Heidegger’s Reading of Descartes’ Dualism

1998 ◽  
pp. 57-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Kadir Çüçen
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Traditional Epistemology ◽  
The World ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Technological Orientation

The problem of traditional epistemology is the relation of subject to external world. The distinction between subject and object makes possible the distinction between the knower and what is known. Starting with Descartes, the subject is a thinking thing that is not extended, and the object is an extended thing which does not think. Heidegger rejects this distinction between subject and object by arguing that there is no subject distinct from the external world of things because Dasein is essentially Being-in-the-world. Heidegger challenges the Cartesian legacy in epistemology in two ways. First, there is the modern tendency toward subjectivism and individualism that started with Descartes' discovery of the 'cogito.' Second, there is the technological orientation of the modern world that originated in the Cartesian understanding of the mathematical and external physical world.

“To See the World in a Grain of Sand”: Wolfgang Laib and the Aesthetics of Interpenetrability

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 57-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Celina Jeffery
Keyword(s):  
Way Of Life ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
The World ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Intense Process

Abstract For the artist Wolfgang Laib, pollen is an extraordinary substance that signifies renewal, boundless energy, the temporal, the eternal, and the memory of the seasons. Laib’s pollen works are the result of an intense process of gathering, a pursuit of art as a way of life even that gives rise to works of art that are remarkable in their visual luminosity and textual delicacy. This essay considers Indra’s net as a metaphor for interpenetrability to conceptualize the folding of the subject and object that Laib’s pollen works allude to, and offers a deliberation on the spiritual within art.

James and Hume

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yumiko Inukai
Keyword(s):  
Critical Point ◽  
The Self ◽  
Ordinary Sense ◽  
Discrete Elements ◽  
Temporal Continuity ◽  
The World ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
Pure Experience ◽  
The Subject

James contends that the rejection of conjunctive relations in experience leads Hume to the empirically groundless notion of discrete elements of experience, which James takes as the critical point that differentiates his empiricism from Hume’s. In this chapter, I argue that James is not right about this: Hume not only allows but employs experienced conjunctive relations in his explanations for the generation of our naturally held beliefs about the self and the world. There are indeed striking similarities between their accounts: they both use the relations of resemblance, temporal continuity, constancy, coherence, and regularity, and the self. Also, objects are constructed out of basic elements in their systems—pure experience and perceptions, respectively. Although collapsing the inner and outer worlds of the subject and object into one world (of pure experience for James and of perceptions for Hume) may seem unintuitive, this is exactly what allows them to preserve our ordinary sense of our experiences of objects.

Internalism and externalism in epistemology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William P. Alston
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Great Distance ◽  
Reliability Test ◽  
Epistemic Status ◽  
Forming Process ◽  
Evil Demon ◽  
Positive View ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject

The internalism–externalism distinction is usually applied to the epistemic justification of belief. The most common form of internalism (accessibility internalism) holds that only what the subject can easily become aware of (by reflection, for example) can have a bearing on justification. We may think of externalism as simply the denial of this constraint. The strong intuitive appeal of internalism is due to the sense that we should be able to determine whether we are justified in believing something just by carefully considering the question, without the need for any further investigation. Then there is the idea that we can successfully reply to sceptical doubts about the possibility of knowledge or justified beliefs only if we can determine the epistemic status of our beliefs without presupposing anything about which sceptical doubts could be raised – the external world for example. The main objections to internalism are: (1) It assumes an unrealistic confidence in the efficacy of armchair reflection, which is often not up to surveying our entire repertoire of beliefs and other possible grounds of belief and determining the extent to which they support a given belief. (2) If we confine ourselves to what we can ascertain on reflection, there is no guarantee that the beliefs that are thus approved as justified are likely to be true. And the truth-promoting character of justification is the main source of its value. Externalism lifts this accessibility constraint, but in its most general sense it embodies no particular positive view. The most common way of further specifying externalism is reliabilism, the view that a belief is justified if and only if it was produced and/or sustained by a reliable process, one that would produce mostly true beliefs in the long run. This is a form of externalism because whether a particular belief-forming process is reliable is not something we can ascertain just on reflection. The main objections to externalism draw on internalist intuitions: (1) If the world were governed by an evil demon who sees to it that our beliefs are generally false, even though we have the kind of bases for them we do in fact have, then our beliefs would still be justified, even though formed unreliably. (2) If a reliable clairvoyant (ones who ‘sees’ things at a great distance) forms beliefs on this basis without having any reason for thinking that they are reliably formed, those beliefs would not be justified, even though they pass the reliability test.

scholarly journals From self to identity: a metaphysical shift

2020 ◽  
Vol 210 ◽  
pp. 16036
Author(s):  
Nikolay Rybakov ◽  
Natalya Yarmolich ◽  
Maxim Bakhtin
Keyword(s):  
Information Society ◽  
Selection Procedure ◽  
Multiple Identities ◽  
Complete Loss ◽  
The Self ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Modern Information ◽  
The Relationship

The article examines the problem of identity realization in the modern information society. The authors analyze the concept of identity in comparison with the concept of self, reveal the features of the manifestation and deformation of identity, and explore ways to generate multiple identities. The study of the concept of identity is based on the worldview principles inherent in different epochs. An attempt is made to give a complete (holographic) picture of identity, and the question is raised about the criteria for distinguishing genuine identity from non-genuine (pseudo-identity). The relationship between the concepts of "I" and self is studied, identification is presented as a process of predication of "I". In the structure of identity, such features as constancy and variability are distinguished. On this basis, the classical and non-classical identities are distinguished and their characteristics are given. It is shown that the breakup of these components into independent parts results in the complete loss of the object's identity, which leads to its disintegration and death. It is shown that in the conditions of fluid reality, identity turns from a stabilizing factor into a situational one, which encourages the subject to constantly choose an identity. The conditions of transformation of identification into a diffuse process that loses the strict unambiguous binding of the subject to something fixed and defined are considered. Due to this, the identity of the subject is "smeared" all over the world. As a result of this process, the subject loses the need to identify itself with anything: it "collapses" into itself. As a result, there is a contradiction of identification: the multiplicity of identities gives the subject a huge choice between them, at the same time due to the diffusion of identity (its smearing around the world) the selection procedure itself loses its meaning. But if the identity is lost, there are problems with the self, so it turns out to be the end of the existence of the person himself. Therefore, in all the transformations of identities in the modern world, it is important that it is preserved.

Brain World or Life World? Critique of Neuroconstructivism

2021 ◽  
pp. 144-156
Author(s):  
Thomas Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Phantom Limb ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Life World ◽  
Body Experience ◽  
The World ◽  
Spatially Extended ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Brain

From a neuro-constructivistic point of view, the brain creates an internal simulation of the external world which appears as the phenomenal world in consciousness. This view presupposes in particular that the subjective body and the organic or objective body belong to two fundamentally different worlds, the mental and the physical. The spatiality of the subject-body must then be declared an illusion, for example by referring to dissociations of the subject- and object-body as in the rubber hand illusion or the phantom limb. However, this alleged virtuality of body experience can be refuted by the intersubjectivity of perception, which confirms the co-extensivity of subject-body and object-body. Subjectivity thus proves to be as embodied as it is spatially extended, that means, as bodily being-in-the-world.

scholarly journals Origin, establishment and development of the idea of self-determination of peoples

2021 ◽  
pp. 60-73
Author(s):  
Azer Kagraman Ogly Kagramanov
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Territorial Integrity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Right

The subject of this research is the examination of evolution of the idea of self-determination of peoples based on the fundamental works of the Russian and foreign scholars, thinkers of the antiquity and modernity. The author considers the transformations experienced by the principle of self-determination at various historical stages of development; as well as builds a corresponding systems of the development cycles. The conclusion is made that after conception of the idea of self-determination, the colonial powers viewed this concept as ethical, seeing the threat to legitimacy of the established order. Therefore, throughout almost a century, the leading countries refused to include this right into the corresponding international and domestic documents. The main conclusions are as follows: after consolidation of the principle in the Charter of the United Nations, it became the foundation for the emergence of news states and destruction of the colonial world; the principle served as a leitmotif for the development of human rights and international relations, but at the same time became a threat and challenge to the territorial integrity; wars between the countries are replaced with the civil and interethnic conflicts; the world is captured with such phenomena as state nationalism that subsequently grew into extremely radical forms, such as fascism and Nazism; the modern international law actively promotes the two competing principles – territorial integrity and self-determination; in modern world, the right to self-determination is not limited by peoples under the colonial past – there occur new forms of self-determination that threaten the existence of sovereign states. Uncertainty of the status of the newly emerged states formations serves as the source of domestic and international tension, which inevitably leads to intergovernmental clashes and negatively impacts geopolitical situation in separate regions and in the world as a whole.

Communicative Rationality and Its Preconditions

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-92
Author(s):  
Andrzej Maciej Kaniowski ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Communicative Action ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Communicative Rationality ◽  
Doctoral Thesis ◽  
The Real ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
The World ◽  
Real Socialism ◽  
Rational Understanding ◽  
The Subject

The idea of rational understanding lays very close to the heart of Professor Janusz Kuczyński, an advocate of universalism as well as dialogue between diverse philosophical schools and worldviews, and doctoral advisor to the present paper’s author. This idea’s theoretical conceptualisation—a conceptualisation that has proven to be convincing and adequate to the conditions of the modern world—was developed by Professor Jürgen Habermas, whose ideas and theories were also the subject of a doctoral thesis written by this paper’s author in the latter half of the 1970s under Professor Kuczyński’s tutelage. The author shares some grateful memories of his doctoral tutor, and also sets his one-time attempts to apply the theory of communicative action to two experiences of the real socialism era in Poland (the events of 1980/1981 and 1989) against his efforts to analyse contemporary Polish realities through the prism of the communicative rationality conception. This comparison shows that the application of a conception of rationality funded by communicative action to the turbulent transformations under real socialism was to a certain extent naïve—though not devoid of critical significance—and also reveals the preconditions (in the sphere of understanding oneself and the world) for the implementation of the rules of communicative rationality in social and political reality.The paper is in part dedicated to the memory of Professor Kuczyński, therefore it contains a somewhat extensive account of the circumstances which led the author to study the thought of Habermas under Kuczyński’s tutelage, as well as the consequences of this choice, which proved of considerable significance for his further life. However, the main themes are, first, the validity (and naivety) of applying a conception of rationality funded by communicative action to two significant experiences of the real socialism era, and, secondly, the need—revealed by diagnosing contemporary Polish reality with the help of the communicative rationality conception—for certain preconditions enabling the implementation of this type of rationality in social and political reality. One such precondition is the transition of sufficiently broad parts of society from thinking in terms of worldviews (Weltaunschauungen) to post-metaphysical thinking in terms of the “lifeworld” (Lebenswelt).

Introduction

1980 ◽  
Vol 290 (1038) ◽  
pp. 3-4 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Visual System ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Shape Recognition ◽  
External World ◽  
Physical World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Contrast Discrimination ◽  
The Brain

There is a long-standing tradition of research on vision in Great Britain that goes back at least as far as Newton. The Royal Society is therefore a most suitable venue for a conference on the Psychology of Vision, and it is no accident that two of our distinguished guests from North America are British subjects. In the first 30 years of this century the Gestalt movement brought about a revolution in our ways of thinking about vision, but the subject then remained rather stagnant for two decades. In more recent years, dramatic discoveries and radical new insights have been forthcoming from three different directions. First, neurophysiologists have laid bare some of the highly systematic wiring that subserves the early stages of the processing of the visual input. Secondly, psychologists and psychophysiologists have uncovered some of the intricacies of the mechanisms that underlie such functions as acuity, contrast discrimination, motion detection and stereopsis. It is becoming possible to put together results from these two directions and to show how mechanisms inferred from psychophysical observations are instantiated in known neurophysiological circuits. The two sets of results indicate that visual processing is both more complex and more elegant than had been suspected 50 years ago. Thirdly, the advent of the digital computer has made it possible to build rigorous computational models of the visual system, to explore and to specify more adequately the nature of the task that the visual system must perform, and to demonstrate precisely how the constraints imposed by the nature of the physical world and of its optics make it possible for the brain to use the patterns of light impinging on the retinae to form a useful representation of the external world. Although this last enterprise may strike some as speculative, it has already led to insights into the nature of vision that have changed our ways of looking at the problems and have made the theories of shape recognition put forward in the 1950s and 1970s, including those of one of us, look extremely superficial.

Should we really ReORIENT?

Itinerario ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 19-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peer Vries
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
World History ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Do So

Andre Gunder Frank's latest work, ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age definitely is a book with a message. Its author sets out to challenge what according to him are the received opinions in historiography and social science on the making of the modern world. He does so relentlessly and overturns the ideas of such influential scholars as Marx, Weber, Polanyi, Rostow, Braudel and Wallerstein. As a matter of fact, of almost everybody who has ever touched upon the subject. All these misled if not downright misleading scholars are thought to suffer from Eurocentrism. Which of course is a Bad Thing. Frank uses the word to refer to people who profess to tell the history of the world but do so by preponderantly gazing at their European navel, unduly magnifying Europe's uniqueness and role in world history.

scholarly journals Researcher in Childhood Research: Attitudes, Beliefs, Their Manifestation and Change

Pedagogika ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 136 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-16
Author(s):  
Daiva Malinauskienė ◽  
Audronė Juodaitytė
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Information Need ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject

Modern childhood research is more and more positioned towards the child, his/her abilities to perceive himself/herself and the world. In this case, the child becomes the subject of the research who has his/her own “voice”. It is characteristic of the research when it is conducted in the interaction of childhood sociology and historical and cultural psychology. In such research, the introduction of the adult filter becomes especially complicated, because they are children, not adults, who represent their own world of childhood. It is attempted to start the research from the analysis of a particular child and his/her situation of being in the present. Thus the child’s changed status and his/her new social roles are acknowledged. Researchers think that children have their opinion on all the issues of life: educational, cultural, political, economical ones, etc. Involving children in the research, it is suggested that they need to be interviewed individually and information need to be collected, focusing on the fact that the information might be important not only to children but also to adults. Information also helps the researcher himself/herself better understand the modern world of childhood and the child. Adults are only involved in the research when it is attempted to find out the links by which they are related to children and the role they perform in their life.

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