5

L. P. Mos, Psychology 436

Department of Psychology

University of Alberta

January 2009

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Course: Psychology 436 X5 Instructor: Dr. Leendert (Leo) P. Mos

Title: Self-estrangement Office: Bio-Sci. Bldg. P319H

Date/time: Thursday 18:30 - 21:20 Office hours: by appt.

Place: Bio-Sci Bldg., BSP 226 Tel.: 492-5264 (O) 436-1539 (H)

E-mail:

Website: http://ualberta.ca/~lmos/

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Teaching Assistant: Ms. Ruxandra Comanaru, MA (Cand), Office Bio-Sci. P319K, Office hours: Mon 1:30-2:30; e-mail:

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Textbooks:

Fingarette, H. (2000/1969). Self-deception. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. (ISBN 0-520-22052-8 alk. paper; about $20.00)

Reference textbooks:

Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the self: The making of the modern identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, (ISBN 0-521-42949-8; alk. paper; about $30.00) [See also Taylor’s The ethics of ambiguity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992 (in Canada under the title The malaise of modernity. CBC Massey Lecture Series. Toronto: Anansi, 1991.) See also Taylor’s Varieties of religion today: William James revisited. Harvard, 2002]

Taylor, C. (2004). Modern social imaginaries. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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Course overview:

“What view you take is everything, and your view is in your power. Remove it then when you choose, and then, as you had rounded the cape, come calm serenity, a waveless bay.” Meditations, Marcus Aurelius (121-180 CE)

“As is the water-dish, so is the soul; as is the ray which falls on the water, so are appearances. When then the water is moved the ray too seems to be moved, yet is not. And when, accordingly, a person is giddy, it is not the arts and the virtues which are thrown into confusion, but the spirit to which they belong; and when the person is recovered so are they.” Discourses, Epictetus (55-135 CE)

Whereas the title of this course is self-estrangement and therefore may be expected to concern itself with (conceptions of) the self, I expect to address this broad topic (of the person) in social-political theory as a psychologist with a concern for self-deception. That we are able to deceive ourselves is nothing short of a challenge to a coherent and unified conception of ourselves - our identity - as rational beings. Moreover, the capacity to deceive ourselves is in a sense to be estranged from ourselves and, I will argue, others, and so we may expect to come full circle to the topic of self-estrangement. In any case, nothing much is lost in the transition from the self to self-deception although historically the topic of the self has greater philosophical scope - saying something about our human nature - whereas the topic of self-deception is merely one among many capacities of our human nature. Furthermore, the topic of self-deception will allow us to roam widely throughout the discipline of psychology and, as we will eventually reach to topic of the self, beyond psychology to include the other human sciences, and history.

The textbook I have selected, Self-deception, is by Herbert Fingarette, a philosopher of psychology (of mind and society) at the University of California, and the author of numerous other philosophical-psychological works (see recommended readings, below), notably on such topics as addiction and insanity. Originally published in 1969, this book has been out of print for the past twenty years of so. Fortunately, it was recently re-issued (2000) in a new paperback edition with an updated chapter. In my view this book was “ahead of its time”; a classic already when first published, and the new edition will be an outstanding addition to your personal library. The first part of my lectures will constitute an extended expository reading of Fingarette’s book. It is unusual for me to lecture directly from a text, and I will not do so now. Rather we will read the text in class together, I aloud and you silently. It is my intention that you master Fingarette’s phenomenological-hermeneutical perspective in a manner that will allow you to find yourself “at home” in it. The seemingly paradoxical capacity we possess for deceiving ourselves (and so to be estranged from ourselves) culminates in an argument for an understanding of the self as a narrative achievement of communal linguistic-cultural practices and, hence, will allude to all those disciplines that rely in their investigations on an understanding of human nature. Therefore, self-deception is not only a topic of psychology but one that has implications for all the human sciences in their quest for an understanding of the nature of persons. It should not be surprising therefore that in our expository reading of the text I will allude to a large body of writings in psychology, philosophy, political and social theory, and religious and literary studies. Many of these are available in the recommended readings listed below.

In previous years, since first teaching this course, I used Sources of the self: the making of the modern identity by Charles Taylor, Professor of Philosophy at McGill University and probably the foremost scholar on the human sciences in this country. Regrettably, this book proved both difficult and lengthy. Taylor has long been a trenchant expositor of modernity, and is well known for his attacks on individualism and the resulting flattening and narrowing of human life, the perils of instrumental reason and its associated technologies/sciences, and the consequences of both these for political freedom. But Taylor is neither a pessimist nor a post-modernist (these are not necessarily equivalent!) and his view on the malaise of modernity is its loss of the imagination. But what has been lost can always be retrieved and our textbook may be viewed in party as consistent with Taylor’s project of retrieval (of the past). Taylor argues that modernity has characteristically endowed human agency with a strong sense of self, but that we have become deeply confused about this feature of our self-understanding. We have come to think of the self analogously to having an arm or, more respectably, a brain; that is, as something that exists independently of the language we use to talk about it. Instead, Taylor argues that the self is a space bounded by moral horizons which we are continually testing as to what is worth doing or being (or just “what matters”). Thus, the self is for Taylor always something that is in question - always something becoming. The book, Sources of the self, is a historical account of what we understand to be a human agent - having a sense of inwardness, freedom, responsibility, and individuality. Yet Taylor is also very cautious about the tendency to think about the self as something inside (subjectivism), as merely the affirmation of ordinary life (and the denial of moral sources outside the putatively unproblematic and inarticulate self). Taylor is not one of those who bemoans contemporary value-relativism or condemns such relativism as merely a self-indulgent way to conveniently render immune from criticism any conceivable life-style. Instead, Taylor’s work of retrieval is to recover the moral sources that characterize modernity in an effort to affirm the quest for authentic self-development.

The second half of my lectures consists in a story that is not readily accessible in one place - although the first five chapters of Taylor’s book are a big part of that story - and certainly not in the discipline of psychology. But it is a story that is thoroughly psychological with implications for human development and growth in all its social and cultural diversity. As such my story is one that takes seriously the historical reality of all human experiences and practices, and importantly, the social-cultural reality of the self. The second half of my lectures is inspired by the writings of the philosopher Friedrich Hegel and the historian Wilhelm Dilthey, both 19th c. thinkers who have deeply influenced our 20th c. conception of the transition between modern and post-modern thought about culture, society, and identity. These lectures will treat Soren Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre in considerably more depth than Fingarette does, and then go on to some contemporary considerations on the self in the writings of Heinz Kohut (an object-relations and self theorist), Jacques Lacan, Immanuel Levinas (a philosopher of “otherness”- alterity), and Kazimier Dabrowski, a psychiatrist of the “inner psychic milieu”. Regrettably we may not be able to cover all these in depth.

As a senior undergraduate course, I expect that you will take this as an opportunity to reflect upon and integrate your previous learning and living. Since Fingarette’s text and my story have something to say about historically situated persons, our concern is with a form of inquiry that is unavoidable interpretative, “hermeneutical” and blatantly practical. As such this course stands in stark contrast to the currently fashionable biological and cognitive orientations in the discipline, and also to a conception of psychology as an autonomous discipline - independent of the other human sciences. Whatever psychology may have to say about the self, this cannot be irrelevant for the other human sciences on risk that what it has to say may itself become irrelevant. Moreover, interpretative inquiry is resolutely dependent on our linguistic practices - the manner in which we choose to articulate our self-understanding and our understanding of others - and so, bring that understanding to discursive formulation.

As you may anticipate our discussion of the self, of our capacity to deceive ourselves, inevitable raises issues concerning the genesis and formation of the self, our personal identity, our understanding of others, and the possibility of not being ourselves, of being estranged from ourselves in not being ourselves, of being beside ourselves. Therefore, your participation in reflecting on the content of my lectures, on your readings, and on your past learning and experience, is essential to your appreciation of this course. So if my exposition and arguments (both in reading our text and in my subsequent lectures) pertaining to the self are necessarily intellectually demanding, they are more broadly personally demanding insofar as they require that you grow in an understanding of yourself. Importantly, it requires that you are willing and prepared to do so. I firmly believe that our scientific understanding in the human sciences, including psychology, is continuous with our self-understanding, and that all our systematic inquiry as articulated in our scientific theories and explanations must eventually be understood - “lived” - if these theories are to morally enhance our individual and communal life. In any case, my lectures aim less to inform, instruct, or persuade than to move you to thought.

“What is to prevent one from telling the truth as one laughs?” Art of Poetry, Horace (65-8 BCE)

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Course requirements:

1. First term paper (about 12-15 pages, about 250 word/page) giving (a) a synoptic exposition or overview of Fingarette’s arguments in chapter 1-4 and (b) an exposition of Fingarette’s hermeneutical position. Clearly, this paper will only list one reference, namely the text. You should note that I will not yet have covered all this material from the text in class by the time the paper is due. (Due date is Feb. 26, after reading week, worth 50%.

2. Second term paper (about 12-15 pages, about 250 words/page) dealing with the topic of self-deception/self-estrangement as presented in one of the readings/novels listed below, or any other novel you may have already read, or using yourself as a case study. In this paper I expect that you will use the concepts/ideas developed in (a) the lectures, (b) Fingarette chapters 1-4, and (c) Fingarette chapters 5-7 to understand what you take to be an instance of deceiving oneself or being estranged from oneself. (Due date is March 26, second last day of class, worth 50%).

Papers should follow APA format (see APA Manual); however you may use the first person in your writings. I also caution you to restrict the number of references to those you have actually read and use in both terms papers. When writing do so from your heart and mind!

My manner of grading term papers is as follows. I will read through all the papers sorting them into grades, and then re-read them, comment on the papers, and assign final grades. Ms. Comanaru will grade each paper independently. Grades are assigned relative to the other papers submitted in this class.

Writing is difficult form of expression! To benefit from this course, listen to my lectures, jot down some few notes, and then go home and writes about the ideas, try to think them through, try to live them, and have them resonate with your life as you live it.

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Other important matters:

1. Since this is an evening course, the final term paper assignment must be in on March 26 (at least if you want the papers back on the last day of this class, April 2nd).

2. This is not the usual psychology course (if there is such): you are expected to read, reflect, and write. However, do not let the writing requirement put you off; rather, take these as an opportunity to bring together your learning, experience, and your understanding so as to give full expression to your views. The lectures rely on your participation in thought if not in voice. I urge that you converse about the topics discussed in this course with others.

3. I am certain that many of you will come to disagree with me; let me assure you that you are entitled to state your views in your papers without prejudice. However be prepared to defend your views by example, citations from the literature, and argument. (Do not simply assert, or use the phrase “I feel” unless you can also “spell-out” your feelings.) I do request that you try to understand and play with the perspectives that Fingarette in his book and I in my lectures attempt to convey. This course is about the formation of the self: above all, appreciate that at least in the human sciences, including psychology, we must be able to live our views and not simply think them. The course is intended to bring integration to your studies; enjoy the course.