Transformative Experience
Transformative Experience

Author: Laurie Ann Paul

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0198717954

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

As we live our lives, we repeatedly make decisions that shape our future circumstances and affect the sort of person we will be. When choosing whether to start a family, or deciding on a career, we often think we can assess the options by imagining what different experiences would be like for us. L. A. Paul argues that, for choices involving dramatically new experiences, we are confronted by the brute fact that we can know very little about our subjective futures. This has serious implications for our decisions. If we make life choices in the way we naturally and intuitively want to--by considering what we care about, and what our future selves will be like if we choose to have the experience--we only learn what we really need to know after we have already committed ourselves. If we try to escape the dilemma by avoiding an experience, we have still made a choice. Choosing rationally, then, may require us to regard big life decisions as choices to make discoveries, small and large, about the intrinsic nature of experience, and to recognize that part of the value of living authentically is to experience one's life and preferences in whatever way they may evolve in the wake of the choices one makes. Using classic philosophical examples about the nature of consciousness, and drawing on recent work in normative decision theory, cognitive science, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind, Paul develops a rigorous account of transformative experience that sheds light on how we should understand real-world experience and our capacity to rationally map our subjective futures.

Transformative Experience
Transformative Experience

Author: L. A. Paul

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2014-11-06

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 0191027812

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

As we live our lives, we repeatedly make decisions that shape our future circumstances and affect the sort of person we will be. When choosing whether to start a family, or deciding on a career, we often think we can assess the options by imagining what different experiences would be like for us. L. A. Paul argues that, for choices involving dramatically new experiences, we are confronted by the brute fact that we can know very little about our subjective futures. This has serious implications for our decisions. If we make life choices in the way we naturally and intuitively want to--by considering what we care about, and what our future selves will be like if we choose to have the experience--we only learn what we really need to know after we have already committed ourselves. If we try to escape the dilemma by avoiding an experience, we have still made a choice. Choosing rationally, then, may require us to regard big life decisions as choices to make discoveries, small and large, about the intrinsic nature of experience, and to recognize that part of the value of living authentically is to experience one's life and preferences in whatever way they may evolve in the wake of the choices you make. Using classic philosophical examples about the nature of consciousness, and drawing on recent work in normative decision theory, cognitive science, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind, Paul develops a rigorous account of transformative experience that sheds light on how we should understand real-world experience and our capacity to rationally map our subjective futures.

Becoming Someone New
Becoming Someone New

Author: Enoch Lambert

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-07-17

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0192556959

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Suppose you're offered an opportunity to experience something that is unlike anything you have ever encountered, but that's all you know—aside from the fact that the experience is physically safe and morally acceptable. How do you decide whether to take up the offer? Several philosophers have recently argued that we are in similar situations for more of our decisions than we usually recognize. Are they right? What resources can we draw on to create such situations? Are they enough to satisfy our aims of making the best decisions we can, especially in high stakes situations? This volume brings together philosophers and psychologists to investigate the phenomenon of transformative change and a host of fascinating questions it prompts. Taking their departure from seminal work on transformative choice and experience by L. A. Paul and Edna Ullmann-Margalit, the authors pursue fundamental questions concerning the nature of rationality, the limits of the imagination, and the metaphysics of the self. They also strike out into new areas, including value theory, aesthetics, moral and political philosophy. Several chapters present the results of experimental investigation into the psychology of transformation, self-concept, and moral learning.

Foucault's Heidegger
Foucault's Heidegger

Author: Timothy Rayner

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2007-11-15

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 0826494862

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A new and important study of the relationship between two key thinkers of the twentieth century.

The Philosophy of Transformative Experience
The Philosophy of Transformative Experience

Author: Michael Campbell

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-10-11

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 1040130305

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume examines the nature and significance of transformative experiences as they occur across a variety of contexts in human life. By treating these events as social as well as individual phenomena, the essays bring to light the various ways in which cultural and institutional forces influence narratives of personal change. The ease with which we identify transformative experiences shows their importance for our sense of the potentialities inherent in human life, even while their disruptive character threatens confidence in our capability to make rational decisions concerning our future well-being. Yet, narratives of transformation are not just individual artefacts, but are also given support and structure through social forces including shared languages, practices, and institutions. What are the cultural and institutional contexts which enable this form of self-conceptualisation, and what happens when social changes undermine the cogency of these narratives? The chapters in this volume investigate these issues through a blend of philosophical theory and applied cases, working across the disciplinary boundaries of philosophy and social anthropology. Contributors investigate topics including recovery from trauma; the role of narratives in gender transition; climate activism; the ethical ramifications of war; the role of media in framing narratives of ethical change; and the university as a site of transformative experience. The Philosophy of Transformative Experience will be of interest to philosophers working in ethics, political philosophy, and decision theory, as well as scholars and advanced students in anthropology, sociology, and literary studies.

Aspiration
Aspiration

Author: Agnes Callard

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-03-01

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0190639504

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Becoming someone is a learning process; and what we learn is the new values around which, if we succeed, our lives will come to turn. Agents transform themselves in the process of, for example, becoming parents, embarking on careers, or acquiring a passion for music or politics. How can such activity be rational, if the reason for engaging in the relevant pursuit is only available to the person one will become? How is it psychologically possible to feel the attraction of a form of concern that is not yet one's own? How can the work done to arrive at the finish line be ascribed to one who doesn't (really) know what one is doing, or why one is doing it? In Aspiration, Agnes Callard asserts that these questions belong to the theory of aspiration. Aspirants are motivated by proleptic reasons, acknowledged defective versions of the reasons they expect to eventually grasp. The psychology of such a transformation is marked by intrinsic conflict between their old point of view on value and the one they are trying to acquire. They cannot adjudicate this conflict by deliberating or choosing or deciding-rather, they resolve it by working to see the world in a new way. This work has a teleological structure: by modeling oneself on the person he or she is trying to be, the aspirant brings that person into being. Because it is open to us to engage in an activity of self-creation, we are responsible for having become the kinds of people we are.

The Transformative Classroom
The Transformative Classroom

Author: Douglas W. Yacek

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-05-24

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 100039039X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Transformative approaches to teaching and learning have become ubiquitous in education today. Researchers, practitioners and commentators alike often claim that a truly worthwhile education should transform learners in a profound and enduring way. But what exactly does it mean to be so transformed? What should teachers be transforming students into? Should they really attempt to transform students at all? The Transformative Classroom engages with these questions left open by the vast discussion of transformative education, providing a synthetic overview and critique of some of the most influential approaches today. In doing so, the book offers a new theory of transformative education that focuses on awakening and facilitating students’ aspiration. Drawing on important insights from ethics, psychology, and the philosophy of education, the book provides both conceptual clarity and concrete practical guidance to teachers who hope to create a transformative classroom. This book will be of great interest for academics, K-12 teachers, researchers and students in the fields of curriculum and instruction, teaching and learning, adult education, social justice education, educational theory and philosophy of education.

Transformative Phenomenology
Transformative Phenomenology

Author: David Allan Rehorick

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0739124110

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Transformative Phenomenology captures the influence of phenomenology and hermeneutics on non-university-based scholar-practitioners who completed their doctoral education in later life, thus blending their workplace experiences with their intellectual interests. Contributions from seasoned university-based scholars also expand our understanding of phenomenological inquiry in fresh ways. The concept of "transformative phenomenology" springs from the long-term teaching and research experiences of David Allan Rehorick and Valerie Malhotra Bentz, the book's co-editors. Book jacket.

The Unfolding Self
The Unfolding Self

Author: Ralph Metzner

Publisher:

Published: 2010-03

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 9780981831800

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A classic and perennially relevant book, written by one of the world's foremost authorities in the field, The Unfolding Self Varieties of Transformative Experience Back to Titles The Unfolding Self examines in detail the transformations which an individual undergoes in the process of their expansion of consciousness. Referencing ancient and modern cultures from around the world, Dr. Metzner accomplishes what only a great teacher can do; conveying subtle concepts and fascinating breadth through an engrossing tapestry of myth, allegory, cross-references and historical context. Drawing upon 50 years as a pioneer in the study of consciousness, beginning with his triune collaborations with Dr.'s Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert at Harvard University in the early 1960's, Dr. Metzner brings unique experience and sagacity to this most important of inquiries. Now required reading in a number of progressive psychology courses, The Unfolding Self promises to provide its reader with valuable tools to become "wise, impartial judges" in their process of transformation into a more integrated and fulfilled person.

Philosophy of Psychedelics
Philosophy of Psychedelics

Author: Chris Letheby

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-08-05

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 0192581090

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Recent clinical trials show that psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin can be given safely in controlled conditions, and can cause lasting psychological benefits with one or two administrations. Supervised psychedelic sessions can reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and addiction, and improve well-being in healthy volunteers, for months or even years. But these benefits seem to be mediated by "mystical" experiences of cosmic consciousness, which prompts a philosophical concern: do psychedelics cause psychological benefits by inducing false or implausible beliefs about the metaphysical nature of reality? This book is the first scholarly monograph in English devoted to the philosophical analysis of psychedelic drugs. Its central focus is the apparent conflict between the growing use of psychedelics in psychiatry and the philosophical worldview of naturalism. Within the book, Letheby integrates empirical evidence and philosophical considerations in the service of a simple conclusion: this "Comforting Delusion Objection" to psychedelic therapy fails. While exotic metaphysical ideas do sometimes come up, they are not, on closer inspection, the central driver of change in psychedelic therapy. Psychedelics lead to lasting benefits by altering the sense of self, and changing how people relate to their own minds and lives-not by changing their beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality. The upshot is that a traditional conception of psychedelics as agents of insight and spirituality can be reconciled with naturalism (the philosophical position that the natural world is all there is). Controlled psychedelic use can lead to genuine forms of knowledge gain and spiritual growth-even if no Cosmic Consciousness or transcendent divine Reality exists. Philosophy of Psychedelics is an indispensable guide to the literature for researchers already engaged in the field of psychedelic psychiatry, and for researchers-especially philosophers-who want to become acquainted with this increasingly topical field.