David E. Cooper. Existentialism: A Reconstruction
—

«The 'sincere' [in Sartre's sense of the term] person believes he has a true, fixed essence, in accordance with which he must try to live. Such a person 'puts himself out of reach: it is an escape'. That 'self- recovery' of his being, in need of which the self-estranged person stands, is in fact 'corrupted' by the 'sincere' attitude. For one thing, the 'sincere' man takes it that, deep down, he has a nature or character which determines in advance how he should be. This misunderstanding of his existence as a human being is compounded by dissociating himself, his 'real' self, from his 'external' behaviour. Since a person is nothing else but the sum of his actions, this dissociation is a form of bad faith, an attempt to escape judgement for what one does. Sartre's point here recalls Nietzsche's derision of the manner in which the 'botched and the bungled' bolster their self-esteem by pretending that their actions are no reflection of what, au fond, they are really like.»

Tomás Sánchez. Light of a Stormy Afternoon (1990)

David E. Cooper. Existentialism: A Reconstruction
—

«The source of such quintessentially human experiences is what Sartre calls 'the Look' (le regard). It is this which 'has revealed to us the indubitable existence of the Other for whom we are'. He illustrates 'the Look' with his usual dramatic flair. I am kneeling by a door, peeping through a keyhole: 'But all of a sudden I hear footsteps in the hall. Someone is looking at me... I am suddenly affected in my being...and essential modifications appear in my structure.' The crucial modification is that 'I now exist as myself,' for I have been made into 'an object for the Other'. 'The Look' at once reifies and individuates me. 'Behold now I am somebody.’

Sartre's example can mislead if it suggests that I only become aware of others and of myself in embarrassing and unedifying situations. (Though it might be a truth of child psychology that the child first becomes fully aware of its distinct existence through the disapproving stares of its parents.) 'The Look' is at work whenever I am made aware of myself as an object for the attention of others: creatures who can 'transfix' me in the way I 'transfix' objects about me.

Becoming apprised of 'the Look' is, for Sartre, only the beginning of one's sense of distinctive selfhood. This sense, once born, becomes 'reinforced' in roughly the ways described by Hegel in his famous dialectic of the master/slave relationship. The rough idea is that being subject to 'the Look' is a disturbing experience because, being a free, spontaneous For-itself, I cannot be the mere object — the squatting voyeur at the keyhole to which 'the Look' threatens to reduce me. Hence, by way of self-defence, I engage in 'a refusal of the Other'; and in the ensuing battle, during which I reaffirm my subjectivity against the other, 'I... obtain an explicit self-consciousness [through] a negation of the Other.’ This is the key to Sartre's unromantic account of sexual relationships as an almost Hobbesian 'war of everyman against everyman', in which each partner struggles to retain the sense of freedom threatened by 'the Look' or the embrace of the other one.»

David E. Cooper. Existentialism: A Reconstruction
—

«The central proposition of existential phenomenology is that we exist in a 'human world' whose contents are articulated in terms of the significance they have through the intentional projects in which we engage. Our relation to this world is not that of substances causally interacting with others, but what Heidegger calls 'care'. This is a relation to things in so far as they matter to us for the 'issue' that each of us is to himself. This central proposition serves as a premise for freedom in two related ways. Because the 'human world' is constituted by situations, 'signs', négatités and other intentional items, it cannot be an outside agency causally dictating our attitudes and actions. I am not free, as the Stoic would have it, because I am an inner citadel protected against outside incursion by impregnable walls. Rather, as Merleau-Ponty puts it, 'nothing determines me from the outside... because I am from the start outside myself and open to the world.' This is the doctrine of intentionality, as revised by the Existentialist. The 'human world' is not 'outside' us nor, of course, 'inside us', if by that is meant that the 'external world' is really a projection of the imagination. The mode in which I am 'there', outside in the world, is intentional and not natural, as with a bird in its habitat. My situation is not an environment with which I interact. It is, in Ortega's metaphor, something I carry like the vagabond his bundle. The vagabond cannot survive or begin his journey without a bundle: but how he carries it, and where to, are his responsibility.»

David E. Cooper. Existentialism: A Reconstruction

Есть большая разница между философскими книгами и книгами *о философии*. Философскую книгу бесполезно “читать”, она не для этого нужна. Нужна она для того, чтобы присоединиться к автору и суметь проследовать за мыслью — т.е. заниматься философией — что совсем непросто, требует навыка и подготовки. Книги *о философии* можно просто читать, но они бывают разные. Есть книги, которые совсем не понимают этой разницы между философским текстом и рассказом *о философии*, и делают вид, что это одно и то же. И написана там совсем уж какая-то ерунда: автор исходную мысль совсем не уловил, остались в лучшем случае только смутные ее следы. Есть другие, там пересказ вроде и похож на мысль, но это больше чучело: мысль замерла и никуда больше не идет. А есть еще жанр, рассказывать про философов по фамилиям, пересказывать кто что говорил, выглядит это как экскурсия в зоопарк диковинных зверей и загадочных речей. С таблчиками: “Сартр”, пожалуйста, вот “Хайдеггер”, “Морис Мерло-Понти”, вслух не думать, руками не трогать.

Вот книга Купера это рассказ о философии, но рассказ хороший, даже и в мысли поучаствовать можно, хоть и косвенно. Экзистенциализм течение в философии когда-то модное, популярное, выплеснувшееся в более широкую культуру. И темы какие волнующие, ничего себе!: Angst, смерть, абсурд, свобода! Экзистенциалистские тексты при этом сложные, поэтому о том, что там написано сказано много, но часто совсем бестолково. Купер, вместо того, чтобы пересказывать философов по фамилиям, реконструирует (“a reconstruction”, написано в подзаголовке книги) темы, вопросы, повторяющиеся мотивы “экзистенциалистов”, по которым вообще можно объединить в одно течение таких разных авторов как Сартр, Хайдеггер, Бубер, Ясперс и тд. Понравилось как сформулирована объединяющая, основная тема зистенциальной философии — о(т)странение , и ее задача — преодоление отстранения. А в начальной главе разобраны, мне кажется, все основные варианты “околомыслия” (Мамардашвили) о самом течении, и о темах, о которых экзистенциальное течение волнуется.

Помимо философов, которых Купер упоминает, и к которым обращается, в книге присутствует некто Экзистенциалист, и это не просто собирательный образ из разных авторов, но персонаж, который призван быть воплощением экзистенциалистской мудрости вообще. И иногда на поднимаемые вопросы приводятся не только слова конкретных авторов, которые спорят друг с другом, но и что бы на это сказал Экзистенциалист. И живая мысль в этом есть, или хотя бы ее хвост.

(В этот раз в силу обстоятельств проскочил слишком быстро, недостаточно вдумчиво, буду перечитывать)

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#id_books

(fish getting an MRI scan)

Giovanni Stanghellini, René Rosfort. Emotions and Personhood
—

[They are talking about the difference between rational, a-rational and irrational behaviour, inspired by Ronald de Sousa’s take on rationality:

1. in *categorical* sense 1.1) rational (behavior) contrasts with 1.2) a-rational

2. in *normative* sense 2.1) rational contrasts with 2.2) irrational

2.1. two kinds of normatively rational:
2.1a. thin (skeletal) — functioning of the logical structures of our cognitive abilities
2.1b. thick (fleshy) — an embodied, personalised, and context-sensitive kind of rationality, where ‘rational’ behaviour cannot be distinguished from ‘irrational’ behaviour merely by means of what is logical and what is not.]

The difference between ‘a-rational’ and ‘rational’ can be illustrated with two variations over one story. Say that one late afternoon my wife and I decide that we want to make an omelette. Unfortunately we are out of eggs, so my wife offers to cook the omelette, if I go out to buy the eggs. Half an hour later, I return abashed with an empty egg pack. When she asks why the pack is empty, I tell her one of the two following stories.

[1.2) a-rational]
On my way home from the grocery store, a massive branch of the old chestnut tree at the corner of our street broke off and tumbled down over my head. I managed to jump away from under the falling branch, but the egg pack slipped from my hand, and all the eggs broke when the pack hit the ground. This is one story.

[1.1) categorically rational or 1.2) irrational?]
The other version goes like this. When I turned the corner from the grocery store, I caught sight of my former boss. Ever since the bastard first humiliated me in front of everybody and then fired me eight months ago, I have nursed an intense grudge against him, so when I saw him on the other side of the street I could not control myself. I became so enraged that I started to throw the eggs at him.

Now, it is glaringly obvious that my wife will react very differently to my two stories.

[1.2) a-rational]
In the first case, she will, or so at least I hope, be relieved that I am not hurt and consider the business of the broken eggs a freak incident which could have ended tragically, but fortunately turned out well. In fact, she might even be impressed and commend me on my agile and attentive reactions. The fact that the eggs are broken is due to a series of events which were out of my control and had nothing to do with rationality whatsoever. On the contrary, it can only be ascribed to an a-rational, causal chain of chance and necessity—to use Jacques Monod’s poignant expression (1970).

[1.1) categorically rational and 2.1a) normatively rational, of a “thin” kind, or 2.2) irrational?]
It goes without saying that the reaction of my wife will be quite different when I tell her the second version. I can be pretty sure that she will not be impressed or commend my behaviour. Being the level-headed person she is, she will probably sigh and tell me that it was an irrational or stupid thing to do, since it will not bring about any good. It will certainly not give me my job back, help me regain my self-respect or convince my previous boss of anything save that it was a good decision to get rid of me in the first place. If I try to argue that in spite of this, it made me feel good, my wife can point to the obvious fact that I cannot go around doing things just because they make me feel good. All kinds of behaviour might feel good without therefore being rational. At this point, it seems difficult, if not impossible, for me to reply to her argument. I could try to blame her for her cold-hearted lack of empathy and her obnoxiously bourgeois reasonableness in a circumstance where all I need is to be cuddled and understood. But no matter what I say to justify my behaviour or to express my disappointment at her, in my eyes, insensitive rational thinking, I cannot argue against the irrational nature of my action.

[…] I said that my wife was right to deem my throwing the eggs at my boss irrational. If we view my behaviour from the standpoint of the thin notion of rationality, though, my behaviour was perfectly rational. I felt a desire to get back at my mean boss, and I found myself holding a pack of eggs which I believed was perfectly suitable for that purpose, so it was indeed rational to break the eggs for that purpose. Nevertheless, my wife can give several reasons why it was an irrational thing to do: it is an inconsiderate waste of perfectly good eggs, it makes me look like an idiot, it is immature and inappropriate for a man of my age, it is not a normal way of behaving, it is not a reasonable way to deal with problems, and physical aggravation in whatever form is simply wrong. What is important to notice here is that when my wife judges my behaviour irrational she needs to scaffold her use of rationality with several densely normative adjectives such as ‘inconsiderate’, ‘immature’, ‘inappropriate’, ‘normal’, ‘reasonable’, and the explicitly ethical one ‘wrong’.

As a preliminary illustration of how the precarious character of rationality bears on psychopathology, we can imagine a third version of the story with the broken eggs.

Suppose I tell my wife that I arrived safely back at our front door, but when I was about to open the door, I was suddenly overtaken by a feeling of despair immediately followed by an agonising feeling of emptiness and spleen. It felt as if my heart splintered in pieces, and the meaning of my life was shattered in an instant. I cannot explain why, I say to my wife, but I took the eggs out of the pack and dropped them, one by one, down the three steps leading up to our door. It was as if something inside me, like a piece of my brain, caused me to do so. It simply happened. I try to explain myself, but find no words to express the strangeness of this anonymous event which had taken place inside myself. It was simultaneously my body and a body, something external and internal at the same time that made me behave like this. It felt as a kind of otherness in myself, impersonal and personal at the same time, with no clear-cut distinction between my self and that otherness. I also felt that it was me who was the owner of this piece of my brain, but not its possessor; something that belonged to me but that it was not under my control. It was as if it acted through me.

How is my wife supposed to react on hearing this story? Surely, she will be shocked and become deeply concerned for me, but how is she supposed to understand what has happened? Are we talking about a-rational events, like those in the first story? Or can my behaviour be explained in terms of a radical degree of irrationality, akin to the second story? How we choose to explain my behaviour, despair and spleen in general or even clinical disorders, depends (in part at least) on how we understand the interplay of rational and a-rational factors constitutive of our emotional life. We shall argue that our emotions are permeated by rationality, but that the rationality we find in our emotional life is an unstable rationality entrenched in, and to a certain degree constituted by, the a-rational changes of our bodily landscape. This instability, though, is not something that can be done away with by recoiling into either a rationalistic or a biological conception of human emotions. We are fragile beings because of this ambivalence of a-rational and rational factors of our emotional life, and we believe that our investigation into Ricoeur’s wounded Cogito will help us understand this fragility, and hopefully shed some light on why human persons are vulnerable beings.

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Giovanni Stanghellini, René Rosfort. Emotions and Personhood
—
«We are fragile beings because of the ambivalence of reason and sensibility at play in our experience, thoughts, and behaviour. We are rational creatures, but our rational capacities are bound to our senses and enmeshed in the a-rational, causal functioning of our body. This means that ‘our Cogito is internally fractured’, as Ricoeur says, and our rational capacities are deeply precarious and easily wounded. We possess an immediate sense of being a self, but this minimal sense of self is characterised by ambivalence and confusion which can only be dealt with through an ongoing interpretation of the self ’s existence in the world. The self finds itself situated in a world in which it has not placed itself, and it is in this world, by interacting with otherness (that which is not itself), that it must reaffirm itself as an individual person: ‘the self [le moi] must be lost in order to find the “I” [le “je”]’ (2004, p. 19 [24]). The self continuously struggles with the question ‘Who am I?’, and in order to reappropriate itself, it is compelled to measure itself with the insecurity stirred up by the otherness that constitutes its being.

[…]

The values that inform and orient our existence are generated by the multitude of heterogeneous feelings that characterise human experience. Ricoeur proposes that we approach these feelings in terms of the two basic roots of selfhood, namely, reason and sensibility. He argues that the core of human selfhood, which he calls the heart, is in a permanent restless tension between vital desires (sensibility) and spiritual desires (reason). This affective fragility of selfhood calls for an interpretive approach to our troubled selfhood.»

«Human existence is generally ‘pathetic’, because our problematic relation to the world, other people, and ourselves is felt before it is understood.»

— Stanghellini, Rosfort. Emotions and Personhood


«I do not coincide with my experience. There is a cleavage between myself and my suffering. I am a self-interpreting animal and thus I am compelled to make a logos out of my pathos.»

— Stanghellini. Lost in Dialogue

Robert Kegan. In Over Our Heads
—
«In my thirties I wrote The Evolving Self, proposing a view of human being as meaning-making and exploring the inner experience and outer contours of our transformations in consciousness throughout the lifespan. Although the book was published over a decade ago, it is still rare for two weeks to go by without someone putting pen to paper to write me about it. Some years ago, when I proudly told my father that it was being translated into German and Korean, he said, "That's great! Now when is it going to be translated into English?" And in truth, these fortnightly letters from readers occasionally have a similar theme:

Dear Dr. Kegan,

We had to read your book in our psychology class. I can't believe the publishers let the thing out in this condition. No one in our class understands what you are saying. Not even our teacher, and he assigned it! Who are you trying to impress with all those big words? I got so mad reading your book I wanted to come to Boston and break your teeth.

Sincerely,
[writer's name]

I appreciated the "sincerely.”»