What is a human being? In the early 20th century, the "philosophical anthropologists" Max Scheler, Helmuth Plessner, and Arnold Gehlen approached this question through a comparison between human and non-human organisms' species-typical interaction with environments and an account of the conditions of the emergence of "higher" cognitive and agentive functions on this basis. In this text I offer a critical review of the central arguments of Scheler, Plessner, and Gehlen on these issues, as well as of their debates with figures such as Jakob von Uexküll, Martin Heidegger, and G. H. Mead. I take note of the consequences of various answers to this question for the interpretation of human beings' dually biological and cultural status and for the theory of the human self or person. I argue that the approaches of Plessner and Gehlen, despite objections raised by Hans Joas and others, have important advantages over those of Scheler, Uexküll, Heidegger, and Mead, as well as over recent suggestions by Korsgaard and Tomasello. I conclude by outlining a reconstructed philosophical anthropology that supports a new perspective on the question of human distinctiveness and on a number of related questions in the context of contemporary debates. / Philosophy

In this thesis I set out to show that the ethical literature dealing with psychiatry contains a serious omission: it does not discuss the issue of humiliation in the psychiatric context. I claim that the reason for this lies in the "objective attitude" that typifies both discourse on psychiatric ethics and actual clinical practice. Psychiatrists and psychiatric ethicists tend to view patients as things to be "controlled, studied, cured or trained," an attitude inimical to the "participant attitude" that sees others as responsible members of the moral community. This leads not only to a distorted view of the patient, but it also prevents doctors and ethicists from addressing the normative content of patient grievances. On the other hand, Axel Honneth and Charles Taylor's theories of "recognition" emphasize the subjective experience of humiliation and show how feelings of wounded dignity can motivate social struggles --including, I claim, the psychiatric survivors' movement. I argue further that psychiatric ethics must take account of what the patients themselves say about their experience of psychiatry; to this end I juxtapose some of the main ideas found in psychiatric ethics with quotations from psychiatric survivors about their experience of humiliation at the hands of psychiatry. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

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This study opens with an introduction to the transpersonal orientation, which Boucouvalas presents as a meta-framework of the transpersonal field that includes individual, group/societal, and planetary/cosmic domains. Three major theoretical perspectives of the field framed the study: the hierarchical stages of development, spiral path, and participatory. I offer a philosophical hermeneutic reading of the Qur'an to trace the development of human collective consciousness as a construct of the interaction between the autonomous and homonomous self at the individual, group, and cosmic levels on one plane of reality with the Divine on the other. This analysis, which utilizes Gadamer's conceptualization of philosophical hermeneutics as a research philosophy, concludes that this process of collective human development is comprised of three clearly distinct representations: familial, national, and cosmic/planetary. I articulate development and growth as a process of the expansion of collective consciousness. The cosmic/planetary human consciousness represents the ultimate reach of this expansion, for it assimilates the national and familial types while simultaneously transforming and transcending them within its reach. Based on the historical development of human consciousness in the Qur'an depicted in this study, I propose that human collective consciousness has reached the domains of cosmic consciousness, which began at the time of the Qur'an being read by Muhammad. However, individuals and groups may still operate within the limiting boundaries of national consciousness in the form of religious, ethnic, racial, and nation states. The Qur'an, and possibly other religious texts, should be understood within this expanded cosmic/planetary consciousness reach because they represent humanity's collective heritage. Moreover, those individuals operating within a strictly national consciousness should not be entrusted with explaining these texts to humanity at large or imposing their own limiting understanding on the world. I conclude by outlining some implications for adult education as a process, a program and a movement. I presented the possible contribution of a transpersonal adult learning theory based on this study's meta-framework as a comprehensive worldview to adult education and learning combining multiple dimensions of being, including the rational, affective, spiritual, imaginative, somatic, and sociocultural domains through relevant experiences of body-mind-spirit. / Ph. D.

In his Outlines of Skepticism, Sextus Empiricus claims that the Pyrrhonian Skeptic can live without holding beliefs. According to the 'Rustic' interpretation of this claim, Sextus holds that the Skeptic lives without beliefs of any kind. According to the 'Urbane' interpretation, Sextus' claim concerns only a restricted category of beliefs. I discuss each interpretation in the context of Sextus' broader philosophical stance, and argue for an Urbane interpretation. On this view, Pyrrhonism represents a practicable stance towards the world. / Master of Arts

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