Affordances and the Nature of Perceptual Content

Abstract

According to John McDowell, representational perceptual content is conceptual through and through. This paper criticizes this view by claiming that there is a certain kind of representational and non‐conceptual perceptual content that is sensitive to bodily skills. After a brief introduction to McDowell’s position, Merleau‐Ponty’s notion of body schema and Gibson’s notion of affordance are presented. It is argued that affordances are constitutive of representational perceptual content, and that at least some affordances, the so‐called ‘conditional affordances’, are essentially related to the body schema. This means that the perceptual content depends upon the nature of the body schema. Since the body schema does not pertain to the domain that our conceptual faculties operate upon, it is argued that this kind of perceptual content cannot be conceptual. At least some of that content is representational, yet it cannot feature as non‐demonstrative conceptual content. It is argued that if it features as demonstrative conceptual content, it has to be captured by private concepts. Since McDowell’s theory does not allow for the existence of a private language, it is concluded that at least some representational perceptual content is non‐conceptual.     

Sexuality and meaning in Freud and Merleau‐Ponty

This article analyzes the links between the conception of the body and of sexuality found in Freud and Merleau‐Ponty. The French philosopher refers to Freud in various of his works, and performs a reading of Freud through which he rescues the meaning that the latter gives to sexuality as he integrates it into the totality of the person, without making it into a blind or merely instinctive force. As a consequence of this integration, the notions of the unconscious and of instinct or drive are interpreted in the light of the meaning or signification that they have in the person's behavior. Merleau‐Ponty's notion of pre‐reflective knowledge plays a decisive role in this understanding of meaning. In the same way, it allows important contemporary analysts to use these studies in their therapeutic work and also in psychological studies.     

The ego and the id revisited Freud and Damasio on the body ego/self

Freud's statement in The Ego and the Id (1923) that the ego is first and foremost a bodily ego is well known. This paper tempts to clarify the premises underlying Freud's thesis. Particular attention is paid to Freud's investigation of internal perceptions. Freud argued that internal perceptions are more primordial than perceptions arising externally. In Freud's opinion the roots of the ego, the id, are to be found in body sensations and feelings, but he had to admit that very little was known about these sensations and feelings. Only much later was neuroscience in a position to offer evidence that feelings can be the direct perception of the internal state of the body. Damasio (2010) has recently suggested that the core of the self might be found in what he, like Freud, terms primordial feelings. Not only was Freud able to conceive of the ego as the perception and feeling of our own body but also to conceive of knowing the mental life of another by means of recreating the bodily state of another through imitation.     

Ego,self and otherness

The concept of self has been introduced as a core concept in several contemporary psychoanalytical theories. This study undertakes a critical examination of the historical and theoretical presuppositions of the concept of self and its corollary, the object. The proposed thesis is that the concept of self on a theoretical level has grown out of ego-psychology and the ambition is to bring consistency into the ambiguous concept of the ego left by Freud. On a clinical level, the concept of self is seen as an attempt to adjust psychoanalytical theory and technique to what, broadly speaking, we call non-neurotic patients. While the concept of self on a theoretical level dates back to Hartmann, it was left to those following the tradition of ego-psychology to work out the implications for our understanding of the pathology of the self and its proper treatment. The work of Heinz Kohut is seen as an exponent for those analysts who have been wrestling with the task of adjusting psychoanalytical theory and technique to our understanding and treatment of non-neurotic patients. A re-reading of the Freudian concept of the ego allows the author to present an alternative to ego-psychology and self psychology. While the concept of the self implies a re-centred theory of subjectivity, the author points to the de-centeredness of classical psychoanalytical thinking. Freud did not find an independent concept of the self necessary. On the contrary, psychoanalytical theory rejected the idea of the psyche as a complete and unified entity. Defining the ego as a representative of the divided psyche encompassing the other, the author suggests that incorporating contributions from French psychoanalytical thinking and the ideas of Winnicott places the self as a concept in accordance with classical psychoanalytical thinking.     

Dreyfus and Deleuze on L’habitude,Coping, and Trauma in Skill Acquisition

Abstract

One of the more important and under‐thematized philosophical disputes in contemporary European philosophy pertains to the significance that is given to the inter‐related phenomena of habituality, skilful coping, and learning. This paper examines this dispute by focusing on the work of the Merleau‐Ponty and Heidegger‐inspired phenomenologist Hubert Dreyfus, and contrasting his analyses with those of Gilles Deleuze, particularly in Difference and Repetition. Both Deleuze and Dreyfus pay a lot of attention to learning and coping, while arriving at distinct conclusions about these phenomena with a quite different ethico‐political force. By getting to the bottom of the former, my hope is to problematize aspects of the latter in both philosophers’ work. In Deleuze’s case, it will be argued that he adopts a problematic position on learning that is aptly termed ‘empirico‐romanticism’. While I will agree with the general thrust of Dreyfus’ foregrounding of habit and skilful coping, even in the political realm, it will also be argued that there are some risks associated with his view, notably of devolving into a conservative communitarianism.     

Varieties of the extended self

This article provides an overview and analysis of recent work on the extended self, demonstrating that the boundaries of selves are fluid, shifting across biological, artifactual, and sociocultural structures. First, it distinguishes the notions of minimal self, person, and narrative self. Second, it surveys how philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive scientists argue that embodiment, cognition, emotion, consciousness, and moral character traits can be extended and what that implies for the boundaries of selves. It also reviews and responds to various criticisms and counterarguments against the extended self. The main focus is on the link between the extended mind and extended self, which has received the most attention in recent literature. But accounts of the extended self developed independently of the extended mind are also briefly discussed. This article ends by drawing out some of the conceptual, methodological, and normative implications of the extended self and suggesting some directions for future research.     

On being, knowing and having a self

This paper(1) takes the distinction between being conscious ('core consciousness') and knowing that one is conscious (self-reflexive consciousness) as a starting point for differentiating between three different aspects of the self: 1) the overall process of psychosomatic being which we share with all living creatures and which expresses itself through action (self as totality), 2) the conscious awareness of knowing the self that is a peculiarly human phenomenon consequent on the development of symbolic imagination (sense of self including numinous experiences of the self) and 3) having a self (or soul) as an essential attribute of being human that can only be achieved through being endowed with a self in the mind of others (self-identity leading to the self as the centre of the personality). Some clinical implications of these distinctions are considered including the role of interpretation as fostering integration through the provision of alternative self-images, the loss of self-reflexive consciousness in states of overwhelming affect and the attack on the spontaneous psychosomatic being of the self in states of self-hatred and self-division.     

Consciousness of the self (COS) and explicit knowledge

Starting with distinction between explicit and implicit knowledge and the traditional philosophical distinction between COS (the consciousness of self) as an object and COS as a subject, we suggest a triple classification of COS experience into three modes, each corresponding to a different state of consciousness. When one acts automatically COS is totally embedded within the representation of the environment. When one monitors or attends to one's experience, the self is implied by an explicit representation of one's attitudes, consistent with Descartes' cogito insight 'I think therefore I am' (1641,1984). However, a reflexive thought, e.g., 'I know fact x,' requires an explicit representation of the self. This analysis highlights the existence of an intermediate mode of COS as a subject and suggests its possible connection to monitoring one's behavior.     

Comparative analysis of integrative self-knowledge, mindfulness, and private self-consciousness in predicting responses to stress in Iran

Previous research has established that awareness of self-experience is a stress resistance resource. The present study conducted an analysis of measures that record different aspects of self-awareness (private self-consciousness, mindfulness, and integrative self-knowledge) to explain this stress-resistance effect in a sample of Iranian university students (N = 186). These students responded to Mindfulness Attention Awareness, Private Self-Consciousness, Integrative Self-Knowledge, and Perceived Stress Scales just before the stress of a 20-day final examination period, and they then responded to Symptom Checklist and Vitality measures at four-day intervals during the final examinations. Prior to final examinations, the three self-awareness variables correlated positively with each other and negatively with perceived stress. Regression analyses of the data obtained during final examinations identified mindfulness to be a better operationalization of this stress-resistance resource than private self-consciousness. Specifically, mindfulness but not private self-consciousness was a positive predictor of vitality and a negative predictor of symptoms. Hierarchical regression analyses also demonstrated that mindfulness and integrative self-knowledge both explained resistance to physical symptoms, while integrative self-knowledge functioned as a protective factor toward one's vitality. These data confirm the positive impact that self-awareness has during stress and highlight the importance of considering both mindfulness and integrative self-knowledge in understanding stress-resistance processes.     

The Philosophical Role of Illness

This article examines the philosophical role of illness. It briefly surveys the philosophical role accorded to illness in the history of philosophy and explains why illness merits such a role. It suggests that illness modifies, and thus sheds light on, normal experience, revealing its ordinary and therefore overlooked structure. Illness also provides an opportunity for reflection by performing a kind of suspension (epoché) of previously held beliefs, including tacit beliefs. The article argues that these characteristics warrant a philosophical role for illness. While the performance of most philosophical procedures is volitional and theoretical, however, illness is uninvited and threatening, throwing the ill person into anxiety and uncertainty. As such it can be viewed as a radical philosophical motivation that can profoundly alter our outlook. The article suggests that illness can change the ways in which we philosophise: it may shape philosophical methods and concerns and change one's sense of salience and conception of philosophy.     

Singularity and consciousness: A neuropsychological contribution

In common sense experience based on introspection, consciousness is singular. There is only one ‘me’ and that is the one that is conscious. This means that ‘singularity’ is a defining aspect of ‘consciousness’. However, the three main theories of consciousness, Integrated Information, Global Workspace and Recurrent Processing theory, are generally not very clear on this issue. These theories have traditionally relied heavily on neuropsychological observations and have interpreted various disorders, such as anosognosia, neglect and split-brain as impairments in conscious awareness without any reference to ‘the singularity’. In this review, we will re-examine the theoretical implications of these impairments in conscious awareness and propose a new way how to conceptualize consciousness of singularity. We will argue that the subjective feeling of singularity can coexist with several disunified conscious experiences. Singularity awareness may only come into existence due to environmental response constraints. That is, perceptual, language, memory, attentional and motor processes may largely proceed unintegrated in parallel, whereas a sense of unity only arises when organisms need to respond coherently constrained by the affordances of the environment. Next, we examine from this perspective psychiatric disorders and psycho-active drugs. Finally, we present a first attempt to test this hypothesis with a resting state imaging experiment in a split-brain patient. The results suggest that there is substantial coherence of activation across the two hemispheres. These data show that a complete lesioning of the corpus callosum does not, in general, alter the resting state networks of the brain. Thus, we propose that we have separate systems in the brain that generate distributed conscious. The sense of singularity, the experience of a ‘Me-ness’, emerges in the interaction between the world and response-planning systems, and this leads to coherent activation in the different functional networks across the cortex.     

The road to the unconscious self not taken: Discrepancies between self‐ and observer‐inferences about implicit dispositions from nonverbal behavioural cues

To what extent can individuals gain insight into their own or another person's implicit dispositions' We investigated whether self‐perceivers versus neutral observers can detect implicit dispositions from nonverbal behavioural cues contained in video feedback (cue validity) and whether these cues are in turn used as a valid basis for explicit dispositional inferences (cue utilization). Across three studies in the domains of extraversion and anxiety we consistently obtained reliable cue validity and cue utilization for neutral observers but not for self‐perceivers. An additional measure of state inferences in Study 3 showed that one reason for the lack of mediation in self‐perceivers is their reluctance to use their state inferences as a basis for more general trait inferences. We conclude that people have a ‘blind spot’ with respect to the nonverbal behavioural manifestations of their unconscious selves, even though neutral observers may readily detect and utilize this information for dispositional inferences. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Contextualized self: when the self runs into social dilemmas

Research on the construction of self and of others has indicated that the way that individuals construe themselves and others exerts an important influence on their cognition, emotion, and even behavior. The present study extends this line of research to mixed-motive situations in which short-term individual and long-term collective interests are at odds. In addition, this study associates the importance of context interdependence, and specifically its interaction with independent self-construal, with an individual's cooperative behavior. We used a priming task to manipulate the level of self-construal and also manipulated the degree of interdependent context by giving participants a chance to assign rewards either to their group members or to themselves alone. The results showed that when participants received interdependent (as opposed to independent) self-construal priming, they consistently contributed highly, regardless of context manipulation. In contrast, those primed with an independent self-construal contributed less in the investment game, but only when placed in a context where group members were encouraged to think about their individual (versus mutual) fate. In this situation they contributed the least to the group in the game. These findings indicate that independent self-construal in a low interdependence context produces the most competitive behavior. The results also showed that how participants felt about their interaction with other group members mediated the effect of context interdependence on cooperative behavior, and possibly that was especially the case for independent self-construal. The results demonstrate that the self can be contextualized and embedded in the social contexts and symbolic systems within which people live.     

Let There Be Variance: Individual Differences in Consecutive Self‐control in a Laboratory Setting and Daily Life

The large body of research used to support ego‐depletion effects is currently faced with conceptual and replication issues, leading to doubt over the extent or even existence of the ego‐depletion effect. By using within‐person designs in a laboratory (Study 1; 187 participants) and an ambulatory assessment study (Study 2; 125 participants), we sought to clarify this ambiguity by investigating whether prominent situational variables (such as motivation and affect) or personality traits can help elucidate when ego depletion can be observed and when not. Although only marginal ego‐depletion effects were found in both studies, these effects varied considerably between individuals, indicating that some individuals experience self‐control decrements after initial self‐control exertion and others not. However, neither motivation nor affect nor personality traits such as trait self‐control could consistently explain this variability when models were applied that controlled for variance due to targets and the depletion manipulation (Study 1) or days (Study 2) as well as for multiple testing. We discuss how the operationalization and reliability of our key measures may explain these null effects and demonstrate that alternative metrics may be required to study the consequences of the consecutive exertion of self‐control. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology     

From conscious experience to a conscious self

In his book The Opacity of Mind, Peter Carruthers (2011 Carruthers, P. (2011). The opacity of mind: An integrative theory of self-knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) presents the Interpretive Sensory Awareness theory (“ISA”), which holds that while we have direct access to our own sensory states, our access to “self-knowledge” is almost always interpretive. In presenting his view, Carruthers also claims that his account is the first of its kind; after a cursory examination of major theories of mind, he concludes that “transparent access” accounts of self-knowledge—the alternative to ISA—have been endorsed throughout history. This paper challenges this latter claim. Contrary to Carruthers’ view, the paper argues that Buddhist theories of mind are not “transparent access” accounts. Instead, they not only have an analysis of sensory processing and conscious experience similar to that of ISA, but also share what Carruthers sees as ISA’s central tenet: individuals lack transparent, conscious access to most of their propositional attitudes. Given this fundamental alignment, the Buddhist perspective can offer us fresh responses to ISA’s critics, as well as approaches to ethics and free will that are aligned with ISA’s conclusions.     

Subjectivity and Class Consciousness: The Development of Class Identity

In this paper, the author explores issues of self and identity, in particular the development of consciousness of social class and the negotiation of conflicting class identities. Literature on working-class students and academics from the working class indicates that upward mobility from working class to professional class can be disorienting due to class-related sociocultural differences and the internalization of class conflicts. By drawing upon one case from an ethnographic study with ten female professors from the working class, the author explores the development of one woman's working-class consciousness and the ways in which it influenced her teaching. Detailed analyses of three narratives from one interview are presented that highlight particular contexts and events in a process of class identity development.     

未成年人法律自我保护意识的调查

本研究用自编“未成年人法律自我保护意识问卷”考察了1178名未成年人学生的法律自我保护意识的现状、性别差异及父母文化程度对其的影响。结果表明,大多数未成年人被试对《未成年人保护法》的熟悉度较低;未成年人被试法律自我保护意识的盲区主要表现在大多数未成年人没有意识到父母或其他监护人对其生命健康权和人格尊严权的侵犯是违法的行为;《未成年人保护法》的宣传教育应当更具科学性和针对性。     

Exploring the Interplay of Trait Self‐Control and Ego Depletion: Empirical Evidence for Ironic Effects

Trait self‐control (TSC) has been conceptualized as a general and abstract ability to exert self‐regulation across multiple domains that has mostly beneficial effects. However, its relationship to situational depletion of self‐regulatory resources has received little attention. We systematically explore the interplay of trait and situational self‐control in two studies (total N = 264). In contrast with a positive view of TSC, the results show greater ego depletion effects for high (vs. low) self‐control abilities across such diverse domains as candy consumption (Study 1), risk‐taking behaviour (Study 2) and achievement motivation (Study 2). It is proposed that these ironic effects are attributable to high‐TSC individuals' less frequent active inhibition of impulses in everyday life and their resulting lack of experience in resisting acute temptations. A third study (N> = 358) corroborated this general reasoning by showing that TSC is indeed associated with less frequent impulse inhibition in daily routines. Our data point to a downside of dispositional self‐control in ego depletion paradigms. Other explanations and potential future avenues for resolving inconsistent findings across the literature are discussed. Copyright © 2013 European Association of Personality Psychology