Part II - Basics of Philosophical Psychology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
Man is a free agent; but he is not free if he does not believe it, for the more power he attributes to Destiny, the more he deprives himself of the power which God granted him when he gave him reason.
Giacomo CasanovaIn this part, I examine Western understanding of the self. I start by expounding the two- phase conception in Heidegger and the basic role of judgment in Descartes, but point out their flaws in order to discount them right from the beginning. Heidegger succeeds in showing a radical difference between the childhood and the adult form of the self but fails to identify their crucial difference. Analysis of the difference will lead us to the Cartesian conception of the self, but also to his dualism that I want to show is not necessary for his conception of the self at all. The result of my argument is what I call the basics of philosophical psychology. It claims to present not the factual Western understanding of the self, but a reformulated form freed from its misconceptions.
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- Rethinking the Western Understanding of the Self , pp. 13 - 14Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009