Theories of Reality
Tuesday 11/26
Personality

-Journals due by last day of class

Psychoanalytic Argument for determinism-Hospers and Freud
1.) Neurotic Behavior
2.) Hypnosis
-Hospers and Freud say personality is developed by age 5
-All your personality has to do with things that happen before your 5 years old
-The unconscious motives develop behavior
-Freudian theory
-ID – Animal nature, primal desires for food, sex, immediate pleasures, wants immediate gratification
-Superego- Represses desires, “the inner Hitler”
-Ego- Diplomat, arbitrates between id and superego
Criticisms of Psychoanalytic argument
1.) Maybe people are free in areas which they’re not neurotic
2.) Most of the time explanations in terms of conscious intentions are adequate
Libertarian argument for regret (Famously argued by William James)
1.) The fact that people regret things show that free will exists
-If you regret something it means that you could have done something different than what you did
-Rebuttal – It’s a false belief in free will which causes regret
2.) Argument for poor prediction in psychology
-There is something innately unpredictable about human actions
-Determinists would say unpredictable might just be random
-Case studies provide unreliable data
-Human beings are complex and diverse