Date: Wed, 07 Apr 1999 08:55:35 +0200
From: "Gatherer, D. (Derek)" <D.Gatherer@organon.nhe.akzonobel.nl>
Subject: RE: A more
To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
By the way, Chris, I love the chairs!
I was at the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition in Glasgow on Saturday, and I
wonder if you are influenced by him....?
But back to memetics: aside from Zen etc., there is a strand of scientific
psychology which casts doubt on the unitary nature of the self, and that is
the study of multiple personality cases. William Benzon gives some
references to this in his paper 'The Evolution of Narrative and the Self',
which was readable on http:\\www.newsavanna.com until it closed recently for
maintenance. It is also in J. Soc. Evol. Sys. in about 1996 (if I remember
rightly).
The other root of this trend lies in Hume of course....., not my favourite
philosopher but Dennett seems to like him. In the last chapters of
Consciousness Explained, Dennett seems to be arguing for a position which
Sue takes up more forceably in her own book.
There is also some input from post-structuralism (but not in Sue's case, I
think I can confidently say).
So the anti-self camp stakes out its claims on a combination of:
Zen and/or other Buddhisms
Multiple personality psychology
Hume via Dennett
some deconstructionists
not necessarily in that order.
Derek
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