Philosophy-2

Question 1

Problematic of the Conscious and Unconscious Psychic Life theory

Answer 1

What is the meaning of the conscious and unconscious experiences? What is the reality of their existence? What relationship do they have together?

Question 2

Conscious

Answer 2

To be aware of your feelings, thoughts and surroundings. (Ex: a person in a coma is out of contact with what is happening).
The mental state of consciousness involves: perception, remembering, thinking, knowing, imagining, or feeling.
(They are distinct from one another but never completely seperate).

There is no single, agreed upon definition and is a subject of much research in different fields.

Question 3

Human beings VS Animals

Answer 3

Humans possess self-awareness, they have the ability to question the nature of consciousness which distinguishes them from animals who only rely on their senses.

Question 4

Aristotle on Consciousness

Answer 4

Believed that the thinking self is different from the sensitive animal because it is able to evoke mental images and ideas.

Question 5

Avicenna

Answer 5

Wrote about the different characteristics of the senses and the mind.

Question 6

Renée Descartes (French philosopher and mathematician)

Answer 6

●Instigated most discussions around consciousness from the “mind-body” duality.
●He related consciousness to the thinking mind, and unconsciousness to the unthinking physical body.
●He asked: is the mind, or consciousness, independent of matter? Is it physical or non-physical?
●He employs methodological skepticism as a device for attaining knowledge. (See ex in leaflet).

Question 7

Early psychology: before Sigmund Freud

Answer 7

Rejected the idea of the unconscious self, considered only the conscious..
Believed that every aspect of psyche is conscious and everything unconscious belongs to the physiological body.

Question 8

Wilhelm Wundt

Answer 8

Believed that psychology was the study of conscious experience- studied it through introspection.

Question 9

Introspection

Answer 9

A reflective looking inward; examination of one’s thoughts and feelings.

Question 10

Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory

Answer 10

Believed that people were motivated largely by unconscious forces.
(Revolutionary: since then, raised the problematic of the Conscious and unconscious).

Question 11

Characteristics of the Conscious (ft. William James & Henri Bergson views)

Answer 11

●Intuitive, and is in direct contact with the external world and the internal self. It can adapt, distinguish, choose and synthesize.
●According to James and Bergson, the conscious is personal or subjective. (Ex: it is not our fear, it is my fear).
●James also noticed that consciousness is selective. (ex: during an exam, one’s consciousness is more occupied with the content of a specific question).

Question 12

Stream of Consciousness

Answer 12

According to Bergson, consciousness resembles a snowball that rolls down and increases in size–>progressive growth in which the past self blends with the present.

Question 13

Henri Bergson (3rd time mentioned)

Answer 13

Believed that the conscious is spontaneous and psychic conditions are revealed without thinking (every emotion experienced by every age), and that it is a lived duration that cannot be measured (ezx: while waiting for your beloved, time seems to pass slowly but gets quicker when you’re with them).

Question 14

Psychic facts

Answer 14

Are not quantitative; they are pure qualities that can’t be localized in time or space.

Question 15

Mind VS Body

Answer 15

●a mind is a conscious or thinking being–> understands, wills, senses, imagines..
●a body is being extended in length, width and breadth.

Bodies exist by being extended in space, while minds exist by being conscious.

Question 16

Senses VS Thinking

Answer 16

Senses might deceive us, whilst thinking count as one existing (no deception).

(Ex: doubting is proof of thinking, and a person must be existing to be thinking..)

Question 17

Descartes’ “I think therefore I am/exist”

Answer 17

(Cogito ergo sum)
His conclusion to the one thing that cannot be doubted. Descartes has proves his existence as a “thinking being”.

His work (Cartesian Dualism) represented a turning point in thinking about the mind, and posed significant problems for philosophers since.

Question 18

Criticism on studies of the Conscious

Answer 18

●Studying the psychic life through the Conscious states in unable to explain many psychic disorders and neuroses (ex: phobias, hysterical paralyses, and pains that had their origins in deeply traumatic experiences..)

●Concerns about studying the self by the self via the method “introspection”. As it required people to react to visual displays and other stimuli and report on their conscious experiences.

●Concerns on how to study the states that dominate children and insane people who cannot report their thoughts.