Theories of Identification

A detailed Summary of Theories of Identification

I think it was Karl Jaspers who said that the apparent obscurity of philosophy is due to the fact that if the answers to life's questions were obvious they would have been figured out long ago. It's easy for the layman to sneer at the verbal hairsplitting of modern philosophy, but there are no shortcuts to knowledge. Fine distinctions have to be made to clarify thought and prevent procedural errors in logic to creep in.

The problem with philosophy is the same one that psychology has: it's impossible to be scientific about the subject, because it's man studying man. Nearly all the most meaningful elements of human consciousness are virtually impossible to quantify, delimit, or define with any precision at all. Therefore the scientific method, which depends on precision of measurement and experimentation, and applies only to physical phenomena, is useless as a means of attaining certain knowledge in these areas of inquiry, although it is not without conditional, limited value in some psychological studies.

Epistemology, or the search for certainty in knowledge, has been an enduring preoccupation of philosophers since the Greek Pre-Socratics. The rationalism of the Enlightenment held that rigorous chains of irrefutable logic we

How do I know? Because I fully identify with my desire to think this, and therefore have autonomy.

Velleman (1992) writes that decisions can be just as influenced by externality as desires, and therefore cannot be the hallmark of autonomy. Or they can be made unwittingly, which also refutes Frankfurt's hierarchy model. His criticism about just identifying with a desire is based on his emphasis on being centered or grounded in our sense of values and identity as a basic requirement of autonomy or integrity.

Bratman (1996) adds a rhetorical flourish by stating that autonomy requires the agent to have decided to identify with that desire, and to be satisfied with that identification. A person may not have made a final decision on how to respond to a desire. In his view, autonomy requires a closure on the decision.

The discussion of identification theories by Frankfurt, Bratman, Watson, and Vellemon consists of making fine verbal distinctions with little or no resonance of larger meaning. It is as ingrown as a philosophical toenail. It is as sterile as the meaninglessly elaborate exercises in poetic form that prospective Confucian bureaucrats were expected to master in order to be hired in medieval China.

Gary Watson contradicted Frankfurt by saying that the desire would be autonomous only if came naturally from one's valuational set - in other words the action would have autonomy or integrity only if the agent him or herself valued it. He also pointed out that the hierarchical metal states would lead to infinite regress - that is one level would be contingent upon the one above ad infinitum - far beyond the two or three levels imagined by Frankfurt.

Identification with one's desire or volition is the path to integrity, even in a sense if

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Category: Science