Objeto, ámbito de aplicación y excepciones

Ethology and Sociobiology, 11(4–5), 375-424. Retrieved from

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/016230959090017Z.

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0162-3095(90)90017-Z

Abstract: Present conditions and selection pressures are irrelevant to the present design of organisms and do not explain how or why organisms behave adaptively, when they do. To whatever non-chance extent organisms are behaving adaptively, it is 1) because of the operation of underlying adaptations whose present design is the product of selection in the past, and 2) because present conditions resemble past conditions in those specific ways made developmentally and functionally important by the design of those adaptations. All adaptations evolved in response to the repeating elements of past environments, and their structure reflects in detail the recurrent structure of ancestral environments. Even planning mechanisms (such as “consciousness”), which supposedly deal with novel situations, depend on ancestrally shaped categorization processes and are therefore not free of the past. In fact, the categorization of each new situation into evolutionarily repeating classes involves another kind of adaptation, the emotions, which match specialized modes of organismic operation to evolutionarily recurrent situations. The detailed statistical structure of these iterated systems of events is reflected in the detailed structure of the algorithms that govern emotional state. For this reason, the system of psychological adaptations that comprises each individual meets the present only as a version of the past.

Notes: An early presentation by Tooby and Cosmides of an evolutionary psychological analysis of how human psychology – in this instance specifically the emotional systems – are evolved adaptations to ancestral environments. Interesting, here, as an early example of evolutionary psychological analysis and also for targeting a system (the emotions) fundamental to most understandings of the experience of well-being and personhood. Relates to evolutionary psychology, well-being and personhood.

329.

Tsakiris, M. & Haggard, P. (2005). Experimenting with the acting self.

Cognitive Neuropsychology, 22(3-4), 387-407. Article. Retrieved from

<Go to ISI>://WOS:000229746500010. doi:10.1080/02643290442000158

Abstract: Recent neuroscientific research has developed the concept of the embodied agent as a scientifically viable approach to the psychological concept of the self. Both the

awareness of one's own actions and awareness of one's own body are necessary conditions for the experience of selfhood. The relative contributions of efferent and afferent

information in self-awareness are yet to be fully understood. We review experimental evidence that highlights the phenomenological and functional differences between the "acting self" and the "sensory self." These differences may underlie the ubiquitous modulation of perception in voluntary action. We focus on three main research fields: somatosensory perception, time-awareness, and self-recognition. A series of experiments, designed so as to dissociate afferent from efferent information, are reviewed. As a whole the results suggest that intentional action functions as a general context for awareness, modulating the perception of one's own body. The "acting self," owner of the efferent information, modulates the phenomenal experience of the "sensory self" because of the intrinsically agentic nature of voluntary movement. Finally, it is suggested that this sense of agency is efferent-driven, originating from pre-action processes.

Notes: A significant account of how the agentic aspects of selfhood are linked to efferent systems which, in turn, are a central aspect of intentional action. Self-awareness is claimed to be therefore grounded in these agentic aspects and efferent information thus modulates our sensory (afferent) experience of self. Relates to selfhood/personhood.

330.

Tucker, I. (2012). Deleuze, sense, and life: Marking the parameters of a

psychology of individuation. Theory & Psychology, 22(6), 771-785.

Retrieved from http://tap.sagepub.com/content/22/6/771.abstract.

doi:10.1177/0959354312442787

Abstract: This paper offers a psychology of individuation, drawing on Gilles Deleuze’s concepts of series, event, sense, and individuation to develop a way of thinking human experience that is non-reductionist and processual. Deleuze’s writing produces a

conceptualization of life as multiple, novel, and yet inherently linked to the past. The desire for such an undertaking comes from the need to avoid capturing experience according to theories that prioritize one factor over others, and in doing so define psychological life as a set of intrinsic properties. Understanding individuals as the products of individuating processes introduces a philosophy of change that, although not entirely “pure,” can still be novel. A psychology of individuation potentially allows for the extraction of a virtual realm of sense that is “in between” forms of language and materiality, and which allows novelty to

emerge in our social worlds. The paper concludes by discussing the potential moral benefits of conceptualizing psychological life as produced through processes of individuation.

Notes: "What would psychology look like if the notion of the psyche as an essence is replaced with a definition of psychological life as individuated events? If applied to

psychology, Deleuze’s philosophy of individuation offers a mode of thinking that cannot be reductionist, as no one element (e.g., neurochemical or discursive) is defined outside of its relevance to other features. Defining things as individuated events means that we analyse the ways they have been produced, and how they are subject to continuous reworking as configurations of multiplicity. Variation is key here. Processes fluctuate and alter course; they are fluid. What this means for psychology is thinking rigorously about how things can and might vary in the future."

Notes: Using the work of Deleuze, the psychological self is understood as a series of individuated events rather than as a discrete entity. Relates to personhood.