In this paper, I will first examine the spatial aspect of self as found in Watsuji Tetsuro’s Climate and Culture. My study will focus almost entirely on the first chapter of this work where Watsuji sets out his theory of climate. I will then turn to his recently translated Ethics and examine the spatiality of the self as ningen, concentrating mainly on Chapter Nine, "The Spatiality of a Human Being." I do not pretend to give a full account of Watsuji’s philosophy, but hope to raise questions in order to think of space and self in a different manner, recognizing space as an essential element in the constitution of a concept of self — one forgotten in Heidegger’s Being and Time and in many contemporary accounts of personal identity.

Theodors Celms (1893-1989), a prominent Latvian philosopher, was one of Husserl's best students. Intersubjectivity was an important theme in the "psychological" reading of phenomenology when Celm turned to the problem of the transcendental "I" and to a living-rather than logically defined-subject. Celms concluded that Husserl's phenomenology could not address the question of intersubjectivity because in the course of its development it merely substituted pluralistic solipsism for monistic solipsism. What is most essential in phenomenology-the process of sense (or meaning) formation-remains hardly noticed in Celms' work. Contemporary phenomenology has developed as a philosophy of new thinking-a phenomenology of life that can be applied in different ways toward solving various problems of intersubjectivity.

In Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit argues for a Reductionist View of personal identity. According to a Reductionist, persons are nothing over and above the existence of certain mental and/or physical states and their various relations. Given this, Parfit believes that facts about personal identity just consist in more particular facts concerning psychological continuity and/or connectedness, and thus that personal identity can be reduced to this continuity and/or connectedness. Parfit is aware that his view of personal identity is contrary to what many people ordinarily think about persons, and thus if his view is correct, many of us have false beliefs about personal identity. Further, since many of our views about morality are based upon our views about personal identity, it follows that we may also have to change our beliefs about morality as well. Parfit, however, thinks that in many cases such changes represent an improvement over our former beliefs and better fit with our considered moral judgments. But instead, I argue that Parfit’s account poses a serious threat to considered moral judgments, and, in particular, that it seriously undermines any substantial notion of moral commitment. As such, even if Parfit is metaphysically correct, I suggest we may have practical reasons, based on our moral concerns, for holding to a more weighty view of the nature of persons.

The concept presented in this report makes a summary of the author’s attempts to find a solution to the problem of compatibility of determinism and the freedom of human choice. This problem becomes apparently an isoluble paradox if one admits that the notion of freedom of human choice includes negation of the predetermination of decisions taken. Denial of such an "inclusion" is based on an analysis of the reasons that have led to the notion of freedom of human choice. Basically, this notion is intimately linked with the actual mechanism of decision-making. However, the concept of freedom of human choice is not identical to this mechanism and should be regarded as a perception and self-interpretation of this mechanism by humans.

The paper critically analyzes Hume’s view that human persons are "nothing but a bundle of different perceptions" in order to find out which one of the two possible interpretations of this view, the mentalistic or the physicalistic, is the more probable and free from serious difficulties. First, I examine Hume’s view of personhood from the mentalistic perspective only to discover that his all-important distinction between ideas and impressions is logically untenable. If ideas indeed resemble impressions, as Hume claims, then ideas should be present to our mind at the same time as impressions so we could compare them in order to find out whether there is any resemblance between the two kinds of perceptions and whether the impressions are indeed more forceful or vivacious than the ideas corresponding to them. But this is logically impossible because by the time we have an idea, its impression is gone, and if we think that we are comparing an idea with its impression, we are in fact comparing an idea only with a memory of its impression. But a memory of an impression is, in Hume’s view, already an idea. So we are comparing only two ideas, not an idea with an impression. Second, since ideas and concepts have no logical standing, we are forced to interpret the realm of ideas as an extension of the realm of impressions, coping with various problems arising from this interpretation as best we can.

The focus of this paper is personal selfhood and personal identity in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Whitehead’s theory of human personhood is formulated within the fabric of his highly original western metaphysical vision. Rejecting the Aristotelian doctrine of substantive being, Whitehead embraced instead an ontology of becoming that sought to categorize the things of this world within a naturalistic continuum. His understanding of human selfhood was therefore explicated in terms of this continuum and avoided both the rhetoric and conceptualization of substance philosophy. Thus, human selfhood is better understood in Whitehead’s system as a continuously developing series of events or actual occasions, rather than in terms of a substantive soul. After detailing the main lines of Whitehead’s doctrine of self and personhood, three detractors of his theory are introduced: A. H. Johnson, Peter Bertocci, and Rem Edwards. Their primary objections revolve around the human experience of self and personal identity and Whitehead’s highly controversial epochal theory of time. The primary question that arises is whether or not Whitehead was finally able to do justice to the most profound insights and experiences of human beings regarding personal identity, and it is on that score that his understanding of personal selfhood is tested and found wanting.

This paper is intended as an inquiry regarding contemporary critical assays of subjectivity. In response to the contemporary politics of representation, both in expressions of essentialist identity politics and in versions of social constructivism, and their implication of all pedagogical practices in transfers of power, I wish to project the question of the subject’s futures. I choose to discuss the limits of the interior, monadic subject for consideration not only its historical and contemporary effects in the politics of representation, but also for the possibility of thinking beyond it. In the spirit of Foucault’s ethical project only a special kind of curiosity and a thinking ‘otherwise’ could, if luck and wit permit, allow us as individual subjects to go beyond ourselves. Thinking otherwise, when possible, could also suggest going beyond ourselves collectively in the creation of provisional critical pedagogical and ethical community.

Ours is not the first time philosophers have looked to art for examples to illustrate their arguments. One example would be Kierkegaard, who turned to Mozart's operas in an attempt to expose what he called the aesthetic realm of existence. I hold that if Kierkegaard lived today, he would consider the main character of Nikita Mikhalkov's Dark Eyes (1987) as a prototype of the aesthetic way of existence. In order to support my thesis, I first discuss Kierkegaard's theory of the three spheres of existence. I look especially at what he considers to be the main feature of the aesthetic stage, as well as the figure of Don Giovanni in Mozart's opera. Second, I will look at the character of Romano Podroni in Dark Eyes. Finally, I will point out what makes these two characters prototypes of the aesthetic existence: the inhuman way in which they live the temporal dimension of human existence.

The following discussion is centered on German romantic philosophy. The founder of philosophical romanticism, F.W.J. Schelling, speaks of the identity of all spheres of the universe. This view is echoed by other romantic philosophers, e.g., Novalis, Hölderlin, von Baader, and Schubert, as well as later neoromantics such as Scheler and Heidegger. I wish to show homo sapien as homo universus. Homo sapien is tied to the universe and must be aware of this oneness. Such knowledge will ameliorate his alienation from nature.

En esta comunicación se presenta la concepción utilitarista de la virtud en John Stuart Mill. El cultivo y la adquisición desinteresada de la virtud se integran en el proceso de autorrealización humana. La virtud es necesaria para la consecución de la felicidad y para el interés general de la sociedad. Se analiza la virtud en Mill como un sentimiento moral que se trasmite por observación. Se finaliza con unas conclusiones críticas sobre esta perspectiva utilitaria de la virtud.

Subjective knowledge should not be separated from anthropology. But, unfortunately, this is the prevailing practice. The anthropology of Bo expresses the presence of Africa in anthropology. The authenticity of the African is found in his fervent practice of Bo. His thought, action, relations with others-his entire way of life-is based on the practice of Bo insofar as he wears Bo names. Bo is deeply rooted in his cultural values and comprises the background for all social organizations and thus acts as a social regulator. In Western anthropology there is a scientific mind; in African anthropology there is a Bo mentality that attempts to understand the world and then conquer it.

I look at two ways of seeing the body during the Renaissance: the first, illustrated in the Essais of Montaigne, focuses on the body as a source of knowledge about the self; the second, illustrated in the developing science of anatomy, focuses on the body as an object of knowledge that is increasingly available only to specialists. In looking at the science of anatomy as it developed in the Renaissance, I show that the transformation of the body from a source of knowledge of both body and soul to an object of a mechanical science did not happen easily and reflects contradictory approaches to the self that continue to this day.

This essay on the themes of paideia and humanitas in Giambatista Vico's inaugural orations is excerpted form a chapter of a larger study on Vico and Plato. I focus on Pico della Mirandola's Oration of the Dignity of Man because it illuminates Vico's humanistic ideals. For Vico, self-knowledge is the axis of the sphere of the liberal arts. Self-knowledge for human beings is twofold. The divinity of the human mind is a central theme in Vico as well as Pico, and human dignity is strongly stated. So one aspect of self-knowledge establishes confidence in human abilities. The other side is the recognition of human ignorance and misery. How does Vico reconcile the divinity of the human mind with the observation that most human beings are fools? The same way Pico does. Humanitas is the goal of paideia, not a given. Education makes us into human beings. We become who we are through the cultivation of virtue. Vico inspires in his students the confidence to undertake the heroic effort to rule their passions and dispel ignorance. This confidence in human potential Vico learned from Renaissance thinkers such as Pico. Vico is most impassioned when he treats educational themes, and his words are inspiring today for students and teachers alike.

Se define como cuerpo a la totalidad de acciones, potencias, posibilidades, constituyentes...que al actuar como un todo integra las actividades que mediante el cuerpo somático se realizan: la historia, la percepción, las emociones, la conducta, la amistad, el encuentro, y la relación médico enfermo. Se considera que el hombre esta vertido en la realidad, porque la versión (desde el interior hacia afuera) es desde el cuerpo, por ser el hombre un ser de realidades, y por existir un mecanismo de versión. La unidad psico-orgánica que constituye el hombre presenta varios momentos, unos constitutivos (basados en vía de fundamentación): estructural (sistema de notas psico-orgánicas), conducta (conducta humana) y personal, otros moduladores: eutímico (salud) y el patológico (patología como afección). El animal vive entre estímulos, mientras que el hombre al inteligir los estímulos los aprehende y los convierte er realidad. El mecanismo de la versión es la aprehensión sentiente de los estímulos y la intelección de estos como reales. La persona se encuentra indigentemente arrojado en la realidad.

Some kinds of utterances which have an indicative grammatical form seem, for different reasons, to be unable to say something true of the world. Logical contradictions are only the prime example of something the author baptizes impossible descriptions. So-called performative contradictions (e.g., "I do not exist") make up another kind, but there are at least two more such kinds: negating affirmations and performatives which cannot be explained within the philosophy of language. Only philosophical anthropology can explain their feature of "impossibleness," and a distinction between unreflective and reflective consciousness is central to the explanation. Particularly important here is G. H. Mead's distinction between two aspects of the self: the "I" and the "me." Each of the four kinds of impossible descriptions distinguished has its own contrary opposite. These are, in turn, logical tautologies, performative tautologies, affirming negations, and omissive performatives. The last three types as types have not received the philosophical recognition that they deserve. All four fit a general characterization which is given as a definition of the concept of superfluous description.

Philosophers cannot avoid addressing the question of whether philosophical anthropology (that is, specifically philosophical inquiry about human nature and human phenomenon) is possible. Any answer must be articulated in the context of the nature and function of philosophy. In other words, philosophical anthropology must be defined as an account of the nature of the subject of philosophical thinking. I argue that if philosophical thinkers admit that they are beings in nature, culture, and history, then the possibility of a uniquely philosophical theory of human nature and human phenomenon should be discarded. Rather, philosophy's catalytic and integrative role in human cognition should be stressed.

The liberal French thinker Benjamin Constant develops a conception of human nature which shows the triplicity of being human. Such triplicity manifests itself in the close connection between emotion, rationality, and animality. He also develops an idea of liberty which treats it only as a real, historically conditioned minimalization of external limitations. Liberty thus understood enjoys metaphysical rootedness in human nature.

The metaphysical concepts of act and potency that are central to the Thomistic tradition can help us solve the problem of understanding pain, sorrow and grief. Human beings, as natural creatures, are composed of act and potency. If rightly understood, these concepts can give a rational explanation to the reality of pain-without having recourse to religious beliefs-by accepting it as a natural derivation of our natural limits.