Agnes Callard: A New Theory of Self-Creation
Vložit
- čas přidán 27. 07. 2024
- How the philosophical paradox of aspiration is resolved by a new theory of self-creation. Video by Into the Coast (www.intothecoast.com).
Subscribe to the Aeon Video newsletter: bit.ly/2MfCgqO
Watch this interview on Aeon: bit.ly/37jDsop
Watch more free videos on Aeon: bit.ly/35DJcpb
Follow us on Twitter: bit.ly/2SaTMjt
Follow us on Facebook: bit.ly/2MgoDrg
Follow us on Instagram: bit.ly/2tDzsNC
Let’s say you’ve decided to enrich yourself by learning to appreciate classical music, even though you didn’t have much previous interest in it. Such a resolution is hardly uncommon, but acting on the aspiration requires you to value an activity that you don’t yet know how to. In this video, Agnes Callard, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, borrows from her book Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming (2018) to put forth a solution to this paradox centred on understanding our current and future selves as inexorably bound through the act of aspiration. Further, she argues, in resolving this paradox, we can understand ourselves as responsible for the act of self-creation - and, by extension, for our own morals and values. This video is part of the series Into the Coast, which sets out to capture philosophy as a ‘living discipline’ through interviews with leading academic philosophers.
Director: Octavian Busuio
Producer: Katie Howe
Music: Tuomo Tiisala
#philosophy
Amazing explanation, thank you! I found it very compelling. I still didn't got the point of the author saying nobody can aspire to something that is wrong. I guess I'll need to read the book.
Perceptual wholeness (personal paradigm) always precedes the logical 'decision' process.
We serve a self-image as much as we serve our self. A self-image can be a burden (hurt) or motivator (aspiration). The real self is a coupling of interest with detachment. Happiness is a balancing of interest and detachment. Self-image is therefore a curious, detached illusion of self.
Studied Philosophy in undergrad. This reminds that philosophy is just the wrong method of inquiry to understand the world. Problem of underdetermination comes to mind
*ILL DO IT! I WILL BECOME A VAMPIRE!* so glad i stubled accross this when i did. -JC
There no such thing as a “rational decision.” However, “rationalized decisions” are everywhere you look.
19:20 oh yeah? what if you hit yourself in the head w a brick. QED. -JC
I know what all these terms mean, but I find this impossible to follow…
That is because it makes zero sense
@@eachmorningbornagain476 , it makes sense to her publisher, the community of scholars, listeners to her podcast, people that teach the book, etc. Have you read the book? It's amazing.
'Let’s say you’ve decided to enrich yourself by learning to appreciate classical music, even though you didn’t have much previous interest in it ... but acting on the aspiration requires you to value an activity that you don’t yet know how to.
Doubtful. Your present aspiration is more likely content free; you can apply it where you will if you wish to invest the energy required to develop in any particular direction. Your interests don't come from nowhere; something lit that torch, for good or evil.
'a solution to this paradox centered on understanding our current and future selves as inexorably bound through the act of aspiration'.
We don't need to solve the paradox. We don't need to understand ourselves in the present or future to act on cultivating our interests and abilities. Ambition molds or life, for good or ill to success or failure; at least until we embrace futility, or joy.
'we can understand ourselves as responsible for the act of self-creation - and, by extension, for our own morals and values'.
You do so at your peril, since truth is not on your side. You did not create yourself. It is generally held that people have responsibility for their lives; they did not create themselves, but they do make choices.
I don't think one can hold vampirism up as something radically new a person might aspire to and attain. The stories I've heard have vampires created by other vampires.
Clearly people can become these things, classical music fiends, vampires, Christians, Buddhists,
and so on. Opportunity knocks.
Worth thinking about perhaps is aspiration's relationship to 'resorting to' or ' being infected by'.
You appear to have radically misunderstood the paradox...
@@Joeonline26 No contact channel, do you appear to know what you are talking about? What is it worth to you to be dismissive?
@@Eyesayah What you have just commented made no sense whatsoever. Please rephrase and try again
@@Joeonline26 I think what they're saying is the process of aspiration is itself determined. What you experience as a somewhat open ended aspiration to say, take up classical music, is in a fact a fairly well primed drive shaped by your biological and cultural situation in relation with your life experience.
'Resorting to' or 'being infected by' might imagine the self as a kind of substance to which certain predilections attach themselves, and the way in which we claim authorship of that process is aspiration. That was my read on it anyway.
@@mcscronson Callard's account of aspiration isn't strictly determined by yourself (or what she calls the 'creator self'), rather she flips the traditional causal chain between creator self (the aspirer) and the created self the other way around in order to avoid the argument of the aspiring self simply being a later version of something that was always 'within' you (like your biological argument would suggest). You should read her book. All of this is in there. The guy who originally commented clearly hasn't read her book.
This is a great example of trying to describe a simple theory in an incredibly difficult way .
What a word salad and a copy of someone else's work with a little twist of her own to make it sound original.
What I argue is...this is stupid
Whose work is this building on?
@@whatsawallaby she gives credit to Nagel in the book, but it's not really that big of an influence. Nagel's famous "Mortal Questions" used an example of what it's like to be a bat rather than a vampire. She also borrows from Frankfurt's ideas about deliberation and the will.
This is someone with too much time on their hands