Memory, Imagination, and Thought

Author(s):  
Alex Byrne
Keyword(s):  

This chapter further extends the transparency approach to memory, imagination, and thought. The kind of memory that is chiefly treated is episodic memory which, it turns out, is closely connected to the other two topics. Imagery is the key to a transparent epistemology of memory, and also to imagination and thought. That completes the defense of this book’s theory of self-knowledge. The theory needs controversial claims, most notably the idea that knowledge can be obtained by reasoning from inadequate evidence, or from no evidence at all, and that perception and imagery constitutively involve belief. Those controversial claims were backed by independent argument, but are hardly beyond dispute. The ambition has simply been to establish the transparency account as a leading hypothesis, deserving of further examination.

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Louis Quantin

AbstractIn seventeenth-century religious discourse, the status of solitude was deeply ambivalent: on the one hand, solitude was valued as a setting and preparation for self-knowledge and meditation; on the other hand, it had negative associations with singularity, pride and even schism. The ambiguity of solitude reflected a crucial tension between the temptation to withdraw from contemporary society, as hopelessly corrupt, and endeavours to reform it. Ecclesiastical movements which stood at the margins of confessional orthodoxies, such as Jansenism (especially in its moral dimension of Rigorism), Puritanism and Pietism, targeted individual conscience but also worked at controlling and disciplining popular behaviour. They may be understood as attempts to pursue simultaneously withdrawal and engagement.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Eli Alshanetsky

In articulating our thoughts, our attention rarely goes to the formulation itself. What we evaluate are not sounds or inscriptions but ways in which other competent users of our language would interpret them. But how do we arrive at words that would elicit precisely the needed interpretation? And why does the other person enter into the picture at all? Why do we need to know what some other person would think we think, and realize that that is, in fact, what we think, to know what we ourselves think? Why do we take the other person’s response into account in trying to come to know our private thoughts? Although these questions span several different areas of philosophy, their most natural home is the subject of self-knowledge. This chapter sketches the territory of the subject from a distinctive perspective and indicates the place of the book’s project in it.


2012 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 494-530
Author(s):  
Cara Weber

Victorian writers often focus questions of ethics through scenes of sympathetic encounters that have been conceptualized, both by Victorian thinkers and by their recent critics, as a theater of identification in which an onlooking spectator identifies with a sufferer. George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871–72) critiques this paradigm, revealing its negation of otherness and its corresponding fixation of the self as an identity, and offers an alternative conception of relationship that foregrounds the presence and distinctness of the other and the open-endedness of relationship. The novel develops its critique through an analysis of women's experience of courtship and marriage, insisting upon the appropriateness ofmarriage as a site for the investigation of contemporary ethical questions. In her depiction of Rosamond, Eliot explores the identity-based paradigm of the spectacle of others, and shows how its conception of selfhood leaves the other isolated, precluding relationship. Rosamond's trajectory in the novel enacts the identity paradigm's relation to skeptical anxieties about self-knowledge and knowledge of others, and reveals such anxieties to occur with particular insistence around images of femininity. By contrast, Dorothea's development in ethical self-awareness presents an alternative to Rosamond's participation in the identity paradigm. In Dorothea's experience the self emerges as a process, an ongoing practice of expression. The focus on expression in the sympathetic or conflictual encounter, rather than on identity, enables the overcoming of the identity paradigm's denial of otherness, and grounds a productive sympathy capable of informing ethical action.


2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-43
Author(s):  
Ann Ward

This article explores how Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Plato’s Apology of Socrates address the question of whether reason can ground the good human life. Sophocles’ tragedy and Plato’s dialogue both tell of the search for rational self-knowledge. Both Oedipus and Socrates are recognized for human wisdom and are presented as skeptical toward the gods. Yet, whereas Oedipus’ life ends in tragedy, Socrates’ life does not. Sophocles thus suggests that the rational search for truth must be limited by a pious respect for the gods. Plato, on the other hand, preserves Socrates’ belief that the ‘unexamined life is not worth living for a human being’. Four lines of inquiry into the causes of this divergence are then explored: 1) Socrates’ order of knowledge from particular to universal, 2) Oedipus’ proneness to anger, 3) Socrates’ private life in contrast to Oedipus’ public life and, 4) the differing status of the family.


2011 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca N. Mitchell

Abstract In both Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) and George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1871–72) an earnest and ambitious man falls in love with a superficial and beautiful woman named Rosamond. This essay explores the “Rosamond plots” to argue that Middlemarch stages a radical revision of the version of subjectivity vaunted in Jane Eyre. Via its invocation of Jane Eyre’s Rosamond plot, Middlemarch challenges the very nature of self-knowledge, questions the status of identification in intersubjective relationships, and insists upon the unknowability of the other. In Eliot’s retelling, the self-awareness promoted in Jane Eyre is not only insufficient, but also verges on self-absorption and even solipsism. One way in which Eliot enacts this revision is by shifting the focus of positive affective relationships away from models of identification. The change marks an evolution in our understanding of the way in which character and communal life is conceived by each author. More specifically, Eliot’s revisions situate empathic response as being dependent upon the recognition of the radical alterity of the other.


Retos ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 666-672
Author(s):  
Pedro Vigário ◽  
Armando Teixeira ◽  
Felício Mendes

Abstract. In this study, we intended to identify psychosocial and environmental factors common to both, coach and athlete, in a situation of relational dyad, perceived by themselves, in a context of individual sport. In the same way, to perceive which factors were considered most preponderant in the sports performance by the two elements of the dyad. Two interviews were conducted individually, to both coach and athlete, and identified the variables present in this dyad by the coding of the interviews. In the analysis of the collected data, the method used was qualitative. Ten common factors were identified: environment, confidence, empathy, mental exigency, motivation, objectives, perfectionism, resilience, overcoming and values. However, there were significant differences in the relative frequencies of each of these factors, depending on whether they came from the coach or the athlete. It was concluded that, despite the existence of factors common to both subjects, the perception of their significance for the relationship, is not the same. The results also suggest that coaches have a significant focus on the variables of competence. On the other hand, the athletes, in addition to the competence variables, also focus on bond factors such as confidence, or self-knowledge factors such as overcoming.Resumen. En este estudio pretendemos identificar factores psicosociales y ambientales comunes a ambos, entrenador y atleta en situación de pareja relacional, percibidos por los propios, en contexto de modalidad individual. De igual modo, percibir cuáles los factores juzgados más preponderantes en el rendimiento deportivo por los dos elementos de la pareja. Fueron realizadas dos entrevistas, individualmente, a ambos, entrenador y atleta, identificadas las variables presentes en esta pareja a través de la codificación de las entrevistas. En el análisis de los datos recogidos, el método utilizado fue cualitativo. Se identificaron diez factores comunes: ambiente, confianza, empatía, exigencia mental, motivación, objetivos, perfeccionismo, resiliencia, superación y valores. Sin embargo, se verificaron diferencias significativas, en cuanto a las frecuencias relativas de cada uno de estos factores, dependiendo se provenían del entrenador o del atleta. Se concluyó que, a pesar de la existencia de factores comunes a ambos sujetos, la percepción de su significancia para la relación no es igual. Los resultados sugieren que los entrenadores tienen un foco significativo en las variables de cualificaciones. Por otro lado, los atletas, más allá de las variables de cualificación, también tienen foco en factores de vínculo como la confianza, o de autoconocimiento, como la superación.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 284-298
Author(s):  
Alicja Skrzypczak

The aim of  the  paper  is  to  show  the  conditions  of  subjectivity constitution in terms of dialogue and the figure of the Other. The analytical and hermeneutical approach I hold is the foundation of interdisciplinary attempt to describe  possible  concepts  of  shared  relation of the terms: consciousness, subjectivity and identity. The three appear to be recognized only in the ethical situation. It requires taking responsibility for the Other, for giving him the identity which mirrors one’s subjectivity. In this way the subject learns the limits and chances for gaining self-knowledge. The paper also presents a new approach towards redefining the definition of subjectivity, which includes artificially and medically enhanced entities.


Author(s):  
Amanda Barbosa Lisboa ◽  
Marcela Rodrigues Ciccone ◽  
Marina Kadekaru ◽  
Izabel Cristina Rios

Abstract: Introduction: The humanization of assistance is associated to empathy, embracing, and effective communication, being part of the medical training. According to its nature, humanization requires methods that involve affections and stimulates critical thinking. Objective: Extensive literature shows the benefits of the arts in medical education; however, there are still few studies on dancing, the subject of this study, which was carried out by medical students and whose aim was to investigate hospital dancing in the teaching of humanization, from the perspective of medical students. Method: A qualitative action research study was designed, in which medical students performed choreographies for patients, companions and employees in three different wards of the teaching hospital. The action consisted of continuous cycles in the planning of interventions, performance, observing, reflection, and re-planning of subsequent actions, in a systematic manner and controlled by the researchers. Data production took place by direct observation, narratives and focal group. The data were analyzed using the content and thematic analysis methods. Results: For three months, 17 female and 7 male students between 18 and 24 years of age performed the action, producing data that was subsequently classified into 3 thematic categories: 1. Dimension of affection: contents of the student’s emotional character; 2. Care dimension: contents about caring for the patient; 3. Dance dimension: contents on dance in the humanistic training in Medicine. In the triangulation of the techniques, it was observed that joy, anxiety, and the perception of dance as an instrument of bonding were significant. The experience of changing socially-marked places for the student and the patient made the student face and overcome different feelings. The dance allowed the refinement of the look and the capacity to understand the other, taking into account perspectives that converge to or diverge from their own convictions. On the other hand, the students experienced the anxiety and joy of an encounter with themselves, perceiving dance as a pleasurable and humanizing activity. Conclusion: The dance in the hospital lead to experiences and reflections that stimulated the students’ self-knowledge, favored the student-patient relationship, and brought elements to understand the use of dancing in medicine, mainly for the teaching of empathy and humanized care.


Author(s):  
Liliana Saranciuc-Gordea ◽  
Irina Panica

This article elucidates some theoretical, methodological and applied aspects in order to capitalize on learning based on work tasks in the module "Art of self-knowledge and the other" in the discipline "Personal development" in primary school.


Author(s):  
Mary Margaret McCabe

In the Republic two odd passages, one in Book 7 and the other in Book 10, invite us to think about self-perception and its paradoxes. The situation of the prisoner in the cave, whose view of himself is limited to his own shadow, is paralleled by the ‘amazing sophist’ of Republic 10, who holds up a mirror and makes everything, including himself. Here it is suggested that Plato emphasizes the paradoxical nature of both. As a consequence, these passages allow us to rethink how Plato conceives perception as a model for knowledge, and how he thinks that self-perception may be understood as a model for self-knowledge. It is suggested that we might understand Platonic knowledge as ‘stereoscopy’, with internalist conditions.


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