Judgment and the Self Essay Example for Free

Judgment and the Self EssayWhat up prepares people is not things themselves but their designs or so the things. For pillow slip, wipeout is nothing indescribable (or else it would turn out appeared alarmful to Socrates), but instead the judgment about death that it is d admitfulthat is what is dreadful. So when we are frustrate or upset or distressed, let us never deuced both(prenominal) unrivalled or something else but rather ourselves, that is, our take in judgments. -Epictetus To say dread is an interior phenomenon is to tread toward tautology, dread wrenches your innards. here however, there listenms to be something to the echo of Epictetus.Of course the crux lies in the gap that opens this transition, the gap between things and our judgments of them or, by chance more pointedly, in the locality of judgment. This distinction already clarifies some ground of Epictetus standing. He is not a materialist for judgments hold the higher weight. The term judgment is a tricky point in the exegesis. If it stands for appearance in the sense of a persons particular appropriation of sense-data or some basic produce of interacting in the dry land, we are in a more limited position in guaranteeling our judgments. If it stands for conviction we have some more flexibility.If we limit ourselves to the example of the passage Epictetus is shown to be speaking in the last mentioned sense at the level of opinions and level offts which are already complex entities of consciousness. This would follow the philanthropic drive of Socratic philosophy which Epictetus evokes. His position is nearly unemotional person while he does not occlude the passions (When we are thwarted or upset or distressed) he does rein them in under self control. For Epictetus this takes a very rational form, indeed he nearly equates the self with the judgments it produces saying, Ourselves, that is, our own judgments. His argument follows from his position. The events that volitio n lead you in life are simply as they are (we hear this in the other passage of his). One is cast into the world but the impact of events croup be determined by the subject. It is ones own responsibility how one responds to life situations. It is important in the analysis of Epictetus argument to display it properly. Looking at it in syllogistic form we find a fault line. Firstly, we note that Epictetus does not give us an everywheret syllogism. What we have is simply a premise and a conclusion.There is an implied major premise that would have the syllogism read as such a) All judgments are the responsibility of the subject. b) judgments upset people not things. c) when one is upset, they are to blame. It is this major premise that does not sit well today. The question is whether we are in control of our judgments. After Kierkegaard, can we really be confident in our ability to think away dread? I would use example as dread is one translation of the Danish angest on which Kierkeg aard wrote his important, invention of Anxiety.Now for Kierkegaard anxiety opens up the capacity for a response in a way that could enliven Epictetus but the authoritative difference is that it is precisely in being moved, in being upset, the one is prompted to decide. Or, as Kierkegaard writes analogously in a afterward work, The possibility of this sickness despair is mans advantage over the beast. What amounts to ascent in the case of despair is not being in it(Kierkegaard, 1989, p. 44-45). This Kierkegaardian understanding of pre-existing put under rings truer. The trick here is not to lose this issue in esoteric matters.Unfortunately the example used by Epictetus doesnt translate well into analogues. Firstly because death is a experience about which we can only form a prejudgment (providing that we understand death in terms of Epictetus world where death does not include a possibility of resuscitation). Secondly, because a fear of death seems to be universal. The saying t hat all of life is but a preparation for death points to this universality. In order to sidestep some of these difficulties for the heart of the issue it is necessary to construct a new example.This will be given later on for the purpose of explicating my position. I am inclined to agree not only with the Kierkegaardian position of having a disposition toward unease but relatedly that the self is a construct. The self qua self awakens, and this sort of phenomenon can even be seen by the dull-mindedness of developmental psychology. The example is that of a childs judgment. They slavishly follow their impulses toward sweets, for example. They will take them until they are trained to control themselves. Even in this elementary scenario we can see that the judgment precedes the self.As such the self cannot be in control of the self. This way of framing the discussion could set up my position as Einsteinian to Newtonian physics. Newtonian physics are not turn up wrong, but shown to cove r a certain domain. The field of Epictetus is that of an already developed self higher in capacity for self-discipline. This discipline is also the locus of value for this passage for it could be read to suggest that a certain sort of person (or a sufficiently developed person to be less exclusive) can begin engineering their own judgments. In this way one can prevent oneself from becoming upset.This is a eudemonic ideal that could be manifest in the Epictetus though the passage does not give us quite enough to warrant that judgment on its own. In the end it could be argued that Epictetus could agree with me if read a certain way (and with no further context in his work), though given his stoic background I am disinclined to this view. Moreover, whether or not he holds this view is of secondary importance. The score to which he and I agree depends on whether in telling us to blame only ourselves he is prompting us to construct a better self or merely to delineate where the puzzle comes into play.Doubtless he would endorse self refinement but it his intent in this passage is the crucial matter. Beyond that there is only the hurdle that he believes judgment is quite self-possessed where I see the self as constructed in dialogue with many influences (culture, parenting, education, etc) which do much of ones judicial decision especially in earlier stages of development. It is the only hurdle but that is still a sizable leap.ReferencesKierkegaard, Soren. (1989). The nausea Unto Death. (Alastair Hannay Trans. ). New York Penguin Books USA Inc.. (Original work published 1849).