Exam 6: Self

When William James argued that emotions were feelings, he meant that they were

According to Sartre, bad faith ( mauvaise foi )is our betrayal of our true, core selves.

According to Hegel, we discover our true selves only when we break through social conventions and become individuals free of society's influence.

Being "attractive" or "good-looking" makes sense only in the context of a particular society.

Buddhists and David Hume would agree that

Develop a fictional dialogue in which two characters argue over whether the self is an individual or social reality. The two characters should construct arguments and offer criticisms of one another's arguments. They can agree to disagree, or find some areas of agreement.   The dialogue should address various conceptions of the self and self-identity, including self-identity; how the self relates to body; the self as consciousness and memory; the self as emotion; the self as social; and the self in relationships. You might also stage this dialogue as an oral presentation for your class, or make a video of it.

Aristotle located emotions in the id ("it")as opposed to the ego, suggesting that they threatened the integrity of the self rather than being part of it.

From the moment we are born, we establish and reestablish bonds with others, not just particular people, but types of people.

What does Sartre mean by transcendence ?

Leibniz argued that mental events and physical events do not really interact but, in fact, stand in a "preestablished harmony" with one another.

What we think of ourselves and what we think of as significant about ourselves depend, to a great extent, on the context in which we are trying to explain who we are.

It can be argued that we recognize thoughts only because

The authors of our text point out that our image of ourselves as individuals is paradoxical because

What does it mean for somebody to be in bad faith ?

Our religious and philosophical traditions have taught us to emphasize

Functionalists argue that mental states are functions of the brain and can have no other material embodiment.

An objection to the idea of cultivating our self through our passions or emotions is that

This is an exercise in experimental philosophy. Interview five to seven people, asking them (a)to list five or more qualities essential or significant for who they are as selves. (If they need help, you can give them a starter list that includes sex, race, body type, job, etc.)  Then create a sheet with short statements that present clearly and simply the major views on self in this chapter (e.g., self as body, self as consciousness, self as social, etc.). (b)Ask your interviewees to rank the viewpoints in terms of which they find most and least believable. (c)Ask them to briefly explain their rankings. Make sure you record the results of your interviews. How do the results from (a), (b)and (c)match up? Are the qualities thought to be essential to oneself (a)what one would expect in light of the answers to (b)and (c)?   Feel free to change these questions and/or to add additional questions. Write up your results and look for emerging patterns and interesting differences among the viewpoints of your interviewees.   What did you learn about how people "on the street" conceive of the self? How is this different from or similar to the way philosophers have thought about the self?

According to Jean-Paul Sartre, our relationships

According to Sartre, the way I choose to respond to the facts of my life is my