The present research examined how nostalgia influences temporal self-appraisals and whether those appraisals relate to current mood. Across two studies, participants recalled either an ordinary or nostalgic memory and provided appraisals of their present and past selves. Participants who recalled nostalgic memories evaluated their past selves more positively than their present selves, whereas the reverse occurred for those who recalled ordinary memories. Those who recalled a positive future event also evaluated their future selves more positively than their present (...) selves. Nostalgia simultaneously enhanced positive mood by heightening favorable evaluations of past selves and diminished positive mood by heightening unfavorable evaluations of present selves. The current work supports a temporal-selves framework that allows for a more nuanced portrait of the nostalgic experience. (shrink)

Having positive moral traits is central to one’s sense of self, and people generally are motivated to maintain a positive view of the self in the present. But it remains unclear how people foster a positive, morally good view of the self in the present. We suggest that recollecting and reflecting on moral and immoral actions from the personal past jointly help to construct a morally good view of the current self in complementary ways. More specifically, (...) across four studies we investigated the extent to which people believe they have changed over time after recollecting their own moral or immoral behaviors from the personal past. Our results indicate that recollecting past immoral actions is associated with stronger impressions of dissimilarity and change in the sense of self over time than recollecting past moral actions. These effects held for diverse domains of morality (i.e., honesty/dishonesty, helping/harming, fairness/unfairness, and loyalty/disloyalty), and they remained even after accounting for objective, calendar time. Further supporting a motivational explanation, these effects held when people recollected their own past actions but not when they recollected the actions of other people. (shrink)

Efforts to bridge emotion theory with neurobiology can be facilitated by dynamic systems (DS) modeling. DS principles stipulate higher-order wholes emerging from lower-order constituents through bidirectional causal processes cognition relations. I then present a psychological model based on this reconceptualization, identifying trigger, self-amplification, and self-stabilization phases of emotion-appraisal states, leading to consolidating traits. The article goes on to describe neural structures and functions involved in appraisal and emotion, as well as DS mechanisms of integration by (...) which they interact. These mechanisms include nested feedback interactions, global effects of neuromodulation, vertical integration, action-monitoring, and synaptic plasticity, and they are modeled in terms of both functional integration and temporal synchronization. I end by elaborating the psychological model of emotion–appraisal states with reference to neural processes. (shrink)

This article argues that we can construct a complex interpretation of the nature of time by linking Aciman’s gnostic thread to aspects of twentieth century theory, from philosophy and psychoanalysis. In brief, it attempts to demonstrate the roles of dislocation, deferral, and Otherness in constituting human temporality. The essay begins by surmising the conceptual history of time, touching on key ideas put forward by Augustine and Bergson. The second section takes a psychoanalytic turn after exploring Homo Irrealis to describe (...) the significance of desire and fantasy. Thirdly, we develop a unique and temporal application of difference and deferral, building off of Deleuze and Derrida. The fourth section will consider how the psychoanalytic concept of the Other is inhered within time. We conclude that an Acimanic analysis of time is the means by which we can understand existence not as a series of moments, but a rich progression of dissimilitude and Otherness defined moreso by its lack of cohesion and directness of being than by a unified and self-identifying subject. (shrink)

The special and unique attitudes that we take towards events in our futures/pasts—e.g., attitudes like the dread of an impeding pain—create a challenge for “Reductionist” accounts that reduce persons to aggregates of interconnected person stages: if the person stage currently dreading tomorrow’s pain is numerically distinct from the person stage that will actually suffer the pain, what reason could the current person stage have for thinking of that future pain as being his? One reason everyday subjects believe they have a (...) substantially extended temporal existence stems from introspection—they introspectively experience their selves as being temporally extended. In this paper, I examine whether a Reductionist about personal identity can co-opt this explanation. Using Galen Strawson’s recent work on self-experience as a resource, I reach both a negative and a positive conclusion about the prospects of such a position. First, the relevant kind of self-experience—i.e., the introspective experience of one’s self as being a substantially temporally extended entity—will not automatically arise within a person stage simply in virtue of that stage being psychologically connected to/continuous with other person stages. Second, the relevant kind of self-experience will arise, however, in virtue of person stages weaving together their respective experiences, actions, etc. via a narrative. This positive conclusion points towards a new Reductionist position that focuses upon a narrative, and not mere psychological continuity, in attempting to justify the special attitudes we take towards events in our futures/pasts. (shrink)

There are many consonances between George Kelly’s personal construct psychology and post-Cartesian perspectives such as the intersubjective phenomenological project of Merleau-Ponty, hermeneutical constructivism, American pragmatism and autopoietic self-organizing systems theory. But in comparison with the organizational dynamics of personal construct theory, the above approaches deliver the person over to semi-arbitrary shapings from both the social sphere and the person’s own body, encapsulated in sedimented bodily and interpersonally molded norms and practices. Furthermore, the affective and cognate aspects of (...) events are artificially split into functionally separated entities, and then have to be pieced together again via interaction. By contrast, pushes and pulls are conspicuously lacking from Kelly’s depiction of the relationship between the construing subject and their world. Kelly complements Heidegger in offering a radically temporal phenomenology and a strongly anticipative stance. Both authors abandon the concept of subject and world in states of interaction, in favor of a self-world referential-differential in continuous self-transforming movement. A paradoxical implication of Kelly’s radical temporal grounding of experience is that it is at the same time more fully in motion and transition than embodied inter-subjective models, and maintains a more intimate and intricate thread of self-continuity and self-belonging. (shrink)

According to componential theories of emotional experience, emotional experiences are phenomenally complex in that they consist of experiential parts, which may include cognitive appraisals, bodily feelings, and action tendencies. These componential theories face the problem of emotional unity: Despite their complexity, emotional experiences also seem to be phenomenologically unified. Componential theories have to give an account of this unity. We argue that existing accounts of emotional unity fail and that instead emotional unity is an instance of experienced causal‐temporal unity. (...) We propose that felt emotional unity arises from our experience of the temporal‐causal order of the world. (shrink)

Self-awareness represents the capacity of becoming the object of one’s own attention. In this state one actively identifies, processes, and stores information about the self. This paper surveys the self-awareness literature by emphasizing definition issues, measurement techniques, effects and functions of self-attention, and antecedents of self-awareness. Key self-related concepts (e.g., minimal, reflective consciousness) are distinguished from the central notion of self-awareness. Reviewed measures include questionnaires, implicit tasks, and self-recognition. Main effects and functions (...) of self-attention consist in selfevaluation, escape from the self, amplification of one's subjective experience, increased self-knowledge, self-regulation, and inferences about others' mental states (Theory-of-Mind). A neurocognitive and socioecological model of self-awareness is described in which the role of face-to-face interactions, reflected appraisals, mirrors, media, inner speech, imagery, autobiographical knowledge, and neurological structures is underlined. (shrink)

My central research focus over the past 30 years has been the articulation of what I call a radically temporal approach to philosophy. In the papers below, written between 2001 and 2022, I treat the varying ways in which radically temporal thinking manifests itself in the phenomenological perspectives of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Eugene Gendlin. I also discuss Jacques Derrida's deconstructive project and George Kelly's personal construct theory as examples of radically temporal thinking. With the (...) aim of clarifying and further defining the nature of this family of orientations, I have delineated the important ways in which it differs from a range of interlinked approaches in philosophy and psychology that includes hermeneutic and radical constructivisms, social constructionism, 4EA (Embodied, Embedded, Enactive, Extended, and Affective) cognition, Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of corporeal intersubjectivity, autopoietic self-organizing systems theory and American pragmatism. Among the authors whose work I have submitted to critique from the radically temporal perspective are: Francisco Varela (autopoietic self-organizing systems), Shaun Gallagher, Evan Thompson, Matthew Ratcliffe, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, Dan Zahavi, Hanne De Jaegher, Michel Bitbol, Thomas Fuchs (enactive, embodied ('4EA') cognition), Gilles Deleuze (Deleuzian biopolitics), Ken Gergen and John Shotter ( social constructionism), Kym Maclaren ( critical phenomenology) and Jan Slaby (critical neuroscience). I argue that these authors' accounts of the relation between affect, motivation and intention, attention , reflective and pre-reflective self-consciousness, the basis of mathematical naturalism and sensori-motor models of behavior, and the relation between the body, language and culture remain burdened by traditional presuppositions that the radically temporal philosophies of Heidegger et al put into question. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the concept of cross-temporal personal identity (diachronicity). This particular form of identity has vexed theorists for centuries -- e.g.,how can a person maintain a belief in the sameness of self over time in the face of continual psychological and physical change? I first discuss various forms of the sameness relation and the criteria that justify their application. I then examine philosophical and psychological treatments of personal diachronicity(for example,Locke's psychological connectedness theory; the role (...) of episodic memory) and find each lacking on logical grounds, empirical grounds, or both. I conclude that to achieve a successful resolution of the issue of the self as a temporal continuant we need to draw a sharp distinction between the feeling of the sameness of one's self and the evidence marshaled in support of that feeling. (shrink)

There has frequently been taken to be a tension, if not an incompatibility, between "externalist" theories of content (which allow the make-up of one's physical environment and the linguistic usage of one's community to contribute to the contents of one's thoughts and utterances) and the "methodologically individualist" intuition that whatever contributes to the content of one's thoughts and utterances must ultimately be grounded in facts about one's own attitudes and behavior. In this dissertation I argue that one can underwrite such (...) externalist theories within a methodologically individualistic framework by understanding semantic norms in terms of the need to reach, for each of one's terms, a type of "equilibrium." Each speaker's commitment to making her _own_ beliefs and applications consistent allows one to incorporate these 'external' factors into the contents of their thoughts and utterances in a way that remains methodologically individualistic. Methodologically individualistic accounts are typically taken to be unable to incorporate 'external' factors such as the world's physical make-up or communal usage because of arguments suggesting that the individual's own beliefs and usage underdetermine or even misidentify what, according to externalist accounts, they mean by their terms. These arguments, however, only seem plausible if one presupposes a comparatively impoverished conception of the individual's beliefs. The beliefs a speaker associates with a given term extend far beyond the handful of sentences they would produce if asked to list such beliefs. In particular, speakers have an implicit, but rich, understanding of their language, their world, and the relation between them. Speakers typically understand languages as shared temporally extended practices about which they can be, both individually and collectively, mistaken. Once this conception of language is taken into account, the ascriptions which purportedly forced 'non-individualistic' conceptions of content upon us (particularly ascriptions which seemed to tie what we meant to social use rather than our own beliefs) turn out to be ultimately grounded in the individual's own beliefs. Indeed, our self-conception does much more than merely underwrite 'non-individualistic' ascriptions.. (shrink)

The project format has become a standard and self-evident way to organize research work in today's accelerated university context, leading to the projectification of science. This paper argues that the project format is not a mere technical organizational tool, but that it challenges and reshapes research practices and ideals. The project format is embedded in a specific temporality which is called project time. The key characteristics of project time are scrutinized by distinguishing it from process time, which refers to (...) the internal organizational logic of research. In addition, project time is examined through Barbara Adam's theorizing on the commodification, control, compression and colonization of clock time. In the last part of the paper, temporal conflicts in project-based research are examined empirically by drawing upon interview material with Finnish academics working in the social sciences. (shrink)

Decision theory explains weakness of will as the result of a conflict of incentives between different transient agents. In this framework, self-control can only be achieved by the I-now altering the incentives or choice-sets of future selves. There is no role for an extended agency over time. However, it is possible to extend game theory to allow multiple levels of agency. At the inter-personal level, theories of team reasoning allow teams to be agents, as well as individuals. (...) I apply team reasoning at the intra-personal level, taking the self as a team of transient agents over time. This allows agents to ask, not just “what should I-now do?’, but also ‘What should I, the person over time do?’, which may enable agents to achieve self-control. The resulting account is Aristotelian in flavour, as it involves reasoning schemata and perception, and it is compatible with some of the psychological findings about self-control. (shrink)

At the phenomenal level, consciousness can be described as a singular, unified field of recursive self-awareness, consistently coherent in a particualr way; that of a subject located both spatially and temporally in an egocentrically-extended domain, such that conscious self-awareness is explicitly characterized by I-ness, now-ness and here-ness. The psychological mechanism underwriting this spatiotemporal self-locatedness and its recursive processing style involves an evolutionary elaboration of the basic orientative reference frame which consistently structures ongoing spatiotemporal self-location computations as (...) i-here-now. Cognition computes action-output in the midst of ongoing movement, and consequently requires a constant self-locating spatiotemporal reference frame as basis for these computations. Over time, constant evolutionary pressures for energy efficiency have encouraged both the proliferation of anticipative feedforward processing mechansims, and the elaboration, at the apex of the sensorimotor processing hierarchy, of self-activating, highly attenuated recursively-feedforward circuitry processing the basic orientational schema independent of external action output. As the primary reference frame of active waking cognition, this recursive i-here-now processing generates a zone of subjective self-awareness in terms of which it feels like something to be oneself here and now. This is consciousness. (shrink)

There is a widespread view that well-learned skills are automated, and that attention to the performance of these skills is damaging because it disrupts the automatic processes involved in their execution. This idea serves as the basis for an account of choking in high pressure situations. On this view, choking is the result of self-focused attention induced by anxiety. Recent research in sports psychology has produced a significant body of experimental evidence widely interpreted as supporting this account of choking (...) in certain kinds of complex sensorimotor skills. We argue against this interpretation, pointing to problems with both the empirical evidence and the underlying theory. The experimental research fails to provide direct support for the central claims of the self-focus approach, contains inconsistencies, and suffers from problems of ecological validity. In addition, qualitative studies of choking have yielded contrary results. We further argue that in their current forms the self-focus and rival distraction approaches both lack the theoretical resources to provide a good theory of choking, and we argue for an expanded approach. Some of the elements that should be in an expanded approach include accounts of the features of pressure situations that influence the psychological response, the processes of situation appraisal, and the ways that attentional control can be overwhelmed, leading to distraction in some cases, and in others, perhaps, to damaging attention to skill execution. We also suggest that choking may sometimes involve performance-impairing mechanisms other than distraction or self-focus. (shrink)

We must rethink the status of Hume’s science of emotions. Contemporary philosophers typically dismiss Hume’s account on the grounds that he mistakenly identifies emotions with feelings. But the traditional objections to Hume’s feeling theory are not as strong as commonly thought. Hume makes several important contributions, moreover, to our understanding of the operations of the emotions. His claims about the causal antecedents of the indirect passions receive support from studies in appraisal theory, for example, and his suggestions (...) concerning the social dimensions of self-conscious emotions can help guide future research in this field. His dual-component hypothesis concerning the processing of emotions, furthermore, suggests a compromise solution to a recalcitrant debate in cognitive science. Finally, Hume’s proposals concerning the motivational influences of pride, and the conventional nature of emotional display rules, are vindicated by recent work in social psychology. (shrink)

I argue that, for Kant, there is a point at which the notions of self-consciousness and self-limitation become one. I proceed by spelling out a logical progression of forms of self-consciousness in Kant’s philosophy, where at each stage we locate the limits of the capacity in question and ask what it takes to know those limits. After briefly sketching a notion of self-consciousness available even to the animal, we look at whether there could be a notion (...) of self-consciousness available to the capacity of human sensibility. At this stage I argue that Kant and Heidegger (or Heidegger’s Kant) share a conception of what it is to be self-limiting through self-consciousness. I then critically examine this conception, and, specifically, the way in which it fails to account for the most essential form of self-limitation in Kant’s critical philosophy—namely, the form of self-limitation which rejects spatial and temporal articulation. The conclusion we reach is that Kant’s theory of transcendental self-consciousness is a theory of the activity of thinking as determining itself (including its limits) non-spatially and non-temporally. (shrink)

Welcome to my philosophy page. My central research focus is the elucidation of what I call the radically temporal approach to philosophy. In the papers below I endeavor to articulate the varying ways that radical temporality manifests itself in the phenomenological perspectives of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Eugene Gendlin. I also discuss Jacques Derrida’s deconstructive project and George Kelly’s personal construct theory as examples of radically temporal thinking. With the aim of clarifying and further defining the (...) nature of this orientation , I have delineated the important ways in which it differs from a range of interlinked approaches in philosophy and psychology that includes hermeneutic and radical constructivisms, 4EA (Embodied, Embedded, Enactive, Extended, and Affective) cognition, Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of corporeal intersubjectivity, autopoietic self-organizing systems theory and American pragmatism. Among the authors whose work I have submitted to critique from the radically temporal perspective are: Francisco Varela (autopoietic self-organizing systems), Shaun Gallagher, Evan Thompson, Matthew Ratcliffe, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, Dan Zahavi, Hanne De Jaegher, Thomas Fuchs (enactive, embodied ('4EA') cognition), John Protevi (Deleuzian biopolitics), Kym Maclaren ( critical phenomenology) and Jan Slaby (critical neuroscience). -/- I argue that these authors’ accounts of intersubjectivity and empathy, and their integration of affect, motivation, intentionality and will, remain burdened by traditional presuppositions that the radically temporal philosophies of Heidegger et al put into question. -/- . (shrink)

This is a serious critque of Whitehead's "epochal theory of time." It argues that our human experience of time is more like Whitehead's divine continuous concrescence than it is like temporal atomism. It offers additional arguments against temporal atomism at either the human or divine levels, and arguments for conceiving selves at both the divine and human levels as actual entities.

Rawls’s remarks on self-respect have been described as cryptic or ambiguous. The discussion on the meaning of respect and, specifically, Rawlsian self-respect has been considerably influenced by Darwall’s distinction between recognition respect and appraisal respect. Since Rawls identifies self-respect as an essential element of his theory of justice, clarifying the meaning of this concept is essential. This paper defends that Darwall’s dichotomic understanding of respect does not clarify Rawlsian conception of self-respect. Rawls uses the (...) term self-respect to refer both to recognition self-respect and appraisal self-respect. However, he presents a third kind of self-respect which could be termed “value-confidence”. This third kind of self-respect concerns one’s confidence in the value of the particular conception of the good one has chosen. This value-confidence cannot be identified with recognition self-respect, since the latter has the fact of moral personality as its object, not the particular conception one happens to choose. (shrink)

The present research (total N = 2,057) tested whether people’s folk conception of consciousness aligns with the notion of a “Cartesian Theater” (Dennett, 1991). More precisely, we tested the hypotheses that people believe that consciousness happens in a single, confined area (vs. multiple dispersed areas) in the human brain, and that it (partly) happens after the brain finished analyzing all available information. Further, we investigated how these beliefs arerelated to participants’ neuroscientific knowledge as well as their reliance on intuition, and (...) which rationale they use to explain their responses. Using a computer-administered drawing task, we found that participants located consciousness, but not unrelated neurological processes (Studies 1a & 1b) or unconscious thinking (Study 2) in a single, confined area in the prefrontal cortex, and that they considered most of the brain not involved in consciousness. Participants mostly relied on their intuitions when responding, and they were not affected by prior knowledge about the brain. Additionally, they considered the conscious experience of sensory stimuli to happen in a spatially more confined area than the corresponding computational analysis of these stimuli (Study 3). Furthermore, participants’ explicit beliefs about spatial and temporal localization of consciousness (i.e., consciousness happening after the computational analysis of sensory information is completed) are independent, yet positively correlated beliefs (Study 4). Using a more elaborate measure for temporal localization of conscious experience, our final study confirmed that people believe consciousness to partly happen even after information processing is done (Study 5). (shrink)

Alasdair MacIntyre’s work in ethics follows in the footsteps of twentieth century efforts to put the ideals of Enlightenment and modernity on trial, and his book After Virtue diagnoses a wide-spread malaise in contemporary moral discourse. As a corrective to this condition, MacIntyre offers a remedy along Aristotelian-Thomistic lines. He specifically conceives of a recovery of these lines that would allow for a common ground in moral debates which would reveal the normative and teleological character of the human good. However, (...) within these pages, I argue that MacIntyre underestimates how his moral corrective is actually a re-inscription of the Enlightenment project, and thus equally doomed to failure. I do this by sketching out three different lines. First, I present MacIntyre’s appraisal of modern moral discourse, which has long since abandoned a reliance of Aristotelian principles of ethics. Second, I outline an informative disjunction MacIntyre sets up between having to choose between a Nietzschean or an Aristotelian model of ethical action. Last, I argue that MacIntyre’s own choice, simultaneously based on, but also diverging from, Aristotle fails because his revamped account of the virtue formation so necessary for modern human flourishing leaves open a space for its development according to contingent histories and traditions, which implies an attenuated account of the virtue ethics he seeks to recover, and vindicates, rather than condemns, the Enlightenment’s attempt to liberate moral theories from its strict teleological forbears. (shrink)

According to psychological emotion theories referred to as appraisal theory, emotions are caused by appraisals (evaluative judgments). Borrowing a term from Jan Smedslund, it is the contention of this article that psychological appraisal theory is “pseudoempirical” (i.e., misleadingly or incorrectly empirical). In the article I outline what makes some scientific psychology “pseudoempirical,” distinguish my view on this from Jan Smedslund’s, and then go on to show why paying heed to the ordinary meanings of emotion terms is (...) relevant to psychology, and how appraisal theory is methodologically off the mark by employing experiments, questionnaires, and the like, to investigate what follows from the ordinary meanings of words. The overarching argument of the article is that the scientific research program of appraisal theory is fundamentally misguided and that a more philosophical approach is needed to address the kinds of questions it seeks to answer. (shrink)

In this paper, we develop a mathematical model of awareness based on the idea of plurality. Instead of positing a singular principle, telos, or essence as noumenon, we model it as plurality accessible through multiple forms of awareness (“n-awareness”). In contrast to many other approaches, our model is committed to pluralist thinking. The noumenon is plural, and reality is neither reducible nor irreducible. Nothing dies out in meaning making. We begin by mathematizing the concept of awareness by appealing to the (...) mathematical formalism of higher category theory. The beauty of higher category theory lies in its universality. Pluralism is categorical. In particular, we model awareness using the theories of derived categories and (infinity, 1)-topoi which will give rise to our meta-language. We then posit a “grammar” (“n-declension”) which could express n-awareness, accompanied by a new temporal ontology (“n-time”). Our framework allows us to revisit old problems in the philosophy of time: how is change possible and what do we mean by simultaneity and coincidence? Another question which could be re-conceptualized in our model is one of soteriology related to this pluralism: what is a self in this context? A new model of “personal identity over time” is thus introduced. (shrink)

In a recent article, Bernáth and Tőzsér (2021) defend what they call the Bias Argument, a new skeptical argument from expert peer disagreement. They argue that the best contrastive causal explanation for disagreement among leading experts in philosophy is that they adopt their positions in a biased way. But if the leading experts are biased, non-experts either are also biased or only avoid bias through epistemic inferiority. Recognizing this is expected to prompt one to decrease one‘s confidence in one‘s philosophical (...) beliefs. This paper argues that some beliefs are immune to a key premise of the Bias Argument. To show this, the paper develops the concepts of self-favoring theories, decisive support, and standing-incommensurable disagreements. A plausible example of a self-favoring theory, dubbed Mere Reformed Protestantism, is sketched. Many disagreements over self-favoring theories and over beliefs decisively supported by self-favoring theories are shown to be standing-incommensurable. It is then argued that when non-experts are in standing-incommensurable disagreements with experts, the standards of assessing expertise are themselves controverted. This result undercuts the move in the Bias Argument from expert bias to non-expert bias. Finally, a couple reservations about the role of self-favoring theories in philosophy are addressed. (shrink)

Locke’s theory of personal identity was philosophically groundbreaking for its attempt to establish a non-substantial identity condition. Locke states, “For the same consciousness being preserv’d, whether in the same or different Substances, the personal Identity is preserv’d” (II.xxvii.13). Many have interpreted Locke to think that consciousness identifies a self both synchronically and diachronically by attributing thoughts and actions to a self. Thus, many have attributed to Locke either a memory theory or an appropriation theory of (...) personal identity. But the former stumble on circularity and the latter is insufficient for Locke’s moral theory insofar as he is committed to a theory of divine rectification. The common problem is that Locke’s theory seems to demand an objective, or metaphysical, fact of a continuing consciousness that does not appeal to a traditional notion of substance for the continuity. I’m suggesting something new. In II.xxvii of the Essay, we see an ambiguity in Locke’s use of the term ‘consciousness’. Locke seems to see consciousness as both a mental state by means of which we are aware of ourselves as perceiving and as the ongoing self we are aware of in these conscious states. First, I make the textual argument why we should read Locke as having a conception of a metaphysical fact of a continuing consciousness that does not appeal to thinking or bodily substance to establish its continuity. I then argue that the metaphysical fact of an enduring consciousness is revealed to us as a phenomenological fact of experience. Due to the nature of certain kinds of perceptual situations we have an experience of ourselves as temporally extended. Although the text bears out that Locke seemed to think there is a fact of an ongoing consciousness, I argue that it is consistent with his reluctance elsewhere that he makes no further epistemological or ontological claims about it. Finally, I provide an account of Locke’s understanding of memory and its relation to consciousness that supports the claim that consciousness is something ontologically distinct from either thinking or bodily substance. (shrink)

We study the structure of families of theories in the language of arithmetic extended to allow these families to refer to one another and to themselves. If a theory contains schemata expressing its own truth and expressing a specific Turing index for itself, and contains some other mild axioms, then that theory is untrue. We exhibit some families of true self-referential theories that barely avoid this forbidden pattern.

The dissertation adopts the question of self-determination as a thread to guide us into Martin Heidegger's work. Heidegger's early work is expounded as an attempt to ascertain the possibility of self-determination, while his later work is expounded as the renunciation of this attempt. In chapters one to four, the author focuses on the exposition of Being and Time. The author upholds that Heidegger's early philosophy is torn in different directions. In the phenomenological descriptions of the first division of (...) Being and Time, we see the attempt to think Dasein as a relational being, which depends on others and on the world. However, Heidegger's distinction between authentic and inauthentic Dasein is not only descriptive. It contains a call to self-determination. The philosophy of Being and Time changes as a result of this call. In order to ascertain the possibility of self-determination, Heidegger shifts the focus away from being-in-the-world and toward the self's concern with itself. The theory of temporality as the meaning of care obliterates the essential thrownness of Dasein. The author argues that there is a conflict between phenomenological description and existentialist concern with oneself in Heidegger's early project. In chapter five, the author argues that this conflict is one of the main reasons for the famous "turning" in Heidegger's philosophy. Heidegger realizes that he cannot grasp the world-oriented, "ecstatical" character of Dasein without giving up his early theory of temporality as the meaning of care. The idea of a supra-historical articulation of existential structures is rejected. The author argues that "epochality" and "nativity" are the basic forms of Dasein's lack of self-determination. Human being is never autonomous, insofar as it always already belongs to a particular age and historical people. (shrink)

Self-authorship has been established as the basis of an influential liberal principle of legislation and public policy. Being the author of one’s own life is a significant component of one’s own well-being, and therefore is better understood from the viewpoint of the person whose life it is. However, most philosophical accounts, including Raz’s conception of self-authorship, rely on general and abstract principles rather than specific, individual psychological properties of the person whose life it is. We elaborate on the (...) principles of self-authorship on the basis of self-determination theory, an empirically based psychological theory that has been at the forefront of the study of autonomy and self-authorship for more than 45 years. Our account transcends distinctions between positive and negative freedom and attempts to pinpoint the exact properties of self-authorship within the psychological processes of intrinsic motivation and internalization. If a primary objective of public policy is to support self-authorship, then it should be devised on the basis of how intrinsic motivation and internalization can be properly supported. Self-determination theory identifies three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The satisfaction of these needs is associated with the support and growth of intrinsic tendencies and the advancement of well-being. Through this analysis, we can properly evaluate the significance of rationality, basic goods, and the availability of options to self-authorship. Implications for law and policy are discussed with an emphasis on legal paternalism and what many theorists call “liberal perfectionism,” that is, the non-coercive support and promotion of the good life. (shrink)

In this paper I suggest that several problems in the study of emotion depend on a lack of adequate analytical tools, in particular on the tendency of viewing the organism as a modular and hierarchical system whose activity is mainly constituted by strictly sequential causal events. I argue that theories and models based on this view are inadequate to account for the complex reciprocal influences of the many ingredients that constitute emotions. Cognitive processes, feelings and bodily states are so subtly (...) intertwined that it is not possible to determine which one "comes first" in a causal chain. The dynamical systems approach in cognitive science, I suggest, provides a more appropriate framework for the study of emotion. In particular, the notion of circular causation and collective action help depict the organism as a self-organising system in which emotion emerges as a function of its global activity. Among others, this dynamical perspective allows revising the popular notion of appraisal in a way that can dissolve some of the questions that have taunted emotion theorists thus far. (shrink)

In his theory of determination, Charles Peirce considered two processes of determination, the semiotic process and epistemology. The semiotic process is an extensional process from object to interpretant that consists of an infinite chain of references that can be spatially reversible. The epistemological process of determination is temporal and irreversible, where the idea grows into the individual mind, as the universe is unfolded by the agency of mind.

In this paper, I propose a new self-defense theory of punishment, the rights-protection theory. By appealing to the interest theory of right, I show that what we call “the right of self-defense” is actually composed of the right to protect our basic rights. The right of self-defense is not a single, self-standing right but a group of derivative rights justified by their contribution to the protection of the core, basic rights. Thus, these rights (...) of self-defense are both justified and constrained by the basic rights they are supposed to protect. I then explain how this theory responds to a common objection. Opponents argue that, to exercise the right of self-defense, some threat must be present. However, in the context of punishment, the threat has already taken effect or is already gone. Thus, the right of self-defense becomes irrelevant when we punish an offender. I show that this objection is based on an implausibly narrow conception of self-defense. A reasonable conception would allow us to exercise our right of self-defense when there is a present definite threat, a future definite threat, or a potential threat. Thus, we may still exercise our right of self-defense in the context of punishment. (shrink)

Self-determination theory, like other psychological theories that study eudaimomia, focuses on general processes of growth and self-realization. An aspect that tends to be sidelined in the relevant literature is virtue. We propose that special focus needs to be placed on moral virtue and its development. We review different types of moral motivation and argue that morally virtuous behavior is regulated through integrated regulation. We describe the process of moral integration and how it relates to the development of (...) moral virtue. We then discuss what morally virtuous individuals are like, what shape their internal moral system is expected to take and introduce moral self-concordance. We consider why morally virtuous individuals are expected to experience eudaimonic well-being. Finally, we address the current gap in self-determination theory research on eudaimonia. (shrink)

The present study aimed to examine how to improve the effectiveness of moral exemplar-applied interventions based on the pillars of the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) framework, autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Past research has mainly focused on the relatedness and attainability of moral exemplars for predicting motivation outcomes. The data for this study consisted of synthesized data sets from previous studies examining the motivational impacts of distinct moral exemplars and intervention methods. The main syntheses for these data sets used Multilevel (...) Modeling (MLM) focusing on relatability, attainability, and intervention methods, corresponding to relatedness, competence, and autonomy in the SDT, respectively, as predictors. In general, there was a significant interaction effect between the attainability or relatability, and the intervention method. Autonomous instruction methods, which support autonomy, were demonstrated to boost motivational outcomes. Implications from this study support the employment of SDT to examine the use of moral exemplars in moral education and were consistent with previous exemplar studies. (shrink)

ABSTRACT If acting morally can be viewed as acting consistently with a moral principle or rule, then being a person with moral integrity can be viewed as consistently applying moral principles or rules across different types of situations. We advance a view of moral integrity that incorporates three distinct, but interrelated, types of moral consistency: cognitive, emotional and motivational moral consistency. Our approach is based on Self-Determination Theory, a motivational theory that can explain when a moral rule (...) becomes the primary motive for behavior. We argue that moral integrity is achieved when a person acts on the basis of an internal moral system of principles, emotions and motives and provide an account of the way that it develops during a person’s interaction with the environment. (shrink)

Kantian ethics is based on a metaphysical conception of autonomy that may seem difficult to reconcile with the empirically-based science of psychology. I argue that, although not formally developed, a Self-Determination Theory (SDT) perspective of ethics can broaden the field of Kantian-based moral psychology and specify what it means, motivationally, to have autonomy in the application of a moral norm. More specifically, I argue that this is possible when a moral norm is fully endorsed by the self (...) through a process of internalization that is energized by intrinsic motivation and is facilitated by the fulfillment of the basic needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness. The conditions of the fulfillment of these needs may even implicitly reveal which norms will be integrated and treated as moral norms. I conclude that SDT offers a motivational approach that is useful in understanding the development of moral norms. (shrink)

This paper seeks to carve out a distinctive category of conspiracy theorist, and to explore the process of becoming a conspiracy theorist of this sort. Those on whom I focus claim their beliefs trace back to simply trusting their senses and experiences in a commonsensical way, citing what they take to be authoritative firsthand evidence or observations. Certain flat Earthers, anti-vaxxers, and UFO conspiracy theorists, for example, describe their beliefs and evidence this way. I first distinguish these conspiracy theorists by (...) contrasting them with another group that has recently received a lot of attention from the media, philosophers, and academics more broadly. I then dig more deeply into the nature of these conspiracy theorists’ epistemic self-understanding, in order to give an account of the process by which one becomes such a conspiracy theorist. I conclude with some takeaways and implications: first, I explore the implications of my account for whether these conspiracy theorists’ beliefs are rational; then, I argue that my account has practical takeaways about counteracting beliefs in misinformation, since strategies appropriate to this kind of conspiracy theorist may not be the same ones that are appropriate for other kinds. (shrink)

Hering’s opponent-colors theory suggests that our color sensations are produced by three mechanisms: a red–green mechanism, a yellow–blue mechanism, and a white–black mechanism. The first two mechanisms give rise to our sensations of hued colors; the third mechanism gives rise to our sensations of hueless colors. Noticeably, whereas the pair of colors produced by each of the hued mechanisms do not mix to yield a phenomenal intermediate (i.e., there are no greenish reds, reddish greens, yellowish blues, or bluish yellows), (...) the colors produced by the hueless mechanism, white and black, do have a phenomenal intermediate—gray. This different behavior of the white–black mechanism poses a problem for Hering’s theory. Several attempts to fix this problem have been suggested. This paper focuses on the suggestion made by Paul Heggelund a century after Hering proposed his theory. In Heggelund’s amendment of Hering’s theory, the hueless colors are not confined to the one-dimensional gamut between black and white, but rather require two components for their full description: a light–dark (or luminous–black) component, where light and dark are mutually exclusive sensations, and a white component, which doesn’t have an opponent counterpart. Here I show that although Heggelund’s theory indeed provides a solution to the problem that the hueless colors pose to Hering’s theory, it is not self-consistent. I go on to revise Heggelund’s theory to obtain a consistent opponent-colors theory. (shrink)

In Rahul Banerjee and Bikas K. Chakrabarti (eds.), Progress in Brain Research, 168: 215-246. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Electronic offprint available upon request.

Empirical evidence suggests that a majority of people believe that time robustly passes, and that many also report that it seems to them, in experience, as though time robustly passes. Non-dynamists deny that time robustly passes, and many contemporary non-dynamists—deflationists—even deny that it seems to us as though time robustly passes. Non-dynamists, then, face the dual challenge of explaining why people have such beliefs and make such reports about their experiences. Several philosophers have suggested the stable-self explanation, according to (...) which what partly explains one or both of the explananda is that people believe themselves to have a stable persisting self which is imagined either as moving through time, or as being stationary, with time moving around it. This paper empirically investigates this explanation. We found, however, no evidential support for the stable-self explanation, leaving the non-dynamist but also, we will argue, the dynamist, with an extant explanatory challenge. (shrink)

While wisdom is recognized as a key aspect of human development, it remains unclear how people may be motivated to express and pursue this cherished quality over the course of their development. Here, I investigate the promise of the motivational factors typically covered in Self-Determination Theory (SDT) for offering insights into the expression and development of wisdom. I explore wisdom as conceptualized by the Common Wisdom Model (Grossmann, Weststrate, Ardelt, et al., 2020), which emphasizes moral aspirations and perspectival (...) metacognition. SDT, with its focus on intrinsic tendencies and psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness), provides a unique lens through which to examine how these wisdom components develop. It offers a view of an agentic person as expressing and developing wisdom in a social context, while navigating life’s difficulties in an unbiased manner. Finally, it offers insight for educational strategies aimed at fostering wisdom, highlighting how an understanding of motivational underpinnings can inform approaches to nurturing wise thinking and behavior. (shrink)

Ölümcül Hastalık Umutsuzluk adlı eserinde umutsuzluğu, ben’in bir hastalığı ve kendine yönelen bir ilişkinin sonucu olarak ele alan Danimarkalı filozof Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, bu hastalığın kişide üç farklı şekilde görülebileceğini öne sürmüştür: “(a) bir ben’i olduğunun farkında olmayan umutsuz kişi, (b) kendisi olmak isteyen umutsuz kişi ve (c) kendisi olmak istemeyen umutsuz kişi.” Kierkegaard’a göre kendi ben’ininden kurtulmak isteyen kişi, “olmak istediği ben” hâline gelemediği için olduğu ben’ine katlanamamakta ve bu nedenle umutsuzluk yaşamaktadır. Bu çalışma kapsamında Kierkegaard’ın benlik ve umutsuzluk (...) ilişkisi üzerine yaptığı bu tespitin, sosyal psikoloji alanının önde gelen araştırmacılarından biri olan Edward Tory Higgins’ın Benlik Uyuşmazlıkları Kuramı üzerinden okunabileceği öngörülmektedir. Higgins, geliştirdiği kuramda çoklu bir benlik ayrımına gitmekte ve benliği gerçek benlik, ideal benlik ve olması gereken benlik olmak üzere üç alana ayırmaktadır. Bu ayrıma göre gerçek benlik, kişinin sahip olduğunu düşündüğü özelliklerin; ideal benlik, kişinin kendisi olmak için idealde sahip olmayı arzu ettiği özelliklerin; olması gereken benlik ise kişinin taşımak zorunda olduğunu düşündüğü özelliklerin bir bütününü temsil etmektedir. Söz konusu özellikler, kişinin kendi kişisel bakış açısına dayalı olabileceği gibi başkalarının bakış açısından da kaynaklanabilmektedir. Higgins’a göre ikili benlik durumları arasındaki uyuşmazlık (örneğin gerçek benlik-ideal benlik ya da gerçek benlik-olması gereken benlik) kişide, kendi beklentilerini ya da başkalarının beklentilerini karşılamada yetersiz kaldığı yönünde negatif duyuşlar yaratmaktadır. Bu duyuşlar arasında depresyonun bir parçası olan umutsuzluk da yer almaktadır. Şimdiki çalışma Kierkegaard’ın tasvir ettiği “olmak istediği ben hâline gelemediği için olduğu ben’ine katlanamayıp umutsuzluğa yakalanan” kişinin içinde bulunduğu durumu, Higgins’ın öne sürdüğü “gerçek benlik-ideal benlik uyuşmazlığının depresyonla (dolayısıyla umutsuzlukla) ilişkili olabileceği” argümanıyla ilişkili bir biçimde ele almayı ve bu yolla benlik ve umutsuzluk ilişkisini felsefe ve psikoloji disiplinlerinin kesişiminde incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. (shrink)

The aims of this paper are to: (1) identify the best framework for comprehending multidimensional impact of deep brain stimulation on the self; (2) identify weaknesses of this framework; (3) propose refinements to it; (4) in pursuing (3), show why and how this framework should be extended with additional moral aspects and demonstrate their interrelations; (5) define how moral aspects relate to the framework; (6) show the potential consequences of including moral aspects on evaluating DBS’s impact on patients’ selves. (...) Regarding (1), I argue that the pattern theory of self can be regarded as such a framework. In realizing (2) and (3), I indicate that most relevant issues concerning PTS that require resolutions are ontological issues, including the persistence question, the “specificity problem”, and finding lacking relevant aspects of the self. In realizing (4), I identify aspects of the self not included in PTS which are desperately needed to investigate the full range of potentially relevant DBS-induced changes—authenticity, autonomy, and responsibility, and conclude that how we define authenticity will have implications for our concept of autonomy, which in turn will determine how we think about responsibility. Concerning (5), I discuss a complex relation between moral aspects and PTS—on one hand, they serve as the lens through which a particular self-pattern can be evaluated; on the other, they are, themselves, products of dynamical interactions of various self-aspects. Finally, I discuss (6), demonstrating novel way of understanding the effects of DBS on patients’ selves. (shrink)

What are conspiracy theories? And what, if anything, is epistemically wrong with them? I offer an account on which conspiracy theories are a unique way of holding a belief in a conspiracy. Specifically, I take conspiracy theories to be self-insulating beliefs in conspiracies. On this view, conspiracy theorists have their conspiratorial beliefs in a way that is immune to revision by counter-evidence. I argue that conspiracy theories are always irrational. Although conspiracy theories involve an expectation to encounter some seemingly (...) disconfirming evidence (allegedly planted by the conspirators), resistance to all counter- evidence cannot be justified on these grounds. (shrink)

Subjectivity theories of consciousness take self-reference, somehow construed, as essential to having conscious experience. These theories differ with respect to how many levels they posit and to whether self-reference is conscious or not. But all treat self-referencing as a process that transpires at the personal level, rather than at the subpersonal level, the level of mechanism. -/- Working with conceptual resources afforded by pre-existing theories of consciousness that take self-reference to be essential, several attempts have been (...) made to explain seemingly anomalous cases, especially instances of alien experience. These experiences are distinctive precisely because self-referencing is explicitly denied by the only person able to report them: those who experience them deny that certain actions, mental states, or body parts belong to self. The relevant actions, mental states, or body parts are sometimes attributed to someone or something other than self, and sometimes they are just described as not belonging to self. But all are referred away from self. -/- The cases under discussion here include somatoparaphrenia, schizophrenia, depersonalization, anarchic hand syndrome, and utilization behavior; the theories employed, Higher-Order Thought, Wide Intrinsicality, and Self-Representational. Below I argue that each of these attempts at explaining or explaining away the anomalies fails. Along the way, since each of these theories seeks at least compatibility with science, I sketch experimental approaches that could be used to adduce support for my position, or indeed for the positions of theorists with whom I disagree. -/- In a concluding section I first identify two presuppositions shared by all of the theorists considered here, and argue that both are either erroneous or misleading. Second, I call attention to divergent paths adopted when attempting to explain alienation experiences: some theorists choose to add a mental ingredient, while others prefer to subtract one. I argue that alienation from experience, action, or body parts could result from either addition or subtraction, and that the two can be incorporated within a comprehensive explanatory framework. Finally, I suggest that this comprehensive framework would require self-referencing of a sort, but self-referencing that occurs solely on the level of mechanism, or the subpersonal level. In adumbrating some features of this “subpersonal self,” I suggest that there might be one respect in which it is prior to conscious experience. (shrink)

There are many psychic mechanisms by which people engage with their selves. We argue that an important yet hitherto neglected one is self-appraisal via meta-emotions. We discuss the intentional structure of meta-emotions and explore the phenomenology of a variety of examples. We then present a pilot study providing preliminary evidence that some facial displays may indicate the presence of meta-emotions. We conclude by arguing that meta-emotions have an important role to play in higher-order theories of psychic harmony.

This article explores the implicit theories of morality, or the conceptions regarding the patterns of stability, continuity and change in moral dispositions, both in lay and academic discourses. The controversies surrounding these conceptions and the fragmentation of the models and perspectives in metaethics and moral psychology endangers the pursuit of adequate operationalizations of morally relevant constructs. The current debate between situationists, who deny that character is an useful concept for understanding human behavior, which is better explained by contextual factors (Doris (...) 1998; Harman 1998) and dispositionists, who advocate the cross-situational stability of traits, is also present in the lay discourse, through the existence of competing commonsense ontological assumptions regarding the mutability or alterability of moral features, namely the implicit theories perspective (Chiu, Dweck, Tong, & Fu 1997). These personal theories are primary suspects in the affective and cognitive reactions to transgressions: the type of attended information in formulating evaluative judgments, the calibration of moral responsibility and blameworthiness, the assignment of retribution or reparatory recommendations to transgressors. In the second part of the study we attempt to advance toward a more fine-grained inspection of these lay beliefs, arguing that the construct of implicit theories of morality, as it is currently treated and measured, tends to be restrictive and oversimplifying. (shrink)

The central issue here concerns whether Being as explored by Martin Heidegger in Being and Time is constituted spatiotemporally. As such this project has two interlinked objectives. One objective is to supply conceptually plausible answers to Heidegger’s unanswered questions regarding the temporality of Being, which he raised at the very end of Being and Time. In response I argue that each individual human being is constituted as a Space-Time-Event-Motion (STEM) containment-field embodied entity. Heidegger situates Dasein (human existence) in a (...) class='Hi'>temporal stream moving towards the nothingness of death but all the while separating being and time as two distinct phenomena rather than coexistent. I demonstrate why this was a crucial error in Heidegger’s thinking. The second objective deals with the sense of authentic being developed by Heidegger. The spatiotemporal nature of one’s life for Heidegger is understood from the standpoint of Being-in-the-world, as an engaged participant, coexistent with the world, so that contextually it is through this engagement in recognition of this facticity or thrownness that one comes to recognise one’s own authentic self. Somewhat problematic is the coexistent phenomenological recognition that one does not live in isolation and as such one may question what of the contingent, constraining and influencing factors that shape one’s sense of self particularly against the backdrop of self-other relations. This project is situated methodologically within Process Philosophy, and it is from this perspective that draws attention to the role of human agency in which individuals are spatiotemporally construed in terms of Space-Time-Event-Motion (STEM) entities. (shrink)