Schizophrenia and the Scaffolded Self

A family of recent externalist approaches in philosophy of mind argues that our psychological capacities are synchronically and diachronically “scaffolded” by external (i.e., beyond-the-brain) resources. I consider how these “scaffolded” approaches might inform debates in phenomenological psychopathology. I first introduce the idea of “affective scaffolding” and make some taxonomic distinctions. Next, I use schizophrenia as a case study to argue—along with others in phenomenological psychopathology—that schizophrenia is fundamentally a self-disturbance. However, I offer a subtle reconfiguration of these approaches. I argue that schizophrenia is not simply a disruption of ipseity or minimal self-consciousness but rather a disruption of the scaffolded self, established and regulated via its ongoing engagement with the world and others. I conclude by considering how this scaffolded framework indicates the need to consider new forms of intervention and treatment.

     

Self-Awareness without a Self: Buddhism and the Reflexivity of Awareness

In this paper, I show that a robust, reflexivist account of self-awareness (such as was defended by Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, most phenomenologists, and others) is compatible with reductionist view of persons, and hence with a rejection of the existence of a substantial, separate self. My main focus is on the tension between Buddhist reflexivism and the central Buddhist doctrine of no-self. In the first section of the paper, I give a brief sketch of reflexivist accounts of self-awareness, using the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti as my example. In the next section, I examine reductionism as it relates to accounts of the self. I then, in the third section, argue that a reductionist account of persons can account for the unique features of first-person contents and our deep and multi-layered sense of self.     

Loneliness and appearance: Toward a concept of ontological agency

In this paper, I posit loneliness, as Hannah Arendt defines it in the final chapter of The Origins of Totalitarianism as the conceptual opposite of agency. I give a brief overview of Arendt's phenomenology of loneliness, which is the total loss of the common world—the state in which one is incapable of being an interlocutor, through thought, speech, or action, with others and, ultimately, incapable of appearing as an individual to others. Though loneliness is realised in its most extreme form in the concentration camps, it is a problem that haunts all human interaction. It is often very difficult, especially for marginalised and traumatised subjects, to give an account of themselves, indeed, to make any sense of their lives at all. I argue that this difficulty is not insurmountable and make the claim that ontological agency, understood as the appearance as oneself to others in the world (the exercise of self‐disclosure), is an irreducible and constant capacity of every individual, no matter how deeply silenced or oppressed she may have been. I argue, further, that ontological agency is a precondition for meaningful political agency, understood as the public articulation of a well‐formed opinion or judgment.     

Hume's Dispositional Account of the Self

This paper will argue that Hume's notion of the self in Book 2 of the Treatise seems subject to two constraints. First, it should be a succession of perceptions [THN 2.2.1.2, 2.1.2.3]. Second, it should be durable in virtue of the roles that it plays with regard to pride and humility, as well as to normativity. However, I argue that these two constraints are in tension, since our perceptions are too transient to play these roles. I argue that this notion of self should be characterized as a bundle of dispositions to our perceptions, such that these dispositions are durable and counterfactual-supporting. I argue that Hume confused his ‘philosophical’ notion of dispositions, as nothing above and beyond their effects, with the thicker notion of dispositions to which the passions respond—which explains his mistaken commitment to the durability constraint.     

Beyond the Tools of the Trade: Heidegger and the Intelligibility of Everyday Things

In everyday life, we constantly encounter and deal with useful things without pausing to inquire about the sources of their intelligibility. In Div. I of Being and Time, Heidegger undertakes just such an inquiry. According to a common reading of Heidegger's analysis, the intelligibility of our everyday encounters and dealings with useful things is ultimately constituted by practical self‐understandings (such as being a gardener, shoemaker, teacher, mother, musician, or philosopher). In this paper, I argue that while such practical self‐understandings may be sufficient to constitute the intelligibility of the tools and equipment specific to many practices, these “tools of the trade” are only a small portion of the things we encounter, use, and deal with on a daily basis. Practical self‐understandings cannot similarly account for the intelligibility of the more mundane things—like toothbrushes and sidewalks—used in everyday life. I consider whether an anonymous self‐understanding as “one,” “anyone,” or “no one in particular” —das Man—might play this intelligibility‐constituting role. In examining this possibility, another type of self‐understanding comes to light: cultural identities. I show that the cultural identities into which we are “thrown,” rather than practical identities or das Man, constitute the intelligibility of the abundance of mundane things that fill our everyday lives. Finally, I spell out how this finding bears on our understanding of Heidegger's notion of authenticity.     

Anton Boisen: A Portrait

This psychobiographical essay aims to shift Boisen scholarship from a focus on his disputed psychiatric diagnosis to a more inclusive investigation of the disparate aspects of his personality. I conclude that Boisen’s central personality trait was a brand of loquacity that lacked substance—specifically the substance of his deepest secrets. This caused a kind of chronic frustration in his relations with others and, I argue, led to his chronic, psychotic state of being. Additionally, I argue that Boisen’s psychosis and religious practice worked together to sustain his psychological regression.     

Settler-State Borders and the Question of Indigenous Immigrant Identity

Indigenous migration from Latin America to the United States has been on the rise over the past decades. There has also been an increase in Indigenous self-identification amongst people in the United States who previously self-identified as Hispanic or Latina/o on census forms. Though Latin American Indigenous migration to the United States has been steadily on the rise since the 1990s, there remains a lack of resources—philosophical, political, and bureaucratic—to account for this migrant group. My goal in this article is to explore in greater depth why Latin American Indigenous migration is hermeneutically marginalised. First, I argue that we problematically fail to understand settler-state borders—particularly the Mexico-US border—as, in part, Indigenous spaces. Second, and relatedly, I argue that our failure to understand borders as Indigenous spaces is connected to the widespread, inaccurate presumption that Indigenous peoples ‘lose their authenticity’ (and, in turn, their very Indigenous identities) upon crossing settler-state borders. Contrary to what I describe as the dominant view of borders as de-Indigenised or non-Indigenous spaces, I argue in that many settler-state borders are spaces where Indigenous peoples, including Indigenous migrants, may experience their Indigenous identities intimately, and even publicly articulate and defend them. Importantly, this does not mean that settler-state borders do not also harm Indigenous peoples by threating Indigenous sovereignty. I end by arguing that addressing the hermeneutical marginalisation of Latin American Indigenous migration requires a rigorous reconceptualisation of borders themselves as Indigenous spaces.     

Intimacy,Autonomy and (Non) Domination

Accounts of autonomy which acknowledge the importance of non‐domination – that is, of being structurally protected against arbitrary interference with one's life – face an apparent problem with regards to intimate relationships (whether romantic or otherwise). By their very nature, such relations open us up to psychological and material suffering that would not be possible absent the particular relationship; even worse, from the non‐domination point of view, is that this vulnerability seems to be structural in a way exactly analogous to (for example) workplace or social domination. If being powerless to prevent an employer causing me harm constitutes domination at work, then what relevant differences can support the intuition that being powerless to prevent my partner causing me comparable pain is not autonomy‐hostile? I argue for the reassuring view that the obligations and possibility of pain arising from such relations aren't necessarily dominating; they would be so only if we believed that any obligation we have not explicitly agreed to is a restriction on our autonomy, and that is false. I conclude with a note of caution: even though intimate relations aren't necessarily dominating, they will often be contingently so if they take place in a wider social context of domination – such as that which we currently inhabit.     

Fusion First

Logics of part/whole relations frequently take parthood or proper parthood as primitive, defining the remaining mereological properties and relations in terms of them. I argue from considerations involving Weak Supplementation for the conclusion that we should take fusion as our mereological primitive. I point out that the intuitions supporting Weak Supplementation also support a stronger principle, Weak Supplementation of Pluralities, and that the principle can only do the work demanded by our intuitions when formulated in terms of a notion of fusion that cannot be defined merely in terms of mereological properties and relations, logic, and a membership relation. So, insofar as we think any definition of fusion must be so restricted, we have motivation to take fusion as primitive; further, we have greater insight into the motivation for our supplementation principle and which version of that principle we ought to endorse.     

Self and Identity in Later Life: Protecting and Enhancing the Self

Self and identity are central concepts in the social and behavioral sciences for multiple reasons. At least three major research traditions focus on the self. First, sociologists view the self as a primary bridge between social structures and individual attitudes and behaviors, as a mechanism by which social structures and individuals affect and are affected by each other. Second, self and identity are viewed as cornerstones of well-being. Thus, social and behavioral scientists have documented important links between the self and physical and mental health, role performance, the quality of interpersonal relationships, and subjective well-being. Third, the self is conceptualized as a central motivating force in human behavior. Issues as diverse as self-selection into specific environments, defense mechanisms, and the desire and ability to break addictive behaviors have been informed by attention to the motivational force of the self. This latter tradition serves as the conceptual bedrock of this paper. This paper examines three components of the self: self-efficacy, self-esteem, and a sense of authenticity. The first two have received substantial theoretical and empirical attention; the latter, much less. I argue that this unequal distribution of scientific inquiry is a result of too much emphasis on the motivation to protect the self, to the neglect of motivation to enhance the self. I make a case for the particular importance of examining self-enhancement in late life.     

The Disease Concept of Alcoholism by E. M. Jellinek

The authors use the philosophical writings of Martin Buber to discuss intimacy and distance in group psychotherapy. They argue that there are two entirely different types of dynamics. The first is a relationship and real meeting between members of the group that necessarily ends, as do all I–You relationships, with a transition to I–It relations. In the second type of dynamic the relations are on the It dimension, in which others exist only as the content of the individual's experience. Any apparent intimacy that develops is limited by the very attitude to others as objects of the “I,” and ends with disappointment in the realization that there is no real intimacy and meeting.     

Recognition,Freedom, and the Self in Fichte's Foundations of Natural Right

In this paper I present an interpretation of J. G. Fichte's transcendental argument for the necessity of mutual recognition (Anerkennung) in Foundations of Natural Right. Fichte's argument purports to show that, as a condition of the possibility of self‐consciousness, we must take ourselves to stand in relations of mutual recognition with other agents like ourselves. After reconstructing the steps of Fichte's argument, I present what I call the ‘modal dilemma’, which highlights a serious ambiguity in Fichte's deduction. According to the modal dilemma, the conclusion to Fichte's transcendental argument—that as a condition of the possibility of our self‐consciousness, we must recognize and be recognized by others—expresses either metaphysical or normative necessity. However, no normative conclusion follows from Fichte's premises, and the metaphysical claim that does follow from his argument appears to be implausibly strong. Thus the argument looks like a failure on either interpretation of the conclusion's modality. In the penultimate section of the paper, I propose a new interpretation of the argument that avoids the modal dilemma and provides a normative grounding of Fichte's concept of right.     

Which Mental States Are Rationally Evaluable,And Why?

What makes certain mental states subject to evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification, and others arational? In this paper, I develop and defend an account that explains why belief is governed by, and so appropriately subject to, evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification, one that does justice to the complexity of our evaluative practice in this domain. Then, I sketch out a way of extending the account to explain when and why other kinds of mental states are rationally evaluable. I argue that the cognitive or psychological mechanisms that give rise to and sustain our mental states help to render our mental states appropriate targets for evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification when the operation of these mechanisms is responsive, in a specific way, to our judgments about which kinds of considerations constitute rationalizing and justifying reasons for being in states of the relevant sort.     

In Defense of the Moral Significance of Empathy

It is commonly suggested that empathy is a morally important quality to possess and that a failure to properly empathize with others is a kind of moral failure. This suggestion assumes that empathy involves caring for others’ well-being. Skeptics challenge the moral importance of empathy by arguing that empathy is neither necessary nor sufficient to care for others’ well-being. This challenge is misguided. Although some forms of empathy may not be morally important, empathy with another’s basic well-being concerns is both necessary and sufficient to care for another’s well-being, provided that one’s empathy is both cognitive and affective. I further defend the idea that empathy of this form is a moral virtue. In doing so, I address three challenges to empathy’s status as a virtue: (1) that empathy is unnecessary for being ethical, (2) that it is not useful for promoting ethical behavior, and (3) that an empathetic person can lack other traits central to being virtuous, such as being motivated by the moral good and being disposed to do virtuous things whenever appropriate opportunities arise. I argue that these challenges are mistaken.     

Would a neuroscience of violence aid in understanding legal culpability?

Defense attorneys in criminal cases are beginning to argue that their clients were biologically predisposed to committing their crimes and therefore were less responsible for their behavior. Indeed, if our brains cause our behavior, and our brains are the way they are because of genetic composition, insults, disease, and life experiences, it becomes difficult to argue that any punishment as justified retribution for behavior is cogent. In this essay, I address the question of whether understanding the neuroscience behind human behavior should alter our legal notion of responsibility. We will examine this query in greater detail, using violence as a case study, asking whether understanding the neuroscience underlying violent behavior impacts our notion of personal or legal culpability. I shall argue that it does not. I proceed by first briefly sketching what we know about human violence and the biology behind it. Then I turn to a quick discussion of psychopaths, their connections to violence, and what we think we know about the biology of their brains. Finally, I come to the question of whether we should consider violent people with specific brain abnormalities as mad or bad, which will feed into the question of whether such people are responsible for their criminal behavior. I conclude with some very general and very brief speculations on what this discussion has to tell us about nature of being human.     

Slicing White Bre(a)d: Racial Identities,Recipes, and Italian-American Women

This article focuses on Italian-American women and on how they construct, understand, and maintain their ethnic identity in relation to Whiteness and White privilege. Since language cannot serve as symbol for these women because speaking Italian was often forbidden in their homes, or spoken only between adults in covert communications, they often must cling to other symbols of Italianness in order to preserve their sense of gendered ethnic identities. I argue that one such symbol is food, wherein participants manipulate recipes and use food to navigate and negotiate being both Italian and American, Whiteness, femininity, and social class. Implications for therapy about how we understand our multiple identities in relation to others as part of larger systems of power and privilege are explored.     

Bodily Awareness, Imagination and the Self

Common wisdom tells us that we have five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. These senses provide us with a means of gaining information concerning objects in the world around us, including our own bodies. But in addition to these five senses, each of us is aware of our own body in ways in which we are aware of no other thing. These ways include our awareness of the position, orientation, movement, and size of our limbs (proprioception and kinaesthesia), our sense of balance, and our awareness of bodily sensations such as pains, tickles, and sensations of pressure or temperature. We can group these together under the title ‘bodily awareness’. The legitimacy of grouping together these ways of gaining information is shown by the fact that they are unified phenomenologically; they provide the subject with an awareness of his or her body ‘from the inside’. Bodily awareness is an awareness of our own bodies from within. This perspective on our own bodies does not, cannot, vary. As Merleau‐Ponty writes, ‘my own body…is always presented to me from the same angle’ (1962: 90). It has recently been claimed by a number of philosophers that, in bodily awareness, one is not simply aware of one's body as one's body, but one is aware of one's body as oneself. That is, when I attend to the object of bodily awareness I am presented not just with my body, but with my ‘bodily self’. The contention of the present paper is that such a view is misguided. In the first section I clarify just what is at issue here. In the remainder of the paper I present an argument, based on two claims about the nature of the imagination, against the view that the bodily self is presented in bodily awareness. Section two defends the dependency thesis; a claim about the relation between perception and sensory imagination. Section three defends a certain view about our capacity to imagine being other people. Section four presents the main argument against the bodily self awareness view and section five addresses some objections.     

Early Education in Plato's Republic

In this paper, I reconsider the commonly held position that the early moral education of the Republic is arational since the youths of the Kallipolis do not yet have the capacity for reason. I argue that, because they receive an extensive mathematical education alongside their moral education, the youths not only have a capacity for reason but that capacity is being developed in their early education. If this is so, though, then we must rethink why the early moral education is arational. I argue that the reason is rooted in the nature of moral explanations. These sorts of explanations are rooted in the Forms and thus one can only understand those explanations when they have knowledge of the Forms. But this requires preparation – the very sort of preparation that is provided by both the mathematical and moral educations.     

The body of the other: intercorporeality and the phenomenology of agoraphobia

How is our experience of the world affected by our experience of others? Such is the question I will be exploring in this paper. I will do so via the agoraphobic condition. In agoraphobia, we are rewarded with an enriched glimpse into the intersubjective formation of the world, and in particular to our embodied experience of that social space. I will be making two key claims. First, intersubjectivity is essentially an issue of intercorporeality, a point I shall explore with recourse to Merleau-Ponty’s account of the prepersonal body. The implication of this claim is that evading or withdrawing from the other remains structurally impossible so long as we remain bodily subjects. Second, the necessary relation with others defines our thematic and affective experience of the world. Far from a formal connection with others, the corporeal basis of intersubjectivity means that our lived experience of the world is mediated via our bodily relations with others. In this way, intercorporeality reveals the body as being dynamically receptive to social interactions with others. Each of these claims is demonstrated via a phenomenological analysis of the agoraphobe’s interaction with others. From this analysis, I conclude that our experience of the world is affected by our experience of others precisely because we are in a bodily relation with others. Such a relation is not causally linked, as though first there were a body, then a world, and then a subject that provided a thematic and affective context to that experience. Instead, body, other, and world are each intertwined in a single unity and cannot be considered apart.