Enactivism builds on the “embodied turn” in cognitive science to firmly establish the close connection between mind and life, exemplified in the work of Evan Thompson. The more recent “interactive turn” emphasizes that individuals’ mental and cognitive processes are shaped by social interactions with other cognitive agents. Regarding personal identity, Miriam Kyselo argues that it remains unclear how and to what extent the self is individuated by these processes, and whether or not social relations are necessary for self-persistence. Further, it remains unclear how the self of simple biological organisms is continuous with the much more complicated personal identity of human beings, who are subject not only to the forces of the natural world, but also to forces that arise only in their uniquely symbolic and sociocultural milieu.
I contend that we can come to understand how evaluations dependent on the individual’s needs and desires, what Charles Taylor refers to as “weak evaluations,” are continuous with “strong evaluations,” whose validity are independent of the individual’s needs and desires, by recognizing that some organisms not only create value, but respond to values already present in their environment. The general notion of selfhood that results is one of axiological organization. I argue that what we are really referring to with the term “self” is the organization of evaluations that organisms make in regard to environmental affordances, a system which, over time, comes to take on definitive traits and characteristics. The self, regardless of the particular context in which it is situated, becomes individuated by the evaluations it makes, and is experienced as persistent because evaluative activity is an on-going process, ending only in death. The self is further experienced as persistent because these evaluations are made in accordance with a critical standard which itself rarely, and the overall axiological organization retains a high degree of stability. / Thesis / Master of Philosophy (MA) / The aim of this thesis is to provide a conception of selfhood and personal identity capable of accounting for the both the “embodied turn” and the “interactive turn” in cognitive science. It seeks to explain the persistence and individuation of selves both biologically, as living systems, and socially, as members that participate in or distinguish themselves from social groups. The first chapter explores selfhood from the perspective of Evan Thompson’s work on the definition of living systems as self-producing and self-organizing. Chapter two introduces Charles Taylor’s work on the necessity of moral frameworks for personal identity, a view which initially appears difficult to reconcile with the approach outlined in the first chapter. The third chapter attempts to combine these approaches by demonstrating that selfhood is best conceived of as axiological organization – the way living beings evaluate and prioritize possible actions in their environment.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/27962 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Mocker, Grant |
| Contributors | Klein, Alex, Philosophy |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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