This paper provides a brief survey of the human consciousness, beginning with the origins of humanism in the Renaissance period, moving on through the anthropocentrism of Enlightenment individualism, and its ensuing breakdown in our contemporary era. In agreement with the thesis that the task of the humanities is the enhancement of our selfconsciousness as human beings, I argue that only from the standpoint of a deeper and better-informed human self-consciousness, rooted in a cosmic consciousness, can we engage the unforeseen problems, (...) opportunities and dilemmas that lie before us. (shrink)

The word ‘humanism’ was coined in the Renaissance, a period of self-proclaimed cultural reawakening. The preceding Middle Ages were perceived as a dark period of obsession with sin, death and hell, a nightmare, out of which the humanists intended to awaken. The refined, subtle, classical, literary Latin of Antiquity had been replaced by the poor, boring, stiff Latin of the Middle Ages. The serene view of Antiquity, with its appreciation of pleasure and beauty had given way to the dark medieval (...) view of humanity as sinful and of earthly life as a valley of tears in which to try to earn heaven was the only worthwhile activity. Around the fifteenth century some writers and scholars rejected this medieval heritage. They intended to break with a dark and oppressive tradition and to initiate a cultural reawakening, a return to Antiquity. They called themselves humanists. (shrink)

Paradigmatically led by existential phenomenological premises, as formulated by Jean-Paul Sartre and Edmund Husserl specifically, this paper aims at a deconstruction of the value of psychiatric labelling in terms of the implications of such labelling for the labelled individual’s experience of freedom as a conscious imperative. This work has as its intention the destabilisation of labelling as a stubborn and inexorable mechanism for social propriety and regularity, which in its unyielding classificatory brandings is Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 2, (...) Edition 1, April 2002. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Books reviewed in this article: José Luis Bermú dez, The Paradox of Self‐Conciousness Lawrence Weiskrantz, Conciousness Lost and Found: A Neuropsychological Exploration.

This article describes a challenge to the cultures and religions of the world that the author believes is the greatest challenge that has confronted the human race in its entire history. Modernity's search for unity and postmodernity's affirmation of pluralism reflect aspects of our current situation, but more needs to be recognized. We must acknowledge that East and West must face the current challenges together. Multiculturalism and unity encompass all world cultures, and we cannot be content to read our present (...) history only through the lens of western developments. Karl Jaspers's theory of the First Axial period of history, 800‐200 B.C.E., in which all the present world religions have their roots, is useful. It reveals that our present flowering of culture and spirit in the Western world, including our science, is not so much a product of the Western Renaissance and Enlightenment, as it is rooted in cultural events that belong to East and West equally. We are now in the Second Axial Period, which challenges the world religions to allow their energies to move toward convergence, just as in the previous millennia they moved toward differentiation. Teilhard de Chardin's thought is a guide for us, in his vision of a complex convergence of consciousness, in which differences will not be abolished but will be transformed in their coming together. This convergent perspective will also join with the perspective of rediscovering our roots in the earth, and it will repossess the spirituality of the primal peoples, in its understanding of the entire human race to be one tribe. The world religions are faced with the task, therefore, of encountering each other in “dialogic dialogue,” and channeling their spiritual resources toward the solution of real‐world global problems. (shrink)

Cutting God in Half argues that, in order to tackle climate change, world poverty, extinction of species and our other global problems rather better than we are doing at present we need to bring about a revolution in science, and in academia more generally. We need to put our problems of living – personal, social, global – at the heart of the academic enterprise. How our human world, imbued with meaning and value, can exist and best flourish embedded in the (...) physical universe is, the book argues, our basic problem. It is our fundamental philosophical problem, our fundamental problem of knowledge and understanding, and our fundamental practical problem of living. It is this problem that we fail, at present, to recognize as fundamental – to our cost. It can be understood to arise as a result of cutting God in half – severing the God of Cosmic Power from the God of Value. The first is Einstein’s God, the underlying unity in the physical universe that determines how events occur. The second is what is of most value associated with human life – and sentient life more generally. Having cut God in half in this way, the problem then becomes to see how the two halves can be put together again. This book tackles outstanding aspects of this problem, and in doing so throws out original ideas about science, education, religion, evolutionary theory, free will, quantum theory, and how we should go about tackling our impending global crises. It transpires that bringing our basic problem into sharp focus has revolutionary implications. It becomes clear how and why many aspects of our social and cultural world urgently need to be transformed. Cutting God in Half is written in a lively, accessible style, and ought to be essential reading for anyone concerned about ultimate questions – the nature of the universe, the meaning of life, the future of humanity. (shrink)

Experiences, by definition, have phenomenal character. But many experiences have a specific type of phenomenal character: presentational character. While both visual experience and conscious thought make us aware of their objects, only in visual experience do objects seem present before the mind and available for direct access. I argue that Higher-Order Thought (HOT) theories of consciousness have a particularly steep hill to climb in accommodating presentational character.

The Vedanta of conciousness : transcendence, enlightenment and everyday life -- The alienated self and the Kabbala of transformation -- The Zen of creativity and the critique of the discursive intellect -- The Tao of love and unconditionality in commitment -- The yoga of action and effortless efficiency -- The nous of perception and the re-enchantment of the tree of life -- The gnosis of freedom and the Fana of fulfilment.

Nietzsche uses many of the arguments used by himself against metaphysics in general to criticize the Cartesian cogito. The affinity indicated by Descartes himself between cogito and conscience means that the study focuses on the Nietzschean analysis of the problem of conscience, paying special attention to its anthropological implications. Faced with Cartesian reasoncentrism, Nietzsche maintains that, given that conscience is not an entity removed from the natural world, it is possible to present a strictly naturalist anthropology, eliminating the need to (...) resort to dualist hypothesis drawn from metaphysics or theology. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Human Nature Philosophical Anthropology Grammatical Investigation Philosophical Investigation Philosophy and ‘Mere Words’ A Challenge to the Autonomy of the Philosophical Enterprise: Quine The Platonic and Aristotelian Traditions in Philosophical Anthropology.

Contemporary perspectives on conciousness provide us with a powerful metaphor for the corporate planning process; although organisations ultimately differ, in systems terms, from organisms. Like consciousness, planning has survival value and confers operational advantages.

Nietzsche uses many of the arguments used by himself against metaphysics in general to criticize the Cartesian cogito. The affinity indicated by Descartes himself between cogito and conscience means that the study focuses on the Nietzschean analysis of the problem of conscience, paying special attention to its anthropological implications. Faced with Cartesian reasoncentrism, Nietzsche maintains that, given that conscience is not an entity removed from the natural world, it is possible to present a strictly naturalist anthropology, eliminating the need to (...) resort to dualist hypothesis drawn from metaphysics or theology. (shrink)

This book argues that we are not equipped to understand the workings of conciousness, despite its objective naturalness.

Proponents of an intentionalist theory of perceptual experience have taken for granted that perceptual experience is an informing form of intentionality. Hence they often speak of the way an experience represents the environment to be, or what there is. In this respect perceptual experience is thus assumed to resemble a speech act like assertion or a mental state like belief. There is another important form of intentionality though that concerns not what there is, but what to do. I call this (...) a guiding form of intentionality. In speech, there are – for example – imperatives and among intentional mental states there are desires and intentions. In this paper I argue that perceptual experience is at least sometimes characterized by such a guiding form of intentionality. Perception does not just inform, it is sometimes intrinsically action‐guiding. I call this the perceptual guidance claim. I distinguish the perceptual guidance claim from related, but importantly distinct claims (such as claims concerning the perception of affordances or concerning whether perception is normative), and argue that perceptual action guidance occurs not just in an unconscious vision‐for‐action system, but also within conscious perceptual experience.1I have benefitted a lot from many discussions of the materials of this paper. Precursors, variants and extensions of this paper have been presented at the Harvard Philosophical Psychology lab, the CSMN colloquium in Oslo, a workshop on Imperatival Aspects of Perceptual Experience at the University of Oslo (organized by Susanna Siegel and the author), and a workshop on Attention and Perceptual Activity at Warwick University (organized by Thomas Crowther). I especially would like to thank: Tim Bayne, Rosa Cao, Thomas Crowther, Anya Farennikova, Dagfinn Føllesdal, Olav Gjelsvik, Sean Kelly, Farid Masrour, James Stazicker. Most of all I would like to thank Susanna Siegel for many illuminating and exciting discussions of every aspect of the contents of this paper. (shrink)

“'Ontological Mislocations', Modes of Conciousness and History: Indiscernibles, Displacement and Horizons of Possibility in the Philosophy of Arthur Danto”. In this article my purpose is to trace the links between three key elements in Arthur Danto’s philosophy: first, the capital consideration, for philosophical purposes, of human beings as ens representans , departing from the elucidation of a type of cognitive episode that Danto called “basic”. Secondly,I am concerned with the recurring appeal to a plane of consciousness that supports a (...) dual characterization in terms of the pair inside/outside and enables alogical space that is characteristic of philosophy as a reflective mode. Finally, I will treat a form of cognitive failure that Danto considered fundamental to the philosophical perspective, which leads to a specific type of restructuring of our ordinary system of beliefs. What I contend is that in Danto’s philosophical system these three elements become intelligible from the postulation of an effectual background that the author calls “objective historical structure”, which is characterized in terms of the horizons of possibility and impossibility that it delineates. These figures of historical-temporal possibility and impossibility constitute the matrix of historicity itself and also contribute decisively to shaping the permanent nucleus of dantean philosophical concerns. (shrink)

The sciences of man, conciously or not, work on significations. It is therefore desirable that they learn from hermeneutics, which is the science of interpretation; and interpretation of behaviour uses the same methods and comes upon the same difficulties as interpretation of texts. The history of hermeneutics has shown the various dimensions of symbols: neutral aspect of textual configurations, poietical aspect of production strategies and aesthetic aspect of reception strategies. Hermeneutics is a semiology, but semiology is also a hermeneutics. Both (...) must merge into a theory of symbolic forms of peircean inspiration, which will transcend the traditional apories of hermeneutics and the uncertainties of semiology. (shrink)

Quantum mechanics stands as one of the most remarkable achievements of the twentieth century: at once a new and startling insight into the nature of matter and a spectacularly successful predictive theory. However, while the predictive abilty of the quantum theory has been rigorously tested time and time again, so that it now satisfies any criterion of reliability as a tool of scientific inquiry, surprisingly fundamental difficulties remain with its interpretation. This book introduces the general reader to the philosophical issues (...) raised by the success of the quantum theory. What exactly is the wavefunction, the mathematical device that resides at the heart of the theory? In what sense does this device represent reality? The wavefunction is believed to describe the probability of a system's behaving in a particular way, yet the equations which describe the wave function are totally deterministic: what then is the relationship between determinism and ramdomness in the microworld? Does this tell us anything about the freedom of will in a world governed by the immutable world of physics? Do these laws rely for their existence on the presence of concious observers? Euan Squires explains to a non-specialised readership how these profound difficulties arise in the simplest of experimental arrangements. He outlines with great clarity the different points of view adopted by various schools of physicists who are striving to understand the meaning underlying the theories they use every day. The reader is encouraged to see how this most successful of physical theories is relevant to issues outside physics - even to the existence of God. other_titles. (shrink)

The notion of ‘givenness of consciousness’ needs further elucidation. On the one hand, I agree with Lyyra (this volume) that one sense for ‘givenness of consciousness’ is not enough to account for consciousness and self-consciousness. On the other hand, I will argue that Lyyra’s paper is problematic precisely because he fails to consider one basic sense for ‘givenness of consciousness’. Lyyra and I thus agree that there must be (at least) two senses for ‘givenness of consciousness’; we disagree, however about (...) which modes of givenness are involved. (shrink)

This study analyses the commentaries of four Muslim intellectuals who have turned to scripture as a liberating text to confront an array of problems, from patriarchy, racism, and empire to poverty and interreligious communal violence. Shadaab Rahemtulla considers the exegeses of the South African Farid Esack (b. 1956), the Indian Asghar Ali Engineer (1939-2013), the African American Amina Wadud (b. 1952), and the Pakistani-American Asma Barlas (b. 1950). The authors considered all proritise the Qur'an over the hadith. Rahemtulla considers this (...) an essential move for a Muslim liberation theology and concludes with proposals with a new construal of what a politically radical Islam might mean, sharply differentitated from Islamism. This work provides a rich analysis of the thought-ways of specific Muslim intellectuals, it substantiates a broadly framed school of thought. Rahemtulla draws out their specific and general importance without displaying an uncritical sympathy. He sheds light on the impact of modern exegetical commentary which is more self-conciously concerned with historical context and present realities. In a mutally reinforcing way, this work thus illuminates both the role of agency and hermeneutical approaches in Modern Islamic thought. (shrink)

According to the two visual systems model, the visual processing of objects divides into semantic and pragmatic processing. We provide various criteria for this distinction. Further, we argue that both the semantic and pragmatic processing of visual information about objects should be divided into low-level processing and high-level processing. Finally, we re-evaluate the contribution of the human parietal lobe to the concious visual perception of spatial relations among objects.

The openness of the human spirit to the totality of the real plays a central role in A. Millán-Puelles’s thought. This thesis is based on the existente of an ontological truth, i.e., in the affirmation of the intelligibility of the real, which does not depend on its being an object of representation on the part of the spirit. Such an fairmation makes it posible to discover the tautological carácter of the thesis of the imánense of conciousness, as well as (...) the inconsistency of every king of skepticism and relativism. (shrink)

Preface.-- Introduction.--I. The problem of consciousness.-- II. Modern idealism.--III. The alogical and the logical as ultimate elements.--IV. The individual conciousness.--V. Reality and truth.--VI. The higher conciousness.--VII. The final goal of all things.--VIII. Problem of metaphysic.--IX. Survey of results.-- Index.

The efforts to prove God's existence in the history of thought have been one of the fundamental problems of philosophy and theology, and even the most important one. The evidences put furword to prove the existence of God constitute the center of philosophy of religion’s problems not only philosophy of religion, but also the disciplines such as theology-kalam and Islamic philosophy are also seriously concerned. When we look at the history of philosophy, it is clear that almost all philosophers are (...) interested in the evidence in favour of and against the existence of God. Especially in recent times, religious experience has often been regarded as evidence of the existence of God. Studies in the field of religious and mystical experience have put forward many arguments concerning the use of religious experience as evidence. However, this study has been limited to experience of sense and pure consciousness claims rather than examining all of these arguments. In this study firstly, the analogy between experience of sense and religious experience will be deal with, and then claims that conciousness can be emptied by a number of methods which are defended by mystics. In addition, it will be tried to defend the opinion that the mystical experiences which are the common point of the two approaches are valid. The main emphasis of the article will be that these arguments can be used as evidence for the existence of God.Summary: Religious experience - which has not been considered as one of the classical evidences regarding the existence of God before being popular by recent studies – is started to be called one of the arguments. The most important reason for not arguing religious experience among the evidences of God’s existence is that it is a personal experience and therefore contains subjective perspectives. However, many researchers, who refuse to accept the criticism raised against religious experience with restricting to subjectivity, emphasized the importance of religious experience by highlighting the objective aspects of such experiences. This emphasis was not only on its significance, but also on the fact that it had a cognitive feature and thus it could provide evidence for the existence of God. The argument of religious experience is generally defined as an effort for demonstrating to existence of God with reference to several feelings such as spiritual experiences of human in face of creator and sacred Being, encounter with God, uniting, and annihilating selfness in Him. The emergence of such efforts, especially after the XVIIIth century, indicates that the history of the evidence does not go back much earlier. However, even if notas evidence, it is possible to extend the traces of religious and mystical experience to the history of religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. Considering a great amount of the previous literature focused on religious experience in the West, It is easily seen that such research is still new. The main purpose in addressing such a controversial issue is to make the argument on the religious experience more current and to show whether the religious experience would be able to use as evidence for the existence of God.First title of this study comprises many different claims such as Walter T. Stace’s The Argument from Unanimity Richard Swinburne’s The Principle of Credulity, William P. Alston’s Perceiving God, John Hick’s Experience-as. However, instead of briefly giving out very different claims, the study chooses to focus on two arguments which are less discussed and can be given in more detail. The first is the argument based on the analogy between the religious experience and the sense experience. The fundamental point of this argument is sense experience. With reference to the similarities between the sense experience and the religious experience, it can be argued that religious experience is also cognitive and may function as an evidence for the existence of God. In other words, being perceptual and noetic, namely cognitive, of sense experience is addressed as a similar side of religious experience. Whether it is imaginary or real, eventually, it is necessary for an experience to have an object and being experience of something. Therefore, the religious experience includes the perception of a Transcendent Being that is beyond and in excess of the individual who experiences. Perception of the sense experience will definitely be different from the perception of religious experience. Researchers who think that the five sense organs do not run the perception of Sacred Beings, identified broader and various meanings for the perception. Thereby, in this approach, where the semantic field of perception is expanded, it was contended that human beings were able to perceive the transcendent, eternal, and unlimited God, and this can be explained in the epistemological sense. In order to use religious experiences as an evidence for the existence of God, it is necessary to determine whether such experiences are caused by God rather than something else. This raises the issue of the validity of religious experience. The researchers in this area have propounded various criteria to identify whether religious experience is existed or not. Experiences, which do not meet the criteria, are not considered existed even if they claim to be religious experience.The second is the argument that discusses whether it is possible to suggest an evidence for the existence of God by utilizing pure consciousness events. In general, this argument claims that the consciousness gets clear, and thus, mystic or Sufi experiences the Divine One with pure consciousness by discharging consciousness from all sensual contents and removing it from secular desire and wishes. The argument, which claims the experience of Divine One is direct, therefore uninterpretable, and experienced by pure consciousness, believes clearing the consciousness of mystics from sensual qualities such as seeing, hearing, and tasting. It is stated that it is possible for mystics to empty their sensory images and get rid of them, and thus, their desires and wishes could be lost. Especially, the thinkers who are connected with the philosophy of perennialism and defend this approach, thought that people, who have distinct religion, culture, and beliefs in different parts of the world and in various time periods, had the same experience and considered such experiences were universal by suggesting that this similarity could be called as common essence.Even though the claim which offers that the events of pure consciousness are the same everywhere have been criticized in many respects, the advocates of this approach have argued that the experience has the common essence, but the interpretation is different. This relationship, which was tried to be established between experience and commentary, caused a lot of work for both the thinkers who put forward the claims of pure consciousness and the researchers who opposed it. However, examining the relationship between experience and interpretation requires serious studies in socio-psychological, cultural and religious fields. Therefore, in order not to exceed the limits of the article, the relationship between experience and interpretation is briefly mentioned.While discussing two arguments, the main claims of the arguments were addressed, and the criticisms directed to this argument were not discussed as much as possible. However, some fundamental criticisms have been mentioned shortly for a better understanding of the discussion. Since such western-oriented claims mostly were deployed in a western context, the study excluded the comparison of the claims across different cultures. (shrink)

I argue that the temporal boundaries of certain experiences — those I call ‘simple experiential events’ — have a different character than the temporal boundaries of the events most frequently associated with experience: neural events. In particular, I argue that the temporal boundaries of SEEs are more sharply defined than those of neural events. Indeed, they are sharper than the boundaries of all physical events at levels of complexity higher than that of elementary particle physics. If correct, it follows that (...) the most common forms of identity theory-functionalism and dualism events play key roles through identification or correlation) — are mistaken. More positively, the conclusion supports recent approaches that attempt to explain conciousness by appeal to quantum physics. (shrink)

The paper examines Jung's conception of psyché as one of the explanations of human being denying the autonomy of the conciousness and trying to grasp man´s original and natural relationship to himself, to his world and to God. The author is concerned to show, that Jung's notion of psyché embodying the consciousness as well as the individual and collective unconsciousness, tries to postulate the essential unity of man and world, seeing the distinction between the subject and the object as (...) unjustified. It thus questions the idea of an essential difference between matter and spirit. The contribution indicates the heuristic possibilities of the phenomenological interpretation od Jung's conception. (shrink)

ResumenPrimero, veremos el modo en que Dennett defiende su teoría de la conciencia frente a los ataques de destacados filósofos, logrando contrastar su anti-intuicionismo con las numerosas dificultades que se le presentan a todos aquellos que conciben la conciencia de modo realista. Segundo, afrontamos la explicación del uso de la evolución llevado a cabo por Dennett para explicar el nacimiento de la mente humana. Tercero, analizamos el importante papel que el lenguaje tiene en la aparición del pensamiento y el modo (...) en que ello permite el establecimiento de todo un entramado de simbología llamado cultura. Cuarto, nos detendremos en una matización y dos críticas al naturalismo dennettiano.Palabras clave:Daniel C. Dennett, conciencia, evolución, intencionalidadFirst, we show the Dennett’s theory of conciousness in a comparative and confrontative approach with the realistic conceptions of mind. Second, we confront the dennettian’s explanation of the human evolution. Third, we analyze the language’s rol in the appearance of thought and is implication in the culture. Fourth, we conclude with a elucidation and two critics of the dennettian naturalism.keywordsDaniel C. Dennett, conciousness, evolution, intentionality. (shrink)

This book proposes replacing the philosophical tradition inaugurated by Descartes and Locke which is inherently idealist and, says the author, prone to impoverished notions of rationality and creativity with human ontology. This latter understands human being as nothing but the complex inter-relations between its biological constitution and the natural, social and linguistic worlds in which it is embedded and the emergent properties such as conciousness, subjectivity and selfhood which arise from these. Drawing on the phenomenologies of Merleau Ponty and (...) Heidegger but placing them in this naturalistic context the study shows how knowledge, rationality and creativity arise from within the human relationship to the world. Only on such a basis, it is argued, can the existence of a world independent of human conciousness be sustained along with the rationality of science and coherent theories of the self and truth. (shrink)

RESUMENLa duración ha sido una de las nociones que ha hecho célebre la filosofía bergsoniana y es, sin duda, su noción central. La encontramos presente ya en el Ensayo referida a la vida psicológica. Más tarde, en La evolución creadora, Bergson la extiende a los seres vivos, a la evolución de las especies y, posteriormente, a todo el universo. Es pues, el tejido mismo de lo real. centrándonos en la duración "psicológica", este trabajo pretende mostrar la concepción bergsoniana del acto (...) libre y la libertad que de ella se desprende. PALABRAS CLAVEDURACION-ACTO LIBRE-TIEMPO FISICO-CONSCIENCIAABSTRACTThe duration has been one of the concepts wich has made Bergson's philosophhy famous and it is undoubtly its key concept. We already find it present in Essai concerning psychological life, and later on, in L'evolution creatrice. Bergson extends it to living beings, to the evolution of the species and still to whole universe. Therefore, it is the very "stuff" of reality. being imposible to deal with this concept under these aspects, in this paper, we will focus on the "psychological" duration, in order to demonstrate that this notion means a conception of the free act and the freedom concerned. KEYWORDSDURATION-FREE ACT-PHYSICAL TIMES-CONCIOUSNESS. (shrink)

(2009). The Importance of Number in Husserl's Early Theory of Time-Constitution. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology: Vol. 40, Husserl's Lectures on Internal Time-Conciousness, pp. 188-206.

Change according to Heraclitus is the only abiding substance observable in the universe. The implication of this view is that apart from change which remains the only constant thing, there is nothing that is held to be permanent. That is why life though relatively blissful, sooner or later is overtaken by death. Of course, death is always a dread to human conciousness. It is a phenomenon which man has always whished that it not be a reality. It is this (...) facticity and the finitude of life that the writer intends to critically examine in this paper. With the methodological approach of critical reflection, he aimed at achieving the goal of the study which concludes that death is an inescapable phenomenon awaiting every single existent being, though not the end of existence. (shrink)

The openness of the human spirit to the totality of the real plays a central role in A. Millán-Puelles’s thought. This thesis is based on the existente of an ontological truth, i.e., in the affirmation of the intelligibility of the real, which does not depend on its being an object of representation on the part of the spirit. Such an fairmation makes it posible to discover the tautological carácter of the thesis of the imánense of conciousness, as well as (...) the inconsistency of every king of skepticism and relativism. (shrink)

The author examines the consequences of dictatorship upon the conciousness of law and justice in the postsocialist society of East-Germany. This society and even the Church are characterized by a moralizing thinking of justice- according to the German tradition of paternalistic state: the state grants justice and represents community. Ever after theseGermans regard themselves as inferiors, who want to get adjusted into a disciplined order. This leeds to disappointments and radical criticism of the democratic constitutional state. Law is not (...) able to realize ultimatejustice. For the aceptance ofthe constitutional state it will be necessary to restore civil society and overcome a fundamentalistic criticism of civilisation. (shrink)

이 글의 목적은 사르트르의 최초의 철학적 저서인 『자아의 초월성』의 위상을 정확하게 밝혀보고자 하는 것이다. 흔히 이 저서는 사르트르가 후설의 현상학적 방법론을 통해 자신의 사유를 그려 보인 최초의 밑그림이자 사르트르 철학의 전모가 이미 그려져 있는 청사진으로 간주된다. 그러나 엄밀하게 말하자면 『자아의 초월성』은 후설의 현상학을 단순히 수용한 결과물이 아닐뿐더러, 사르트르의 대표작인 『존재와 무』 또한 『자아의 초월성』의 논의들을 단순히 반복하거나 그것을 일관적으로 발전시킨 것이 아니다. 본 논문은 『자아의 초월성』이 가지는 위상을 정확히 파악하기 위해 다음 두 가지 문제에 관하여 논의할 것이다. 첫째로는 이 저작을 (...) 기점으로 사르트르가 후설의 현상학으로부터 어떻게 벗어나고 있는가 하는 문제이며, 둘째로는 이후의 저작인 『존재와 무』에서 사르트르가이 『자아의 초월성』에서 스스로 제시한 결론들을 어떻게 극복하고 있는가 하는 문제이다. 그리고 이와 같은 두 측면의 검토는 사실 널리 알려진 하나의 철학적 문제와 연관되어 있다. 그것은 ‘유아론의 문제’, 바꾸어 말하자면 ‘타자의 문제’이다. 『자아의 초월성』에서 사르트르는 유아론의 문제에 관한 자신의 독창적인 답변을 마련하고 있다. 따라서 우리는 이 저작에서 제시되는 유아론에 대한 그의 답변을 통해 사르트르가 어떻게 후설로부터 벗어나 자신의 독자적인 사유로 나아가고 있는가를 확인할 수 있다. 이와 더불어 이후의 저작인 『존재와 무』에서 사르트르는 스스로 『자아의 초월성』에서 주장한 유아론 극복이 불충분한 것이었음을 자인하고 유아론의 문제에 관한 새로운 해결 방식을 제시하고 있다. 그러므로 우리는 유아론의 문제에 초점을 맞춤으로써 후설의 현상학에 관한 사르트르의 비판은 물론, 『자아의 초월성』으로부터 그의 주저인 『존재와 무』로 이르는 도정에서 사르트르의 사유가 어떻게 변화하고 있는가를 포착할 수 있다. (shrink)

. Recent efforts to analyze notions of subjectivity draw on the notions of autonoetic consciousness and episodic memory from the literature in psychology and cognitive science, and on theories of time consciousness and subjectivity from phenomenology. In doing so, leading interpreters have relied primarily on Husserl‟s theories of time consciousness. This paper outlines the significantly different approach grounded in Heidegger‟s analysis of the temporality and historicality of the self. Heidegger‟s framework proves to be fruitful for an analysis of autonoetic (...) class='Hi'>conciousness, and challenges several fundamental presumptions of dominant psychological models of episodic memory. (shrink)

Chalmers and Dennett are at opposite sides of the debate on the problem of conciousness. For Chalmres, conciousness is an unquestionable fact that cannot be explained by something else. For Dennett, what exists is really multiple judgements about our conciousness. Each author accuses the other of circularity. This is only possible because the difference between the two theories is actually a difference of principles. The same opposition that we find in their theoretical apparatus we also find on (...) their more fundamental and basic premises. This feature .makes it very difficult to choose one of the two theories, while it also radicalizes the difference bewteen them. On one side we have arguments that can refute intuitions, on the other we find that that one must first scrutinize our intuitions to then create arguments based on them. Between the two extreems we meet with the old dilemma of "what came first?". However, more important than to choose sides is to show how difficult the choice is.Chalmers e Dennett se encontram em lados opostos da discussão do problema da consciência. Para Chalmers, ela é um dado indubitável que não pode ser explicada em termos de outra coisa. Para Dennett, o que existe verdadeiramente são múltiplos julgamentos sobre nossa consciência. Cada um acusa o outro de circularidade. Isto só é possível porque a diferença entre estas duas teorias é verdadeiramente uma diferença de princípios. A mesma oposição que encontramos no aparato teórico encontramos também em suas pressuposições mais básicas e fundamentais. Este fato torna extremamente difícil escolher entre as duas ao mesmo tempo em que radicaliza a diferença entre elas. De um lado temos que argumentos podem refutar intuições, de outro temos que é preciso primeiro sondar nossas intuições para depois criar argumentos a partir delas. Entre um extremo e outro nos encontramos com o velho dilema de "o que vem primeiro?". No entanto, mais importante do que escolher lados é mostrar o quanto é difícil escolher. (shrink)

With substance dualism and the existence of God, Swinburne (2004, The Existence of God, Oxford University Press, Oxford) and Moreland (2010, Consciousness and the Existence of God, Routledge, New York) have argued for a very powerful explanatory mechanism that can readily explain several philosophical problems related to consciousness. However, their positions come with presuppositions and ontological commitments which many are not prepared to share. The aim of this paper is to improve on the Swinburne-Moreland argument from consciousness by developing an (...) argument for the existence of God from consciousness without being committed to substance dualism. The argument proceeds by suggesting a solution to the exceptional-point-of-view problem, i.e., the question how it can be explained that there is a conscious being lucky enough to experience the point of view of a relatively tiny brain amidst a giant universe that is indifferent about which physical entities it brings about according to the laws of physics. (shrink)

Les sciences humaines, qu'elles en soient ou non conscientes, ont comme objet la signification. Aussi conviendrait-il qu'elles tirent toutes les leçons de l'herméneutique, science de l'interprétation; et l'interprétation, qu'il s'agisse de textes ou de conduites, use des mêmes méthodes, rencontre les mêmes difficultés. Or l'histoire de l'herméneutique a successivement mis en évidence les diverses dimensions qui constituent les réalités symboliques, objet de l'interprétation : niveau neutre des configurations textuelles, niveau poétique des stratégies de production, niveau esthétique des stratégies de réception. (...) L'herméneutique est une sémiologie, mais la sémiologie est, elle aussi, une herméneutique; elles doivent toutes deux se fondre au sein d'une théorie de formes symboliques d'inspiration peircéenne, seule capable de dépasser les apories traditionnelles de l'herméneutique et les incertitudes de la sémiologie.The sciences of man, conciously or not, work on significations. It is therefore desirable that they learn from hermeneutics, which is the science of interpretation; and interpretation of behaviour uses the same methods and comes upon the same difficulties as interpretation of texts. The history of hermeneutics has shown the various dimensions of symbols: neutral aspect of textual configurations, poietical aspect of production strategies and aesthetic aspect of reception strategies. Hermeneutics is a semiology, but semiology is also a hermeneutics. Both must merge into a theory of symbolic forms of peircean inspiration, which will transcend the traditional apories of hermeneutics and the uncertainties of semiology. (shrink)