SELF-BLINDNESS AND SELF-AWARENESS - Philosophy

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Self-Blindness and Self-AwarenessFor example, Shoemaker believes that if one has a psychological state then one will“automatically” have a “corresponding second-order belief”. However, he also thinks thisrequires "a certain degree of rationality, intelligence, and conceptual capacity (here includinghaving the concept of belief and the concept of oneself)." 36 It is therefore possible that aperson’s psychological states to not be constitutively connected and for her to lack acorresponding second-order belief, but only if she also lacks "a certain degree of rationality,intelligence, and conceptual capacity". These features must be in place in order for her firstandsecond-order states to be constitutively related. 37It is plausible that one must have a degree of conceptual skill and intelligence inorder to self-ascribe a psychological state. Let us therefore assume that without these thereis no constitutive connection between a subject’s first-order states and her beliefs aboutthem. However, it seems rather implausible that every time a person makes an error aboutone her psychological states it is due to a deficiency in her intellect or her conceptualabilities. What about rationality? Could it be that a person commits errors only when she isnot being rational?There are two directions in which one could try to explain how rationality isnecessary for constitutive connections between psychological states. First, according to apopular version of a Freudian idea, we lack awareness of our unconscious psychologicalstates, which are “irrational”. It is because they are irrational that we push them outside of36 (1994), pg. 24337 Shoemaker offers two proposals for understanding the dependence between a person’s psychological stateand her belief about it. The second is that the two states have different “core realizations” but overlappingtotal realizations. One might prefer this if she wished to maintain that some causal relation connected aperson’s psychological states with her beliefs about them. It might be thought that if we allow causal relationsat the level of core realizations, then we can account for fallibility. The cases in which we make mistakes arejust the ones where that causal relation breaks down. The problem, however, is that since the causal relationdoes break down, the states are not always connected. If we insist that their “total realizations” are neverthelessnecessarily connected in some way, it can only be under certain conditions. To account for our fallibility, as Ishall argue, one must explain why those conditions matter. Cf. Campbell (2011).20
Self-Blindness and Self-Awarenessour awareness. Someone could argue that unconscious states are of a fundamentallydifferent kind and, therefore, not constitutively connected to any second-order beliefs.Moreover, it is natural to think that bringing unconscious states to awareness requires one tofirst make them less irrational. This is what Bilgrami thinks happens at a “second stage” oftherapy. He suggests that gaining awareness of unconscious states means that a person can“consider first whether the discovered dispositional or motivational mental state is inconflict with her commitments, then, if it is, to see whether she wishes to bring theconflicted disposition in alignment with her commitments by changing the commitment orby changing the disposition.” 38This process sounds quite similar to the sort of reflectivecriticism and evaluation we considered earlier. If this were the result of “cognitive inquiry”into our unconscious states, then it seems one could, in this way, transform irrational statesinto fully rational ones, or at least abandon them. Yet even if this were to happen onoccasion can it explain errors outside of a psychoanalytic context? While focused on writingthis paper, I may be unaware of my desire to listen to country music. But must I be soashamed of it that I repress it? The constitutive theorist’s main suggestion is thatirrationality explains ignorance; it is why my desire is not necessarily tied to any beliefs aboutit. But not all of the psychological states we misjudge are irrational in some quasipathologicalor neurotic sense.A better way to support a constitutive view is to claim not that my desire to listen tocountry is irrational in some problematic manner but that it is not even within the realm ofreason--that my desire to listen to country music is a non-rational state, something more likean urge or an impulse to listen to country, something that could never be based on reasons.In that case, my lack of knowledge would be explained if primitive states of this kind were38 (2006), pg. 318.21
Page 1 and 2: SELF-BLINDNESS AND RATIONAL SELF-AW
Page 3 and 4: Self-Blindness and Self-AwarenessDi
Page 5 and 6: Self-Blindness and Self-Awarenessca
Page 7 and 8: Self-Blindness and Self-AwarenessB)
Page 9 and 10: Self-Blindness and Self-AwarenessAl
Page 11 and 12: Self-Blindness and Self-Awarenesspo
Page 13 and 14: Self-Blindness and Self-Awarenessre
Page 15 and 16: Self-Blindness and Self-Awarenessth
Page 17 and 18: Self-Blindness and Self-Awarenessst
Page 19: Self-Blindness and Self-AwarenessEa
Page 23 and 24: Self-Blindness and Self-AwarenessBe
Page 25 and 26: Self-Blindness and Self-Awarenesswh
Page 27: Self-Blindness and Self-AwarenessSh

SELF-BLINDNESS AND SELF-AWARENESS - Philosophy

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?