Defense Date

4-15-2011

Graduation Date

Summer 2011

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

dissertation

Degree Name

PhD

Department

Philosophy

School

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Committee Chair

Daniel J. Selcer

Committee Member

Fred J. Evans

Committee Member

Ronald M. Polansky

Committee Member

Wilhelm S. Wurzer

Keywords

Critique of Pure Reason, Emergence, Memory, Non-being, Ontology, Sensory manifold

Abstract

The psychology philosophy split has restricted viable readings of today's psychological research. My project (within the philosophy of psychology) is to provide these readings. Specifically, in this dissertation I analyze the data and the interpretations of a large number of contemporary memory research articles. I use these articles to support my claim that Immanuel Kant misunderstood what in the Critique of Pure Reason he labeled "affinity." Further, Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze inherit this Kantian misunderstanding by way of G.W.F. Hegel's attempt to eliminate it. Put another way, the component in question is that which grounds the post-structuralist justification for "pure difference," and the wider context of this discussion is Plato's problem of non-being. That is, Kant's reading of affinity and Derrida's and Deleuze's respective readings of pure difference all function as failed attempts to solve the problem of non-being. Taking Plato's Parmenides and Sophist as points of departure, I show how each of the above mentioned thinkers, including Aristotle, fails to meet Plato's criteria for, i.e. solve, the problem of non-being. I then use contemporary memory research for the sake of enunciating my own solution to Plato's problem. The critical structure of my discourse is directed at Derrida and Deleuze, then, as a critique of their readings of pure difference, and this is to accentuate the difference between my response to the problem and theirs. Kant's misunderstanding of memory committed him to an ontological filled-duration illusion. On the one hand, my reading of contemporary memory research depicts being as bound by memory. On the other hand, memory's binding is governed by play, i.e. memory as being's play-ground. And, gaps can be noticed by regarding shifting engagements of procedural memory or memory's cycling, though these gaps are often covered over by priming and habitual scripts. Hence, just as these gaps justify calling ontological filled-duration illusory, these gaps also constitute my solution to the problem of non-being. I paraphrase the fruit of solving the problem: Your being is not persisting; it is pulsing. Perhaps the largest impact of my solution is to be found in ethics.

Format

PDF

Language

English

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