The Singular Self

The Singular Self
Author: Professor Rom Harre
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 208
Release: 1997-12-12
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9781446238769

Harr[ac]e draws on psychology, philosophy, anthropology, and linguistics to develop an intellectually rigorous and integrative understanding of selfhood as a "unitas multiplex" - a diversity in unity. The breadth of Harre[ac]e's scholarship and the rigor which he evaluates various conceptual positions are awe inspiring. Harr[ac]e's keen insights and erudite arguments about selfhood help to clear a space for an intellectually rigorous psychology of persons. Although many readers will find this a very challenging book, Harr[ac]e bills his text as An Introduction to the Psychology of Personhood. He is laying out some of the basic concepts that must be invoked if one is to develop a credible science of persons.... In conclusion, Harr[ac]e's brilliant exegesis of the grammar underlying self-talk provides a philosophical clearing within which a sophisticated and generative science of persons may be allowed to take place' - "Contemporary Psychology " This landmark work draws on material from psychology, philosophy, anthropology and linguistics to develop a hierarchical and structured concept of personhood. Rom Harr[ac]e shows that despite the centrality of our social and cultural identities, the self must ultimately be understood as autonomous, distinct and continuous - as a shifting but unified pattern of multiplicities and singularities. This masterly analysis offers an opportunity to develop a truly scientific account of personhood. By charting a path across the psychological landscape that acknowledges both the symbolic and the physiological aspects of our being, from language to biology, Harr[ac]e maps the terrain of what it is to be a person in the context of discursive psychology.

The Individual without Passions

The Individual without Passions
Author: Elena Pulcini
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2012-08-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0739166581

The Individual without Passions: Modern Individualism and the Loss of the Social Bond offers an innovative look at an extremely timely and important issue—individualism—from the point of view of a theory of passions. This book underlines the importance of the problem of the passions in both forming individual identity and building the social bond. Drawing inspiration from classic authors that represent fundamental milestones along the route of modern individualism—from Montaigne to Hobbes, from Locke to Smith, from Rousseau to Tocqueville—The Individual without Passions puts forward new hypotheses that contrast with the consolidated views of contemporary reflection, both modern and postmodern. Elena Pulcini argues that passions are crucial not only when they are strong (homo oeconomicus), but also when absent or weak (homo democraticus), in both cases producing pathological effects on the Self and the social bond. Finally, this book underlines that the image of the modern individual does not end with the egoistical passions and that it is possible to reactivate empathetic and solidaristic passions; furthermore, it proposes the hypothesis that the solidaristic passions go to fight the egoistical passions. This hypothesis seems confirmed and is most evident in the phenomenon of the gift (as interpreted by Marcel Mauss and his contemporary heirs), the “hidden” testimony of a desire for belonging which enables us to propose a new figure of the individual—homo reciprocus.

The Network Self

The Network Self
Author: Kathleen Wallace
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2019-03-07
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0429663544

The concept of a relational self has been prominent in feminism, communitarianism, narrative self theories, and social network theories, and has been important to theorizing about practical dimensions of selfhood. However, it has been largely ignored in traditional philosophical theories of personal identity, which have been dominated by psychological and animal theories of the self. This book offers a systematic treatment of the notion of the self as constituted by social, cultural, political, and biological relations. The author’s account incorporates practical concerns and addresses how a relational self has agency, autonomy, responsibility, and continuity through time in the face of change and impairments. This cumulative network model (CNM) of the self incorporates concepts from work in the American pragmatist and naturalist tradition. The ultimate aim of the book is to bridge traditions that are often disconnected from one another—feminism, personal identity theory, and pragmatism—to develop a unified theory of the self.

The Chevalier d'Eon and his Worlds

The Chevalier d'Eon and his Worlds
Author: Simon Burrows
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2011-10-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1441174044

Cross-dressing author, envoy, soldier and spy Charles d'Eon de Beaumont's unusual career fascinated his contemporaries and continues to attract historians, novelists, playwrights, filmmakers, image makers, cultural theorists and those concerned with manifestations of the extraordinary. D'Eon's significance as a historical figure was already being debated more than 45 years before his death. Not surprisingly, such sensational material has attracted the attention of enthusiasts, scholars and literateurs to 'the strange case of the chevalier d'Eon'. He has also attracted the attention of psychologists and sexologists, and for most of the last century his gender transformation has been viewed through a Freudian lens. His cross-dressing, it was usually assumed, must have a psychosexual explanation. Until the second half of the twentieth century the terms 'Eonist' and 'Eonism' were the standard English words for transvestites and transvestism respectively, but 'Eonism' was also, thanks to Havelock Ellis, widely regarded as a psychological condition or compulsion. However, in the mid-twentieth century, new ideas about gender-identity disorders led to d'Eon being redefined not as a transvestite, but a transsexual - a person who considers their sex to have been 'misassigned'. The essays in this collection contribute to d'Eon's rehabilitation as a figure worthy of scholarly attention and display a variety of disciplinary approaches. Drawing on new research into d'Eon's life, this volume offers original and nuanced readings of how a gender identity could come to be negotiated over time.

Arendt and Adorno

Arendt and Adorno
Author: Lars Rensmann
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2012-07-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0804782571

Hannah Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno, two of the most influential political philosophers and theorists of the twentieth century, were contemporaries with similar interests, backgrounds, and a shared experience of exile. Yet until now, no book has brought them together. In this first comparative study of their work, leading scholars discuss divergences, disclose surprising affinities, and find common ground between the two thinkers. This pioneering work recovers the relevance of Arendt and Adorno for contemporary political theory and philosophy and lays the foundation for a critical understanding of political modernity: from universalistic claims for political freedom to the abyss of genocidal politics.

Theology, Psychology and the Plural Self

Theology, Psychology and the Plural Self
Author: Léon Turner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2016-02-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 131701104X

Is the human self singular and unified or essentially plural? This book explores the seemingly disparate ways that Christian theology and the secular human sciences have approached this complex question. The latter have largely embraced the idea of the plural self as an inescapable, even adaptive feature of psychological life. Contemporary Christian theology, by contrast, has largely neglected recent psychological accounts of the naturalness of self-plurality, and has sought to reaffirm the self's unity in opposition to those postmodern theorists who would dismantle it. Through an original analysis of recent theological and secular accounts of self and personhood, this book examines the extent of the intertheoretical disparity and its broader implications for theology's dialogue with the human sciences in general, and psychology in particular. It explains why theologians ought to take questions about the plurality of self very seriously, and how they overlap with many of the central concerns of contemporary theological anthropology, including the notions of relationality, particularity and human sinfulness. Introducing a novel psychological framework to distinguish various understandings of self-disunity, the author argues that contemporary theology's blanket condemnation of self-multiplicity is misconceived, and identifies a possible means of reconciling theological and human scientific accounts.

Charles Sheeler

Charles Sheeler
Author: Mark Rawlinson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2020-09-09
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1000210901

Charles Sheeler was the stark poet of the machine age. Photographer of the Ford Motor Company and founder of the painting movement Precisionism, he is remembered as a promoter of - and apologist for - the industrialised capitalist ethic. This major new rethink of one of the key figures of American modernism argues that Sheeler's true relationship to progress was in fact highly negative, his 'precisionism' both skewed and imprecise. Covering the entire oeuvre from photography to painting and drawing attention to the inconsistencies, curiosities and 'puzzles' embedded in Sheeler's work, Rawlinson reveals a profound critique of the processes of rationalisation and the conditions of modernity. The book argues finally for a re-evaluation of Sheeler's often dismissed late work which, it suggests, may only be understood through a radical shift in our understanding of the work of this prominent figure.

Philosophy and Organization

Philosophy and Organization
Author: Campbell Jones
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2007-04-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1134196598

Featuring original contributions from some of the most exciting scholars writing at the intersection of philosophy and organization today, this accessible volume provides readers with a complete overview of this complex subject. Ground-breaking and drawing on recent efforts in management and organization studies to take philosophy seriously, it critically engages with the way that philosophy might inform organization and illuminates a range of issues, including idleness, aesthetics, singularity, transparency, power and cruelty. Exploring why philosophy matters to organization and why organization matters to philosophy, this book is essential reading for philosophy and business and management students as well as of interest to all those who seek to think seriously about the way their lives are organized.