Self Knowledge

[AMAZON LINK BELOW TO BOOK ITSELF -- TOC and book intro in downloadable .pdf] 

"It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it." --John Steinbeck Scientific research confirms what people have always known: answers, ideas, and inspiration do come to us in dreams. Harvard psychologist and world-renowned dream specialist Deirdre Barrett, Ph.D., offers this rich collection of examples of how the world's most creative practitioners in art, music, film, science, literature and other fields have used the revelations of their dream life to inform their work. Dr. Barrett offers insights showing us how to encourage lucid, meaningful dreaming, and how to apply the meanings of our dreams to solving problems--from the everyday to the extraordinary. This is the stuff dreams are made of. In the visual arts, Jasper Johns couldn't find his unique artistic vision until he dreamed it in the form of a large American flag. Salvador Dali and his colleagues built the startling new genre of surrealism out of dreams. Kubla Kahn dreamed the design for his stately pleasure dome; thousands of years later, Lucy Davis, chief architect at a major firm, continues the tradition of dreaming designs into life in her extraordinary buildings. Film is a fertile avenue for dreams: "Twice I have transferred dreams to film exactly as I had dreamed them," confides director Ingmar Bergman, as have Federico Fellini, Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Robert Altman, and John Sayles. From Mary Shelley's terrible nightmare, which became Frankenstein, to Stephen King's haunting dream as a little boy, which led to his first bestseller, countless writers have consulted the Committee. Musicians from Beethoven to Billy Joel and Paul McCartney have whistled the Committee's tunes. In science, physiologist Otto Loewi dreamed the medical experiment that earned him the Nobel Prize. In sports, Marion Jones dreamed she'd broken a world record, then brought the dream to life. Gandhi translated his dream of resistance into a movement that changed the world. Since Freud, we take it for granted that our dreams reflect our past. In The Committee of Sleep, Barrett reveals how dreams can also tell us about our future potential--and how to reach it.

Die APOLOGIE des Sokrates hat heutzutage eine beinahe konkurrenzlose Vormachtstellung inne, wenn es um die Frage geht, welcher Text den besten Einstieg in das platonische Werk und die griechische Philosophie zu bieten vermag. Auch im Philosophie- und Platonunterricht der Spätantike gab es einen Dialog, der allen anderen Dialogen in dieser Frage den Rang ablief. Für mehrere Jahrhunderte galt der GROßE bzw. ERSTE ALKIBIADES  als unangefochtene Einstiegsempfehlung. Von einer derartigen Wertschätzung ist der Dialog heutzutage weit entfernt. Zu Unrecht, wie dieser Text zeigt.

This was originally a talk for an APA panel 'Anscombe's Intention, 50 years after' (in 2008 I think) ; it was reprinted in Ford, Hornsby, Stoutland, 'Essays on Anscombe's Intention', HUP 2014  The exhibition of Anscombe's independence from Wittgenstein is a crucial element in 'rescuing [her] from the enormous condescension of posterity', though it is pretty artlessly attempted in the first few pages here.

The first Alcibiades may or may not be from Plato; it concerns the demonstration of ignorance, which Socrates administers; Socrates advocates self-knowledge, in the words of the Delphic Oracle, "know thyself"; Socrates makes clear that self-knowledge comes through the eye of the other person, who provides a mirror for self-contemplation; the mirror in antiquity was very inadequate and only provided distorted or blurred reflections, and was often identified with magic; the 17 th-century mirrors made in Paris were revolutionary and for the first time created a true reflection; Lacan, in the city of mirrors, advocates the modern mirror as providing the stage for the assumption of the ego, but later moves to a more Platonic position, that the self is located in the midst of others; is the mirror stage in Lacan contradicted by his evolving thought?

This is a feasible project carried out via a photography workshop with self-portraiture, visual autobiography and family photos used as self-knowledge resources for people with SEN. Qualitative research with a population of 14 young people and adults displaying different characteristics: autism, Down syndrome, Aspergers, Prader Willi, moderate and slight mental retardation among others. Techniques: documentary evidence, observation, and summative pre-test and post-test assessment. The results show that: photography helps to activate high-level processes linked to the act of reading and writing; it aids the development of different kinds of intelligence; the self-portrait mode serves a method for projecting, constructing and reconstructing one´s own identity. Family albums and family photos are both an excellent means of narration, as they directly involve the person in what is narrated. The interactive process of inference and connotation was carried out through the construction of the autobiographic narrative. These resources immerse the individual in their subjective world and help to consolidate their identity via their vital reality. Photographic images are an effective tool for encouraging proper self-appraisal, self-knowledge and self-esteem. Resumen Se trata de un proyecto factible desarrollado a través de un taller de fotografía de autorretrato, autobiografía visual y foto de familia, utilizados como recursos de autoconocimiento en personas con NEE. Una investigación cualitativa, con una población de 14 jóvenes y adultos con características diversas: autismo, síndrome de Asperger, Down, Prader Willi, retraso mental moderado y ligero, entre otros. Técnicas: documental, observación y evaluación pretest-postest sumativa. Los resultados concluyen que: la fotografía ayuda a activar procesos de alto nivel relacionados con el acto de leer y escribir; contribuye al desarrollo de los diferentes tipos de inteligencias; en su faceta de autorretrato, sirve de método proyectivo y de construcción y reconstrucción de la identidad propia. Tanto el álbum familiar como la foto de familia son un medio privilegiado de narración, puesto que involucran a la persona directamente con lo narrado. A través de la construcción del relato visual autobiográfico, se llevó a cabo el proceso interactivo, de inferencia y de connotación. Dichos recursos sumergen al individuo en su mundo subjetivo, ayudando a cimentar su identidad por medio de su realidad vital. La imagen fotográfica es una herramienta eficaz para favorecer la adecuada valoración personal, el autoconocimiento y la autoestima. Palabras claves: fotografía, autobiografía visual, autorretrato fotográfico, foto de familia, necesidades educativas especiales. 2017, Universitat Politècnica de València 155

Peter of John Olivi changed his theory of human person and self-knowledge between the Qu.II-57 and QQ-74-77 of his Summa.  This paper intends to understand why : which are the reasons, and implications of this change ?
A french version of this paper is going to be published very soon in the acts of the Olivi conference of Roma, Oct. 2018 : "Pierre de Jean Olivi(1248-1298). La construction de la personne humaine. Anthropologie, éthique, société." This english draft version is much more complete and detailed. If interested on the topic, don"t hesitate to send comments...

This paper is a bridge between my interest in the notion of philosophical nonsense and my interest in problems concerning ethics and action.  Geach sees an analogy between philosophical error and moral error, more specifically between the problem of understanding the state of mind of someone who is duped by philosophical nonsense and that of someone who ‘sins’.  In neither case does being confused oneself help one understand the confusion of others.  I argue that Geach gives us no good reason to believe that there is such a thing as philosophical nonsense and that, even if there is, there will be no real analogy between the states of mind in question.  For one thing, there is no obvious reason why there could not be ‘clear-headed sin’.  For another, one who ‘sins’ and one who does not often have the same sorts of difficulty understanding each other, whereas, if there is such a thing as philosophical nonsense, it is hard to see how there could be any such symmetry between one who is taken in by it and one who is not.

This paper argues that you have non-observational warrant for beliefs about the body in action. For example, if you mean to be drinking a cup of water, you can know independently of observation that you are moving your body in a way that is effective in enabling you to drink. The case I make centers on the claim that you have default warrant to trust your agency. You do well to trust your agency just in virtue of your status as an agent, and are not required to earn permission to trust your agency through making use of evidence about how well your agency works. You have non-observational warrant for beliefs about the functioning of your agency, including beliefs about your body in action, inasmuch as those beliefs reflect trust in your agency.

In the first of two essays on the ontological ground of otherness, and its phenomenological availability, we argue that what we call the "occasion" within the encounter of others are sources as well as resources for disclosing the results of a construction and concealment of a secret identity, one we keep from ourselves even though we have created it. Yet, individuals are capable of returning their encounters to the well of sensus communis, and that sensus communis is as natural as it is cultural. Human beings are not compelled to interpret strangeness as threat, even if we are culturally compelled to interpret strangeness itself. Narrative lives in our sensus communis, and it is open, revisable, even danceable. Immediacy is person, the person that is community, and it is sublime, is both liked and disliked.

The main aim of the conference is to present the new approaches to the problem of consciousness and rationality and to provide an effective dialog between disciplines and the different fields of philosophy, which can be fruitful for the solving of general problems of cognition. There are many reasons why the question of the conjunction between self-consciousness and rationality is important. The main and general is the problem of the compatibility between thoughts and acts. Still the following questions need to be answered: Is there a relationship between pre-reflectivity and rational thinking? Is phenomenal subjectivity non-representational? How is pre-reflectivity to implement in cognitive-architecture? Does phenomenal consciousness have a priority over other mental states and actions? The notions of consciousness and rationality have their own long philosophical history of use. That is why the conference will start with the block of presentations devoted to the question of the problem of consciousness and rationality in the light of the classic philosophical theories especially with reference to modern philosophy. In the following blocks the core of presentations will be shifted to contemporary conceptions combining philosophy and cognitive science.

We investigated metacognition of agency in adults with high functioning autism or Asperger Syndrome (HFA/AS) using a computer task in which participants moved the mouse to get the cursor to touch the downward moving X's and avoid the O's. They were then asked to make judgments of performance and judgments of agency. Objective control was either undistorted, or distorted by adding turbulence (i.e., random noise) or a time Lag between the mouse and cursor movements. Participants with HFA/AS used sensorimotor cues available in the turbulence and lag conditions to a lesser extent than control participants in making their judgments of agency. Furthermore, the failure to use these internal diagnostic cues to their own agency was correlated with decrements in a theory of mind task. These findings suggest that a reduced sensitivity to veridical internal cues about the sense of agency is related to mentalizing impairments in autism.

A arte, na antiga Grécia, cumpria uma função social, servindo a sua influência para “modelar” a vida do indivíduo e a estrutura da sociedade. A poesia, por exemplo, não era monopólio de um público selecionado, mas, como ocorria com os poemas épicos nacionais, formava a base do sistema educativo, ocupando lugar de destaque em todas as reuniões sociais, das cerimônias religiosas aos grandes certames atléticos. Por essa razão Platão discute a palavra “poiesis” (da qual deriva “poeta”), que, originariamente, significa “construir” ou “fazer”, no sentido mais lato. “Toda causa de uma coisa que passa do não ser para o ser é 'poiesis'”. Segundo esta concepção não haveria diferença entre artistas e poetas diante dos demais artífices no tocante à sua atividade produtiva, apesar de que nos produtos dos ofícios industriais os seres humanos criam coisas reais, e na poesia, na pintura e nas outras artes que proporcionam prazer criam simulacros ou imagens de coisas reais. Preocupando-se mais com a função educativa e o impacto social (incluindo a música e a poesia), julgando as suas obras pelos seus resultados, minimizando o valor estético de cada uma delas, o legado socrático-platônico gera a “Razão Tirânica” (fase do “Lógos”, “Era da Consciência Filosófica”), em detrimento de “A Bela Imediatez”, personificada pela “tradição da tragédia” da fase mítica (”Era da Consciência Mitológica”), caracterizada pelo saber místico da unidade da vida e da morte, que constitui uma “chave” que abre o caminho essencial do mundo, segundo Nietzsche, que defende “a crítica de todos os valores estabelecidos (e a criação de novos), enriquecendo a filosofia com meios de expressão: o aforismo e o poema”. O Todo Essencial é, pois, fruto da inter-relação que envolve a “Razão Tirânica” e “A Bela Imediatez”: “Moral Apolínea” versus “Paixão Dionisíaca”. Autoconhecimento – eis a proposta do escritor Mariano da Rosa (poeta, investigador e ensaísta).
"O Todo Essencial" reúne em seu volume 40 textos (poemas e sonetos) divididos em quatro partes - "Diagnose Lírica"; "Fragmentalidade, Fragmentalismo, Fragmentação"; "O Agora-Perfeito do Futuro"; e "Identidade". A primeira parte analisa o sintomatismo emocional que evidencia a existência daquilo que, de acordo com o autor, viabiliza a autogestação do ser - o Amor. A segunda parte discute a relação do ser com os principais referenciais da sua existência - a Vida, o Sonho, a Paz, o Próximo, a Memória, o Tempo, a Morte. A terceira parte objetiva despertar a Consciência Sociopolítica, explorando questões como a Liberdade, a Igualdade e a Justiça, e mostrando a Utopia Socialista, que tem esses pilares como fundamento. A quarta parte trata da espiritualidade inerente à Natureza Humana - não como uma febre religiosa (um credo institucional), mas como um fenômeno metafísico que determina mesmo o modus essendi e o destino.

In some of Plato’s early dialogues we find a concern with correctly ascertaining the contents of a particular kind of one’s own psychological states, cognitive states. Indeed, one of the achievements of the elenctic method is to facilitate cognitive self-knowledge. In the Alcibiades, moreover, Plato interprets the Delphic injunction, ‘know yourself’, as crucially requiring cognitive self-knowledge, and ending in knowing oneself as subject to particular epistemic norms. Epistemic authority for self-knowledge is, for Plato, conferred on the basis of correct application of norms to cognitive self-ascriptions, and not confined to the first-personal perspective. This implies first-personal plural epistemic authority for self-knowledge.

In an earlier paper, 'Peter Geach on nonsense, confusion and sin' 1 , I suggested that what one can say in explanation of one's own actions suffers from a severe limitation: one can shed little light on the question why one acted on one's reasons for an action rather than on one's reasons against that action. In this paper I want to explore this suggestion further. One of my tasks will be to distinguish my question from three standard philosophical questions that have tended to overshadow it: the question of freewill and determinism; that of the relation between fact and value; and that of the possibility of weakness of will. On these I shall, on the whole, maintain a studied agnosticism.

TO READ THE PREVIEW SCROLL DOWN TO READ THE PREVIEW SCROLL DOWN

According to the centuries-long analysis of Homer by the idealist philosophers of Greece, the venerable bard’s recondite conclusion in the ‘Iliad’ is that Mankind is the subject of an infinite educative process. Mankind is being taught the true meaning of the words “Beauty,” “Truth,” and “Goodness” which, after a long, bloody, stupid, and futile course of evasion, denial, and senseless disputation, they necessarily find to be equivalent and then begin to live accordingly.

N.B.: Readers are advised of the subsequent substantial conceptual concretion of the foregoing thesis in a series of studies by the same author, to be found here:

'Totalization of Universal History by Meta-Analytic Ascent (URLs)'
(https://www.academia.edu/43292436/Totalization_of_Universal_History_by_Meta-Analytic_Ascent_URLs_)

The relationship between irrational beliefs and explicit and implicit self-esteem was examined in two consecutive studies (N1 = 117; N2 = 102) conducted on undergraduate university students. Two robust findings were the negative correlation between explicit self-esteem and self-downing, a particular type of irrational belief and the absence of a correlation between implicit self-esteem and any type of irrational belief. These findings suggest that disputing irrational beliefs within therapeutic interventions may affect explicit cognitions only, while implicit cognitions remain unaffected. One of the key issues in Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) (Ellis, 1994) is identifying and disputing core irrational beliefs and replacing them with rational beliefs. The positive consequences of this approach on various mental health issues have been widely underlined in several meta-analyses using both adult samples (Engles, Garnefski & Diekstra, 1993; Lyons & Woods, 1991) and adolescen...

This paper is a bridge between my interest in the notion of philosophical nonsense and my interest in problems concerning ethics and action.  Geach sees an analogy between philosophical error and moral error, more specifically between the problem of understanding the state of mind of someone who is duped by philosophical nonsense and that of someone who ‘sins’.  In neither case does being confused oneself help one understand the confusion of others.  I argue that Geach gives us no good reason to believe that there is such a thing as philosophical nonsense and that, even if there is, there will be no real analogy between the states of mind in question.  For one thing, there is no obvious reason why there could not be ‘clear-headed sin’.  For another, one who ‘sins’ and one who does not often have the same sorts of difficulty understanding each other, whereas, if there is such a thing as philosophical nonsense, it is hard to see how there could be any such symmetry between one who is taken in by it and one who is not.

In this article we present a system of 45 content categories for analyzing personal constructs elicited in the context of a repertory grid administration. These categories are divided into six basic areas: moral, emotional, relational, personal, intellectual/operational, and values/ ...