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Single Idea 7124
[filed under theme 16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 3. Limits of Introspection
]
Full Idea
The Ego never appears except when we are not looking for it.
Gist of Idea
The Ego never appears except when we are not looking for it
Source
Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], II (D))
Book Ref
Sartre,Jean-Paul: 'The Transcendence of the Ego' [Routledge 2004], p.39
A Reaction
He denies that we know the Ego when engaged with the world, and agrees with Hume that the ego can't be directly known. All that is left is this, which seems to be introspection 'out of the corner of your eye'. Not persuasive.
The
23 ideas
with the same theme
[what may be unknowable by introspection]:
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5886
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Like the eye, the soul has no power to see itself, but sees other things
[Cicero]
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1316
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Introspection always discovers perceptions, and never a Self without perceptions
[Hume]
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5551
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I have no cognition of myself as I am, but only as I appear to myself
[Kant]
|
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12115
|
Introspection is pure illusion; we can obviously observe everything except ourselves
[Comte]
|
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24144
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A cognitive mechanism wanting to know itself is absurd!
[Nietzsche]
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2932
|
'Know thyself' is impossible and ridiculous
[Nietzsche]
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7157
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We think each thought causes the next, unaware of the hidden struggle beneath
[Nietzsche]
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5689
|
Freud and others have shown that we don't know our own beliefs, feelings, motive and attitudes
[Freud, by Shoemaker]
|
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20429
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Most of us are too close to our own motives to understand them
[Fry]
|
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5380
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In perceiving the sun, I am aware of sun sense-data, and of the perceiver of the data
[Russell]
|
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7116
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When we are unreflective (as when chasing a tram) there is no 'I'
[Sartre]
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7124
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The Ego never appears except when we are not looking for it
[Sartre]
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1353
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Reporting on myself has the same problems as reporting on you
[Ryle]
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1354
|
We cannot introspect states of anger or panic
[Ryle]
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5661
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We identify experiences by their owners, so we can't define owners by their experiences
[Ayer]
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15815
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Sartre says the ego is 'opaque'; I prefer to say that it is 'transparent'
[Chisholm]
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3468
|
I cannot observe my own subjectivity
[Searle]
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3363
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We often can't decide what emotion, or even sensation, we are experiencing
[Kim]
|
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3412
|
How do we distinguish our anger from embarrassment?
[Kim]
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3102
|
Why don't we experience or remember going to sleep at night?
[Magee]
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5674
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We can't introspect ourselves as objects, because that would involve possible error
[Cassam]
|
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6671
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It seems impossible to get generally applicable mental concepts from self-observation
[Lowe]
|
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3518
|
I'm not the final authority on my understanding of maths
[Maslin]
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