Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2001. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The problem explored in this study concerns authenticity, and can be formulated as the question: 'How does one become oneself? In order to answer this query, related issues must be addressed, for example: the nature of consciousness/ self-awareness; the individual's relationship to society; the meaning of existence, and so forth. The reply's of three thinkers, Kierkegaard, Sartre and Jung, will be discussed in this investigation. They have been selected for several reasons: Each of their respective theories addresses issues that are generally pertinent in contemporary society, such as: the alienation and dissociation of individuals from each other and themselves through mass-mindedness and the impersonal nature of state and religious institutions; the anxiety that many experience due to, firstly, a lack of confidence in the abovementioned institutions and, secondly, a loss of trust in existing (political, religious, moral, social) life-strategies, because these often fail to give a convincing sense of meaning and purpose to life. Each of the three thinkers places the 'self at the center of their philosophy, and addresses many similar themes which share between them a family resemblance that admits of comparison. The theories are presented in an order that · allows for a dialectical approach to the problem of self: Kierkegaard's fundamentally Christian theory is presented as thesis, and Sartre's atheistic position as anti-thesis. Jung's theory of the psyche is presented as synthesis, because it is antimetaphysical, but nevertheless claims to prove empirically that a convincing religious/ spiritual experience is the key ingredient for authenticity. The outcome of the enquiry will show that the three thinkers point from different directions towards the same basic conceptualization of the 'self: The self is both a project and a goal or, to put it differently, a journey and a destination, the goal/destination being the synthesis of the various disparate and conflicting elements that influence or make up the personality. The study as a whole echoes the three individual approaches in describing the condition of modem man as a malady or sickness, which is the lack of authenticity, of which the symptoms are falsehood, anxiety, alienation, crippled relationships, lack of responsibility and adaptibility, and perhaps, on a larger scale, issues such as social/ political injustice and conflict. The cure for this malady is an enhancement of consciousness/ awareness that is known as 'the self. The self is seen as a 'becoming' and a choice, a dynamic synthesis, something which is not given and cannot be taken for granted, but must be actively striven for. The study outlines and explores the nature and value of such a project towards the self. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie beskou die probleem van outentisiteit, wat as die vraag, 'Hoe word ek myself?', gestel kan word. Om hierdie vraag te beantwoord, moet verdere kwessies, soos byvoorbeeld die aard van (self)bewussyn, die verhouding waarin die indivudu tot die samelewing staan, en die betekenis van 'bestaan' ( eksistensie ), ook aangespreek word. Die voorstelle van drie denkers, Kierkegaard, Sartre and Jung, word bespreek in hierdie tesis. Die drie is vir verskeie redes uitgesoek: Elkeen van hulle spreek pertinente kwessies rondom die modeme samelewing aan, byvoorbeeld: individue se vervreemding en verwydering van hulself en ander weens die massa-mentaliteit en onpersoonlike aard van staats- en godsdienstige instellings; die angs en spanning wat baie ervaar as gevolg van 'n gebrek aan vertroue in bogenoemde instellings, asook 'n gebrekkige geloof in bestaande (politiese, godsdienstige, more le, so si ale) lewensstrategiee wat nie meer daarin slaag om sin of rede aan die lewe te gee nie. Elkeen van die drie denkers plaas die 'self sentraal tot hulle filosofie, en spreek temas aan wat onderling familie-ooreenkomste vertoon, en daarom onderlinge vergelyking toelaat. Die teoriee word aangebied in 'n volgorde wat 'n dialekti~se aanslag tot die probleem moontlik maak: Kierkegaard se Christelike teorie word as tese aangebied, en Sartre se ateistiese posisie as anti-tese. Jung se teorie van die psige word as sintese voorgehou, want, alhoewel dit geen metafisiese aansprake maak nie, beskou dit 'n oortuigende religieuse/ geestelike ervaring as die hoofbestandeel vir outentisiteit. Die gevolgtrekking van die ondersoek sal wys dat die drie denkers vanuit verskillende rigtings na dieselfde konsepsie van die 'self wys: Die self is sowel 'n projek as 'n doel, of, anders gestel, 'n reis en 'n bestemming. Die doel/ bestemming is 'n sintese van die verskillende, onderling botsend~ elemente waaruit die self bestaan en waardeur dit beinvloed word. Die studie in geheel volg die voorbeeld van die drie denkers deur die modeme mens se 'toestand' as 'n soort siekte te beskryf. Die simptome van hierdie siekte, of gebrek aan outentisiteit, is valsheid, angs, vervreemding, gebrekkige verhoudings, die afwesigheid van persoonlike verantwoordelikheid en aanpasbaarheid, en ook miskien kwessies soos sosiale en politiese onreg en konflik. Die remedie vir so 'n siekte is die 'self: 'n verheldering en intensifisering van bewussyn, wat gesien kan word as 'n 'wording' en 'n keuse, 'n dinamiese sintese, iets wat nie as voor-die-hand-liggend beskou kan word nie, maar wat aktief nagestreef moet word. Hierdie studie ondersoek die aard en waarde van so 'n projek gerig op die self

Drawing on the ideas of J.G. Fichte and M. Merleau-Ponty, I argue that experience and freedom are intersubjective, linguistic, and bodily. In the first chapter, I take up Fichte's three "fundamental principles" from the Science of Knowledge alongside his ideas of embodiment and intersubjectivity from the Foundations of Natural Right to show that all experience is an indefinite mixture of self and not-self, and, therefore, that both the experiences of self-consciousness and its freedom must also be accomplished with reference to the not-self, and particularly others. The second chapter is an examination of Merleau-Ponty's account of expression in his Phenomenology of Perception. The key insight I pursue here is that the medium of expression, which makes possible all significance, is bodily and intersubjective, and that any expressive act is therefore both self-opaque and soliciting cooperation. In the end, I turn to how this cooperation, i.e. freedom, should be enacted.

I trace Jacques Derrida's notions of self and truth in Circumfession. This text paints a gruesome self-portrait depicting the inescapable violence of subjectivity. The self is born in blood. Derrida courageously confesses to being a casualty of this lovelessness. Similarly, exploring the depth of patriarchy's inscriptions requires facing the painful truth of my bleeding self. Investigating these wounds seems to reopen them, making me complicit in my own oppression. Drawing from the rich narrative of Ingeborg Bachmann's novel Malina, I allow feminists such as Helene Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Drucilla Cornell and bell hooks to engage Derrida's notions of the wounded and wounding self. Beginning in this bloody place, they attempt to write a way-out of the disempowering systems of subjectivity to which the female self seems confined. They write in order that love will bleed some light on the struggle for empowered female subjectivity, re-writing the self as a space of love rather than violence.

影印稿本. / Thesis (M.A.)--香港中文大學敎育學院. / Ying yin gao ben. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-110). / Thesis (M.A.)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue jiao yu xue yuan. / Chapter 第一章 --- 導言 --- p.1 / 問題說明 --- p.1 / 研究動機與目的 --- p.21 / 有關文獻 --- p.24 / 假設 --- p.36 / 定義 --- p.38 / Chapter 第二章 --- 研究方法 --- p.42 / 研究對象 --- p.42 / 研究工具 --- p.45 / 研究設計 --- p.48 / 研究程序 --- p.50 / 資料分析 --- p.51 / Chapter 第三章 --- 結果與討論 --- p.53 / Chapter 第四章 --- 摘要、結論及建議 --- p.92 / 參攷文獻 / 中文 --- p.105 / 英文 --- p.108 / 附錄 --- p.111

Following the writings of philosophers such as Harry Frankfurt, Gary Watson, and Alfred Mele, in this thesis I defend some central claims of the self-control view of human agency. However, I not only defend, but also supplement this view in the following two ways. First, drawing on work by Mary Midgley and Sigmund Freud I advance the claim that self-control requires the experience of internal conflict between an agent’s motivations and intentions. Second, drawing on insights from Simone de Beauvoir and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as recent research in social psychology and cognitive science, I will argue in this thesis that self-control and vulnerability are inextricably intertwined with one another, and that as a result both are to be seen as constitutive of human agency. While it is the capacity for self-control that marks us out as human agents, I argue that it is also our uniquely human vulnerability which distinguishes our agency from the kind of agency which we might attribute to other potential or actual forms of sentience. Further, while the concepts of human agency and personhood are typically conflated in the analytic tradition of philosophy, in this thesis I will show that there are good reasons for understanding these two concepts as subtly distinct from one another. The term personhood, I will argue, can fruitfully be understood in substantive rather than purely formal terms. A person, in the superlative sense, is to be understood as someone who exercises their agency well; and, as such, persons are answerable to a number of normative prescriptions. Following Midgley, Nietzsche and Martha Nussbaum, I argue against Frankfurt’s normative prescription for personhood in the form of what he calls ‘wholeheartedness’, and offer four normative prescriptions for personhood of my own.

This dissertation addresses forgiveness as a philosophical matter, understanding that whenever forgiveness happens (or even when it is talked about) unnoticed theories of selfhood and time are at play. To bring these unobserved models of time and the self to the fore, this study explores a series of commonalities and divergences in some selected works by Augustine, Kierkegaard, and Arendt. In these texts, forgiveness is understood as the gathering of a self that is scattered in time (Augustine), as present participation in an earlier redemptive moment (Kierkegaard), or as an event that resists the otherwise rectilinear, death-oriented course of human life (Arendt).Why has forgiveness been mostly ignored in Western philosophy? What does this omission reveal about Western thought? Contemporary authors have argued for the (imperative) need to (re)think what forgiveness is, the conditions under which it (supposedly) occurs, and its relation to justice, since the inexpiable events of the past and present centuries maintain forgiveness an unresolved question. This study rests on a fundamental intuition: that for forgiveness to pass in history nothing must be passed from the one who forgives to the one who is forgiven. To support this claim, I undertake close readings of Augustine’s Confessions, Kierkegaard’s Works of Love, and Arendt’s The Human Condition. In these works, forgiveness is understood as a paradox —it must be contained to be given (Augustine), granted-yet-not-granted (Kierkegaard), and forgotten the moment it is given, as if never given at all (Arendt). Can forgiveness be thought of as a hidden existential capacity, and not as a magnanimous display of mercy? Can we imagine forgiveness as undoing the transgression we see, and secretly engaging with the invisible?

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Wharton’s heroines are ordinary women who fight to secure material comfort and create selves that satisfy their emotional and sexual needs. These women often find that the two goals are mutually exclusive, since society strictly dictates appropriate behavior. This code of behavior stems from their relation to men: as objects to be won, as wives, and as mothers. In many instances, women are not even aware of their prescriptive roles and confuse their search for self with a search for security. Material comfort does not nurture Wharton’s heroines’ inner selves and they feel a metaphysical dissatisfaction, often seeking to find contentment through divorce or affairs. What they find in either case is that the cure to their ennui is not material, but mental. Wharton’s women seek a transcendent self—a self that is not dependent upon popular notions of respectability; a spiritual state that is independent from any attachment to social imperatives.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The ‘loss of self’ trope is a pervasive shorthand for the prototypical process of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in the popular imagination. Turned into an effect of disease, the disappearance of the self accommodates a biomedical story of progressive deterioration and the further medicalization of AD, a process which has been storied as an organic pathology affecting the brain or, more recently, a matter of genetic calamity. This biomedical discourse of AD provides a generic framework for the disease and is reproduced in its illness narratives. The disappearance of self is a mythic element in AD narratives; it necessarily assumes the existence of a singular and coherent entity which, from the outside, can be counted as both belonging to and representing an individual person. The loss of self, as the rhetorical locus of AD narrative, limits the privatization of the experience and reinscribes cultural storylines---storylines about what it means to be a human person. The loss of self as it occurs in AD narratives functions most effectively in reasserting the presence of the human self, in contrast to an anonymous, inhuman nonself; as AD discourse details a loss of self, it necessarily follows that the thing which is lost (the self) always already existed. The private, narrative self of individual experience thus functions as proxy to a collective human identity predicated upon exceptionalism: an escape from nature and the conditions of the corporeal environment.