A Short History of Self-Consciousness: from Antiquity to Early Modernity 3800-SHSC25-M-OG
What is self-awareness? The term used in the title of this course may refer to various psychological phenomena discussed from antiquity to early modernity.
(1) First, to be self-aware means to be certain of one’s own existence and to perceive oneself as a thinking subject. This subject may be regarded as something spiritual, something corporeal, or without any such distinctions. Most of the ancient and medieval authors called it “soul”; most of the modern authors called it “mind”. Whether by soul or mind, the classical philosophers intended something that underlaid the first-person perspective. Not many classical philosophers took seriously the possibility that the subject of thought may be corporeal.
(2) Second, self-awareness (according to contemporary taxonomies, state-consciousness) stands for the perception of one’s own psychological phenomena. These include various acts, dispositions, and operations. Among them, we find intellectual knowledge. In relation to these acts, to be self-aware means to understand that we understand. This meaning can be described as second-order knowledge, or, to use Peter Carruthers’s terminology, higher-order thought. It may also be identical to first-order knowledge, as some medieval authors believed. In both cases, the subject perceives a particular act of intellection and recognizes that it is his or her own. In other words, we are aware of a single act of intellection and, at the same time, we perceive ourselves as the knowing subject of that determinate intelligible form. Indeed, before Hume, the obvious common ground for all the senses of self-awareness was the “self” component. Neither ancient nor medieval authors envisaged the existence of a thought without a substance to which that thought would belong (although in the Aristotelian tradition, it was subject to discussion whether an intellectual act belonged only to one, individual, human subject).
The course aims to examine the early theories of self-consciousness, from Plato to John Locke. Both subject-consciousness and state-consciousness will be discussed. First, we will consider some interesting distinctions that are drawn in Plato’s “Theaetetus”. Next, we will examine Aristotle’s theory of cognition with a particular focus on his “De anima”. Next, we will focus on the Neoplatonic theories of self-awareness, with a particular focus on Plotinus. We will then pass to the extensive considerations of self-awareness left by Augustine, especially in his “De Trinitate”. Later, we will discuss the diverse considerations by Avicenna, not limited to his flying man thought experiment. As for the Latin Middle Ages, we will start our discussion with commenting on some relevant passages from William of Auxerre’s “Summa aurea”. We will give special attention to the rich and captivating theory by William of Auvergne, explained in his “Tractatus de anima”. We will also analyse theories by Thomas Aquinas, we will mention Peter Auriol, Peter John Olivi, William of Ockham, Walter Chatton, and Durand of St.-Porçain. Finally, we will focus on two modern authors: René Descartes and John Locke.
Rodzaj przedmiotu
Koordynatorzy przedmiotu
Efekty kształcenia
Acquired knowledge:
The student knows and understands:
- basic philosophical terminology in English (K_W04),
- views of selected classical philosophical authors, based on independent reading of their writings (K_W07),
- historical nature of the formation of philosophical ideas (K_W08);
Acquired skills:
The student is able to:
- independently interpret a philosophical text, creatively and innovatively comment on and confront theses from different texts (K_U01),
- determine the degree of significance of the theses put forward for the problem or argument being examined (K_U02),
- analyze complex philosophical arguments, identify the theses and assumptions that make them up, establish logical and argumentative relationships between theses (K_U03),
- precisely formulate complex philosophical problems in speech and writing, put forward theses and critically comment on them (K_U07)
- construct and creatively reconstruct arguments from the perspective of different philosophical positions, taking into account the types of argumentation characteristic of each of them and noticing the similarities and differences between them (K_U09)
Acquired social competences:
The student is ready to:
- identify the knowledge and skills they possess (K_K01),
- recognize gaps in their knowledge and skills and seek opportunities to eliminate these deficiencies (K_K02).
Kryteria oceniania
Written exam
Number of absences: 2 in a semester
Literatura
Plato, „Theaetetus” (seleted passages) https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1726/1726-h/1726-h.htm
Aristotle, „On the Soul”, transl. C. Shields (selected passages)
Augustine, „The Trinity”, trans. S. McKenna, CUA Press, Washington 1963 (selected passages)
William of Auvergne, „The Soul”, transl. R. Teske, Marquette University Press, Milwaukee (WI) 2000 (selected passages).
René Descartes, “Meditations on First Philosophy” (selected passages)
John Locke, „An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, ed. P. H. Nidditch, Oxford University Press 1975 (selected passages).
These and other source texts (translated) will be made available to the participants via Dropbox.
Deborah L. Black, “Avicenna on Self-Awareness and Knowing that One Knows”, in „The Unity of Science in the Arabic Tradition”, ed. S. Rahman, T. Hassan, and T. Street, Springer, Dordrecht 2008, 63-87.
S. Brower-Toland, „Medieval Approaches to Consciousness: Ockham and Chatton”, „Philosophers’ Imprint” 12.17 (2012) https://www.academia.edu/16365730/_Medieval_Approaches_to_Consciousness_Ockham_and_Chatton_
J. Carriero, „Between Two Worlds: a Reading of Descartes's Meditations”, Princeton University Press 2009.
Peter King, „Why Isn’t the Mind-Body Problem Medieval?”, in H. Lagerlund (ed.), „Forming the Mind. Essays on the Internal Senses and the Mind/Body Problem from Avicenna to the Medical Enlightenment”, Springer 2007, 187–205.
T. Scarpelli Cory, „Aquinas on Human Self-Knowledge”, Cambridge University Press 2014
Self-Knowledge: „A History”, ed. Ursula Renz, Oxford University Press 2017.
Mikko Yrjönsuuri, “The Structure of Self-Consciousness: A Fourteenth-Century Debate”, in „Consciousness: From Perception to Reflection in the History of Philosophy”, ed. S. Heinämaa, V. Lähteenmäki, and P. Remes, Springer, Dordrecht 2007, 141-152.
S. Weinberg, „Consciousness in Locke”, Oxford University Press 2016.
Więcej informacji
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