Introduction

Pedagogical tools to explore Cartesian mind-body dualism in the classroom: philosophical arguments and neuroscience illusions

“…A student could never look at a hammer, for the first time, and simply rationalize its use. Instead, “What makes agency possible is not some underlying [material] substrate, not some mental substance, but is rather the way our life stories unfold against the backdrop of practices of a shared, meaningful world.” ( Guignon, 2006 , p. 9) Hence, Heidegger’s famous dictum “being-in-the-world” eliminates the supposed gulf or dualism between subject and object, mind and body, etc ( Heidegger, [1927] 1962 ). As human beings, upon birth, we are “thrown” into a particular world that imprints within us particular and pre-reflective ways of understanding, communicating, and navigating, practices and our own “being” in a world of intertwined contexts and meanings.…”

Concern and control in human agency

“…It does so, first, by offering a noncontrol-centric view of agency, and second, by offering important implications for how world might be retheorized to match. The hermeneutic viewpoint I present is based primarily on the early work of Martin Heidegger (1927/1962) and scholars who have developed his analyses in various ways (Dreyfus, 1991, 2014; Guignon, 1983, 2002, 2012; Wrathall, 2013, 2014). Heideggerian hermeneutics is broad, complex, and extends well beyond the scope of what I present here.…”

“…It is intrinsic to the quotidian affairs of life in which people are concerned with things going smoothly, goals and expectations being met, work getting done, time spent wisely, and mistakes avoided. Concern of this sort is often tacit, not explicitly analyzed unless some kind of breakdown occurs in the flow of ordinary activity (for more on “breakdown,” see Dreyfus, 1991; Guignon, 1983; Heidegger, 1927/1962). In a different sense, people are, at least at times, concerned about the purpose and quality of their lives as they consider what kind of person they are or hope to be, and perhaps more reflectively, what their life activities and projects have amounted to.…”

“…In what follows, I wish to examine this vexing theoretical problem, and the preoccupation with control by which it is created, in order to suggest an alternative basis for theorizing human agency. I will argue that treating agency fundamentally as something other than a matter of control—namely, as a matter of concern , based on one version of hermeneutic phenomenology (particularly that of Heidegger, 1927/1962; see also Dreyfus, 1991, 2014; Guignon, 1983; Wrathall, 2013, 2014)—offers an escape from this problem and a suitable basis for understanding the rich meanings of human life. In making this case, I will suggest how control might be best viewed when not taken to be the defining feature of agential action.…”

Heidegger and the Supposed Meaninglessness of Personal Immortality

“…Thus, rather than considering the biological characteristics of a species or the theological implications of God's creation, for example, Heidegger is interested in the much broader project of describing the way existence generally shows up for beings like us—especially our own existence. Even the word ‘human’ is too loaded with biological and anthropological baggage for Heidegger's purely phenomenological project, so he adopts the term ‘Dasein’, which stands for the sort of ‘entity which understands what it is to be’ (Guignon 1983: 68); it is the entity that is capable of having a meaningful existence (Heidegger 1962: 193). Embarking on his quest, then, to provide a thorough characterization of Dasein, problems arise once it appears that ‘there is in every case something still outstanding’ about it (Heidegger 1962: 276).…”