This essay is a project aimed primarily at mapping certain philosophical and theological ontologies onto psychology; in particular, existential psychology. The existential psychology is strongly inspired by Sartre, and the ontologies which are investigated are those of the pre-Socratic Parmenides, Sartre himself, the Neoplatonist Plotinus, and early Christian representations of the relationship between the divine and human natures of Christ as well as the persons of the Trinity. Early (primarily Eastern) Christian doctrines of deification are also treated as significant expressions of a similar, latent existential psychology. The nature of this psychology, brought out by Sartre, is a reaction to tension between conscious and non-conscious being. Consciousness reveals that being can be other to itself: it is the hole in the heart of being, as Sartre calls it. I argue that Parmenides regards being as whole and unified in part because he does not or can not find a place for the gap in being which is the nothingness of consciousness. For similar reasons, both Plotinus and Sartre describe conscious being as a denigration of sorts in being. Because of the othering of being to itself in the form of human consciousness, man is always other to himself, and can never fully be what he aims to be. Sartre describes this failed effort as the attempt to become self-caused, that which can give itself its own essence. It is suggested that Sartres description of non-conscious being as well as Plotinus description of the One sometimes appear to contradict themselves insofar as they imply self-causation within non-conscious being, and I argue that this is due to the inability or refusal of either to imagine consciousness as a failed project. Similarly, I argue that the early Trinitarian and Christological controversies of the Christian church as well as some early Christian conceptions of deification (particularly Eastern conceptions) can be seen as representative of attempts to reconcile conscious being with non-conscious being; either in the form of the self-cause or in something approaching it.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04222011-001442 |
| Date | 06 June 2011 |
| Creators | Dozzi, Marco |
| Contributors | Steven Anthony Edwards, Adam Shear, Dale C. Allison |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04222011-001442/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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