Concept Of Consciousness Research Articles

The Concept of Conscience in Fichte’s System of Ethics

To explain my subject conscience I need to make some preliminary comments: In Part I, I shall address and reason, and in Part ?, Fichte's idea of morality. In Part G?, I will deal with Fichte's concept of conscience in some detail. In Part IV, I shall present short summary. I. Drive and Reason Transcendental philosophy has as aim to find grounds of the of human or of the ethical within them (20/14).1 The notion of the moral of human beings seems to signal kind of anthropology. Fichte declares abilities and properties to be fundamental elements of human beings; for example: the tendency of the I toward absolute self-activity (43/39), the formative (Bildungstrieb) (116/121), or the for self-preservation (117/122). For Fichte, these drives are the basic elements of all human activity. Acting, in general, and the definition of aims and purposes of action, cannot be understood without the idea of fundamental drives, which us to action. Drive can be understood as inner agility and mobility. From this results also all conscious activity of the I. We are who are driven to act and can't exist without acting. As rational we have to determine ourselves to what ends and in what ways we direct our acting. The natural continues to be active and to express itself. Reason reflects upon the natural and we choose among several possible satisfactions of this drive (153/162). The natural opens our attention to possible objects. Reason chooses with complete freedom, but it chooses among the material conditions, given by drive. Reason has the to defer the satisfaction of drive, but never to eliminate drive. Drive is not my product, it is rather a product of nature (120/125). As Fichte indicates: is given, and it does not depend on me in any way. Nevertheless, I become conscious of this drive, and what it brings about within consciousness is something mat stands within my power (120/125), we have over the satisfaction of our drives, for they are conscious. To summarize: We must act in the sensible world to satisfy our drives. Reason is our ability to determinate our action freely. Freedom implies self-determination of sensible acting as arising from my concept of an end (14/9). This concept is designed by myself and is supposed to guide my acting (15/9). Formally my acting is grounded in my self-activity, it acts causally on the object. Materially it is determined by something objective. The question now is: How should we act? What concept of acting do we need? Fichte provides an answer to this question in two steps: first in the Naturrecht, second in the Sittenlehre. The Naturrecht asks for the relation between individuals and defines Right as mutual recognition of persons and of the spheres of their free acting. The Sittenlehre focuses on the of within humans and the duties resulting from this principle. II. Morality and Moral Law Fichte claims moral or ethical of human as such (19/13). Morality is based on (Zunotigung) which manifests itself necessarily in human (ibid.). This compulsion is completely intrinsic. It is independent of any external influences. Without this independence, can't be thought. Morality means free self-determination. For Fichte, and also Kant, the ground of is the dignity of reason which lies in its very absoluteness (59/57). Reason is absolute because of its indeterminability through anything outside of itself (59/58). It is-as practical reason-absolutely autonomous in the self-determination of own activity. The principle of morality results from this idea of practical reason. The of is the necessary thought of the intellect that it ought to determine freedom in accordance with the concept of self-sufficiency, absolutely and without exception. …

Shakespearean Personalism

Shakespearean Personalism Travis Curtright (bio) Literature was such a love of the young Karol Wojtyła that it nearly kept him from the priesthood. Describing the period of his life before his vocation matured, Wojtyła writes that it was not the desire for marriage that kept him from the seminary, but a different passion: "Certainly, I knew many girls from school and, involved as I was in the school drama club, I had many opportunities to get together with other young people. But this was not the issue. At that time I was completely absorbed by a passion for literature, especially dramatic literature, and the theater."1 That passion for dramatic literature led to an interest in Shakespeare. Years after becoming a priest, as auxiliary bishop of Krakow, Wojtyła delivered a meditation to university students on the theme of conscience and conversion—one that included a brief, though telling, assessment of Shakespeare. In that meditation the future pontiff observed, "We know that most of the major works of world literature center around the question of the conscience. . . . Shakespeare's plays are all concerned with the conscience, because this force of nature is such a characteristic human feature."2 After these comments, Wojtyła attempts to explain conscience and its significance in light of his unique understanding [End Page 56] of the human person, but tantalizingly, the relationship between conscience, personhood, and Shakespearean drama is not developed, provoking the question of how his ideas of conscience may relate to Shakespeare's plays. Drawing upon the same retreat meditations, this article will attempt to describe how Wojtyła's notions of conscience might bear upon an understanding of drama and in particular Shakespeare's plays. By revisiting Wojtyła's definition of conscience, I believe one may reconstruct a plausible way of reading Shakespeare in light of Wojtyła's personalism. After explaining Wojtyła's conception of conscience, I will show how Wojtyła's personalism represents a unique literary hermeneutic, even if it emphasizes moral teachings that are similar to those found in older Shakespearean criticism and often ignored in more recent examinations of the plays. In hopes of showing how Wojtyła's personalism might advance our understanding of Shakespeare, I will conclude by examining Edmund from King Lear, paying particular attention to this character's striking reversal on the basis of conscience. I. Conscience and Personhood To return to the meditations, after referring to Shakespeare's works, Wojtyła defines conscience by describing its functions. First, conscience "commands some things and prohibits others." Second, conscience judges us, both in regard to what evils we have committed and in light of what good we are called to do. This second function is called a "great ally of what is good" because it represents what Wojtyła calls a "fundamental energy of our personality," one that urges us toward goodness.3 In listing these functions of conscience, Wojtyła's teaching resembles that of Aquinas, who writes that conscience may witness our actions, incite or bind us to take certain actions, and excuse, accuse, or torment us for certain actions we have committed. Yet for Thomas conscience is best understood as "an application of knowledge to something done"; it is neither a faculty of the soul, nor a power, but an act of judgment.4 For Wojtyła, [End Page 57] conscience will be described in a way that identifies what those acts of judgment mean for human development. Developing a definition in terms of phenomenology, Wojtyła claims that conscience is best understood when personhood is described in light of human development—a person is not a static identity, but one shaped by particular processes of becoming. Such a process of becoming Wojtyła refers to as a "history of the self," and in that history he describes three levels. The first is physical growth, which moves to a point of zenith before decay and finally death; the second is intellectual growth, from first childish impressions to the capacity for reflection and analysis. Finally, there is spiritual development. According to Wojtyła, the development of persons made in the image and likeness of God represents the most...

Hermeneutyczna wykładnia sumienia (Heidegger - Ricoeur)

The object of the article is the interpretation of conscience found in the hermeneutic reflection of Martin Heidegger and Paul Ricoeur. These thinkers understand conscience in an individualized manner that is individualized and prior with respect to various theologies, ontotheologies, and legal and moral social systems. Both Heidegger and Ricoeur, breaking with the understanding of conscience as oracle and tribunal found in the philosophical tradition, do not stop at its Freudian and Nietzschean demystification. After carrying out critical reflection they want to recover its sense; this is especially visible in the philosophy of Ricoeur, in which the “hermeneutics of destruction” is combined with a “hermeneutics of affirmation”. For Heidegger, although conscience is devoid of concrete contents, it calls to an authentic life, appearing in context of the problematic of truth as openness and unhiddenness; for Ricoeur, however, conscience is connected with the postulate of self-realization and testimony (fidelity to one’s given word), that is, truth as faith and trust toward Oneself and toward Another. Although Ricoeur was inspired in his conception of conscience by the philosophy of Heidegger, by adding to it aspects overlooked by the author of Being and time , he modified it significantly. In view of the similarities and differences between these two approaches, certain problems emerge, which I attempt to make clear in this work. Entering into a hermeneutic discourse, I leave this problematic open.

Determinação racional da vontade humana e educação natural em Rousseau

O presente artigo procura mostrar, por meio de um trabalho analítico-reconstrutivo, que na base do 'argumento secular' de Rousseau sobre a origem da maldade humana, desenvolvido no livro IV de Émile, está uma teoria da determinação racional da vontade que oscila entre os conceitos de consciência e razão. Pela expressão 'argumento secular', entende-se o fato de Rousseau ver a origem do mal não mais em uma força estranha nem mais no indivíduo isolado, mas sim na própria sociedade. O artigo pretende esclarecer também que, apesar dessa oscilação, tal teoria torna-se decisiva ao esboço de um projeto de educação natural oferecido pelo autor ao seu aluno imaginário no Émile. Uma vez que seu caráter é constituído pela trama de relações sociais, não há outra alternativa a Emílio senão a de buscar educar-se no convívio social, mesmo correndo o risco permanente de ser corrompido pela sociedade. Como o esboço da teoria da determinação racional da vontade humana está em estreita conexão com o esboço das teorias social e antropológica também oferecido por Rousseau no Émile, ele também deve arrolar argumentos para o confronto, por meio de um trabalho educativo da tendência egoísta do amour-propre, com o processo de estranhamento oriundo da sociabilidade humana, visando a recuperação do sentimento do amour de soi-même no convívio social.

Equity and Conscience

This article argues that the peculiarly ‘common law tradition’ separation of common law and equity had at its origins a principled basis in the concept of ‘conscience’. But ‘conscience’ here did not mean primarily either the modern lay idea, or the ‘conscience’ of Christopher St German's exposition. Rather, it referred to the judge's, and the defendant's, private knowledge of facts which could not be proved at common law because of medieval common law conceptions of documentary evidence and of trial by jury. The concept of a jurisdiction peculiarly concerned with this issue allowed the ‘English bill’ procedure to be held back to a limited subject area rather than—as in Scotland and the Netherlands—overwhelming the old legal system. By the later 17th century, however, the concept of conscience had lost its specific content, leaving behind the problem, still with us, of justifying the separation of ‘equity’.

Functionalism of Mind and Functionalism of Society: The Concept of Conscience and Durkheim's Division of Social Labour

This essay examines Durkheim's functionalism, to argue that it cannot be adequately understood through later movements of structural functionalism, especially Parsonian functionalism. Concretely, for Durkheim, the function of the division of labour is to create solidarity but this runs into the problem of modern pathologies. More abstractly, his functionalism has two essential sets of components, and it is only through the relation between these that it is possible to grasp his argument and its full significance. One involves ideas of correspondence, tendency and action, so that function has to do with a set of 'living movements' and how it corresponds with social needs. The other involves a functionalism of mind, and above all centres round the idea of conscience as a set of epistemological, representative and practical functions. Durkheim's functionalism relates these two components in a concern with the power of critical reflection on existing patterns of society, and with how conscience releases the force of agency, to have a transformative potential on the ills of society.

Conscience, discretion and the creation of property rights

This paper considers the utility of the concept of conscience or unconscionable conduct as a contemporary rationale for intervention in two principles applied where a person seeks to renege on an informal agreement relating to land: the principle in Rochefoucauld v Boustead; and transfers ‘subject to’ rights in favour of a claimant. By analysing the concept in light of our current understanding of the nature of judicial discretion and the use of general principles, it responds to arguments that unconscionability is too general a concept on which to base intervention. In doing so, it considers the nature of the discretion that is actually in issue when the court intervenes through conscience in these principles. However, the paper questions the use of constructive trusts as a response to unconscionability. It argues that there is a need, in limited circumstances, to separate the finding of unconscionability from the imposition of a constructive trust. In these limited circumstances, once unconscionability is found, the courts should have a discretion as to the remedy, modelled on that developed in the context of proprietary estoppel. The message underlying this paper is that many of the concerns expressed about unconscionability that have led to suggestions of alternative rationales for intervention can in fact be addressed whilst retaining an unconscionability analysis. Unconscionability remains a preferable rationale for intervention as it provides a common thread that links apparently separate principles and can assist our understanding of their scope.

Conscience Collective or False Consciousness?

When Durkheim’s Sociologie et philosophie was first translated into German in 1967, Adorno wrote a critical introduction to the book. This article first presents the main thoughts in Durkheim’s sociology of morals - that is, his concept of societally instituted morality as a reality sui generis that must be obeyed because the state of society constitutes a ‘reason’ beyond that of the individual. The article then presents Adorno’s critique of Durkheim. Departing from a general critique of Durkheim’s disregard for individuality in establishing obligatory social morality, Adorno utilizes the Marxian concepts of ‘second nature’, ‘continued natural history’ and true and false consciousness to show how Durkheim’s concept of conscience collective is merely expressive of what society ‘believes itself to be’. In conclusion, the article demonstrates how the respective positions of Durkheim and Adorno may serve as each other’s correctives.

Implicitinė etikos mokytojų sąžinės samprata

Straipsnyje aptariamas implicitinės sampratos pažinimo aktualumas. Remiantis etikos mokytojų autobiografiniais sąžinės raidos naratyvais, keturiais aspektais analizuojama implicitinė sąžinės samprata: sąžinės kaip moralinės savimonės konteksto; sąžinės raidos sampratos; moralinio turinio ir emocinės konotacijos.

Hannah Arendt on conscience and evil

Though there exists a vast literature dealing with Hannah Arendt’s thoughts on evil in general and Adolf Eichmann in particular, few attempts have been made to assess Arendt’s position on evil by tracing its connection with her reflections on conscience. This essay examines the nature and significance of such a connection. Beginning with her doctoral dissertation on St Augustine and ending with her posthumously published studies in The Life of the Mind, Arendt’s oeuvre exhibits strong thematic continuity: the triad thinking–conscience–evil forms its most enduring core. A puzzling core, to be sure, considering the controversies triggered, especially regarding her notion of the ‘banality of evil’. By placing the role of conscience at the very center of Arendt’s lifelong reflections, this essay explores the – in many ways related – influence exerted by St Augustine and Heidegger. Heidegger’s conception of conscience in Sein und Zeit is identified as a crucial source for understanding – so the claim holds – why Arendt found Heidegger’s philosophy particularly wanting as regards the question of evil.

Resoluteness in the Middle Voice: On the Ethical Dimensions of Heidegger’s Being and Time

Wir Gewaltsamen, wir wahren langer. Aber wann, in welchem alter Leben, sind wir endlich offen and Empfanger'? -Rainer Maria Rilke1 As an existential analytic of human Dasein, Being and Time never claims to be more than provisional. It stands today, as it did in 1927, as a prolegomenon to any further philosophical anthropology. Yet, despite the provisionality and formal generality of his most famous work, Heidegger nevertheless presents a definite ideal of existence within it. This ideal, called ownedness (Eigentlichkeit) or authenticity, receives its existentiell attestation in the phenomenon of resoluteness (secs 54-60). Heidegger's discussion of this phenomenon focuses on the concepts of conscience and guilt, culminating in a description of resoluteness as the understanding response to the silent call of Guilty! Given the moral resonance of these words, the question that immediately presents itself is this: is resoluteness an ethical ideal of existence? The response to this question from students of Heidegger's thought has by no means been univocal. On the-one hand, there are those who join Hans Jonas and Karl Lowith in denying the moral viability of resoluteness. For these thinkers, Heidegger's ideal amounts to a contentless decisionism. Others, such as Michael Zimmerman, Lawrence Vogel, Charles Sherover, and Frank Schalow, though recognizing the limitations inherent in the concept of resoluteness, have done much to illuminate its moral dimensions. The task that is set by this question, and by the varying responses to it, is twofold: I ) resoluteness must be reconsidered in the light of its critics' comments in order to reveal whether or not it can form the viable basis of a Heideggerean ethics; and 2) the manner in which resoluteness can or cannot ground ethical interpersonal relationships must be explicated. I submit that resoluteness is not a voluntaristic ideal, but is better understood as an ideal of humility, wonderment, and self-knowledge. Moreover, as I hope to show, though in an admittedly provisional manner, resoluteness makes possible the transformation of Being-with Others in an ethical direction. The key to the first part of this thesis lies in the grammatical concept of the middle voice and its employment by Heidegger to overcome the subjectivism of modern metaphysics. After didscussing the criticisms of resoluteness, I will brief explication of the middle voice, followed by an account of Heidegger's reliance upon it in his philosophy. This account will be indebted to Theodore Kisiel's monumental work, The Genesis of Heidegger's Being and Time. The major part of this essay will be occupied by an interpretation of secs 54-60 of Being and Time, focusing on conscience as a mode of discourse. It will be shown that resoluteness, as understandingly heeding the call of conscience, amounts not to radical willfulness, but to becoming a willing participant in the c-vent of Dasein-ing into which one is thrown. I will conclude this essay by exploring one specific way in which resoluteness modifies Being-with Others, namely, the taking over of a guilt towards Others, which amounts to a fundamental recognition of the moral claims of individuals. In so doing, I hope to provide a rejoinder to a criticism voiced by Charles Sherover, and to point to the possibility of expanding Werner Marx's search for a non-metaphysical ethics into Being and Time. My aim in this essay is not to beautify Heidegger's ideal of resoluteness in order to make his thought worthy of the epithet of ethical. Rather, I hope to reveal the ethical possibilities built into this ideal. Furthermore, the issue is not one of merely setting the doxographical record straight, though Heidegger's text will be the predominant focus, as it should be. Heidegger frequently remarks that, as a thinker, he has no doctrines to be passed along through time, but only a path, with precious few signposts. To come to terms with this path, it is not enough to simply report on words in books; rather, one must follow one's own way onto the path in order to make ajudgment of it. …

The concept of consciousness.

The concept of consciousness.

Paulus se gewetenskonsep

This survey article introduces the reader to Paul's concept of conscience via an analysis of the word ([Foreign font omitted] in his letters. It is argued that Paul uses the word within an inherited conceptual framework, but that he also introduces significant changes. The concept is basically understood as an inner monitor which spontaneously registers lack of integrity and discrepancies between thoughts, words and deeds. As an aspect of man's rational make-up, the conscience reacts on the basis of knowledge available to the individual, and plays the role of witness within a metaphorical inner court of law. Brief observations on how Paul's concept of conscience interacts with other aspects of his thinking conclude the paper.

Language and the Social Roots of Conscience: Heidegger's Less Traveled Path

This paper develops a new interpretation of Heidegger's concept of conscience in order to show to what extent his thought establishes the possibility of civil disobedience. The origin of conscience lies in the self's appropriation of language as inviting a reciprocal response of the other (person). By developing the social dimension of dialogue, it is showsn that conscience reveals the self in its capacity for dissent, free speech, and civil disobedience. By developing the social roots of conscience, a completely new light is cast on the political implications of Heidegger's thought.

Gewissen und Recht: Ethisch-theologische Aspekte zur Debatte über das Kirchenasyl

Abstract Since relevant changes in German constitutionallaw concerning the guaranteed right of territorial asylum for political refugees have taken place, a widespread public debate on interpretation and institutional shaping of this fundamental human right can be registered. As a valid part in this debate, efforts from within the Church have been made to instaU a compensation for the diagnosed loss of lawfullness and to point out the present deficiency of the composed constitutional right, fixed in the new article 16 a of the Grundgesetz. These efforts, manifested in the specific form of sanctuary, put on the agenda the general question of the relevance of christian conscience within the public context.Reminding the protestant tradition of the concept of conscience and confronting it with the philosophical concept of recognition, it can be said that from a christian point of view, the engagement in keeping fundamental human rights established, is a constituent part both of christian self-understanding and meaningful existence in society.

The Topography of Heidegger’s Concept of Conscience

The Topography of Heidegger’s Concept of Conscience

Concepts of consciousness

Concepts of consciousness

An "Authentic" Problem in Heidegger's "Being And Time"

There is a tension in Heidegger's concept of authenticity. On the one hand, authenticity is described as the correlate of inauthenticity and has the function of mineness (Jemeinigkeit) in contrast to the impersonality of the they (das Man). On the other, authenticity is prescribed as an ideal. In this paper, I will examine critically the interrelation of the three concepts of conscience, authenticity, and resoluteness. More specifically, I will show that if authenticity is an ideal towards which Dasein should aspire, then care as the primordial structural totality, as the unity of Dasein, would become questionable. For it would conspire to undermine the a priori status of care. However, the general tenor of Being and Time suggests that authenticity is the meaning of Being, and this thesis is strongly supported by the dimension of care as the matrix of meaning.1 Therefore, since care is

The Concept of Consciousness

The Concept of Consciousness