If I see, hear, or touch a sparrow, the sparrow seems real to me. Unlike Bigfoot or Santa Claus, it seems to exist; I will therefore judge that it does indeed exist. The “sense of existence” refers to the kind of awareness that typically grounds such ordinary judgments of existence or “reality.” The sense of existence has been invoked by Humeans, Kantians, Ideologists, and the phenomenological tradition to make substantial philosophical claims. However, it is extremely controversial; its very existence has (...) been called into question. This paper aims to clarify the nature and reality of the sense of existence by studying a psychiatric condition in which the sense appears to be disrupted: depersonalization disorder (DPD). (shrink)

Basic self-awareness is the kind of self-awareness reflected in our standard use of the first-person. Patients suffering from severe forms of depersonalization often feel reluctant to use the first-person and can even, in delusional cases, avoid it altogether, systematically referring to themselves in the third-person. Even though it has been neglected since then, depersonalization has been extensively studied, more than a century ago, and used as probe for understanding the nature and the causal mechanisms of basic self-awareness. In this paper, (...) I argue that depersonalized patients indeed have an impaired basic self-awareness, and that their study allows us both to favor one specific theory of basic self-awareness and to understand what is wrong with its rivals. According to the favored theory, which I call Cartesian, we are basically self-aware in virtue of being acquainted with ourselves through introspection. (shrink)

Husserl characterizes sleep with the idea of “the relaxation of the will.” One finds a similar approach in the work of Maine de Biran, who explains sleep as “the suspension of the will.” More recently, Brian O’Shaughnessy and Matthew Soteriou have argued that mental actions constitute wakeful consciousness. In clinical practice, patients with disorders of consciousness who show “purposeful” behavior are classified as “minimally conscious,” while those in an “unresponsive wakeful state” merely behave reflexively. To what extent and how are (...) these proposals justified? This question pushes both the first- and the third-personal approaches to their limits: in an unconscious state, like a coma, one cannot reflect upon oneself; likewise, one cannot infer from physiological data whether someone is phenomenally conscious. This work offers a critical review of these proposals regarding the constitutive role for agency in phenomenal consciousness. It then presents revised versions of O’Shaughnessy’s and Soteriou’s Arguments from Synthesis and from Self-Consciousness. The argument is that everything of which one is phenomenally conscious is either a potential reason for a possible agentive power exertion, or just that power exertion itself. The “self” referred to in “self”-consciousness is either the agent or a “non-agent,” carrying out functions for the agent. Agency is therefore constitutive of phenomenal consciousness. The resulting view helps to solve the Combination Problem for panpsychism, by suggesting that agency is what raises sub-personal micro-consciousness to the personal level. The view may also justify the notion of a “Minimally Conscious State” in clinical practice. (shrink)

Basic self-awareness is the kind of self-awareness reflected in our standard use of the first-person. Patients suffering from severe forms of depersonalization often feel reluctant to use the first-person and can even, in delusional cases, avoid it altogether, systematically referring to themselves in the third-person. Even though it has been neglected since then, depersonalization has been extensively studied, more than a century ago, and used as probe for understanding the nature and the causal mechanisms of basic self-awareness. In this paper, (...) I argue that depersonalized patients indeed have an impaired basic self-awareness, and that their study allows us both to favor one specific theory of basic self-awareness and to understand what is wrong with its rivals. According to the favored theory, which I call Cartesian, we are basically self-aware in virtue of being acquainted with ourselves through introspection. (shrink)

In informationstheoretischer Sicht sind Affekte Regulatoren, die Transformatoren der inneren Welt und der Beziehungen zur Umwelt auszulösen versuchen. Negative Affekte melden eine dringend notwendige Veränderung des mentalen und körperlichen Zustandes. Im Laufe der Entwicklung wird die affektive Information zusätzlich kognitiv differenziert. Am Beispiel der »negativen Affekte« werden in der vorliegenden Arbeit sieben klinisch differenzierbare affektive Zustände unterschieden. Im zweiten Teil wird gezeigt, wie die affektive Information in den verschiedenen Beziehungsräumen eines Subjekts verläuft. Der Selbstbereich setzt sich aus Modulen zusammen, die (...) der inneren Verarbeitung von Abläufen dienen. Das Selbst ist aber auch ein Nischenprodukt soziokultureller Verhältnisse. Ein wichtiger Bereich der Regulierung der Identität ist die Makrowelt der Zugehörigkeit zu einer partikulären Struktur. Diese Welt besitzt bereits Ich-fremde Regeln. »Der Fremdbereich« der Makrowelt zeigt immer ein Informationsdefizit mit einer Neigung zur Entwicklung von negativen Affekten und Phantasien. Alle Bereiche sind durch affektive Information miteinander verknüpft, wobei die Affekte der Makrowelt nicht gleich jenen der persönlichen Mikrowelt sind, außer es liegt eine Verschiebung vor. (shrink)

The psychotherapeutic nature of the relatedness of literature and religion is part and parcel of the story‐telling imperative that we have in mind. There is not a shred of evidence that a historical character Jesus lived, to give an example, and Christianity is based on narrative fiction of high literary and cathartic quality. On the other hand Christianity is concerned with the narration of things that actually take place in human life. The human animal is subject to biologically and socially (...) determined programs that collide head‐on with the morality of secular and religious traditions. Hence guilt of sin takes place in human life, and consciousness of sin is a real event and so are despair and salvation through faith. (shrink)