The Ontology of Mental Events: Lacan’s Psychoanalytic Categories of the Self and the Ontological Derivation of Qualia

In this dissertation I examine the relations between qualitative and quantitative aspects of perceptual experience. I do this by examining the difficulties in delineating these concepts as discrete categories as they relate to apperception; in particular, it seems that contemporary analytic philosophy of mind, such as the theories of Chalmers and Nagel, do not provide a sufficient framework within which to define a subjective, qualitative realm of experience and an objective, quantitative realm. Furthermore, there are antinomic tendencies in analytic philosophy which appear to be insuperable without exceeding the ‘terms of engagement’ of that philosophical tradition, such as the causal-closure principle. I argue that the analytic tradition is unable to produce a suitable solution to the problem of qualitative experience. I, therefore, suggest that an understanding of the nature of the phenomenon can only be discovered in a semiotic method derived from a combination of phenomenological philosophy and Lacanian psychoanalysis.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

mres

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

masters

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Hegarty, Michael Sean Thomas

• B Athroniaeth (Cyffredinol)

Dc Identifier Grantnumber

UWTSD

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.uwtsd.ac.uk:1268