Violence and Selfhood

Is violence senseless or is it at the origin of sense? Does its destruction of meaning disclose ourselves as the origin of meaning? Or is it the case that it leaves in its wake only a barren field? Does it result in renewal or only in a sense of dead loss? To answer these questions, I shall look at James Dodd’s, Hegel’s, and Carl Schmitt’s accounts of the creative power of violence—particularly with regard to its ability to give individuals and groups their sense of self-identity. I shall also follow up on Peg Birmingham’s suggestion that Socrates’ defense at his trial points to an alternate source of our self-identity—one that is ultimately less barren.     

Ethics and Selfhood: A Critique

Connectionism: Debates on Psychological Explanation, Volume Two Edited by Cynthia Macdonald and Graham Macdonald Blackwell, 1995. Pp. xvii + 424. ISBN 0–631–19744–3. £50.00 (hbk). ISBN 0–631–19745–1 £16.99 (pbk).

New books on the philosophy of religion

Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason By J.L. Schellenberg, Cornell University Press, 1993. Pp. 217. ISBN 0–8014–2792–4. $36.50 (hbk).

Reason and the Heart By William J. Wainwright, Cornell University Press, 1995. Pp. 160. ISBN 0–8014–3139–5. $28.50 (hbk).

The Rationality of Belief and the Plurality of Faith Edited by Thomas D. Senor, Cornell University Press, 1995. Pp. 291. ISBN 0–8014–3127–1. $39.95 (hbk).     

Free Will,Values, and Narrative Selfhood

Philosophia - Robert Kane’s libertarian theory of freedom is frequently attacked in the free will literature by the “luck objection”. Alfred Mele’s articulation of the...     

Spirituality, Gender, and Expressive Selfhood

This article discusses contemporary spiritualities, focusing in particular on the recent growth of practices attending to "mind, body, and sprit" and centered on the goal of "holistic well-being." We argue that the growing popularity of such "holistic spirituality" since the 1980s can be greatly illuminated by reference to Charles Taylor's account of the expressive mode of modern selfhood. Taylor's account is limited, however, by its inability to explain why women are disproportionately active within the sphere of holistic spirituality. By paying closer attention to gender, we seek to refine Taylor's approach and to advance our understanding of contemporary spirituality. Drawing on findings from two qualitative studies of holistic spirituality and health carried out in the United Kingdom, this article offers an analysis of what the "subjective turn" may mean for women. We argue that holistic spiritualities align with traditional spheres and representations of femininity, while simultaneously supporting and encouraging a move away from selfless to expressive selfhood. By endorsing and sanctioning "living life for others" and "living life for oneself," holistic spiritualities offer a way of negotiating dilemmas of selfhood that face many women — and some men—in late modern contexts .     

Selfhood and the Problem of Sameness: Some Reflections

Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research - This paper examines the problem of sameness in terms of being it the classical problem of personal identity and various philosophical positions...     

Ethics and Selfhood: A Reply to Dermot Moran and John Drummond 1

Situating the Self By Seyla Benhabib Polity Press, 1992. Pp. viii + 266. ISBN 0–7456–1059–5. £11.95 pbk.

A Descartes Dictionary By John Cottingham Basil Blackwell, 1993. Pp. 187. ISBN 0–631–18538–0. £12.99 pbk.

A reply to Baker and Morris By John Cottingham

Truth and Objectivity By Crispin Wright Harvard University Press, 1992. Pp. x + 247. ISBN 0–674–91086–9. £19.95.     

Selfhood triumvirate: From phenomenology to brain activity and back again

Recently, a three-dimensional construct model for complex experiential Selfhood has been proposed (Fingelkurts, Fingelkurts, & Kallio-Tamminen, 2016b,c). According to this model, three specific subnets (or modules) of the brain self-referential network (SRN) are responsible for the manifestation of three aspects/features of the subjective sense of Selfhood. Follow up multiple studies established a tight relation between alterations in the functional integrity of the triad of SRN modules and related to them three aspects/features of the sense of self; however, the causality of this relation is yet to be shown. In this article we approached the question of causality by exploring functional integrity within the three SRN modules that are thought to underlie the three phenomenal components of Selfhood while these components were manipulated mentally by experienced meditators in a controlled and independent manner. Participants were requested, in a block-randomised manner, to mentally induce states representing either increased (up-regulation) or decreased (down-regulation) sense of (a) witnessing agency (“Self”), or (b) body representational-emotional agency (“Me”), or (c) reflective/narrative agency (“I”), while their brain activity was recorded by an electroencephalogram (EEG). This EEG-data was complemented by first-person phenomenological reports and standardised questionnaires which focused on subjective contents of three aspects of Selfhood. The results of the study strengthen the case for a direct causative relationship between three phenomenological aspects of Selfhood and related to them three modules of the brain SRN. Furthermore, the putative integrative model of the dynamic interrelations among three modules of the SRN has been proposed.     

Together in Need: Relational Selfhood,Vulnerability to Harm,and Enriching Attachments

Connections between one's own welfare and that of others abound if we pause to look for them, although philosophical theories of selfhood have only very recently begun to incorporate these connections. This essay draws on recent work on need to argue that one of the strongest expressions of these connections is to be found in the relational needs that they can generate. While paying heed to needs that arise from the relational nature of selfhood at large, this essay pays particular attention to what I call “transpersonal needs”: needs that occur when one's experience of the needs of others gives rise to certain needs of one's own. I argue that the best criterion for defining need is vulnerability to harm, but this does not mean that having a need is something that is purely harmful. Having certain needs can also enrich one's life. Further, while every need entails a corresponding vulnerability to harm, some of these potential harms are more detrimental to one's welfare than others, with some relational needs standing among those that can result in the greatest harm if unanswered.