In this thesis I (1) identify some problems in the Popperian scientific method; (2) develop, as an alternative, and to a level of usability, a phenomenological method of knowing; (3) use this method to make a series of inferences about the nature of the human self; (4) compare and contrast my inferences with those of other scholars working on the same themes; and (5) let some of my inferences suggest ways of developing the method further. I show (1:1) how the scientific method is underpinned by a paradigm of ontic dualism; (1:2) how this paradigm has led to a certain conception of the human self; and (1:3) how this conception has led to the normalization of harmful ways of acting in the world, and thus to a planet made up of living beings who cannot find a steady fit with each other's life-ways. I develop an alternative method by building on the work of (2:1) Goethe, (2:2) Holdrege, (2:3) Ellis and (2:4) Heidegger. In essence this method consists of recalling and making inferences from one's experience. (3:1) I undertook a set of six activities (sometimes spoken of as 'Sufism'). (3:2) I try to understand my findings in the light of the ideas of four scholars: the teacher who leads these activities, Murshid Saadi, eleventhcentury polymath ibn Sina, anthropologist Tim Ingold and philosopher David Abram. (3:3) I make fifteen inferences about the human self, falling into seven themes: monism, mood, willing, perceiving, speaking, growing, and substantiveness. (4) Comparing and contrasting my conclusions with those of other scholars suggests that they are valid. (5) I develop the method further by incorporating into it the delineation of classes of phenomena and the delineation of patterns of phenomenal change. I end by discussing some implications for ethical human life-ways.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:731641 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Mukherjee, Shomik |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=235513 |
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