The Middle Way

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco J. Varela ◽  
Evan Thompson ◽  
Eleanor Rosch
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Experimental Psychology ◽  
The Self ◽  
External Object ◽  
Meaningful Life ◽  
Methodological Basis ◽  
Middle Way ◽  
The World

This chapter argues that contemporary Western views have been unable to articulate together the loss of foundations for the self and for the world. There is no methodological basis for a middle way between objectivism and subjectivism (both forms of absolutism). In cognitive science and in experimental psychology, the fragmentation of the self occurs because the field is trying to be scientifically objective. Precisely because the self is taken as an object, like any other external object in the world, as an object of scientific scrutiny—precisely for that reason—it disappears from view. That is, the very foundation for challenging the subjective leaves intact the objective as a foundation. Ultimately, when contemporary traditions of thought discover groundlessness, it is viewed as negative, a breakdown of an ideal for doing science, for establishing philosophical truth with reason, or for living a meaningful life.

The Heterocosmic Self: Analogy, Temporality and Structural Couplings in Proust’s Swann’s Way

2020 ◽  
pp. 95-112
Author(s):  
Marco Bernini
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
The Self ◽  
Extended Self ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mind

The idea of a distribution of the mind into the world has been largely considered as an empowering of the mind’s domain, an enlargement of its cognitive territory (a cognitive positivity). Experientially, however, it might generate a feeling of disconcerting fluidity or even an anxiety of groundlessness (an ontological concern), especially if we apply the idea of distribution to the self. What if we consider the self too as unbounded, extended and constantly constituted by ever-changing structural couplings with the world? This chapter focuses on the consequences of this question as explored by Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way. If extended and enactive frameworks can provide important insights on Proust’s literary endeavour, Proust’s devious use of analogies and his focus on analogical experiences as tell-tale markers of the extended self can offer back to cognitive science new avenues of research about phenomenological and ontological aspects related to extended or enactive models of mind, memory, self and cognition.

Adolescent Girls Finding Purpose: The Role of Parents and Prosociality

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (6) ◽  
pp. 801-817 ◽  
Author(s):  
Belle Liang ◽  
Terese Lund ◽  
Angela Mousseau ◽  
Allison E. White ◽  
Renée Spencer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
Adolescent Girls ◽  
The Self ◽  
Meaningful Life ◽  
Adolescent Relationships ◽  
The World ◽  
Role Of Parents ◽  
Adolescent Thriving

Scholars have differentiated other-oriented (OO) purpose (i.e., a personally meaningful life aim intended to contribute to the world beyond the self) and self-oriented (SO) purpose (i.e., a personally meaningful life aim without intention to contribute beyond the self). OO purpose is associated with adolescent thriving, yet little is known about how to cultivate it. In a study of 207 adolescent girls, we examined how positive parent–adolescent relationships may contribute to developing OO versus SO purpose; we also tested whether the association between parent–adolescent relationships and OO purpose was mediated by prosocial behavior.

scholarly journals Cognitive Contagion: Thinking with and through Theatre

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-140
Author(s):  
Amy Cook
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
The Self ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The World ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The Stability

Summary Theatre offers an opportunity for communities to think with and through fiction. We come together to hear and tell stories because it is moving, both in the literal and the figurative sense: it changes us. Theories from cognitive science of embodied cognition make clear that making sense of theatre is a full-bodied affair. In this essay, I argue that we can see moments when theatre invited its audience to think in new ways by shifting theatrical conventions. I explore how a contemporary production of Hamlet, Pan Pan’s production of “The Rehearsal: Playing the Dane”, brings its audience to question the stability of the self and text by altering the conventions around casting and representation. This is theatre that I may not understand in a traditional way, but this gives me a way to understand a new way of thinking about the world around me. It is theatre I can use.

scholarly journals Parenting and Youth Purpose: Fostering Other-Oriented Aims

Youth ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-13
Author(s):  
Terese Jean Lund ◽  
Belle Liang ◽  
Jonathan Sepulveda ◽  
Allison E. White ◽  
Kira Patel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Adolescent Girls ◽  
Hierarchical Cluster Analysis ◽  
Psychosocial Functioning ◽  
Hierarchical Cluster ◽  
The Self ◽  
Meaningful Life ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
The World ◽  
Parental Trust

Youth purpose is defined as a life aim that is both personally meaningful and contributes to the world beyond the self. This study disaggregated other-oriented (OO) aims (i.e., purpose as defined as a life aim intended to contribute to the world) and self-oriented (SO) aims (i.e., a personally meaningful life aim without intention to contribute beyond the self) to examine the development of youth who evince various combinations of high and low OO and SO aims. In a sample of 207 adolescent girls, hierarchical cluster analysis revealed three clusters: High SO–High OO (“Self and Other-Oriented Aims”), High SO–Low OO (“Self-Oriented Aims”), and High OO–Low SO (“Other-Oriented Aims”). A MANOVA indicated that youth who reported higher levels of parental trust and communication were more likely to have OO purpose (i.e., “Self and Other-Oriented Aims” and “Other-Oriented Aims”) versus primarily SO aims (“Self-Oriented Aims”). The “Self and Other-Oriented Aims” cluster was associated with better psychosocial functioning.

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.

The issue of conscious and non-conscious in the light of experimental psychology and cognitive science

2011 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-74
Author(s):  
Csaba Pléh
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Experimental Psychology

A dolgozat a tudat tulajdonságaiból indul ki (beszámoló képesség, élénkség, egységesség, koherencia), majd először az 1960-as években tekinti át a tudat iránt megindult érdeklődés első szakaszait, olyan jelenségekre összpontosítva, mint a verbális kondicionálás, az éberségi kontinuum, a hasítottagy-kísérletek, a tudat és a prefrontális működések kapcsolata. Azután áttekinti a mai természettudományos szemléletű tudatkutatás néhány vezető kérdését. Ilyenek a tudat neurobiológiai megfelelőinek keresése, az agykérgi helyektől (prefrontális rendszerek) a sajátos működésmódokig (gamma oszcilláció) s a tudatzavarok kérdéséig. Miközben egyre többet tudunk a tudatról, nem szabad felednünk, hogy számos kísérleti pszichológiai megfigyelés (előfeszítés, kétértelműségi aktiváció, figyelmi vakság) is arra mutat, hogy igen összetett jelenséggel van dolgunk, például szemantikai alapú viselkedéseink sem mindig hozzáférhetőek a tudatosság számára.

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