):  
Jianqin Wang ◽  
Henry Otgaar ◽  
Mark L Howe ◽  
Sen Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Reference Condition ◽  
Spreading Activation ◽  
Critical Lure ◽  
Picture Stimuli ◽  
Own Name ◽  
Self Reference

Memory is considered to be a flexible and reconstructive system. However, there is little experimental evidence demonstrating how associations are falsely constructed in memory, and even less is known about the role of the self in memory construction. We investigated whether false associations involving non-presented stimuli can be constructed in episodic memory and whether the self plays a role in such memory construction. In two experiments, we paired participants’ own names (i.e., self-reference) or the name “Adele” (i.e., other-reference) with words and pictures from Deese/Roediger–McDermott (DRM) lists. We found that (1) participants not only falsely remembered the non-presented lure words and pictures as having been presented, but also misremembered that they were paired with their own name or “Adele,” depending on the referenced person of related DRM lists; and (2) there were more critical lure–self associations constructed in the self-reference condition than critical lure–other associations in the other-reference condition for word but not for picture stimuli. These results suggest a self-enhanced constructive effect that might be driven by both relational and item-specific processing. Our results support the spreading-activation account for constructive episodic memory.

Radical Tense-Indexical Historicality and the De Se

KronoScope ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-27
Author(s):  
Carl Humphries
Keyword(s):  
Alternative View ◽  
The Past ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
De Se ◽  
Temporal Expressions ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Self Reference ◽  
A Current ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract “Being is said in many ways,” claimed Aristotle, initiating a discussion about existential commitment that continues today. Might there not be reasons to say something similar about “having been,” or “having happened,” where these expressions denote something’s being located in the past? Moreover, if history – construed not only as an object of inquiry (actual events, etc.) but also as a way of casting light on certain matters – is primarily concerned with “things past,” then the question just posed also seems relevant to the question of what historical understanding amounts to. While the idea that ‘being’ may mean different things in different contexts has indisputable importance, the implications of other, past-temporal expressions are elusive. In what might any differences of substantive meaning encountered there consist? One starting point for responding – the one that provides the subject matter explored here – is furnished by the question of whether or not a certain way of addressing matters relating to the past permits or precludes forms of intelligibility that could be said to be ‘radically historical.’ After arguing that the existing options for addressing this issue remain unsatisfactory, I set out an alternative view of what it could mean to endorse or reject such an idea. This involves drawing distinctions and analogies connected with notions of temporal situatedness, human practicality and historicality, which are then linked to a further contrast between two ways of understanding the referential significance of what is involved when we self-ascribe a relation to a current situation in a manner construable as implying that we take ourselves to occupy a unique, yet circumstantially defined, perspective on that situation. As regards the latter, on one reading, the specific kind of indexically referring language we use – commonly labelled “de se” – is something whose rationale is exhausted by its practical utility as a communicative tool. On the other, it is viewed as capturing something of substantive importance about how we can be thought of as standing in relation to reality. I claim that this second reading, together with the line of thinking about self-identification and self-reference it helps foreground, can shed light on what it would mean to affirm or deny the possibility of radically historical forms of intelligibility – and thus also on what it could mean to ascribe a plurality of meanings to talk concerning things being ‘in the past.’

Let the Witness Speak: From Archi-writing to the Community to come

Derrida Today ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-270
Author(s):  
Francesco Vitale
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Tradition ◽  
Metaphysics Of Presence ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
To Come ◽  
The One ◽  
The Sacrifice

The paper aims to present a reading of the question of Testimony rising in Derrida's later works (from Faith and Knowledge to Poetics and Politics of Witnessing): the experience of Testimony as the irreducible condition of the relation to the Other, of every possible link among living human singularities and, thus, of the thinking of a community to come. This thinking is able to divert the community from the economy grounding and structuring it within our political tradition governed by the metaphysics of presence, which demands the sacrifice of the Other in its multiple theoretical and practical forms. We intend to read this proposal and to point out its rich perspectives by bringing it into the articulation of an ethical-political archi-writing. So we suggest going back to Derrida's early analyses of phenomenology and to De la grammatologie in order to present a reading of archi-writing as the irreducible condition of the relation to otherness and, thus, of the experience through which a living human singularity constitutes itself, a singularity different from the one our tradition compels us to think of within the pattern of the absolute presence to the self, free from the relation to the other.

scholarly journals Indecisão plena de promessas: imagens da vida e da infância na filosofia de Henri Bergson

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (71) ◽  
pp. 565-580
Author(s):  
Magda Costa Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Dynamic Contact ◽  
The Other ◽  
Henri Bergson ◽  
Key Words Childhood ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
De Se ◽  
Living Nature ◽  
The One ◽  
Élan Vital

Indecisão plena de promessas: imagens da vida e da infância na filosofia de Henri Bergson Resumo: Numa passagem da obra Évolution Créatrice, Bergson recupera a imagem da criança para afirmar que a natureza viva opera através de tendências divergentes. Apesar de não ter desenvolvido um pensamento de pendor educacional, encontram-se na obra bergsoniana referências que, por um lado, recuperam a dimensão criativa e criadora da infância e, por outro, acentuam a forma infantil dos movimentos do élan vital. Estas referências fazem parte da imagética do autor, mostrando como o seu pensamento sugestiona leituras ímpares. O convite para cruzar a imagem da vida como infância com a imagem da infância como vida revela-se, assim, sugestivo para repensar o que nos habita como constitutivamente outro: a criança que fomos e a natureza que somos. E será através da imagem – como forma de contacto dinâmico com o real – que poderemos encontrar algumas respostas para a sugestão bergsoniana de se promover nas escolas um conhecimento infantil (enfantin).Palavras-chave: infância; criança; natureza; imagem; Bergson. Indecision charged with promise: Images of life and childhood in Henri Bergson’s philosophy Abstract: In a passage in his Évolution Créatrice, Bergson reclaims the image of the child to argue that living nature works through divergent tendencies. Although Bergson’s work doesn’t focus specifically on education, it does contain references that, on the one hand, reclaim the creative and creating nature of childhood, while on the other hand accentuating the childlike nature of élan vital’s movements (vital impetus). These references are part of Bergson’s repertoire of imagery and demonstrate how his thought evokes uneven readings. The invitation to cross the image of life as childhood with that of childhood as life ultimately evokes a rethinking of what inhabits us as constitutively other: the child we were and the nature we are. And it is through the notion of image – as a form of dynamic contact with reality – that we will find some answers for Bergson’s suggestion that schools promote a childlike knowledge (enfantin).Key-words: childhood; child; nature; image; Bergson.  Indecisión cargada de promesas: Imagénes de la vida y de la infancia en la filosofía de Henri Bergson Resumen: En un pasaje sobre la obra Évolution Créatrice, Bergson recupera la imagen del niño para afirmar que la naturaleza viva opera a través de tendencias divergentes. A pesar de no haber desarrollado un pensamiento de carácter educacional, se encuentran en la obra bergsoniana referencias que, por un lado, recuperan la dimensión creativa y creadora de la infancia y, por otro, acentúan la forma infantil de los movimientos del impulso vital. Estas referencias hacen parte de la imagen del autor, mostrando como su pensamiento sugestiona lecturas impares. O convite para cruzar la imagen de la vida como infancia con la imagen de la infancia como vida se revela, de esta manera, sugestivo para repensar lo que nos habita como constitutivamente otro: el niño que fuimos y la naturaleza que somos. Y será a través de la imagen – como forma de contacto dinámico con lo real – que podremos encontrar algunas respuestas para la sugestión bergsoniana de promoverse en las escuelas un conocimiento infantil (enfantin).Palavras-clave: infancia; niño; naturaleza; imagen; Bergson. Data de registro: 20/08/2020Data de aceite: 30/11/2020

scholarly journals „Es war kein Job, es war eine Berufung“ – Gouvernementale Führung, fragmentierte Subjekte und <i>contre-conduite</i> in der nichtstaatlichen Entwicklungspraxis

2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-181
Author(s):  
Kirsten Linnemann
Keyword(s):  
Critical Distance ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Development Professionals ◽  
Western Values ◽  
The One ◽  
And Shifts ◽  
Good Cause ◽  
Development Practice

Abstract. With their donation appeals aid organisations procure a polarised worldview of the self and other into our everyday lives and feed on discourses of “development” and “neediness”. This study investigates how the discourse of “development” is embedded in the subjectivities of “development” professionals. By approaching the topic from a governmentality perspective, the paper illustrates how “development” is (re-)produced through internalised Western values and powerful mechanisms of self-conduct. Meanwhile, this form of self-conduct, which is related to a “good cause”, also gives rise to doubts regarding the work, as well as fragmentations and shifts of identity. On the one hand, the paper outlines various coping strategies used by development professionals to maintain a coherent narrative about the self. On the other hand, it also shows how doubts and fragmentations of identity can generate a critical distance to “development” practice, providing a space for resistant and transformative practice in the sense of Foucauldian counter-conduct.

scholarly journals Computer Gameplay and the Aesthetic Practices of the Self: Game Studies and the Late Work of Michel Foucault

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Computer Games ◽  
The Self ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Work ◽  
Practices Of The Self ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way

This paper aims to critically introduce the applicability of Foucault’s late work, on the practices of the self, to the scholarship of contemporary computer games. I argue that the gameplay tasks that we set ourselves, and the patterns of action that they produce, can be understood as a form of ‘work on the self’, and that this work is ambivalent between, on the one hand, an aesthetic transformation of the self – as articulated by Foucault in relation to the care or practices of the self – in which we break from the dominant subjectivities imposed upon us, and on the other, a closer tethering of ourselves through our own playful impulses, to a neoliberal subjectivity centred around instrumentally-driven selfimprovement. Game studies’ concern with the effects that computer games have on us stands to gain from an examination of Foucault’s late work for the purposes of analysing and disambiguating between the nature of the transformations at stake. Further, Foucault’s tripartite analysis of ‘power-knowledge-subject’, which might be applied here as ‘game-discourse-player’, foregrounds the imbrication of our gameplay practices – the extent to which they are due to us and the way in which our own volitions make us subject to power, which is particularly pertinent in the domain of play.

Die Rahmung des Hintergrunds

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Freytag
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Individual Case ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Work ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
The University

This work undertakes a systematic reconstruction of the debates that took place over the course of several decades up to the beginning of the 21st century between Derrida on the one hand and Searle and Habermas on the other. It shows that the linguistic theories and the theories of communicative understanding developed by Searle and Habermas are based on inferences from the contingent individual case to the general. Searle draws ontological, Habermas anthropo-political conclusions, both with essentially naturalistic signatures. Derrida, on the other hand, raises epistemological objections and consequently develops a metaphysics of free subjects for whom conversation cannot necessarlily be presumed. The explicit dedication to ethics in Derrida's late work is due to his insight that the possibility of language and understanding is due to silence. Derrida's lasting merit lies in enriching the philosophy of language with a secretology. This study has been awarded the Kant Prize of the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Bonn and the "Prix de la République Française", awarded by the French Embassy and the University of Bonn.

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