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II. Table of Contents Chapter 1 Acknowledgement 3 Abstract 4 Chapter 2 Introduction 5-6 Theoretical Framework 7 Statement of the Problem 8 Thesis Statement Review of Related Literature 9-19 Chapter 3 Methodology 22-34 Presentation and analysis of Problems Q#1: What is the problem of the Self according to Nishida Kitaro?
Q#2: What is David Hume’s concept of the Self? Q#3: What is the implication of their Metaphysical philosophies of the self to the centripetal morality of the Filipinos? Chapter 4 Summary 35-37 Conclusion 37-41 References 42-43 Chapter 1 Acknowledgement This is a discourse that is made for metaphysical study that brought enlightenment with the two different paradigms that explicate the essential attribution to the implication of the self to the Filipino.
I would like to acknowledge the help of some people who made this research possible Dr. Segundo Sim for his direction, assistance, and guidance particularly in his recommendations and suggestions have been invaluable for the research. I also wish to thank Sir Garnace, who has taught me techniques of writing. Special thanks should be given to my classmates and colleagues who helped me in many ways. Finally, words alone cannot express the thanks I owe to my family for their encouragement and assistance.
Abstract Although philosophical inquiries regarding the notion of the self bombarded through different elucidation of philosophers still encompasses the internal aspect of within as a metaphysical commitment which regard to the notion of the East and West paradigm. This paper aims to elucidate in comparative way the essential contribution of the philosophies of two different paradigms with the essential thought of metaphysical assertion.
It entails the significance towards metaphysical endowment as a very profound distinction and similarities thru a bi polar elucidation regarding the concept of David Hume’s commencement of the self as no self at all, that everything underlies within the notion of impression, and that the self is no self at all. In Nishida Kitaro’s commencement he explicitly determined the stance of the self in the pure experience towards a nihilistic point of view which he determined that a self is a Basho or place, as an empty self.
Towards the two philosophies of the self as a metaphysical genealogy intertwine the metaphysical through ethical relation of the centripetal morality of the actuality and the potentiality of the being ness of the Filipinos. Chapter 2 Introduction This paper aims to expose in a comparative way the ideas of Scottish philosopher David Hume and Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro both studies talks about the metaphysical understanding a propos notion of the Self and the repercussion to the centripetal morality of the Filipinos.
A comparative way of explicating not leading to a chauvinistic elucidation but an affirmative thought between the two. Both thoughts consider the metaphysical attribution of the Self in a necessary relation determining the pursuit of the self or a person and the extraordinary conception of causation of beings. The unravel spirit of formulating thoughts regarding the diversity of the concept is a view of exhilarating the close door in a new light of horizon.
The ideas of two different paradigms, the East and West have in a way the same conception that will elucidate their affinity and even the diversity will be serve somehow as an enlightenment, a determinant factor of a fascinating point of view of life in the meadow of philosophizing in a prolific manner. This will somehow shows a connection that will outpour the transcendental understanding of the self of an individual and the intertwining part towards morality.
Thou, it implied denotes the bond within the necessary connection of the two paradigm will surely enlighten the reader in the spirit signification of a merely self of a person into a selfhood act to forsake what is the reality of the inter connection that purports the two representation and the metaphysical connection of the self and the pure experience as a notion that is necessarily for the convenience essentiality of this paper. The relationship of the self to metaphysics is the being of man that constitutes the whole embedded part of the ontological and transcendental aspect of one’s own essential attribute in the world.
Man is a Self determining being, the place of the self to reality serve as a teleological concept, thou not genuine still emerge the possibility of the impossibility that takes place in the being ness capable of living. The teleological character of the unity we ascribe to the self is further illustrated by the puzzles suggested by the “alternate and multiple” personalities a connection of the past life to a new life as being the expression of aims and interests which were at least implicitly and as tendencies already present though concealed in the old connotation that will lead to uplift the individual self.
The self implies and has no existence apart from a not self and it is only the contrast with the not self that’s aware of it self as a self. The feeling of self is certainly not an inseparable concomitant of all our experience. Self consciousnesses are source of weakness and moral failure. While we are steadily engaged in the progressive execution of a purpose we lose ourselves in the work, it is only upon a check that we become self conscious. Self consciousness in the bad sense always arises from a sense of an incongruity between the self and some contrasted object or environment.
This paper will elucidate the two philosophies of the great philosophers which regard to self Theoretical Framework The researcher uses a theoretical framework to explain the concept of Nishida Kitaro and David Hume’s notion of the Self and its relation to the Centripetal Morality of Filipinos. The researcher will elucidate the two paradigm enable to have a grasp in the two different philosophies of the East and West and how they are connected to the centripetal morality of Filipinos.
And through discussing what are the two diverse fields of a metaphysical philosophy the researcher will explicate the essential correlation towards the moral aspect in effect to the morality of Filipinos. Statement of the problem 1. What is the problem of the Self according to Nishida Kitaro? 2. What is David Hume’s concept of the Self? 3. What is the implication of their Metaphysical philosophies of the Self to the centripetal morality of the Filipinos? Thesis Statement
The Metaphysical philosophy of Hume and Nishida is a manifestation of a life, a life that embedded a direct way of viewing the external exemplification to substantiate the discourse between the two, through the ordinary. An internal co relation to the external out view of the self towards the life of the Filipinos will surely afflict the individual of a person towards the being ness as an uninfringeable essential factor of one’s own self. There is no definite line of demarcation between self and not-self the self on its side consisting of me and the not self is social, the self on its side consisting of me and the not-self of other men.
The self is essentially a thing of development and as such has its being in the time process. The nature of the experience is the concept of the self is based. The self is never identical with anything that could be found completely existing at any one moment in the mental life. Self is essentially an ideal and an ideal which is apprehended as contrasted with present actuality. They ought and the must also know nothing of the feeling of self. Review of Related Literature Kant’s concept of the self Kant’s concept of the self is a response to Hume in part.
Kant wished to justify a conviction in physics as a body of universal truth. The other being to insulate religion, especially a belief in immortality and free will (Brooks 2004). In the Inaugural Dissertation of 1770, Kant corrected earlier problems of a non-material soul having localization in space. Kant used inner sense to defend the heterogeneity of body and soul: “bodies are objects of outer sense; souls are objects of inner sense” (Carpenter 2004). In Kant’s thought there are two components of the self: 1. inner-self 2. Outer-self (Brooks 2004).
There are two kinds of consciousness of self: consciousness of oneself and one’s psychological states in inner sense and consciousness of oneself and one’s states via performing acts of apperception. Empirical self-consciousness is the term Kant used to describe the inner self. Transcendental apperception or (TA) is used in two manners by Kant for the term. The first being a synthetic faculty and a second as the “I” as subject. One will note that logically this function would occur in inner sense (Brooks 2004). Kant states that all representational states are in inner sense include all spatially localized outer objects.
The origin or our representations regardless if they are the product of a priori or outer objects as modifications of the mind belong to inner sense. Kant presents apperception as a means to consciousness to one’s self. Inner sense is not pure apperception. It is an awareness of what we are experiencing as we are affected by thought (Brooks 2004). Brooks cites three types of synthesis. Kant claimed, there are three types of synthesis required to organize information, namely apprehending in intuition, reproducing in imagination, and recognizing in concepts (A97-A105). Synthesis of apprehension concerns raw perceptual input, synthesis of recognition concerns concepts, and synthesis of reproduction in imagination allows the mind to go from the one to the other. ” (Brooks 2004). Unity of experience and consciousness are integral to the concept of the self. Transcendental apperception has function to unite all appearances into one experience. This is a unity based on causal laws. There is a synthesis according to concepts that subordinates all to transcendental unity. According to Kant the contents of consciousness must have causal connections to be unified (Brooks 2004).
Kant argues that in the present progressive one can be aware of oneself by an act of representing (Kant 1789). Representation is not intuitive but a spontaneous act of performing or doing things. Man knows that by doing and fulfilling activities that these impressions cannot be simply sensations resulting from the senses. Representation fulfills three acts. An act of representing can make one conscious of its object, itself and oneself as its subject; the representational base of consciousness of these three items.
Becoming conscious of our selves is simply an act of representation and nothing more (Brooks 2004). Kant postulates that there is a plurality of representations that gives rise to our view of self as a “single common subject”. This concept requires a constant undivided self. This concept is a continuation of global unity that spans many representations, one does not have to be conscious of the global object but of oneself as subject of all representations (Kant 1787). Kant’s self has a unity of self reference, “When we are conscious of ourselves as subject, we are conscious of urselves as the “single common subject” [CPR, A350] of a number of representations. ” (Kant 1787). Here Kant confirms that the impressions we perceive have one single common aim and that is the self as subject of these experiences. Kant postulates both senses as empirical but with the object of inner self being the soul. Transcendental apperception is a priori. Kant maintains the use of intuitive faculties of intuition and synthesis in inner self where innate material unites the spatially located objects from the outer self.
Here, this permits a downward deductive operation to act from Kant’s theology while preserving an inductive operation from the sense world of our experience. The Essential Self through the Essence and Existence With the concept of rationality, we found ourselves moving from questions about pure reality and back to questions about ourselves and our own activities. In deed with the concept of subjective truth, we found a renewed emphasis on personal questions, questions about self rather than questions about the world. What is the self? What is to be a person?
What do you know when you ‘know your self? What is someone telling you to be when he or she tells you ‘just to be yourself”? Real self, a self that does not vary from context. Philosophers have called the real self the essential self that is the set of characteristics that defines a particular person. The experience of our real, or essential, self is familiar to us in a great many circumstances. Self as Consciousness What am I? A thing which thinks. What is a thing which thinks? It is a thing which doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, which also imagines and feels.
The theory that the essential self of self identity is the mind or self consciousness can be traced back to ancient times, but its best known defender is the philosopher Descartes, who presented a simple but elegant argument that the individual self is the first thing that each of us can know for certain and that this self, which is indubitable is nothings else but the thinking self, the self that is aware of itself. Kierkegaard: The Passionate Self It is impossible to exist without passion, unless we understand the world exist in the loose sense of a so called existence.
Eternity is the winged horse, infinitely fast and time is a worn out nag; the existing individual is the driver, that is to say he is such a driver when his mode of existence is not an existence loosely so called; for then he is no driver but a drunken peasant who lies asleep in the wagon and lets the horses take care of themselves. To be sure he also drives and is a driver; and so there are perhaps many who also exist. The Self as an Open Question If self identity is defined by our answer to the question who am i? One possible answer is nothing yet, nothing definite.
If one sees the self not as an inner soul which is in us from birth, but rather as a product of our actions and thought, then self identity is something to be earned, not an already existing fact to be discovered. The existentialist Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) would say that all of those theories which take the self to be found in consciousness are misconceived, the self is not simply thinking, not is it memory of past. The self lies always in the future; it is what we aim toward as we try to make ourselves into something. But this means that as long as we are alive there is no self at least, no fixes and finished self.
The self is an open question. What this means is that there is no real self other than the self that we make for ourselves. Kierkegaard’s language all choices are subjective truths, true for the person who makes them but not necessarily true for anyone else. The self is what each of us chooses for ourselves, our protection into our future, our intentions to become a particular kind of person. But as we never wholly achieve this for even when our ambitions are fulfilled we can always change our mind, formulate new ambitions, and so on the self never really exists in full. It is always at best.
Alternative Conceptions of Self as Consciousness Plato has defined self in terms of rational thought as opposed to mere thinking, which can be rational or irrational. The Self in Contextualized Action (Shaun Gallagher and Anthony J. Marcel) We identify two forms of self-consciousness, ecological self-awareness and embedded reflection, that (1) function within the kinds of contextualized activity we have indicated, and (2) can be the basis for a theoretical account of the self. Both forms of consciousness are closely tied to action and promise to provide a less abstract basis for developing a theoretical approach to the self. To get clear about philosophical problems, it is useful to become conscious of the apparently unimportant details of the particular situation in which we are inclined to make a certain metaphysical assertion. ” (Wittgenstein) “The self that we are does not possess itself; one could say that it ‘happens'” (Gadamer) “Overt action is indivisible . . . . It is the whole individual who acts in the real environment” (Neisser) Surprising and seemingly counter-intuitive results are not uncommon when philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists, employing a variety of first- and third-person approaches, search for an adequate model of the self.
At least one philosopher equates the self with a momentary existence so that we are said to live through a large number of consecutive momentary selves (Strawson 1997). Other philosophers, introspectively exploring the stream of consciousness, fail to find anything at all that resembles a self (Hume 1739). When faced with a range of questions about self (questions pertaining to identity, experience of self, nature of self, and so forth) most theorists approach the topic in a manner that is abstract or detached from behavior and/or action normally embedded in contextualized situations.
We also want to suggest that most of the controversies, problems, and paradoxes concerning the notion of self are the result of searching for the self within these abstract perspectives. We suggest a different starting point and strategy for developing models of a self which is more contextualized within the realm of action. First, we want to be clear that although this paper is centrally concerned with the nature of the self,?? there is a necessarily related issue that we address, namely, the question of access to the self, and whether there can be certain forms of self-consciousness that are not abstractions from contextualized ituations. The promise of a sound basis for the development of a theoretical conception of a contextualized self is only good if in fact there are reliable forms of contextualized self-consciousness since the primary method for getting a grasp on the self is through first-person self-experience. Beyond this, however, the question of access is essentially linked with the question of the nature of the self. Access (self-consciousness) is constitutive of self.
Second, we wish to be clear that in sketching an approach to a conception of a self in contextualized action, we do not assume that there is only one kind of self or that an explanation of the contextualized self will be an explanation of every sense of self. Other approaches, such as the Meadian analysis of a socially constituted self, or the notion of an autobiographical self, can reveal important and valid conceptions of self. The Ethical Self What we want to call “embedded reflection” is not the same as the hyper reflective or introspective consciousness we identified in previous sections as a form of abstract, de contextualized behavior.
We may state the difference in this way. Embedded reflection is a first-person reflective consciousness that is embedded in a pragmatically or socially contextualized situation. It involves the type of activity that I engage in when someone asks me what I am doing or what I plan to do. In such reflection I do not take consciousness or “the self” as a direct or introspective object of my reflection; I do not suddenly take on the role of a phenomenologist or theorist for the sake of answering the question.
Rather I start to think matters through in terms of possible actions. I treat myself (I discover myself) as an agent. In such situations, my attention is directed not in a reflective inspection of consciousness as consciousness, but toward my own activities in the world where my intentions are already directed. Often my aim in such reflection is not to represent my “self” to myself, as if it were a piece of furniture in my mind, but to continue certain actions or to explain myself in terms of my action.
What is the Self? The Numerical Self (Claro R. Ceniza) Two dimensions of identity of things; their generic and specific identities, on the one hand, and their numerical identities on the other. The generic and specific identities of object refer to their identities as classes, the generic identity having references to the larger class to which an entity belongs, and the specific identity referring to the lowest class to which the individuals belongs and this for our purposes could be the individuals itself.
Generics identities may be arrange in a hierarchy of higher and higher classes, the highest class to which an individual belongs being called its SUMMUM GENUS that is in highest class. We may speak of identity in the sense of numerical identity. The numerical identity refers to the identity of individuals with itself. Numerical identity refers to the identity of an individual neither in terms of the classes to which it could belong nor to its properties, but to its history’s individual. For things, spatio- temporal continuities the general criterion although there are exception to this.
For humans, memory is perhaps the ultimate criterion, although for ordinary cases. Spatio-temporal continuity is often regarded as adequate. Numerically one and the same. Another example is dotted lines obviously. These are not spatio-temporally continuous, but dotted lines may often be numerically distinguished from each other. With human the continuity of memory is more important than spatio-temporal continuity. When a person writes his bio-data, he more often than not to refer to his numerical identity and recounts his personal history and achievements as an individual.
The greater importance of a continuous memory train as the more significant criterion for the numerical identity o persons is shown by the fact that, whether ones believes in it or not, the concept of reincarnation would be impossible, if not for the fact that the possible continuity of memory could be taken as more basic for The numerical identification of an individual, than spatio-temporal continuity, since clearly there is no spatio-temporal continuity between death of a previous embodiment and the birth of the next, spatio ???temporal continuity is often considered adequate for the numerical identification of persons.
We may regard the numerical identity of a person as his objective self. It is one’ self as seen by others, and as one sees himself objectively as part of a community of persons. What is the Self? The Generic Self The generic self of a person is the class or classes to which the person belongs, according to the way the custom has established these classes relative to him. Thus, a person may be classified as a father, a citizen, a teacher, husband, adult, etc.
These classifications and the way he behaves accordingly are important to a person’s self-identity and self-identification and they usually determine his normal behavior, and what others expect. Confucius recognized the importance of role-playing in the society. He said that we all play roles in society- perhaps many roles for each one of us. A harmonious society is one where everyone plays his role at it should be played, according to the name given to that role. A person’s actions should be in accordance with the role or roles that he plays.
A person is his roles, He may add to it the unique way he plays it well. Chapter 3 Methodology The researcher will use the comparative way of explicating the metaphysical philosophies of Nishida vis-a-vis Hume and the interrelation of the two philosophers to the centripetal morality of the Filipinos. All the materials are gathered from different libraries and internet research. A documentary abstraction guide will be used by the researcher as an instrument in gathering data.
The researcher is able to come up to this topic because the essential part of being ness lies within the self, starts within the self before outpouring with the whole, a part that embedded the necessary significant towards metaphysical aspect to the paradigm of ethics. This study only discusses the definition, exposition of the comparative field of the East and West paradigm. For the philosophical metaphysics of Nishida and for Hume, the main idea regarding the two philosophers purports the essential connection imply with the centripetal morality of Filipinos. Analysis of Data
The first level of discussion will discuss the metaphysical philosophy of Nishida and Hume. The second level of discussion will discuss the comparison and contrast, difference and similarities, of the Philosophers metaphysical thought and the relationship to the centripetal morality of Filipinos. Chapter 1 introduces the study. Chapter 2 discusses the different concepts philosopher regarding the self. Chapter 3 presents some concepts of the self and Nishida’s as well as Hume’s in relation to centripetal morality of Filipinos. Presentation and Analysis of Problems 1. What is the problem of the Self according to Nishida Kitaro?
Nishida practiced Zen meditation in his early years and most of his work can be seen as an attempt to explore this experience. One of the fundamental questions that is considered between subject and object. His solution to the polarities of mind body, self world, me-other is to posit an original ground of existence that goes beyond such distinctions. In his first work, Zen No Kenkyo he writes variously on his topic: When one experiences directly one’s conscious state there is as yet neither subject nor object, and knowledge and its object are completely united, this is the purest form of experience.
Why is love the union of subject and object? To love something is to cast away the self unite with that other. As emphasized in basic Buddhist thought, the self and the universe share the same foundation, or rather, they are the same thing. Nishida proposed a new thesis: that of ultimate reality as mu no basho, the place of absolute nothingness. Nothingness here corresponds closely to Nagarjuna’s concept shunyata or emptiness. This nothingness is not an absence of God or the self but an absence of quality, division or concept of all of the things which we need in order to define the separate existence of the ego self.
By not being anything in particular, we are everything. Nishida eliminates the psychological terminology that had characterized his earlier work. Nishida’s Basho is a radically new concept. By imagining the self as Basho or place rather than as a point, consciousness or presence we move away from all ideas of individuality. Nishida sees in the extinguishing of the ego-self in the Basho the birth of the self as Basho. The basho has the power to unify the contradictions which underlie all existence, to effect the continuity of the discontinuity.
In terms of Western logic, the basho violates the principles of contradictions and identity. Nishida claimed that the contradictions at the heart of everything were what caused the constant change and motion we observe in the universe. Only in the mu no basho are these dynamic oppositions reconciled. As a Buddhist, the ultimate good for Nishida is the realization of the true self, the Buddha nature. As a Zen Buddhist, Nishida argues that this realization should take place in he active world. His concept of acting intuition illustrates this the physical world of actions is expressive of the inner creativity of the basho.
Only by living fully as historical individuals will the power of the self as Basho be made manifest. Nishida reminds us that “To study oneself is to forget oneself. To forget oneself is to realize oneself as all things. ” For much of Japanese philosophy, in order to know our true self we must let go of the subject-object dichotomy with which we have been taken conditioned. We must let go of the voice of intellect in our pursuit and let our intuition open us up and allow awakening. In this awakening, not only do we awaken to our self, but we awaken to all reality.
Before we look more closely at some Japanese Buddhist teachings, let us review some of ideas from the Neo-Confucian school. What can be constructed as the extreme positions with regard to the nature of the self? Self is an object or some thing Self is nothing Nishida Kitaro attempted to steer a path between these two extremes. For Nishida we cannot truly know the self if we take it to be either the subject or object of our knowing process. That is to say, the self is a place, or basho, that gives rise to knowledge. The self is neither the subject of an experience nor the object of knowing.
The self is the experience discussing Nishida, Nishitani described this rapport between experience and self, “of which it is said not that there is experience because there is a self, but rather that there is a self because there is experience. ” This confirms the long standing Buddhist teaching of no self. The actual self is a process. To this process, Nishida assigned a term, koiteki chokkan, acting intuition. Basho literally means “place” or “field” and suggests an all embracing environment within which all activity occurs.
Because it is all embracing, this place o field is without boundaries and without a center of reference. Imagine an infinite circle without a circumference and without a center. As Yuasa stated: The basho is a fundamental restriction on being’ existence; without it, no beings can exist in the world. Even though basho is without boundaries, boundaries are in practice erected. They are constructed by our empirical self, or ego. Our empirical self, however, is not our true self, but instead the self as subject, a self ???referential point of view whereby all else becomes the object for the empirical self.
On other words, whereas Basho is a primordial field of oneness, discrimination now results from the construction of boundaries. The discriminating self, as subject, is not the true self. The genuine self, for Nishida and in line with Buddhist teachings, is thus a “self that is not a self. ” This is why Nishida claimed that the self “lives by dying. ” This is also why Nishida emphasized the faculty of intuition, not in a passive but in an active sense. It is through this active intuition that self realizes itself. Discursive, analytical knowledge is sufficient.
For instance, consider the example of viewing a mountain. From one perspective the “I” is imbedded in a world of subject-object and mountain is the object of my knowledge. From another perspective, I realize the essential unity of all things. In this case, there is no subject-object duality, and the mountain is no longer separate from me. This native intuition maintains both perspectives at the same time. When this secret is mastered, living is dying and vice versa. Apparent contradictions are resolved. For Nishida, the self constitutes a unity of contradictions.
Living is dying and dying is living. The opposition we normally pose between life and death is embraced in the Basho of self. We die and live at each single moment. This is the singular Buddhist truth of no substantiality; it reflects the paradox of our existence. When seem from our ordinary perspective, this paradox of life and death gives way to anxiety. When viewed from the perspective of the Basho of self, the paradox is embraced: My very existence is, therefore, an absolute contradiction, and it is this very realization that enables me to become truly self conscious.
My individuality is my mortality, and my true nothingness is my immortality. I am a contradictory self, and my awareness of this is the ground of my religious awareness. Reality as Pure Experience, Nishida’s view is reminiscent of Zen Buddhism; he promotes Zen teachings using philosophical categories. Now Zen points directly to reality ??? what exists in its immediacy? Nishida viewed reality in much the same way; he directly pointed to pure experience as ultimate reality. Reality is that which underlies all our so called “experience. ” We conventionally live in our ideas or images of the real, rather than in the real.
Reality is the pure experience, which is the basis for conceptualization once conceptualization through reflection occurs, the experience becomes indirect. Reality remains the same unaffected by reflection. Reflection however gives birth to apparent modes of reality that are not in themselves truly real. When Nishida declares that reality is “pure experience” this means that reality within the present moment. Reality as Absolute Nothingness, all this is further sustained by his teaching concerning the primacy of “nothingness” over being. Absolute nothingness” is another phrase he ascribes to this pure experience. It is crucial to be aware that this “nothingness” is not the same as nihilism. Rather absolute nothingness transcends the opposition between being and nonbeing by embracing them. The term transcend can be misleading; it can give the impression of something beyond the realm of experience. The term immanent is also to be avoided because it may lead to the impression of being immersed in our world if experience. Each of these terms implies the other. They each set up a dichotomy between being and nonbeing.
Therefore for Nishida the preferred designation is absolute nothingness. Intellectual Intuition, a basic claim throughout Nishida is that we are able to directly experience this reality pure experience and absolute nothingness. The aim of his epistemology is to address more fully how this is possible. Nishida stressed an “intellectual intuition” that is able to acknowledge this reality. It is more of an immediate grasp of reality that is utterly transformative so much so that according to Nishida the experience is essentially religious.
Our conventional or ordinary perception of thins is that we mistake what we conceive to be real with what is real. Yet what we conceive as being real is inspired by the force of our intellect and this drives us farther from the reality. Robert Carter’s metaphor of perching and flight is very appropriate: For Nishida to be aware of pure experience is not to deny conception and the various systematizations resulting from thinking but to ground them all in the original undifferentiated flow of pure flight.
They are all perching and the only real error we make is to focus so fully on the perching the stable, fixed, resting places that we forget altogether how to fly. This ultimate reality points to the essential unity of all being. The awareness of this for Nishida religious consciousness. Nishida considered religion to be the fullest experiential integration of both world and self. This meant that God was equivalent to Nishida’s Absolute Nothingness. At the same time, God is also Absolute Being. Yet for Nishida, ultimate reality is not God, if by God we mean a separate self-subsistent reality.
Neither is God an idea. God is this pure experience with out abstraction: And just as color appears to the eye as color and sound to the ear as sound so too God appears to the religious self as an event of one’s own soul. It is not a matter of God being conceivable or not conceivable in merely intellectual terms. What can be conceived or not conceived is not God. Nishida’s concept of the Self and Othe is that We can shift the focus from the action of the individual historical body to the interaction between distinct individuals, once again with the world as the mediating space of mutual formation.
The relation between “I and Thou” was the first part that Nishida considered, although he continued to intertwine that relation with an internal relation in self-awareness. Where his previous analysis of individual self-awareness described it as a self-reflection of the universal of self-awareness, his description now incorporated the dimension of recognition. Each is a relative other to the self. . This other, recalling Nishida’s notion of absolute, does not exclude the self; rather it constitutes self-identity as continually negating what it has been. Recognizing the absolute other within constitutes not simply a reflexive self-awareness but a self-awakening, a realizing of the “true self. ” (Nishida’s term jikaku translates as self-awakening, a Buddhist reading he undoubtedly intends, as well as self-awareness. ) Nishida allows for the Buddhist view that there is actually no self to awaken by referring to the self-awakening of absolute nothingness; its awakening is the awakening of the “true self. Absolute nothingness in action, as it were, entails a negation (of a substantial, self-same self) and an affirmation (of the true self). Nishida contends that toward the end of his life, perhaps thinking of the significance of death for understanding individuality, perhaps re-considering the theme of self-awakening as a kind of death and re-birth, Nishida delved deeper into the relation between the individual finite human self and the absolute or God. Experientially it comes to therefore in death.
We will consider the meaning of death first, then the nature of God or the absolute in relation to the finite self. The theme of personal death is absent in Nishida’s early work on pure experience and self-awareness, and mentioned only abstractly in essays on the historical world and the self, for example: “In absolute dialectics, mediation as absolute negation is mediation as absolute death, living by dying absolutely” Insofar as this is the finitude of the individual self, it also implies a logic of individuation where the role of other relative selves is dimished.
If death is an ever-present opening, the other side of that opening so to speak is the absolute. To die is to stand vis-a-vis the absolute. If nothingness as opposed to being is implied, it is in the verbal sense of self-negating. The absolute arises through its own self-negation and inclusion of the relative self. God cannot be not wholly transcendent to or exclusive of the self or the world. To express the relation between a God and the relative finite self, Nishida introduces a new term, “inverse correspondence” or, we might say, contrary respondence (gyaku-taio).
The more one faces one’s death, the negation of one’s life as an individual, the more acutely one is self-aware as an individual. The closer the finite self approaches God the stronger the difference between them becomes. This peculiar kind of relation implies that God and the relative self are inseparable but never dissolve into one another. If their distinction entails an undifferentiated source of their difference, an absolute nothingness, then the more that source is emphasized the stronger the distinction holds. 2.
What is David Hume’s concept of the Self? The realization that the self can not be traced back to an impression is puzzling for Hume because on the one hand we have this feeling of our self but we also realize that we are to a certain extent always changing. Hume’s conclusion is that we are merely a bundle of impressions and that the self as something other than these impressions does not refer to anything. Hume believed that the entire contents of the mind were drawn from experience alone. The stimulus could be external or internal.
In this nexus, Hume describes what he calls impressions in contrast to ideas. Impressions are vivid perceptions and were strong and lively. “I comprehend all our sensations, passions, and emotions as they make their first appearance in the soul. Ideas were images in thinking and reason. ” (Flew 1962 p. 176). For Hume there is no mind or self. The perceptions that one has are only active when one is conscious. “When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep, so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. ” (Flew 1962, p. 259).
Hume appears to be reducing personality and cognition to a machine that may be turned on and off. Death brings with it the annihilation of the perceptions one has. Hume argues passions as the determinants of behavior. Hume also appears as a behaviorist believing that humans learn in the same manner as lower animals; that is through reward and punishment (Hergenhahn 2005). Skepticism is the guiding principle in what is no doubt non-recognition of meta-physics in this subject. Hume in the appendix to A Treatise on Human Nature addresses his conclusions (Hume 1789).
In short there are two principles, which I cannot render consistent; nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, via, that all our distinct perceptions is distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real connection among distinct existences. Hume’s method of inquiry begins with his assumption that experience in the form of impressions cannot give rise to the constancy of a self in which would be constant to give reference to all future experiences. The idea of self is not one any one impression. It is several ideas and impressions in itself.
There is no constant impression that endures for one’s whole life. Different sensations as pleasure and pain, or heat and cold are in a constant continuum that is invariable and not constant. “It cannot therefore be from any of these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is derived; and consequently there is no such idea (Hume 1789). It appears the closest thing that Hume could discuss as the self is similar to watching a film or a play of one’s life. These perceptions themselves are separate from one another and there is no unifying component as a self to organize such for long-term reference.
Hume further deliberates over a position of identity of an invariable and uninterrupted existence. Hume confirms there is no primordial substance as to where all secondary existences of individual existence exist. Everything in our conscious state is derived from impressions. Objects in the outer world exist as distinct species that are separable from the secondary qualities in conscious thought. To negate any demonstration of substance Hume posits an analogy that if life was reduced to below that of an oyster, does this entity have any one perception as thirst or hunger?
The only thing that would exist is the perception. Adding a higher complex of perception would not yield any notion of substance that could yield an independent and constant self. (Hume 1789). Hume’s model of the mind simply records data when such is manifestly conscious. The model abstracts and isolates objects and secondary qualities without any metaphysics. Unity of experience is one area, which Hume found elusive in his model and with such denied any configuration of self-reference only perceptions in the conscious (Hume 1789).
He denies that we even have a self; all learning comes from sensory impressions. There does not seem to be a separate impression of the self that we experience, there is no reason to believe that we a self, thus it denotes a notion that there is no self at all. The idea of the self pass for clear and intelligible, one impressions that gives rise to every real idea but self or person is not any one impression. Self is supposed to exist after a reference, no impression constant and invariable. “I “can never catch myself at any time without a perception and never can observe anything but the perception.
When my perception is removed for any time, as by sound sleep; so long an insensible of myself and may truly be said not to exist. ” Distinct” idea of an object, that remains invariable and uninterested through a supposed variation of time; and this idea we call that of identity or sameness. “Distinct idea of several different objects existing in succession and connected together by a close relation and this to an accurate view affords as perfect a nation of diversity, as if there was no manner of relation among the objets”The nation of a self one soul is very likely s fiction “I am merely a bundle of perceptions.
There is a consciousness of a continuing succession of experiences, but not of a continuing experiences; compatible view with the physicalist view of personhood. 3. What is the implication of their Metaphysical philosophies of the Self to the centripetal morality of the Filipinos? The Filipino Centripetal Morality denotes the elf as the basis of moral judgments and does the self as a standard. Filipino thought or diwang Filipino is generally an ethical or moralistic, predominantly socio-ethical, concrete and practical hence centripetal. Centripetal means “tending towards the center”.
It refers then to people’s use of the SELF as the center and the basic commencement of the judgments. The Filipino moral judgment is understood as the people’s way of disclosing and explicating the golden precept the golden rule or mean which is base on living through moderate way. In Chinese term, this referred to “principle of measuring square”. Whatever measures you make is what you will be measured in return. Moreover, the implication is the centrality of the starting point which is the self always. The principle of non-moral judgment revolves around the self who is characterized by self-reflection and analysis.
Eventually, this self-examination is an examination of the heart. Ultimately, Filipino centripetal morality considers the self as the standard by which one’s relationship with others ought to be regulated and ordered. “We” should do to others only that which is good to them and to us; “we” should not do anything detrimental to others and to ourselves. It demands a reciprocal between man and his fellowmen. That is men should not only mutually share the good but also mutually rid themselves of evil. Hence, one should know then so that you she or he knows other men. Because to know the good is to do the good.
As what a used passage is that “Do unto others what you want others do unto you”. The transcendental self of a person, is the person identifies himself completely or well-nigh completely. The integrated summation of his ultimate values, the identity given is not generic identity wit the roles that he plays in his life ( it is even possible that he does not like the role or roles that he plays and therefore could not personally identify with them), nor with his numerical identity; for a person who knows who he is numerically, could still ask the question, who am I really?
One’s transcendental is that which gives meaning and purpose to life the transcendental identity of a person is perhaps the more philosophically important the identity called transcendental because the answer usually lies beyond one’s self. The transcendental identity of a person therefore is generally other centered it is centered on what one regards as ultimate values the effect of that search for one’s Arche it is the being or concept that would integrate one’s life enables one to precede through life with at most certainty about his true Telos Since one transcendent identity is determinant of ultimate values.
One’s ultimate concern is what gives meaning and direction to one’s life. One’s ultimate concern is what once identifies with completely. This is what one subjectively is without an ultimate concern one’s life is directionless and meaningless. Chapter 4 Summary Hume’s view on the Self and Nishida’s view on the Self The Affinity and Diversity HUME NISHIDA 1. These perceptions and impressions are identified by their self referential nature and that some perception of “self” seems to persist through time. This focal point of perception that continues through time and perceives its self in some fashion we choose to call “me” or “I”. . As a Buddhist, the ultimate good for Nishida is the realization of the true self, the Buddha nature. Nishida considered, although he continued to intertwine that relation with an internal relation in self-awareness. 2. This is known as Hume’s bundle theory of the self. Hume says, “the mind has never anything present to it but the perceptions, and cannot possibly reach any experience of their connection with objects. The supposition of such connection … is, therefore, without any foundation in reasoning. ” 2.
Where his previous analysis of individual self-awareness described it as a self-reflection of the universal of self-awareness, his description now incorporated the dimension of recognition. Each is a relative other to the self. . 3. Hume means that we have no way of empirically establishing the independent existence of an external world, or what most of us call “reality”. The only world we can ever know is one of perceptions, ideas and experiences. 3. Nishida’s notion of absolute, does not exclude the self; rather it constitutes self-identity as continually negating what it has been. Recognizing the absolute other within constitutes not simply a reflexive self-awareness but a self-awakening, a realizing of the “true self. ” 4. Nevertheless, there are some that we are bound to accept in the everyday course of affairs. While they are ultimately approvable one needs these assumptions in order to function. a. such as the existence of the external world, b. the existence of other minds, c. The other minds have “similar” experiences as do you. d. the existence of the self, e. And the possible existence of some general intelligence pervading the universe. 5.
Meaningful ideas are those that can be traced back to sense experience (impressions); beliefs that cannot be reduced to sense experience are not “ideas” at all, but meaningless utterances. Ideas are vague impressions of these impressions. No facts can be connected, proved, or explained by a priori reasoning. Space and time are the way in which impressions occur to us. Existence is not a separate idea. There is a distinction between matters of fact and relations of ideas. There is no power or necessity binding a cause to an effect. The mind is a bundle of impressions it is not a thing unto itself. . Nishida allows for the Buddhist view that there is actually no self to awaken by referring to the self-awakening of absolute nothingness; its awakening is the awakening of the “true self. ” 5. Absolute nothingness in action, as it were, entails a negation (of a substantial, self-same self) and an affirmation (of the true self). “In absolute dialectics, mediation as absolute negation is mediation as absolute death, living by dying absolutely” Insofar as this is the finitude of the individual self, it also implies a logic of individuation where the role of other relative selves is dimished.
If death is an ever-present opening, the other side of that opening so to speak is the absolute. To die is to stand vis-a-vis the absolute To express the relation between a God and the relative finite self, Nishida introduces a new term, “inverse correspondence” or, we might say, contrary respondence (gyaku-taio). The more one faces one’s death, the negation of one’s life as an individual, the more acutely one is self-aware as an individual. The closer the finite self approaches God the stronger the difference between them becomes.
This peculiar kind of relation implies that God and the relative self are inseparable but never dissolve into one another. If their distinction entails an undifferentiated source of their difference, an absolute nothingness, then the more that source is emphasized the stronger the distinction holds 6. For Hume it is imagination, not reason or experiences that accounts for the persistent belief in the independent existence of an external world. Imagination ultimately overrides reason, and we cannot help believing in an independent, ordered, external world 6.
The finite selves meets the asolute Nishida delved deeper into the relation between the individual finite human self and the absolute or God. Experientially it comes to therefore in death. We will consider the meaning of death first, then the nature of God or the absolute in relation to the finite self Conclusion The importance of the Self underlies the notion of essential attribution of being a ratio animalis towards the homo faber or towards the travel we seek to fonder through the capability of transcending our own selves into something, reaching the possibility of the impossibility as a creature of the being ness of God.
The essential assertion of the two great thinkers enlighten the dark part of implicit notion regarding the individualistic one but develop the full potentiality that as a being we are capable of being different a unique creation. In David’s Hume Concept of the Self he denies that we even have a self; all learning comes from sensory impressions. These empirical notion that embedded a metaphysical configuration that there does not seem to be a separate impression of the self that we experience, there is no reason to believe that we a self, thus it denotes a notion that there is no self at all.
The idea of the self pass for clear and intelligible, one impressions that gives rise to every real idea but self or person is not any one impression. Self is supposed to exist after a reference, no impression constant and invariable. “I “can never catch myself at any time without a perception and never can observe anything but the perception. When my perception is removed for any time, as by sound sleep; so long an insensible of myself and may truly be said not to exist. ” Distinct” idea of an object, that remains invariable and uninterested through a supposed variation of time; and this idea we call that of identity or sameness. Distinct idea of several different objects existing in succession and connected together by a close relation and this to an accurate view affords as perfect a nation of diversity, as if there was no manner of relation among the objets”The nation of a self one soul is very likely s fiction “I am merely a bundle of perceptions. There is a consciousness of a continuing succession of experiences, but not of a continuing experiences; compatible view with the physicalist view of personhood. In Nishida’s notion self is an object or some thing and self is nothing.
The self is neither the subject of an experience nor the object of knowing. The self is the experience discussing Nishida, Nishitani described this rapport between experience and self, “of which it is said not that there is experience because there is a self, but rather that there is a self because there is experience. ” This confirms the long standing Buddhist teaching of no self. The actual self is a process. To this process, Nishida assigned a term, koiteki chokkan, acting intuition. Basho literally means “place” or “field” and suggests an all embracing environment within which all activity occurs.
Because it is all embracing, this place o field is without boundaries and without a center of reference. Imagine an infinite circle without a circumference and without a center. As Yuasa stated: The basho is a fundamental restriction on being’ existence; without it, no beings can exist in the world. Even though basho is without boundaries, boundaries are in practice erected. They are constructed by our empirical self, or ego. Our empirical self, however, is not our true self, but instead the self as subject, a self ???referential point of view whereby all else becomes the object for the empirical self.
On other words, whereas Basho is a primordial field of oneness, discrimination now results from the construction of boundaries. The discriminating self, as subject, is not the true self. The genuine self, for Nishida and in line with Buddhist teachings, is thus a “self that is not a self. ” This is why Nishida claimed that the self “lives by dying. ” This is also why Nishida emphasized the faculty of intuition, not in a passive but in an active sense. It is through this active intuition that self realizes itself. Discursive, analytical knowledge is sufficient.
The comparative rapport which elucidates shows the diversity of both paradigm the perception regarding the self as a metaphysical boundaries because of the emptiness commencement of the place or the Basho and the no self which implicit denotes the impression of non-self. The divergence and similar view differs with regard to the concept of Buddhist connotation of dying, because the Western paradigm does not gives emphasis on such but the self as a bundle theory of impression per se. It shows the intertwine that sought to reality of the centripetal morality of Filipinos that we can see in everyday life.
The way Filipino acts, thinks and live. But the challenge is that is really self nothing, is there really no self at all or is just a representation implying the fruitful transcendental aspect of living in the mundane, this a grasp that lies in individuality, in each one of us who has the ability to forsake the ambivalent way of living I the mundane part of our own being ness. The matter of our own body in realistic notion of living a spirited body and soul and the spirited soul which governs our body.
The cause of everyday experiences is the long journey towards life as a traveling way of the right part in living the true horizon of governing towards God as the unifying substantive and essential creator of ours. In effect to the beyond port is the imaginative sort through reality and ideology which partakes individual preference to live trough eternally as a finite version of god enable for us to live in a natural and essentiality way of living throughout our own existence in an objective and subjective being ness.
This serves as deeper commencement in metaphysical studies that everything rooted through metaphysical studies, thou the past is an end but an end without a period it is a comma that describes an everlasting continuation of learning a new field of knowledgeable affiliations, a modern period or even the time we have today, the contemporary age of today dealt with a big travails of accepting or disregard the information of learning by acquisition as an exemplary of the education per se but what really matters is the stability of being a rational individual capable of a moral altruism in thy self and towards the other that is the centrality of knowledge that even the longest period of time can not erase. The rise of the philosophy in metaphysical boundaries is the beginning of a continuous venture in life that is capable of acquiring new fruitful information that may influence our own individual personhood which regards a starting point of the endless point of learning through philosophizing.
We should not break or deconstruct what lies in our past what the history composed of because it helps us, the future sake to a more success venture regarding new discoveries that is why the modernization towards philosophy is a statue of wisdom. Thus, philosophy is a continuous process of learning through a rational state of existence. Remember that changes are not a hindrance for success. References Books Ayer, A. J. (1980). Hume, Oxford University Press Baillie, James (2000). Hume on Morality, Taylor and Francis Books Ltd. Burns, Kevin (2006). The Greatest Thinkers and Sages from Ancient to Modern Times, Arcturus Publishing Limited Ceniza, Claro R. (2001).
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