Comparing Søren Kierkegaard and Feng Youlan on the Search for the True Self

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-105
Author(s):  
Richard C. K. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Soren Kierkegaard ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Values ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Stage Theory ◽  
True Self ◽  
Human Essence ◽  
Realistic Description ◽  
Christian Understanding ◽  
The Universe

This article attempts to compare the theories of life between Søren Kierkegaard and Feng Youlan. It will focus specifically on the identity of the self in Kierkegaard’s “stages of life” and Feng’s “realms of life” (rensheng jingjie ). Whereas Kierkegaard subscribes doctrinally to the Christian understanding of the self and claims that the highest stage of life is achievable only for the God-centered self, Feng draws his insights from the Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist traditions, which, by imposing human values onto the universe, runs the danger of rendering the self the very center of the “great whole” (daquan ). Moving beyond a descriptive comparison, I will argue that the Kierkegaardian stage theory includes a critique of Feng’s realm doctrine, the latter appearing to be overly idealistic, missing the dark side of the human essence so succinctly pointed out by former and, consequently, falls short of offering a more realistic description of the self.

The Dark Side of the Transformative Self

2021 ◽  
pp. 449-491
Author(s):  
Jack Bauer
Keyword(s):  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
The Self ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Search For Meaning ◽  
True Self ◽  
Master Narratives

The pursuit of growth has a dark side. The person who has a transformative self can too easily strive for growth in ways that are paradoxically counter to eudaimonic growth and that are harmful to the self and others. This chapter explores the dark side of the transformative self in four forms. First, perfectionism in its maladaptive forms involves impossible or otherwise unchecked ideals for perfection. Second, eudaimonic materialism values moral virtue and wisdom but veers toward moralism and intellectual self-adulation. Third, “wanting it all” aims for a well-rounded life but can manifest as a problem of overcommitment, for which cultural master narratives of success place women at particular risk. Fourth, in contrast, a never-ending search for meaning, or “ceaseless seeking,” involves an unrelenting pursuit of an idealistically true self or meaning in life and can manifest as a problem of undercommitment.

scholarly journals Komunikasi Kristiani: Melawan Desakralisasi Diri di Media Sosial

MELINTAS ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-218
Author(s):  
Yanuarius Muni
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Values ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Good Intention ◽  
Christian Understanding ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Church

Fake news spreads quickly and changes situations in the society. It has become a sort of linguistic violence circulating negative ideologies and perspectives that slowly destroy people both mentally and physically. The growing tendency of circulating fake news raises a serious problem in the society and moreover among Christians, for important human values, including religious values, are disregarded. Christian understanding of human beings as created in the image of God implies that they have the capacity to use good words to build a sacred society, that is, a society blessed by God. However, the tendency to retrieve and to disseminate information too quickly occurs almost automatically in this age of information, which ironically threatens every good intention of the self in building a trusting community. This article explores the elements of Christian communication based on the Church teachings on the subject matter, in order to counter the tendency of desacralisation of the self on social media and to promote truthful as well as deliberating communication in the society.

‘A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust’: The World and Self in Thomas Hardy's Poems

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Monika Szuba
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Phenomenological Philosophy ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Recurrent Theme ◽  
Body Subject

The essay discusses selected poems from Thomas Hardy's vast body of poetry, focusing on representations of the self and the world. Employing Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concepts such as the body-subject, wild being, flesh, and reversibility, the essay offers an analysis of Hardy's poems in the light of phenomenological philosophy. It argues that far from demonstrating ‘cosmic indifference’, Hardy's poetry offers a sympathetic vision of interrelations governing the universe. The attunement with voices of the Earth foregrounded in the poems enables the self's entanglement in the flesh of the world, a chiasmatic intertwining of beings inserted between the leaves of the world. The relation of the self with the world is established through the act of perception, mainly visual and aural, when the body becomes intertwined with the world, thus resulting in a powerful welding. Such moments of vision are brief and elusive, which enhances a sense of transitoriness, and, yet, they are also timeless as the self becomes immersed in the experience. As time is a recurrent theme in Hardy's poetry, this essay discusses it in the context of dwelling, the provisionality of which is demonstrated in the prevalent sense of temporality, marked by seasons and birdsong, which underline the rhythms of the world.

Narcissism and Political Left-Right Orientation in view of Basic Human Values

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatma Ülkü Selçuk ◽  
Nil Demet Güngör
Keyword(s):  
Multinomial Logistic Regression ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Values ◽  
Hierarchical Regression ◽  
Openness To Change ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Self Transcendence

<p>The study explores the relation of narcissism to political orientation and their association with basic human values, using an undergraduate sample from Turkey. Leftwing orientation is weakly and negatively correlated with narcissism, and specifically with its self-sufficiency dimension. Leftwing is correlated positively with universalism and negatively with tradition. Narcissism is positively correlated with the self-enhancement and openness to change dimensions and negatively correlated with the self-transcendence and conservatism dimensions of the basic values. Hierarchical regression results indicate that the value tradition is a stronger predictor of political orientation than narcissism. In multinomial logistic regression, for narcissism, statistical significance appears for only extreme right compared to moderate left political positions. We did not find power-hunger to be related to political orientation. We did not find pro-sociality to be related to familial-religious customs. We did not find any sex difference for mean narcissism scores. However, females are more leftwing oriented than males and they report more eagerness to strive for justice for others. Striving for justice for others is negatively correlated with the value power; positively correlated with leftwing orientation and striving for justice for self; and uncorrelated with narcissism. Males have higher mean scores for the value tradition and females have higher mean scores for the value security.</p>

Narcissism and Political Left-Right Orientation in view of Basic Human Values

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatma Ülkü Selçuk ◽  
Nil Demet Güngör
Keyword(s):  
Multinomial Logistic Regression ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Values ◽  
Hierarchical Regression ◽  
Openness To Change ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Self Transcendence

<p>The study explores the relation of narcissism to political orientation and their association with basic human values, using an undergraduate sample from Turkey. Leftwing orientation is weakly and negatively correlated with narcissism, and specifically with its self-sufficiency dimension. Leftwing is correlated positively with universalism and negatively with tradition. Narcissism is positively correlated with the self-enhancement and openness to change dimensions and negatively correlated with the self-transcendence and conservatism dimensions of the basic values. Hierarchical regression results indicate that the value tradition is a stronger predictor of political orientation than narcissism. In multinomial logistic regression, for narcissism, statistical significance appears for only extreme right compared to moderate left political positions. We did not find power-hunger to be related to political orientation. We did not find pro-sociality to be related to familial-religious customs. We did not find any sex difference for mean narcissism scores. However, females are more leftwing oriented than males and they report more eagerness to strive for justice for others. Striving for justice for others is negatively correlated with the value power; positively correlated with leftwing orientation and striving for justice for self; and uncorrelated with narcissism. Males have higher mean scores for the value tradition and females have higher mean scores for the value security.</p>

The ”true me”—one or many?

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris Berent ◽  
Melanie Platt
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Optimality Theory ◽  
The Self ◽  
True Self ◽  
Behavioral Test ◽  
Brain Scan ◽  
Moral Behaviors ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Constraint Ranking

Recent results suggest that people hold a notion of the true self, distinct from the self. Here, we seek to further elucidate the “true me”—whether it is good or bad, material or immaterial. Critically, we ask whether the true self is unitary. To address these questions, we invited participants to reason about John—a character who simultaneously exhibits both positive and negative moral behaviors. John’s character was gauged via two tests--a brain scan and a behavioral test, whose results invariably diverged (i.e., one test indicated that John’s moral core is positive and another negative). Participants assessed John’s true self along two questions: (a) Did John commit his acts (positive and negative) freely? and (b) What is John’s essence really? Responses to the two questions diverged. When asked to evaluate John’s moral core explicitly (by reasoning about his free will), people invariably descried John’s true self as good. But when John’s moral core was assessed implicitly (by considering his essence), people sided with the outcomes of the brain test. These results demonstrate that people hold conflicting notions of the true self. We formally support this proposal by presenting a grammar of the true self, couched within Optimality Theory. We show that the constraint ranking necessary to capture explicit and implicit view of the true self are distinct. Our intuitive belief in a true unitary “me” is thus illusory.

scholarly journals Das Verhältnis von Selbstwerdung und Gott bei Sören Kierkegaard. Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-164
Author(s):  
Thomas Park
Keyword(s):  
Soren Kierkegaard ◽  
True Self ◽  
Relationship With God ◽  
Fear And Trembling

AbstractIn Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard (alias Johannes de Silentio) writes that Abraham intended to sacrifice Isaac for God’s sake as well as for his own sake. Drawing mainly on The Sickness unto Death I will argue that Kierkegaard construes Abraham as becoming a true self, that is, as someone who becomes self-transparent before God. What this means and how our relationship with God is supposed to be involved in the process of becoming a self is the focus of my paper. While various articles have been written on that topic, my aim here is to give the most charitable interpretation of Kierkegaard’s theses and the theological concepts involved.

scholarly journals The electromagnetic coupling and the dark side of the Universe

2007 ◽  
Vol 648 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.C. Bento ◽  
O. Bertolami ◽  
P. Torres
Keyword(s):  
Electromagnetic Coupling ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
The Universe
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