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4 - Individuation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2009

Frederick A. Olafson
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
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Summary

The approach to the philosophy of mind that has been adopted in this book does not attempt to demarcate a special domain of mental phenomena. Instead, the fact of presence – the “There is … ” – in its several dimensions has set the agenda for this inquiry, and the progressive differentiation of the concept of what there is – that is, of the world – has replaced the analysis of states of mind and internal representations. As a result, at the point that has now been reached, a picture has emerged that is rather like the one Wittgenstein discusses in the Tractatus – a picture of the world in which there is no place for “the subject,” – or, rather, in which it is at best “the limit of the world.” In this vein, Wittgenstein remarks that “from nothing in the field of sight can it be concluded that it is seen from the eye”; and he adds that “solipsism strictly carried out coincides with pure realism” because “the I in solipsism shrinks to an extensionless point and there remains the reality co-ordinated with it.” Although Wittgenstein goes on to speak of what he calls a “metaphysical subject” that must be conceived in non-psychological terms – not as “a part of the world“ and not as “the human body or the human soul of which psychology treats” – this seems to mean mainly that the only “subject” he is prepared to recognize is one conceived as “the limit of the world.”

Type
Chapter
Information
What is a Human Being?
A Heideggerian View
, pp. 132 - 164
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1995

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  • Individuation
  • Frederick A. Olafson, University of California, San Diego
  • Book: What is a Human Being?
  • Online publication: 01 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511621093.005
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  • Individuation
  • Frederick A. Olafson, University of California, San Diego
  • Book: What is a Human Being?
  • Online publication: 01 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511621093.005
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Individuation
  • Frederick A. Olafson, University of California, San Diego
  • Book: What is a Human Being?
  • Online publication: 01 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511621093.005
Available formats
×