Special Issue: "Hidden Resources: Classical Perspectives on Subjectivity"
Edited by Dan Zahavi

Dan Zahavi
Editorial Introduction: The Study of Consciousness and the Reinvention of the Wheel  full text
Andrew Brook
Kant, Cognitive Science and Contemporary Neo-Kantianism  abstract
Arne Grøn
The Embodied Self: Reformulating the Existential Difference in Kierkegaard  abstract
Peter Poellner
Self-deception, Consciousness and Value: The Nietzschean Contribution  abstract
Dan Zahavi
Back to Brentano?  abstract
Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl
Representationalism and Beyond: A Phenomenological Critique of Thomas Metzinger’s Self-model Theory   abstract
John Drummond
‘Cognitive impenetrability’ and the Complex Intentionality of the Emotions  abstract
Louis Sass
Affectivity in Schizophrenia: A Phenomenological View   abstract
Josef Parnas
Belief and Pathology of Self-Awareness: A Phenomenological Contribution to the Classification of Delusions   abstract
Shaun Gallagher
Hermeneutics and the Cognitive Sciences   abstract
Dieter Teichert
Narrative, Identity and the Self  abstract

TEN YEAR CUMULATIVE INDEX

Ten Year Index of Authors
Ten Year Index of Titles

ABSTRACTS

Andrew Brook

Kant, Cognitive Science and Contemporary Neo-Kantianism

Abstract: Through nineteenth-century intermediaries, the model of the mind developed by Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) has had an enormous influence on contemporary cognitive research. Indeed, Kant could be viewed as the intellectual godfather of cognitive science. In general structure, Kant’s model of the mind shaped nineteenth-century empirical psychology (Herbart, Helmholtz and Wundt all viewed themselves as Kantians) and, after a hiatus during which behaviourism reigned supreme (roughly 1910 to 1965), became influential again toward the end of the twentieth century, especially in cognitive science. Kantian elements are central to the models of the mind of thinkers otherwise as different as Sigmund Freud and Jerry Fodor, for example.

Correspondence: Andrew Brook, Department of Philosophy, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Email: abrook@ccs.carleton.ca

John J. Drummond

‘Cognitive Impenetrability’ and the Complex Intentionality of the Emotions

In what follows I shall present an account of the emotions that is rooted in the phenomenological tradition, in particular the work of Edmund Husserl and Adolf Reinach. This account will in many ways be similar to Peter Goldie’s, but the phenomenological approach provides resources that supplement and complement Goldie’s account. I shall elaborate the intentionality involved in emotional experience (a) by providing in section II a more detailed account of the affective dimension of the emotions, (b) by considering in section III the pre-reflective self-awareness that belongs to our object-directed emotional experiences, and (c) by exploring in section IV the temporality of the emotions. Finally, I shall in section V sketch an account of how this more robust account of the intentionality of emotional experience allows us to understand the phenomenon of cognitive impenetrability as well as one’s own awareness that a cognitively impenetrable emotional response is inappropriate to the circumstances.

Correspondence: John J. Drummond, Department of Philosophy, Fordham University, Bronx, NY  10458, USA. Email: drummond@fordham.edu

Shaun Gallagher

Hermeneutics and the Cognitive Sciences

Abstract: Philosophical hermeneutics, understood as the theory of interpretation, investigates some questions that are also asked in the cognitive sciences. The nature of human understanding, the way that we gain and organize knowledge, the role played by language and memory in these considerations, the relations between conscious and unconscious knowledge, and how we understand other persons, are all good examples of issues that form the intersection of hermeneutics and the cognitive sciences. Although hermeneutics is most often contrasted with the natural sciences, there are some clear ways in which hermeneutics can contribute to the cognitive sciences and vice versa.

Correspondence: Shaun Gallagher, Department of Philosophy, Colbourn Hall 411, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816-1352, USA. Email: gallaghr@mail.ucf.edu

Arne Grøn

The Embodied Self: Reformulating the Existential Difference in Kierkegaard

Abstract: This article argues for the notion of the embodied self in reformulating insights in Kierkegaard that point to the existential difference in being embodied. The main arguments are: 1. Kierkegaard uses a Hegelian model: the human mind exteriorizes itself, in history and language, in actions and speech. Human being is being (out) there. 2. This does not make the notions of self and interiority obsolete. On the contrary, in order to understand human exteriority, we need to re-define what a human self is. 3. The crucial point in this re-definition is that self is to be understood as self-relation. Self is to relate oneself to others and to a world in between, and, in these relations, to relate to oneself. 4. Human consciousness is embodied in being embedded in a social, historical and cultural context. A human being relates to itself as being corporeally and temporally determined. 5. Human embodiment, with its intrinsic history, is a matter of concern: how humans take themselves in being embodied. In this there is a critical difference between being present and not being present. Our embodied existence is to be taken over or to be appropriated by ourselves as embodied beings.

Correspondence: Arne Grøn, Danish National Research Foundation, Center for Subjectivity Research, University of Copenhagen Købmagergade 46, DK-1150 Copenhagen K, Denmark. Email: ag@cfs.ku.dk

Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl

Representationalism and Beyond: A Phenomenological Critique of Thomas Metzinger’s Self-Model Theory

Abstract: Thomas Metzinger’s self-model theory offers a framework for naturalizing subjective experiences, e.g. first-person perspective. These phenomena are explained by referring to representational contents which are said to be interrelated at diverse levels of consciousness and correlated with brain activities. The paper begins with a consideration on naturalism and anti-naturalism in order to roughly sketch the background of Metzinger’s claim that his theory renders philosophical speculations on the mind unnecessary. In particular, Husserl’s phenomenological conception of consciousness is refuted as uncritical and inadequate. It is demonstrated that this critique is misguided. The main deficiencies of Metzinger’s theory are elucidated by referring to the conception of phenomenal transparency which is compared to a phenomenological idea of transparency. The critical horizon is then enlarged by focusing on some implications of representationalism, including reification of consciousness, brain-Cartesianism and exclusion of the social dimension. Finally meta-theoretical reflections on the naturalism debate are taken up.

Correspondence: Dr. Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl, Institut für Philosophie/Karl Franzens-Universität Graz, A-8010 Graz, Heinrichstraße 26/VI, Austria. Email: sonja.rinofner@uni-graz.at

Josef Parnas

Belief and Pathology of Self-awareness: A Phenomenological Contribution to the Classification of Delusions

Abstract: Delusions are usually defined as false beliefs about the state of affairs in the public world. Taking this premise as unquestionable, the debate in cognitive science tends to oscillate between the so-called ‘rationalist approach’— proposing some breakdown in the central intellective modules embodying human rationality — and the ‘empiricist approach’ — proposing a primary peripheral deficit (e.g., in perception), followed by explanatory efforts in the form of delusions. In this article the foundational assumption about delusion is questioned. Especially in the case of schizophrenia, delusions are not epistemic statements about external world but metaphorical reports of altered structure of experiencing (‘autistic-solipsistic delusions’). Delusions as epistemic statements or beliefs (‘empirical delusions’) occur paradigmatically in delusional disorder (paranoia). These two types of delusions are compared from a primarily phenomenological stance.

Correspondence: Josef Parnas, The Danish National Research Foundation: Center for Subjectivity Research, University of Copenhagen & the University Department of Psychiatry, Hvidovre Hospital, Denmark. Email: jpa@cfs.ku.dk

Peter Poellner

Self-Deception, Consciousness and Value: The Nietzschean Contribution

Abstract: Nietzsche’s central criticisms of the evaluative hierarchies he claims to be inscribed in the philosophical tradition and in various everyday practices are based on the idea that the self is opaque to itself. More specifically, he proposes that these hierarchies cannot be adequately explained without reference to a particular form of self-deception he labels ressentiment. What makes this type of self-deception distinctive is that it is alleged to concern the subject’s own contemporaneous conscious states. It is shown that none of the three main current models of self-deception can accommodate the type of phenomenon Nietzsche claims to have discovered. Rather than this failure providing grounds for rejecting the concept of ressentiment as incoherent, it  is argued that a reconstruction of some of Nietzsche’s own observations, in conjunction with insights from later phenomenology, can explain the possibility envisaged by Nietzsche of a subject’s intentionally misinterpreting her own current affective experiences. Nietzsche’s analysis continues to be of importance in highlighting central aspects of the kind of theory of (self-) consciousness needed to do justice to the actual complexity of affective experience.

Correspondence: Peter Poellner, Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
Email: Peter.Poellner@warwick.ac.uk

Louis A. Sass

Affectivity in Schizophrenia: A Phenomenological View

Abstract: Schizophrenia involves profound but enigmatic disturbances of affective or emotional life. The affective responses as well as expression of many patients in the schizophrenia spectrum can seem odd, incongruent, inadequate, or otherwise off-the-mark. Such patients are, in fact, often described in rather contradictory terms: as being prone both to exaggerated and to diminished levels of emotional or affective response. According to Ernst Kretschmer, they actually tend to have both kinds of experience at the same time. This paper attempts to explain what might be termed this ‘Kretschmerian paradox’. Some relevant concepts and vocabulary for affect and emotion are discussed (including the notions of ‘affect’, ‘emotion’, ‘mood’ and ‘the passions’). The need for a phenomenological approach focusing on subjective experience is suggested. Three modes of abnormal experience in schizophrenia are investigated in light of their implications for affect or emotion: (1) alienation of the lived body (Bodily Alienation); (2) fragmented perception and loss of affordances (Unworlding); and (3) preoccupation with a quasi-delusional world created by the self (Subjectivization).

Correspondence: Louis A. Sass, GSAPP—Busch Campus, Rutgers University, 152 Frelinghuysen Rd, Piscataway, NJ 08854- 0819, USA. Email: lsass@rci.rutgers.edu

Dieter Teichert

Narrative, Identity and the Self

Abstract: The concept of narrative has come to play an important role in a bewildering variety of disciplines such as literary theory, linguistics, historiography, psychology, psychotherapy, ethnology and philosophy due to a number of recent trends in the social sciences including: the rejection of strong apriori unities of experience, the focus on intersubjectivity as the grounding level of experience, the turn to language as the focus of philosophical reflection, and the success of semiotics in articulating the rules for the generation and understanding of texts.

The first section of the paper presents the framework of Ricoeur’s investigation into narrative identity, which he embeds within an encompassing reflection on time and an examination of current theories of personal identity. The second section, then, both specifies salient aspects of Ricoeur’s narrative model and shows how, using that model, Ricoeur claims that the concept of narrative identity solves the paradoxes of personal identity. The third section presents Dennett’s concept of a narrative self and compares Dennett’s and Ricoeur’s models. As we shall see, these two philosophers, who work within antagonistic traditions, have surprisingly similar ways of using narrative as a model for understanding the self.

Correspondence: Dieter Teichert, Department of Philosophy, University of Konstanz, D-78457 Konstanz, Germany.  Email: Dieter.Teichert@uni-konstanz.de

Dan Zahavi

Back to Brentano?

Abstract: For a couple of decades, higher-order theories of consciousness have enjoyed great popularity, but they have recently been met with growing dissatisfaction. Many have started to look elsewhere for viable alternatives, and within the last few years, quite a few have rediscovered Brentano. In this paper such a (neo-)Brentanian one-level account of consciousness will be outlined and discussed. It will be argued that it can contribute important insights to our understanding of the relation between consciousness and self-awareness, but it will also be argued that the account remains beset with some problems, and that it will ultimately make more sense to take a closer look at Sartre, Husserl, and Heidegger, if one is on the lookout for promising alternatives to the higher-order theories, than to return all the way to Brentano.

Correspondence: Dan Zahavi, Danish National Research Foundation: Center for Subjectivity Research, University of Copenhagen, Købmagergade 46, DK-1150 Copenhagen K, Denmark
Email: zahavi@cfs.ku.dk

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