Metaphysical Dualism, Subjective Idealism, and Existential Loneliness: Matter and Mind

Description

Since the ages of the Old Testament, the Homeric myths, the tragedies of Sophocles and the ensuing theological speculations of the Christian millennium, the theme of loneliness has dominated and haunted the Western world. In this wide-ranging book, philosopher Ben Lazare Mijuskovic returns us to our rich philosophical past on the nature of consciousness, lived experience, and the pining for a meaningful existence that contemporary social science has displaced in its tendency toward material reduction. Engaging key metaphysical discussions on causality, space, time, subjectivity, the mind body-problem, personal identity, freedom, religion, and transcendence in ancient, scholastic, modern, and contemporary philosophy, he highlights the phenomenology of loneliness that lies at the very core of being human. In challenging psychoanalytic and neuroscientific paradigms, Mijuskovic argues that isolative existence and self-consciousness is not so much of a problem of unconscious conflict or the need for psychopharmacology as it is the loss of a sense of personal intimacy. The issue of the criteria of "personal identity" in relation to loneliness has long engaged and consumed the interest of theologians, ethicists, philosophers, novelists and psychologists. This book will be of great interests to academics and students of the humanities, and all those with an interest in the philosophy of loneliness. . Cover Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents Introduction Notes Chapter 1 The Achilles of Rationalist Arguments: The Simplicity, Unity, and Identity of Thought and Soul From the Cambridge … Conclusion Notes Chapter 2 Consciousness, Spontaneity, and Synthetic a Priori Relations The Spontaneity of Consciousness Descartes’s Spontaneity Leibniz’s Monadic Spontaneity Kant’s Transcendental Spontaneity Fichte’s Absolute Spontaneity Hegel’s Qualitative Spontaneity Schopenhauer’s (Spontaneous) Irrational Will Husserl’s Phenomenological Spontaneity Bergson’s Durational Spontaneity Sartre’s Existential Spontaneity Lawrences’ Affective Spontaneity Notes Chapter 3 Kant and Schopenhauer on Reality Notes Chapter 4 Kant and Hegel on the Quality-Quantity Distinction Conclusion A Practical Application Notes Chapter 5 The Science of Determinism and the Consciousness of Freedom Schopenhauer Bergson Sartre Notes Chapter 6 Descartes’s Bridge to the External World: The Piece of Wax The Advent of Modern Skepticism Descartes and the Augustinian Oratory Descartes’s Bridge to the External World Notes Chapter 7 Locke and Leibniz on Personal Identity Locke’s Solution to the Problem of Personal Identity Descartes’s “Reflexion” Versus Locke’s “Reflection”; Descartes’s Intuition Versus Locke’s Perception Leibniz’s Monadic Self-Consciousness Notes Chapter 8 Shaftesbury and Hume on Personal Identity Notes Chapter 9 Hume on Space (And Time) Notes Chapter 10 Kant’s two premises in the transcendental deductions Notes Chapter 11 Brentano’s Intentionality of Consciousness Notes Chapter 12 The Science of Matter and the Philosophy of Mind Notes Chapter 13 Loneliness: An Interdisciplinary Approach Loneliness in Western Culture Loneliness in Christianity The Advent of Theological and Epistemic Skepticism Loneliness and Psychology Loneliness in Sociology Loneliness in Literature Existential Literature Empiricism and Human Nature Loneliness, Religion, and Society Notes Chapter 14 Loneliness and the Dynamics of Narcissism Notes Chapter 15 The Limits of Self-Knowledge Notes Chapter 16 The Dynamics of Intimacy and Empathy Notes Index