Self-alienation

How do philosophical accusations of talking nonsense relate to the layperson’s notions of meaning and meaningfulness?  If one were to explain carefully what philosophical nonsense was supposed to be, would one be greeted with incredulity?  How do people react to being accused to talking nonsense themselves?  Is anything analogous to an illusion of meaning recognised in everyday life?  In dream-reports perhaps?  Or in the utterances of schizophrenics or those under the influence of drugs?  Or in certain jokes and hoaxes?  Are contradictions felt to be meaningless?  I argue that, though it is clear that experimental philosophy could shed some light on these questions, their subject matter creates special difficulties.  First, it is more difficult than usual to formulate questions and produce ‘vignettes’ that do not subtly encourage certain responses at the expense of others.  Second, the fact that philosophical nonsense is a metaphilosophical concept ensures that its investigation is going to be more indirect than would be that of knowledge or intention, for example.

What is it like to feel alienated from one's own emotions, or emotional self-alienation (ESA)? Drawing on work from critical sociology on emotional capitalism and the com-modification of emotions as well as on analytic and phenomenological philosophy of emotions, here, I propose a multi-dimensional account of ESA. I begin by sketching a relational account of alienation, according to which alienation is a deficient relation to oneself, others and the world. Next, I show that ESA is not reducible to cognate but different phenomena such as feelings of being manipulated, coercion or self-deception. I then distinguish between three dimensions of emotions that are deficient in ESA: their experiential, self-disclosing and normative dimension. I argue that ESA involves, first, a certain cleavage between the affective and the intentional dimension of emotions. This results in the loss of personal import of one's emotions and a failure to integrate a given emotion into one's overall evaluative outlook. Secondly, I show that this goes hand in hand with a deficiency in the self-disclosing dimension of emotions. I suggest that in ESA emotions are not revelatory of what matters to oneself. Consequently, ESA hampers an essential function of emotions, namely the elaboration of one's overall personal evaluative outlook. Finally, I argue that ESA also negatively affects the normative dimension of emotions: it disrupts the balance between what I ought to feel and what I actually feel. I conclude by addressing potential misunderstandings of what emotional re-appropriation is, and outline how a 'critical theory of emotions' might reply to them.

The full text is available here
http://puslit2.petra.ac.id/ejournal/index.php/ing/article/view/18742/18473

Several distinguished philosophers such as Rousseau, Hegel, Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger paid serious attention to the notion of alienation. The present paper elaborates on the notion of alienation, based on Marx's ideas, and traces it in the character of Tom Wingfield, one of the major characters in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. The Wingfields belong to the middle class living in the capitalist society of America during the Great Depression of the 1930's. The father has left the family sixteen years ago. The son, Tom, is the breadwinner of the family. As a "poet with a job in a warehouse," he is alienated from his labor. As a result of alienation from his labor he is self-alienated. The specialization in the capitalist system prevents him from developing to the total human and alienates him from his species life. The self-alienated worker becomes alienated from his family members and, finally leaves them.

There are certain 'hard cases' of weakness of will that seem to occur, indeed to be common, but are very difficult to give a non-paradoxical account of.  It is just not clear how they are possible.  This paper is largely an attempt to get them in focus.  What conditions must such weak-willed actions satisfy?  In what sense must they be intentional, for example?  And must the weak-willed agent thinks his action objectively worse than some alternative action open to him?  And must that alternative action actually be open to him?  The paper concludes by considering the condition that a clear case of weakness of will must be in certain sense non-procrastinatory and this turns out to be particularly difficult to satisfy.  Other explanations, ones that do not postulate weakness of will (though they may involve paradoxes of their own), always seem to be available.

How do philosophical accusations of talking nonsense relate to the layperson’s notions of meaning and meaningfulness?  If one were to explain carefully what philosophical nonsense was supposed to be, would one be greeted with incredulity?  How do people react to being accused of talking nonsense themselves?  Is anything analogous to an illusion of meaning recognised in everyday life?  In dream-reports perhaps?  Or in the utterances of schizophrenics or those under the influence of drugs?  Or in certain jokes and hoaxes?  Are contradictions felt to be meaningless?  I argue that, though it is clear that experimental philosophy could shed some light on these questions, their subject matter creates special difficulties.  First, it is more difficult than usual to formulate questions and produce ‘vignettes’ that do not subtly encourage certain responses at the expense of others.  Second, the fact that philosophical nonsense is a metaphilosophical concept ensures that its investigation is going to be more indirect than would be that of knowledge or intention, for example.