Self-Knowledge in Personality Disorder: Self-Referentiality as a Stepping Stone for Psychotherapeutic Understanding

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Strijbos ◽  
Gerrit Glas
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
The Self ◽  
Stepping Stone ◽  
The World ◽  
Philosophical Framework ◽  
Self Knowledge

This article provides a philosophical framework to help unpack varieties of self-knowledge in clinical practice. We start from a hermeneutical conception of “the self,” according to which the self is not interpreted as some fixed entity, but as embedded in and emerging from our relating to and interacting with our own conditions and activities, others, and the world. The notion of “self-referentiality” is introduced to further unpack how this self-relational activity can become manifest in one's emotions, speech acts, gestures, and actions. Self-referentiality exemplifies what emotions themselves implicitly signify about the person having them. In the remainder of the article, we distinguish among three different ways in which the self-relational activity can become manifest in therapy. Our model is intended to facilitate therapists’ understanding of their patients’ self-relational activity in therapy, when jointly attending to the self-referential meaning of what their patients feel, say, and do.

How to Rule the World: An Introduction to Xenophon'sThe Education of Cyrus

2015 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT C. BARTLETT
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The World ◽  
Moral Excellence ◽  
Self Knowledge

As a contribution to the study of empire and imperial ambition, the present study considers the greatest analysis—Xenophon'sThe Education of Cyrus—of one of the greatest empires of antiquity—the Persian. Xenophon's lively and engaging account permits us to watch Cyrus as he builds a transnational empire, at once vast and stable. Yet Xenophon is ultimately highly critical of Cyrus, because he lacks the self-knowledge requisite to happiness, and of the empire, whose stability is purchased at the price of freedom. Cyrus finally appears as a kind of divinity who strives to supply the reward for moral excellence that the gods evidently do not. Xenophon implies that any truly global empire would have to present itself as a universal providential power capable of bestowing on human beings a blessed happiness that as such transcends our very mortality.

BENEFIT OR HARM FROM PHILOSOPHY: REFLECTIONS OF 19TH CENTURY PHILOSOPHERS (I. M. Skvortsov, V. N. Karpov, P. I. Linitsky)

2020 ◽  
pp. 114-118
Author(s):  
Olga Machkarina
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
Moral Personality ◽  
The World ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Eternal Law ◽  
Xix Century

The author reveals the views of I. M. Skvortsov, V. N. Karpov, P. I. Linitsky – Russian religious philoso-phers of the XIX century on the role of philosophy in the knowledge of the world around him in its integri-ty and comprehension of the "eternal law", on the connection of philosophy with private sciences and determination of the place of philosophy in the system of education, its influence on the formation of the thought culture of the student's personality, on the role of philosophy in the self-knowledge and upbring-ing of the moral personality.

Transcendence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merold Westphal
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Directed Attention ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
Philosophical Reflection ◽  
The World ◽  
Divine Transcendence ◽  
Self Knowledge

The concept of transcendence has its primary home in philosophical theology. Drawing on symbols of height that are widespread in prereflective religious life, it suggests that God or the gods are above and beyond the worlds of nature and history and thus above and beyond ourselves as individuals and communities. In philosophical reflection the spatial metaphors are translated into the concept of difference or alterity. Thus, as Rudolf Otto puts it, the holy is that which is ‘wholly other’. We can distinguish three modes of divine transcendence. Cosmological transcendence, by which theism is distinguished from pantheism, signifies that, while there cannot be the world without God, there can be God without the world. The world does not emanate from God out of necessity; creation is a free act of purposive choice. Epistemic transcendence signifies that God is mysterious and incomprehensible, in two ways. First, God’s being exceeds our ability to bring it without remainder into our conceptual and linguistic frames of reference. Second, God’s knowledge of the worlds of nature and history and thus of ourselves as individuals and communities is qualitatively superior to our own knowledge and self-knowledge. Ethical-religious transcendence signifies that God’s transcendence is that of a person who sees us and speaks to us in a voice not our own. The prereflective background here is the biblical experience of covenant in which the speech acts by which God defines our identity and agenda are promises and commands. The philosophical concept correlative to this experience is that of inverted intentionality. Human consciousness is not just its own directed attention to whatever ‘objects’ it can perceive, think, remember, imagine, desire and so forth. In addition, we are aware of being addressed by a voice not our own and called to a vocation we did not initiate. We can welcome this calling as a divine gift or defend against it as a threat to freedom and autonomy.

The World Becomes the Self ’s Body

1998 ◽  
pp. 68-73
Author(s):  
Nobuo Kazashi
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Autonomous Agent ◽  
Object Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Individual ◽  
Self Knowledge

Cartesian philosophy presupposes the legitimacy of body-mind dualism, subject-object dualism, the principle of "clear and distinct ideas," and the human individual as an "autonomous agent." In contrast, the philosophical projects of James, Merleau-Ponty, and Nishida are all characterized by a critical stance taken toward these Cartesian presuppositions. That is, first, the "body" is established as the ground for our pre-reflexive yet active communion with the world. Second, the intertwining inseparability of "object-knowledge" and "self-knowledge" in our being in the world is acknowledged. Third, the phenomenon of "horizon" is thematized as an indispensable moment in the constitution of "experience." Finally, the "self" is understood as being embedded in and supported by the "field of experience." With this in mind, we can appreciate Whitehead's comparison of James' "Does Consciousness Exist?" with Descartes' Discourse on Method as the "inauguration of a new stage of philosophy." In this context the significance of Nishida's notion of "the world as the self's body" can be productively discussed.

scholarly journals La autobiografía (de)constructura del que-hacer-se educativo

2015 ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Yenni P. López Díaz
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Research ◽  
Educational Experiences ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
The Self ◽  
The World ◽  
Narrative Process ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Self Knowledge

Reconocemos la necesidad de ampliar perspectivas metodológicas que permitan conocer en profundidad los procesos de (de)construcción del sujeto y adentrarse con ello, en el conocimiento de sí (Gusdorf, 1948), a través de la experiencia humana.  De esta manera, presentamos los avances metodológicos de una investigación Biográfico-Narrativa apoyada en la Teoría autobiográfica (Gusdorf, 1948; Leujene, 1991; Lourerio, 1991; Camarero, 2011) e interesada en aquellas experiencias (Dewey, 1938) que le permiten a la persona la apertura al mundo y reconocimiento de sí mismo y de su propia identidad dentro del que-hacer-se educativo.  Las técnicas y estrategias empleadas permitieron tender un puente para viajar a las experiencias educativas de la infancia de un grupo de educadores, a través de su memoria y sus recuerdos.  A su vez, el proceso narrativo desarrollado en la investigación demostró que la Autobiografía es un recurso fundamental que permite la deconstrucción de las vivencias y facilita la construcción y reconstrucción de las experiencias ulteriores. We recognize the need to broaden methodological perspectives allowing to know in depth the processes of (de)construction of the subject and enter in the self-knowledge (Gusdorf, 1948), through human experience.  This text presents methodological advances of Biographical-narrative research supported in the autobiographical theory (Gusdorf, 1948; Leujene, 1991; Lourerio, 1991; Camarero, 2011) and interested in those experiences (Dewey, 1938) that allow the person the openness to the world and recognition of himself and his own identity.  Techniques and strategies employed allowed to build a bridge to travel to the educational experiences of children of a group of educators, through his memory and his memories.  The narrative process present showed that the autobiography is a fundamental resource that allows the deconstruction of the experiences and facilitates the construction and reconstruction of the subsequent experiences.

scholarly journals The (Self)portrait of a Writer: A Hermeneutic Reading of Virginia Woolf’s (Auto)biographical Writings

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-66
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Hołda
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Identity ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Traumatic Experiences ◽  
Philosophical Hermeneutics ◽  
The World ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Insight Into

Woolf’s maturing as a writer was deeply influenced by her traumatic experiences in childhood, the (in)capacitating states of mental instability, as well as her proto-feminist convictions. Long before Barthes, she toppled the traditional position of the author, and her literary enshrinement of “the other reality” reached unity with the world rather than individuality. This article ponders Woolf’s creative impulse and investigates her autobiographical writings to show the import of their impact on her fiction, which, as Woolfian scholarship suggests, can be viewed as autobiographical, too. I argue that philosophical hermeneutics sheds light on the self-portrait that emerges from Woolf’s autobiographical writings and offers a rewarding insight into her path of becoming an author. I assert that Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy of subjectivity, and, in particular, his notion of narrative identity provide a route to examine how Woolf discovers her writing voice. In light of his hermeneutics of the self, the dispersed elements of the narrative of life can be seen as a possibility of self-encounter. Woolf’s writings bespeak her gradually evolving self-knowledge and self-understanding, which come from the configuration of those separate “stories” into a meaningful whole. The article also interprets Woolf’s autobiographical writings through the prism of Michel Foucault’s reflection on discourse and subjectivity, indicating that her texts instantiate his assertion of the subject’s constant disappearance.

Milton and Self-Knowledge

PMLA ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 392-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert W. Fields
Keyword(s):  
Paradise Lost ◽  
External World ◽  
The Self ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Samson Agonistes ◽  
Paradise Regained ◽  
The World ◽  
Rational Part ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Self Examination

Milton's notion of self-knowledge places him in the Socratic-Christian tradition which distinguishes between man's rational part, or self-like-God, and his passional nature, the aspect of self most easily subverted by Satan. Only the self-knowing man, by introspection and by seeing the reflection of self in the mirror of the world's stage, achieves a harmony between the two aspects of self. Milton's concept of self-examination, apparent in his prose and verse, is symbolically represented in Paradise Lost. The world of Adam-Eve mirrors both God's realm of pure truth and reason and Satan's realm of unreason and unrestrained passion. These realms represent those aspects of self that man must necessarily discover within. The Fall is inevitable and irrevocable in the creation of self: in Adam's discovery of his obligation to know himself “aright,” he understands that his rational self-like-God must rule the darker passionate self. Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes also represent man as achieving self-knowledge by the twofold means of introspection and viewing the reflection of himself in the external world.

Power of Darkness: Narrative and Biographical Reflexivity in A Series of Unfortunate Events

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-212
Author(s):  
ELIZABETH BULLEN
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
Project Risk ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
High Earning ◽  
Textual Culture ◽  
Children’S Exposure ◽  
Central Claim

This paper investigates the high-earning children's series, A Series of Unfortunate Events, in relation to the skills young people require to survive and thrive in what Ulrich Beck calls risk society. Children's textual culture has been traditionally informed by assumptions about childhood happiness and the need to reassure young readers that the world is safe. The genre is consequently vexed by adult anxiety about children's exposure to certain kinds of knowledge. This paper discusses the implications of the representation of adversity in the Lemony Snicket series via its subversions of the conventions of children's fiction and metafictional strategies. Its central claim is that the self-consciousness or self-reflexivity of A Series of Unfortunate Events} models one of the forms of reflexivity children need to be resilient in the face of adversity and to empower them to undertake the biographical project risk society requires of them.

‘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.

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