This article focuses on ancient and contemporary accounts of selfhood and on their ontological background. Among ancient theories, the main focus are Plato’s and Plotinus’ accounts of soul and selfhood. Their ontological framework now appears outdated but, somewhat paradoxically, it also explains why Plato’s and Plotinus’ analyses are closer to a naturalised metaphysics of the self than those of the Cartesian tradition. Accordingly, human beings are not simple subjects essentially characterised by consciousness; consciousness and mental life are not co-extensive; our (...) selfhood entails a striving towards the unity of various layers. These insights come up again in recent debates, but they are now re-shaped within a framework in which philosophy of mind and behavioural sciences are combined in an effort to develop a notion of the self which is realist, yet does not entail any metaphysically grounded dualism. (shrink)

Giovanni Jervis was a prominent figure in the Italian intellectual landscape of the last fifty years. A student of the philosopher-ethnologist Ernesto De Martino, the main focus of his research was on social psychiatry and psychology, the foundations of psychology, and the psychological aspects of social and political problems. This article explores his rethinking of the psychoanalytic criticism of the subject. I shall try to show that Jervis has given shape to the premises of a philosophical anthropology that originally aims (...) to fit aspects of de Martino’s phenomenological psychology of identity and the psychodynamic theme of defense mechanisms into the ontological framework of the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

In this article we explore the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious as it has taken shape within contemporary cognitive science - meaning by this term the mature cognitive science, which has fully incorporated the results of the neurosciences. In this framework we first compare the neurocognitive unconscious with the Freudian one, emphasizing the similarities and above all the differences between the two constructs. We then turn our attention to the implications of the centrality of unconscious processes in cognitive science (...) for the classical conception of the self. Our analysis will bring to light a bit of claustrophobic dialectic between an eliminative variety of naturalism and an anti-naturalistic form of hermeneutics. Hence we conclude by recommending the pursuit of a mediation between such extreme stances. (shrink)

This article reflects on the phenomenon of self-deception in the context of the psychodynamic approach to defense mechanisms. Building on Giovanni Jervis’ criticism of psychoanalysis, I pursue the project of a full integration of that approach in the neurocognitive sciences. In this framework, the theme of self-deception becomes a vantage point from which to sketch out a philosophical anthropology congruent with the ontology of neurocognitive sciences.

In questo articolo ci proponiamo di portare alla luce i netti confini che separano i concetti di mindreading, introspezione e metacognizione con l’obiettivo di dissipare alcuni fraintendimenti presenti nella letteratura clinica. A tal fine, iniziamo identificando due posizioni principali nell’odierno dibattito filosofico cognitivo sull’introspezione: da un lato le teorie che sostengono che “introspezione” è la denominazione impropria per un processo interpretativo; da un altro lato le teorie che continuano a ritenere che almeno in alcuni casi l’accesso alla propria mente sia (...) diretto e non interpretativo. Dopodiché prendiamo posizione contro le teorie dell’accesso diretto e in favore di una certa versione dell’approccio interpretativista. Infine, da questo approccio ricaviamo alcune linee guida per l’uso della Theory of Mind in neuropsichiatria cognitiva. (shrink)

Philosophical Psychology, Volume 25, Issue 4, Page 617-621, August 2012.

In this article I argue that introspective self-consciousness is an activity of narrative re-appropriation of the products of the cognitive unconscious; and this activity has an essentially self-defensive character, being ruled by the primary and universal need to construct and protect a subjective identity whose solidity is the ground of the intrapsychic and interpersonal balances of human organism. Finally, in this framework firmly based on psychological sciences, I reconsider John Locke’s link between responsibility and self-consciousness.

Riassunto: In una prospettiva naturalistica, lo studio della religione presenta subito un punto problematico: se essa è così diffusa, tanto da apparire un tratto inscritto nella natura umana, ciò significa che la religione comporta dei vantaggi adattivi o, quantomeno, significa che essa non comporta svantaggi tali da ostacolare la sopravvivenza di chi la pratica. Nel primo caso, si tratta di individuare la possibile funzione della religione, ovvero una qualche utilità che ne giustificherebbe il suo permanere nella storia umana. Alla luce (...) di un modello antropologico che vede l’identità soggettiva segnata da una fragilità ontologica, in questo articolo offriremo una particolare versione della tesi che assegna alla religione, quale byproduct, una funzione positiva, ipotizzando quella che potrebbe essere una sua utilità nella difesa dell’unità dell’autocoscienza. Sarà dunque sulla religione quale insieme di tecniche difensive del self che concentreremo la nostra indagine. Parole chiave : Ernesto De Martino; Naturalismo darwiniano; Meccanismi di difesa; Identità soggettiva; Religione Religion as a Defensive Technique for Subjective Identity: From a naturalistic perspective, the study of religion immediately leads to a problematic point: if religion is so widespread, to the extent that it seems to be a trait inscribed in human nature, then it should have adaptive advantages or, at the very least, it should not have disadvantages that would stand in the way of the survival of those who practice religion. In the former case, we need to understand the function of religion, viz. a utility it confers that may justify its persistence across human history. Against the backdrop of an anthropological model that considers subjectivity identity to be characterized by ontological fragility, this article will offer a special version of the claim that religion, viewed as a byproduct, has a positive function: we will make the hypothesis that it contributes to the defense of the unity of self-consciousness. Thus our focus will be on religion construed as a repertoire of strategies designed to protect the self. Keywords: Ernesto De Martino; Darwinian Naturalism; Defense Mechanisms; Subjective Identity; Religion. (shrink)

: In this article we shall deal with the construction and defense of subjective identity as a topic at the intersection of psychology and anthropology. In this perspective, defense mechanisms are seen as falling along a spectrum that stretches from the individual to the collective level. The individual mind is the sphere of the intrapsychic defenses and the interpersonal maneuvers to which each of us appeals, in the relationship with other people and with one’s own environment, to defend one’s own (...) self-describability and, indissolubly, the solidity of one’s own self-conscious being. At a social and collective level, on the other hand, the individual self-protective structures are supported by cultural interventions that organize and intersubjectively “domesticate” our subjectivity and our feeling of being-there. Keywords: Autobiographical Reasoning; Defense Mechanisms; Grief; Narrative Identity; Ontological Insecurity Meccanismi di difesa: dall’individuale al collettivo Riassunto: L’articolo si occupa di costruzione e difesa dell’identità soggettiva come tema all’intersezione di psicologia e antropologia. In questa prospettiva, i meccanismi di difesa si dispongono lungo uno spettro che dal livello individuale conduce a quello collettivo. La mente individuale è la sfera delle difese intrapsichiche e delle manovre interpersonali a cui ognuno di noi fa ricorso, nella relazione con gli altri e col proprio ambiente, per difendere la propria autodescrivibilità e, inscindibilmente, la solidità del proprio essere autocosciente. Al livello sociale e collettivo, invece, le strutture autoprotettive dell’individuo sono sorrette da interventi culturali che organizzano e “addomesticano” intersoggettivamente la nostra soggettività e il nostro sentirci esistere. Parole chiave: Ragionamento autobiografico; Meccanismi di difesa; Cordoglio; Identità narrativa; Insicurezza ontologica. (shrink)

In this article I take a nativist-modularist perspective on mindreading, endorsing the hypothesis that a form of primary mindreading is not a developmental achievement, but an innate social-cognitive evolutionary adaptation implemented by neurocomputational mechanisms that come online during the first year of age. Moreover, I recommend a cognitive-constructivist stance on introspection. Expanding on Peter Carruthers’ strong case for the claim that mindreading has a functional and evolutionary priority over introspection, I maintain that mindreading is also developmentally prior to introspection. If (...) the latter is not taken as a competence in isolation, but placed in its context of meaning, i.e., the construction and defense of subjective identity, good reasons emerge for arguing that it takes shape through the act of turning on oneself the capacity to mindread other people; and that this occurs through that socio-communicative interaction with caregivers investigated by the attachment theory. (shrink)