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Volition Under Hypnosis
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2010
Extract
It Seems that a major impetus to philosophical thought about volitional concepts — the concepts of action, purpose, choice, intention, deliberation, freedom, of the voluntary and the like — has often been a reflection on the discoveries and theories of science. Sometimes philosophy is stimulated by a broad-ranging scientific theory. Thus we have recently seen a flurry of debates about B.F. Skinner's Beyond Freedom and Dignity which challenges the validity of our commonsense notions and forces us to clarify and defend them or accept a drastic revision in our conception of ourselves and of human society. Sometimes, on the other hand, it is not a grand theory which excites our interest but rather a new discovery or the investigation of a particular type of phenomenon which generates some new problems or throws light on old ones.
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- Information
- Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , September 1976 , pp. 441 - 478
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- Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1976
References
1 See Skinner, B.F., Beyond Freedom and Dignity, New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1971Google Scholar and Carpenter, Finley, The Skinner Primer: Behind Freedom and Dignity, New York: Collier, 1974Google Scholar. Throughout this paper Ishall often make no sharp distinctions amongst terms such as “voluntary”, “intentional”, “deliberate”, etc. I am aware of the nice Austinian points that have been made concerning them, but forreasons which gradually emerge they are not always helpful, and in contexts where I use the terms indifferently nothing of consequence hinges on the loose usage.
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I do not wish to suggest that all these theories are mutually exclusive or that one could not devise an eclectic theory incorporating elements from several of them.
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9 Ibid., pp. 4–5.
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13 Ibid., p. 99.
14 Ibid.
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21 Ibid., p. 214.
22 Ibid., p. 98.
23 Ibid., p. 216.
24 Ibid., p. 98.
25 Barber, op. cit., p. 7.
26 Ibid., p. 10.
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36 Ibid.
37 Ibid., p. 35.
38 Ibid., pp. 38–39.
39 Ibid., p.87.
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Prod 4: You have no other choice, you must go on.”
50 See Das, J.P., “The Pavlovian Theory of Hypnosis: An Evaluation”, in The Nature of Hypnosis: Selected Basic Readings, ed. by Shor, R.E. and Orne, M.T., New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc., 1965Google Scholar. See also “L'inconscient du point de vue Pavlovien et selon la cybernétique” by P.W. Bassine and “Les mécanismes des différentes profondeurs de l'hypnose” by Rojnov, V.E. in Hypnoses and Psychosomatic Medicine, ed. by Lassner, J., Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1967.Google Scholar
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54 Ibid., p. 394.
55 Ibid., p. 395.
56 Ibid., pp. 395–396.
57 Ibid., p. 396.
58 I am not asserting that all thinking is internalized speech, for there are other cognitive styles and modalities. But thought does have some special relations with overt speech. See Geach, Peter, Mental Acts, London: Routledge and Kegan PaulGoogle Scholar and Sellars, Wilfred, “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind” in Science, Perception and Reality, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963.Google Scholar
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60 See LeCron, op. cit.
61 Allport, Gordon W., “The Ego in Contemporary Psychology” in Personality and Social Encounter, Boston: Beacon Press, 1960.Google Scholar
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63 Ibid., p. xix.
64 Ibid., p. 23.
65 Ibid., p. 24.
66 Ibid., p. 23.