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Becoming Oneself Through Failure and Resolution

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Becoming oneself

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Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to show how we can account for a most peculiar feature of human life: i.e. the need to address the real possibility of failing to be ourselves. I am thinking of situations such as these:

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Steward (2012).

  2. 2.

    cf. Bransen (1996, 2000, 2008).

  3. 3.

    See Bruckner (2009).

  4. 4.

    Schick (1997, pp. 75–77).

  5. 5.

    I discuss this problem at length in my 2004.

  6. 6.

    cf. Cuypers (2001).

  7. 7.

    Bransen (2004).

  8. 8.

    Kim (1998).

  9. 9.

    See Williams (2004).

  10. 10.

    The concept of affordance plays an important role in contemporary ecological psychology. Roughly, an affordance is a clue in the environment that indicates possibilities for action. It was originally introduced by Gibson (1977).

  11. 11.

    See Sect. 2.6.

  12. 12.

    See Bruckner (2009, p. 357).

  13. 13.

    There are attempts in psychological research to study these processes empirically. See, for instance, Hermans (1996).

  14. 14.

    The phrase “dramatic rehearsal” is coined by Dewey (1922).

  15. 15.

    See Kane (1999).

  16. 16.

    I analyse this in my 2008 in terms of a person’s need to have “empathic access” to the “notional subject” of imagined experiences.

  17. 17.

    I developed an account of a person’s “reason of her own” using the concept of an alternative of oneself in my 2004.

  18. 18.

    Frankfurt’s work on wholeheartedness is sometimes interpreted along these lines. See, e.g., Poltera (2010).

  19. 19.

    I analysed this ambiguity in my 1996 and my 2008.

  20. 20.

    In a fascinating paper Tamar Gendler introduces the concept of “alief” to account for the specific type of mental state that produces these affective response patterns. Gendler (2008).

  21. 21.

    I borrow with approval the term “perturbation” from Maturana and Varela who use it in their 1987 to describe the effects of external influences on the internal states of dynamic systems.

  22. 22.

    See Foot (2003), for a wonderful account.

  23. 23.

    There is a lot of serious debate about whether or not rationality and goodness are intimately related, up to the point of claiming that in the final analysis they are the same. See for an accessible, slightly partial exposition Blackburn (2001, pp. 108–135).

  24. 24.

    cf. Bransen (2006).

  25. 25.

    I should like to thank Marc Lewis and Wim de Muijnck for their useful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Behavioural Science Institute and Department of Philosophy, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Jan Bransen

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  1. Jan Bransen
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Correspondence to Jan Bransen .

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  1. Am Planetarium 4, Jena, 07743, Germany

    Käthe Schneider

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Bransen, J. (2012). Becoming Oneself Through Failure and Resolution. In: Schneider, K. (eds) Becoming oneself. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-531-19156-0_2

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