Zeynep Talay Turner

The phenomenon of self-deception has attracted many scholars from both psychology and philosophy: do we, can we, deceive ourselves, or not? If so, how does it differ from deceiving others? More importantly how do we achieve deceiving ourselves, given the fact that in such a situ- ation the deceiver and the deceived is one and the same person? One answer to the last question is that we do so through and in the course of self-narration. In this chapter, my aim is to see how and in what ways Tape casts light on questions in the scholarly literature on self-deception and its relation to self-narration, and vice versa.

Alman filozof Hans Blumenberg (1920-1996) “Moses the Egyptian”da Sigmund Freud ve Hannah Arendt ile bir diyaloğa girer. Deneme aslında Arendt’in Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963) kitabının bir eleştirisidir ama Freud’un Moses and Monotheism (1939) kitabıyla başlar. Blumenberg denemenin en başında sadece bu iki kitabın içeriklerindeki benzerliklere değil, aynı zamanda yayınlandıklarındaki “etkilerinin denkliği”ne de dikkat çeker: “Freud nasıl Musa’yı kendi halkından çaldıysa, Arendt de Eichmann’ı İsrail devletinden çalmıştır.” Blumenberg bu “çalma”ya karşı öfkesini saklamaz. Neden Blumenberg, Freud ve Arendt’in Yahudi halkından bir şey çaldığını düşünmektedir? Dahası çaldıkları nedir? Kısa cevap şudur: İsrail devletinin kurucusu. Ancak bu “kurucu” her yıl coşkulu kutlamalarla, meydanlara dikilen heykellerle anılacak bir ulusal kahraman değil, tam tersine olumsuz bir kahramandır. Olumsuz kahraman, Blumenberg’e göre, Yahudi halkının bir ulus olma olasılığının koşullarını yaratan kişidir, ancak, paradoksal bir biçimde, tam da bu koşulları ortadan kaldırmaya çalışan grubu temsil ettiği için söz konusu koşulların yaratılmasını sağlayandır. Arendt ile ilgili olarak Blumenberg şunu iddia etmektedir: Sadece kurbanlara karşı saygı beslemediği için suçlandığını düşünen Arendt, Eichmann davasının kamusal ve politik işlevini görmekte başarısız olmuştur. Nedir bu işlev? Blumenberg’e göre Eichmann davası İsrail devletine bir kurucu politik mit ve bir meşruiyet kaynağı sağlamıştır.

This paper examines a reconfiguration of the notion of Kantian autonomy with a feminist perspective. While most feminist philosophers have been suspicious about the concept as it is loaded with assumptions about selfhood, identity and agency that are metaphysically, epistemologically, ethically and politically problematic terms, some feminists argue that the notion is indispensable in understanding as well as fighting against the discrimination against and objectification of women. In doing so, some turn to Spinoza, arguing that Spinoza's notion of the self and his ethics can be helpful in rethinking the idea of the autonomous individual. Here the key term for connecting Spinoza's theory with the feminist approach on autonomy is "relational autonomy."

Bu makale Kantçı otonomi kavramının feminist bir bakış açısıyla yeniden yapılandırılmasını incelemektedir. Her ne kadar kimi feminist filozoflar kavramın kendilik, kimlik ve faillik ile ilgili birçok önkabulle yüklü olduğunu ve bu önkabullerin de metafizik, epistemolojik, etik ve politik açıdan problematik olduğunu iddia ederek kavrama şüpheyle yaklaşsalar da, kadının ezilmesi, nesneleştirilmesi ve ayrımcılığa uğramasının sebeplerini anlamada ve bunlara karşı mücadelede otonomi kavramının hayati bir öneme sahip olduğunu ileri sürerek kavramı tekrar yapılandırmamız gerektiğini iddia ederler. Bu yeniden yapılandırma aşamasında kimi filozoflar Spinoza'ya dönerek, Spinoza'nın kendilik kavramının ve etik anlayışının otonom bireyi feminist bir perspektiften yeniden düşünmeye yardımcı olacağını savunurlar. Burada Spinoza'nın teorisini feministlerin otonomiye yaklaşımına bağlayan anahtar terim "ilişkisel otonomi"dir.

19. ve 20. yüzyıl felsefesinde karşımıza çıkan tartışma konularından biri felsefenin sınırları sorusudur; felsefenin kavramlarla ve/veya kavramsallaştırarak ele almada yetersiz kaldığı temalar meselesidir. Eğer felsefenin sınırları söz konusuysa, bu sınırların ötesinde ne var? Wittgenstein erken döneminde, dilde ifade edilemeyen şey karşısında sessiz kalmamız gerektiğini iddia etmiştir; Hans Blumenberg kavramsallaştırmanın ötesinde sessizliğin değil, metaforların olduğunu söylemiştir; Avusturyalı düşünür ve romancı Robert Musil ise metaforlara da şüpheli bakmış ve biricikliğini kavramsal dille ifade edemeyeceğimiz deneyimlerimizi benzetmelerle dile getirmeyi önermiştir.

The idea that emotions are evaluative judgments, and as such cognitive has been supported by many philosophers. These philosophers, who commit themselves to the idea that emotions are constituted or structured by evaluative judgments, provide us with very rich accounts of the nature of emotions as well. In this paper I problematise this argument through examining a particular emotion, that is compassion. I argue that there is an intrinsic relationship between emotions and evaluative judgments, however this is not necessarily a one-sided relationship. Emotions can also shape and transform our judgments.

The phenomenon of self-deception is an intriguing one: in what circumstances do we deceive ourselves, and when do we let others deceive us? Is self-deception something that we should avoid, or can it have positive consequences for the person? These and similar questions have been discussed by philosophers and psychologists. However, it seems that there is no agreement on a definition of self- deception, and so no agreement on exactly what happens to us when we deceive ourselves. While most current studies of self-deception mainly focus on the cognitive aspect of the problem, the five papers in this special issue explore some other dimensions, and do so by focusing in particular on literary treatments of the topic.

The problem of self-deception is a perennial one. In what circumstances do we deceive ourselves or let some others deceive us? What consequences may it have? Is it something that we should avoid, or can it have positive consequences for the person? In this paper, I consider the ethical dimension of the problem. In the first part I will give an overview of the two prominent positions in the self-deception literature, the intentional and non-intentional approaches. Then, in the second part, I will turn to literature and discuss the story of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. I will treat the case of Raskolnikov as an illustration of themes in the philosophical literature but also as a resource that might aid it.

In the  first part of this paper I want to build up a picture of the current state of play in the philosophical account of self-deception as a cognitive problem, particularly in the philosophy of mind. Here the main questions have been: How is self-deception possible? Do people who deceive themselves hold contradictory beliefs? If so, how is this possible?  These questions  find many of their answers in the well-established debate between intentionalist and non-intentionalist theories. We will see that there is no agreement on a definition of self-deception, and so no agreement on exactly what happens in us when we deceive ourselves. I will assume here that the philosophical task of agreeing on a definition is less important than that of understanding what happens to us when we deceive ourselves, and so after a review of the literature I will turn to literature! In the second part I discuss the story of Hans Castorp in Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain. In a  final section I will turn to a real case, that of Hitler’s architect and Armaments Minister Albert Speer. Although at Nuremberg Speer was the only defendant who admitted that as a government minister he shared responsibility for Germany’s aggression in the war and the catastrophe that resulted, while in Spandau prison he wrote what many regard as self-serving memoirs. Were they self-deceiving too?

“Moses the Egyptian” puts Blumenberg in dialogue with Sigmund Freud and Hannah Arendt. The essay is a review of Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem, but begins with Freud’s Moses and Monotheism and quite early on draws our attention not only to the “deep-rooted” similarities between the two texts, but also to the “equivalence of the effects”: “As Freud took Moses the man from his people, so Hannah Arendt took Adolf Eichmann from the State of Israel.” Blumenberg does not hide his “indignation” towards this “stealing”. Why does he think that both Freud and Arendt took something away from the Jewish people? More importantly, what is it that he thinks they took away? Simply the founder of their state, albeit, not a national hero to be commemorated with exuberant celebrations every year and with statutes erected in squares, but on the contrary, a negative hero. A negative hero is one who created the very conditions of the possibility of their nationhood despite the fact that he belongs to and/ or represents those who had almost destroyed those conditions. Blumenberg claims that Arendt, in thinking she was accused of a lack of piety towards the victims, failed to see the public and political function of the trial, which was to provide the Israeli state with a founding myth and a source of legitimacy.

The question of how literature can evoke emotions is a familiar one, as is the idea that a good work of literature arouses the right emotion in the right place through our capacity for sympathy. However, there is no consensus on how this works, partly because there is no agreement on the nature of emotions. One figure that contributes to both of these topics is Robert Musil. As a thinker and as a novelist, he had both a theory of emotions and a novelistic treatment of them. His novels are notable, however, for the way in which they do not appeal to the reader's capacity for sympathy, owing partly to the formlessness of his characters. Yet it is precisely the gap he creates between fiction and emotional reality that allows for a richer investigation of the relationship between emotions and literature.

There has been an ongoing debate on whether emotions are evaluative judgments, and as such cognitive. Though philosophers, who commit themselves to the idea that emotions are constituted or structured by evaluative judgments, provide us with very rich accounts of the nature of emotions, they downplay its ethical dimension. In order to correct this we should focus on particular emotions. Here I focus on compassion and conclude that though there is an intrinsic relationship between emotions and evaluative judgments this is not necessarily a one-sided one. Finally, I claim that any suspension of judgment (Arendt on Eichmann) can lead to a state of indifference, or an emotion-free state. And here I am interested in the ethical consequences of such a state, namely that with the suspension of judgment and accordingly of emotions, it is much easier for someone to avoid any moral action, and accordingly any sense of accountability.

Öz
Birçok çağdaş filozof duyguların değer biçen yargılar ile kurulduğunu ve bu sebeple de bilişsel olduklarını iddia etmektedir. Her ne kadar bu iddia duyguların doğası hakkında bize zengin tartışma alanları açıyor olsa da, böyle bir genelleştirmeye ulaşma kaygısı aynı zamanda duyguların etik boyutunu göz ardı etmektedir. Bunu engellemek adına spesifik duygulara odaklanmamız gerektiğini iddia ediyorum. Bu yazıda merhamet duygusunu inceleyerek, duygular ve değer koyan yargılar arasında içkin bir ilişki olduğunu ama bu ilişkinin her zaman tek taraflı olmayabileceğini, duyguların da yargılarımızı biçimlendirebileceğini savunuyorum. Son olarak, eğer duygular ve yargılar arasında içkin bir ilişki varsa, yargının askıya alınması durumunun (Arendt'in Eichmann analizi) aynı zamanda duygusal anlamda kayıtsızlık halini de beraberinde getireceğini ve özellikle bu kayıtsızlık ya da duyguların askıya alınması (emotion-free state) halinin kişinin ahlaki eylemden ve sorumluluk alma yetisinden uzaklaşmasını kolaylaştıracağını iddia ediyorum.

Christine Korsgaard claims that Kantian moral law means the law of self-constitution and that unless we fully understand what self-constitution means in Kant, we cannot comprehend Kantian morality. Korsgaard's idea of self-constitution is based on the idea that the unity of an action and the unity of an agent are not detachable. In this paper, I will examine Korsgaard's Kantian notion of the self, and, correspondingly, her idea of a good action. However, in doing so, I will claim that her account of the self begins from an assumption, that is the mind is transparent, in other words, we are completely aware of our desires, motives and inclinations.

Felsefi Bir Problem Olarak Kendini Aldatma ÖZET Felsefi bir problem olarak kendini-aldatma birçok filozofu meşgul etmiştir. Kendimizi aldatır mıyız? Eğer buna cevabımız evetse, hangi koşullarda kendimizi aldatırız ya da başkalarının bizi aldatmasına izin veririz? Kendimizi aldatmanın ne gibi sonuçları olabilir? Kendini-aldatma her durumda ve şartta kaçınmamız gereken bir şey midir yoksa kimi durumlarda kendini-aldatmanın olumlu sonuçlarından bahsedilebilir mi? Bu ve benzeri sorulara verilen cevaplar çağdaş felsefede Kasti Davranışlar ve Kasti-Olmayan Davranışlar Kuramları şeklinde karşımıza çıkan bir kutuplaşmaya yol açmıştır. Bu yazıda problemin bilişsel ve etik yönleri arasında bir ayrım yapıp, bu ayrımın özellikle yakın dönemde yapılan kendini-aldatma çalışmalarında yeterince vurgulanmadığını ve kendini-aldatma probleminin etik yönünü incelemede edebiyatın bize daha zengin bir kaynak oluşturabileceğini iddia ediyorum. Bu bağlamda kendini-aldatma fenomenini biri kurgu, biri de gerçek bir olay olmak üzere iki vaka üzerinden inceleyeceğim: Thomas Mann'ın Büyülü Dağ'ı ve Hitler'in sağ kolu Albert Speer. Anahtar kelimeler: kasti davranışçı, kasti-olmayan davranışçı, ABSTRACT To varying degrees the philosophical problem of self-deception has occupied philosophers from Plato to Nietzsche. Do we deceive ourselves or not? If so, in what circumstances do we deceive ourselves or let some others deceive us? What consequences may it have? Is it something that we should avoid or can it have positive consequences for the person? Such questions find many of their answers in a debate between intentionalist and non-intentionalist theories. However, I distinguish here between the cognitive and the ethical aspect of the problem, argue that this distinction has not been respected as much as it might have been in recent philosophy, and explore the ways in which literary treatments of self-deception may help us to distinguish its ethical dimension more clearly. By ethics I refer both to the relationship of self and Other and to that of self to self. Thus, I try to test the plausibility of these ways of talking about self-deception on two cases: Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain and the memoirs of Albert Speer.

The aim of this book is to consider one aspect of the debate over the limits of philosophy, namely the claims of literature to be able to convey in detail what philosophy can only provide in general terms. Its more specific purpose is to demonstrate the ways in which the novel contains a richer account of the nature of ethical experience. Its methodology is one that treats literature not as a source of ‘illustrations’ of philosophical themes, but as an activity that has its own claims to make. The project focuses on the ideas about language, experience and ethics contained in the philosophy of Nietzsche, and the way in which these themes are worked out but extended in the writings of Robert Musil and the Turkish novelist Oğuz Atay. 
The book focuses on one main theme, namely the idea of the dissolution of the subject. It then asks the following questions: what remains of the human being when he or she is stripped of his/her ‘qualities’ (Musil)? What forms of experience are still possible? Does the dissolution of the subject entail the dissolution of language? Does it bring freedom or a state of disconnection (Atay)? If the former, what forms of ethics does this freedom make possible? Or is this freedom ultimately unbearable for human beings?

Grizzly Man (2005) is a documentary film by German director Werner Herzog which tells us how the amateur environmentalist-activist Timothy Treadwell spent a considerable amount of time–13 summers–with grizzly bears in Alaska before, in 2003, he and his girlfriend were eaten by one. The film mostly consists of footage from films that Treadwell himself shot, showing his interactions with grizzlies and how he, alone, almost as a warrior, fought to protect them. This footage is accompanied by interviews with friends, parents, officials, and a pilot who would take Treadwell to the “expedition” site. The documentary is of interest not only for the representation of the devoted idealist Treadwell, but also for the questions raised about the human and its relation to the animal-other.