Posted by alexandra_k on July 31, 2005, at 18:55:18
In reply to Re: Lost - for Alex and anyone else interested » alexandra_k, posted by Tamar on July 31, 2005, at 17:07:44
> I suppose it depends on what you mean by a construct.
Absolutely!
If you mean to say that we aren't just born with a self that persists unchanging throughout the organisms lifetime then I agree 100%>Don't factors like environment, genetics, and experiences have roles to play in constructing the Self?
Yes. But I would go further. I would say that those things: social / physical environment + genes actually *determine* or *cause* the self.
>I know what you mean about a functional essence, but it seems to me that if such a thing exists it is fragile and prone to fragmentation. And that fragility seems to problematize the idea that it is essential (it seems to me). I suppose one could argue that the functional essence is inherently fragile, but I would come back and say that's because it's a construct...
Ah. Here is a (attempted) functional definition of the self: The self is a function from beliefs, desires, perceptions, goals, memories etc to behaviour.
That means that the strength of those things and their causal connections determines what people will do. Thats what I think the self is.
But... I'm not sure that that notion captures quite what we mean by the self. The everyday term 'self' is something of a vague notion...
> These are interesting questions. I'm a fat*ss foucauldian ho, so I probably see almost everything in terms of constructs. I resist any kind of idea of an absolute. For me it's very politically freeing, though I recognise that many people may consider my ideas to be postmodern w*nk, and that's OK!
I'll admit that I haven't read any Foucault. Don't know that much about him. Don't know much about postmodernism either... But I'm happy to talk that stuff... I've been reading some stuff about therapy (mostly critiques of the medical model) that have arisen from the postmodernist / feminist critique and I do believe they have some interesting points...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:534847
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050725/msgs/536114.html