Online research in philosophy

If one looks at the current discussion of self-awareness there seems to be a general agreement that whatever valuable philosophical contributions Husserl might have made, his account of self-awareness is not among them. This prevalent appraisal is often based on the claim that Husserl was too occupied with the problem of intentionality to ever really pay attention to the issue of self-awareness. Due to his interest in intentionality Husserl took object-consciousness as the paradigm of every kind of awareness and therefore settled with a model of self-awareness based upon the subject-object dichotomy, with its entailed difference between the intending and the intended. As a consequence, Husserl never discovered the existence of pre-reflective self- awareness, but remained stuck in the traditional, but highly problematic reflection model of self-awareness.

In 2004, the Department for Education and Skills in England published its Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners (DfES, 2004). It was preceded by Excellence and Enjoyment: a strategy for primary schools (DfES, 2003). 'Excellence and enjoyment' seems to constitute an ambiguity, even a contradiction. The government's view is otherwise. It states that enjoyment (for pupils) is a consequence of excellent teaching. In turn, excellent teaching is said to be more assured if it is personalised and creative. This official logic is questionable. A different interpretation is offered. Global capitalism is placing fiscal pressures on the public expenditure of the nation-state, and new accommodations and justifications have to be made by government as it continues to re-focus the education system towards an economic purpose. In this endeavour it must gain public and professional assent. Informed by critical theorists, it is argued here that 'excellence' associates with a producer ethic; 'enjoyment' with a consumer ethic. The former enables the capital accumulation process within a social-democratic welfare state; the latter justifies the policies of accumulation.

In the first chapter, I explain the concept of awareness and the distinction between direct and indirect awareness. Direct awareness of x is understood as awareness of x which is not based on awareness of anything else, and the "based on" relation is understood as a particular way in which one state of awareness can be caused by another state of awareness when the contents of the two states are logically related.

INTRODUCTION Theories of humour are traditionally divided into two classes: superiority or relief theories, and incongruity or ambiguity theories. As their names imply, the former tend to ascribe amusement primarily to a particular attitude of mind, while the latter account for it by describing its objects as having a particular quality. Enjoyment as an attitude is always a response to an object present to the mind or feelings. If, then, enjoyment in amusement is identical with feelings of superiority or relief, its objects must always display characteristics of inferiority or inhibition. But the enjoyment of humour seems to be distinguishable from a reaction to particular kinds of topic, and from any personal relation felt between the subject and the objects of his amusement. Incongruity theories do not explicitly ascribe the enjoyment of humour to a particular range of topics.

In ‘Davis on Enjoyment: A Reply’, Richard Warner replies to three objections against his ‘Enjoyment’ that I raised in my ‘A Causal Theory of Enjoyment’, and concludes that one of my examples in fact demonstrates a serious deficiency of my own account. I argue that Warner’s replies to my objections are unsatisfactory, and that his objection to my account had a ready solution.