THE CARTESIAN IDEA that a self is a private consciousness has been subject to criticisms from many points of view. The most basic of these criticisms are that once we admit that the self is private, we cannot be certain of a common world, cannot conceive of outward actions of the self, and cannot have reasonable assurance of the existence of other selves. Those who hold fast to the private self might be willing to admit these criticisms and to hold (...) that the private self is indeed the only immediate object of experience and to regard the common world and other selves as objects of problematic hypotheses to explain the contents of the private self; on the other side, those who find these criticisms decisive might be willing on this account to deny private consciousness altogether and to regard the self as a form of behavior of the human organism. The one side seems to lose the world to save the self; the other side seems to lose the self to save the world. My aim in this article is to show that we can maintain that a self is a private consciousness without giving up the immediate certainty of a common world, outward action of the self, or assurance of the existence of other selves and that we are therefore not faced with the alternatives that the critics of Descartes suppose. (shrink)

The dispute in fact turns on two opposed conceptions of the self. The first is that shared by Leibniz, Hume, and contemporary empiricists according to which the self is nothing more than its determinate nature; the second conception is that shared by Hegel, Kierkegaard, and contemporary existentialists according, to which the self transcends its determinate nature. On the first conception, the self is an individual system of determinate conative, emotional, and cognitive dispositions, both innate and acquired. Its action is the (...) actualization of these dispositions in accordance with the laws that define them. On the second conception, on the other hand, the self is an individual, indeterminate, unconditioned power of self-determination. Its action is the actualization of that power. The self on this second conception is indeterminate prior to the action by which it makes itself determinate. For this reason, the determinate nature, with which the self is immediately identical on the first conception, is on the second a datum to which the self relates itself and which becomes its own possession only when it has made it its own. Hence, while the action of the self on the first conception is a predictable actualization of a determinate potentiality, its action on the second is an unpredictable original act of self-determination. (shrink)

I PROPOSE IN THIS PAPER to take up the question as to whether there must be something or other, or could there conceivably be nothing at all. How we answer will depend in large part on whether we hold that being is nothing but the totality of beings or hold that being is a distinguishable property of beings. On the first of these alternatives, to conceive of the being of a thing is simply to conceive of the thing itself; on (...) the second alternative, to conceive of being is to conceive of a property that adds to our conception of a thing. This second alternative does not imply that being itself is really separate from beings; it implies only that it can be conceptually distinguished from them. Only if being itself is a being will it be separate from beings. In this case, the being of other beings will consist in their share in that being. (shrink)

This paradox raises the problem of reconciling the existence of moral evil with the rationality of the moral good. There seem to be two forms of moral evil, that which we commit and that which is committed against us. But there is in fact only one. For the second form is moral evil in the agent but not in the patient. The fact that we suffer from the moral failure of others indeed contradicts the demands of the good. But this (...) contradiction consists in the moral failure of the agent, not in the pain of the patient. Hence, there is no special problem of reconciling the evil committed against us with the demands of the good. For that reduces to the problem of reconciling the moral failure of the agent with those demands. (shrink)

BY SUBJECTIVITY, we commonly mean the "inward" or "private" side of our experience and actions; and in this sense, feelings, emotions, desires, wishes, thoughts, and imaginings as we live through them constitute its content. From this perspective, the problem of revealing others is to show how we move from outward behavior and bodily expressions to inward feelings and thoughts. The problem arises from the fact that these do not appear in the same manner as the "hidden sides" of ordinary physical (...) objects. Physical objects have hidden sides from any given point of view, but we can move around the object and bring the hidden sides to intuitive presence. However, we cannot "live through" the feelings, emotions, and thoughts of another "from the inside" as he himself does. They are accessible to him in a manner in which they will never be accessible to us; and for this reason, the question haunts us as to whether the subjectivity of the other is really the same as our own. Perhaps the other is devoid of subjectivity or perhaps he lives through things in a manner altogether different from us. (shrink)

It is also to be distinguished from sexual desire, in which we appreciate another for his or her potential for satisfying our own sexual urges, regardless of any value apart from the sexual context.

Citing Kant, the author defines an idea of reason as a concept of the unconditioned totality of the conditions of the conditioned. A theoretical idea is valid if it conforms to the real; but a practical idea can be justified only by an appeal to the unconditioned obligation to realize it. Having introduced these terms and theses, the author examines the ontological and cosmological arguments as attempts to prove the reality of the ideas. He then argues that the apparent contradiction (...) between the idea of the good and moral failure is overcome by cosmic punishment, forgiveness, and redemption. (shrink)