Philosophy: Thesis madness (2)

Six days since my initial thesis meeting… After a palpable rise in stress and anxiety and a shortening temper at work, I’ve decided to push back my thesis deadline. I’ll aim to have a solid proposal by August/September and then come back to defend a final version next summer. Sounds crazy, I know (finish one degree while being thrown into my Ph.D. work…), but it’s the only way I can realistically see myself finishing it and remaining sane over the summer. Too many decisions, too much up in the air, too little focus (in my life that is). But I’m breathing – and where there is breath, there is freedom…

An update on the direction/structure of the thesis itself:

The thesis will seek to show that our self-understanding (in a metaphysical sense) is very important to how we relate to the environment, and I will propose three practical ways for people to move toward a more ‘ecologically correct’ self-understanding. It will begin with an examination of the metaphysics of the self, mainly in Descartes and Sartre (but through them briefly looking at other important western thinkers), with the supposition that the Cartesian notion of the self as a disembodied spirit substance is 1) the understanding of the ‘man on the street’ today 2) incorrect, and 3) an obstacle to a sustainable environmental ethic. Sartre’s critique of Cartesian Dualism provides mainly a foil through which to examine other western conceptions of the self and I believe Sartre’s own conclusions are very nearly correct. That will conclude the strictly ‘philosophical’ enterprise. The next section will draw from cognitive science (much of the stuff Christopher Preston used for his “Grounding Knowledge”) to reframe the self and move into Buddhism. From there I’ll move to develop practical methods of deconstructing the dualistic self, one using Buddhist meditation, one drawing from wilderness-immersion experience and deep ecology, and one based on Preston’s idea of eco-cognitive travel. All three of these serve to reinforce our embodied nature and it is from the stance of our body that we are going to make more meaningful and sustained efforts to preserve and restore our natural environment.

My initial reading list includes Christopher Preston’s “Grounding Knowledge” book, Francisco J. Varela’s very short, “Ethical Know-How: Action, Wisdom, And Cognition.” It is an excellent pithy introduction to the contemporary move to post-Cartesian epistemology via Cognitive Science. I’m also reviewing a Sartre paper I wrote a year ago (which I hope to co-opt into this thesis nearly whole). I’ll get that online soon, along with the one I wrote on David Bohm and quantum physics and my Hegel one too for that matter.

‘Till then, smile and tell someone you love them, ’cause it’s a crazy world and ya just never know.