Search Results

The Sense of the Ending in La clemenza di Tito

Jessica Waldoff

in Recognition in Mozart's Operas

La clemenza di Tito, a political allegory, dramatizes clemency as a central tenet of enlightened governance. The events of the plot allow dark tendencies in human nature to ... More

La clemenza di Tito, a political allegory, dramatizes clemency as a central tenet of enlightened governance. The events of the plot allow dark tendencies in human nature to threaten enlightenment values (and Rome itself), but ultimately suggest the futility of rebellion against a virtuous and benevolent ruler. The restoration of these values depends on recognition scenes in which the three central protagonists overcome their baser instincts: Vitellia her jealousy and ambition, Sesto his abandonment of reason for passion, and Tito his angry renunciation of his merciful policies. These recognition scenes are shown to be central to the opera's dramatization of enlightenment themes. At the dénouement, Tito pardons the conspirators, reaffirms his policy of clemency, and exclaims, “Let it be known in Rome that I am myself” — a moment of self-recognition vital to the sense of the ending.Less

Blue Zones

Nomi Dave

in The Revolution's Echoes: Music, Politics, and Pleasure in Guinea

This chapter considers the ways in which the lines between authoritarianism and democracy and between the past and the present remain blurred in Guinea today. It considers the new role of the private ... More

This chapter considers the ways in which the lines between authoritarianism and democracy and between the past and the present remain blurred in Guinea today. It considers the new role of the private sector in neoliberal cultural initiatives, as illustrated by two concerts held to celebrate the end of the Ebola epidemic in Guinea in 2015. It also notes the continuing endurance of praise singing and musical practices rooted in tradition, collective pride, and cultural memory. It concludes the book with a call to understand authoritarianism from the bottom-up, as a system of power that ordinary people at times invest with meaning and feeling, while also asking how pleasure and aesthetics might create and sustain a different kind of politics in Guinea and a new sense of self-recognition for Guineans in the future.Less

Mirror, Mirror!

Thomas Boraud

in How the Brain Makes Decisions

This chapter studies self-recognition and the capacity to mimic others underlying the capacity to learn by imitation. Brain-imaging studies conducted in humans show that self-recognition strongly ... More

This chapter studies self-recognition and the capacity to mimic others underlying the capacity to learn by imitation. Brain-imaging studies conducted in humans show that self-recognition strongly involves both the hippocampus and significantly the prefrontal cortex, which are two structures more developed in certain species (covered in this chapter) compared with others. In the nineties, Giacomo Rizzolatti’s team demonstrated the existence of neurons that fire in a similar way when an animal makes a movement, or when the movement is carried out by a third individual. At first they were thought to be isolated in the motor cortex of primates, but these imitation neurons were later identified in other structures and other species and gained the generic nickname of ‘mirror neurons’. There is a very high probability that these neurons are involved in imitation learning processes because they have been found in species that practise this type of learning.Less

Homo Erectus: An Aware Self

E. Fuller Torrey

in Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods: Early Humans and the Origins of Religion

This chapter describes Homo erectus and its lifestyle. It made more sophisticated handaxes, controlled fire, and migrated halfway around the world. Cognitively, it is likely that Homo erectus had ... More

This chapter describes Homo erectus and its lifestyle. It made more sophisticated handaxes, controlled fire, and migrated halfway around the world. Cognitively, it is likely that Homo erectus had developed self-awareness, and their brains evolved in areas associated with the cognitive trait.Less

The Evolution of Personality

Raymond L. Neubauer

in Evolution and the Emergent Self: The Rise of Complexity and Behavioral Versatility in Nature

This chapter examines the evolution of personality in two species that live in very different habitats and have very different brain architectures: elephants and dolphins. Complex societies and ... More

This chapter examines the evolution of personality in two species that live in very different habitats and have very different brain architectures: elephants and dolphins. Complex societies and communication, innovation, tool use, play, and individual recognition are a constellation of qualities that has been emerging in a variety of lineages, including Homo sapiens. They are a suite of traits found in large-brained, slowly developing animals that use behavioral versatility and insight learning to survive in their niches. They are an extension of the K-selected, equilibrium strategies that life has used since earliest times as one way of remaining adapted to an ever-changing environment. Life has increased in information content over time, and a summit of this process is a personality with wide behavioral versatility. This chapter first describes brain size in dolphins and elephants and proceeds by discussing their complex social relationships, tool use, communication, self-recognition in front of a mirror, and behavioral variation.Less

Self-Consciousness in Nonhuman Animals

Kristina Musholt

in Thinking about Oneself: From Nonconceptual Content to the Concept of a Self

This chapter discusses the implications of the account proposed in this book for the question of whether nonhuman animals possess self-consciousness. It discusses empirical studies of mirror ... More

This chapter discusses the implications of the account proposed in this book for the question of whether nonhuman animals possess self-consciousness. It discusses empirical studies of mirror self-recognition, mindreading, and metacognition in nonhuman animals and considers whether and to what extend the abilities demonstrated in these studies are indicative of self-consciousness. It argues that, while remaining somewhat inconclusive, the evidence to date suggests that some animals (in particular chimpanzees and dolphins) possess some basic forms of self-awareness, similar to those found in human infants.Less

Thinking Immunologically

in The Age of Immunology: Conceiving A Future in an Alienating World

This chapter focuses on how metaphors function as conveyors of cultural categories of thought, and how immunology becomes a dominant medium through which those categories are variably embodied. The ... More

This chapter focuses on how metaphors function as conveyors of cultural categories of thought, and how immunology becomes a dominant medium through which those categories are variably embodied. The chapter also focuses on how the tyranny of being subjected to the powerful negative transformers of immunology can be handled more creatively. The cultural meaning that is carried by metaphor finds its way into both archetype and stereotype. Though immunology has increasingly become an eclectic domain of esoteric knowledge, it is important to remember that its disciplinary legitimacy has always stood, and for now still stands, on a fundamental distinction between “self” and “not-self.” Self-recognition is central to the understanding of antibody formation. Despite the recent trend to include immunologists in the widespread scientific habit of mystifying everything, immunology's focus on identity has given centrality to the fundamental autotoxic metaphor of the body at war with itself.Less

Recognition in Religion: A Systematic Outline

Risto Saarinen

in Recognition and Religion: A Historical and Systematic Study

This chapter defines three historical paradigms of religious recognition, that is, (i) patristic conversion narrative, (ii) medieval and early modern promise of self-preservation, and (iii) the ... More

This chapter defines three historical paradigms of religious recognition, that is, (i) patristic conversion narrative, (ii) medieval and early modern promise of self-preservation, and (iii) the existential attachment of modernity. All three paradigms highlight the transformation of the recognizing subject in distinctive ways. In this manner, religious recognition differs from its post-Hegelian philosophical counterpart, which emphasizes the status change of the recognized object. In spite of this difference, both philosophical and theological views of mutual recognition can be understood as complementary to the modern virtues of autonomy and toleration. Moreover, the premodern traditions of bridal mysticism and religious self-recognition anticipate some Hegelian views. As religious recognition is deeply heteronomous and consists of interpersonal acts, it equips the religious person with an understanding of relationality and otherness. The chapter also discusses the special issues of gift exchange and self-recognition.Less

The Self as Social Object

Dan Zahavi

in Self and Other: Exploring Subjectivity, Empathy, and Shame

This chapter discusses research on facial self-recognition. The ability to recognize one’s own face, for instance by passing the mirror mark test, has often been heralded as providing empirical ... More

This chapter discusses research on facial self-recognition. The ability to recognize one’s own face, for instance by passing the mirror mark test, has often been heralded as providing empirical evidence for the presence of self-consciousness. A failure to pass the test has also been seen as evidence for the absence of self-consciousness. Some, such as Gallup, have even argued that creatures incapable of passing such a test lack conscious experiences altogether. The latter interpretations are criticized, and the plausibility of an alternative interpretation of mirror self-experience is assessed, one that sees facial self-recognition as testifying to the presence of a rather special kind of self-consciousness, namely, one that in the case of human beings often has a distinctive social dimension to it.Less