Metaphysical Dualism, Subjective Idealism, and Existential Loneliness: Matter and Mind

337 Pages·2021·23.192 MB·English

by  Ben Lazare Mijuskovic

Metaphysical Dualism, Subjective
Idealism, and Existential Loneliness
Since the ages of the Old Testament, the Homeric myths, the tragedies
of Sophocles and the ensuing theological speculations of the Christian
millennium, the theme of loneliness has dominated and haunted the
Western world. In this wide- ranging book, philosopher Ben Lazare
Mijuskovic returns us to our rich philosophical past on the nature of
consciousness, lived experience, and the pining for a meaningful exist-
ence that contemporary social science has displaced in its tendency
toward material reduction.
Engaging key metaphysical discussions on causality, space, time,
subjectivity, the mind body problem, personal identity, freedom, reli-
gion, and transcendence in ancient, scholastic, modern, and contem-
porary philosophy, he highlights the phenomenology of loneliness that
lies at the very core of being human. In challenging psychoanalytic
and neuroscientific paradigms, Mijuskovic argues that isolative exist-
ence and self- consciousness is not so much of a problem of uncon-
scious conflict or the need for psychopharmacology as it is the loss of
a sense of personal intimacy.
The issue of the criteria of “personal identity” in relation to lone-
liness has long engaged and consumed the interest of theologians,
ethicists, philosophers, novelists, and psychologists. This book will be
of great interest to academics and students of the humanities, and all
those with an interest in the philosophy of loneliness.
Ben Lazare Mijuskovic, PhD (Philosophy), MA (Literature), is a
retired professor of philosophy and humanities at California State
University at Dominguez Hills, Humanities Department. He is a
licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) and is a retired Los Angeles
County Department of Mental Health therapist.
Philosophy & Psychoanalysis Book Series
Jon Mills
Series Editor
Philosophy & Psychoanalysis is dedicated to current developments and
cutting- edge research in the philosophical sciences, phenomenology, her-
meneutics, existentialism, logic, semiotics, cultural studies, social criticism,
and the humanities that engage and enrich psychoanalytic thought through
philosophical rigor. With the philosophical turn in psychoanalysis comes a
new era of theoretical research that revisits past paradigms while invigorating
new approaches to theoretical, historical, contemporary, and applied psycho-
analysis. No subject or discipline is immune from psychoanalytic reflection
within a philosophical context including psychology, sociology, anthropology,
politics, the arts, religion, science, culture, physics, and the nature of mor-
ality. Philosophical approaches to psychoanalysis may stimulate new areas
of knowledge that have conceptual and applied value beyond the consulting
room reflective of greater society at large. In the spirit of pluralism, Philosophy
& Psychoanalysis is open to any theoretical school in philosophy and psycho-
analysis that offers novel, scholarly, and important insights in the way we
come to understand our world.
Titles in this series:
Psychology as Ethics: Reading Jung with Kant, Nietzsche and Aristotle
Giovanni Colacicchi
Shame, Temporality and Social Change: Ominous Transitions
Edited by Ladson Hinton and Hessel Willemsen
Psychoanalysis, Catastrophe & Social Action
Robin McCoy Brooks
Metaphysical Dualism, Subjective Idealism, and Existential Loneliness:
Matter and Mind
Ben Lazare Mijuskovic
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit
www.routledge.com/Philosophy-and-Psychoanalysis/book-series/PHILPSY
Metaphysical Dualism,
Subjective Idealism, and
Existential Loneliness
Matter and Mind
Ben Lazare Mijuskovic
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Ben Lazare Mijuskovic
The right of Ben Lazare Mijuskovic to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 74116- 7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 74127- 3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 003- 15613- 0 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/ 9781003156130
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Newgen Publishing UK
To my father, a debt that is sadly far too late to ever repay

Contents
Introduction 1
1 The Achilles of rationalist arguments: the simplicity,
unity, and identity of thought and soul from the
Cambridge Platonists to Kant— a study in the history of
an argument 6
2 Consciousness, spontaneity, and synthetic a priori
relations 21
3 Kant and Schopenhauer on reality 60
4 Kant and Hegel on the quality- quantity distinction 74
5 The science of determinism and the consciousness of
freedom 100
6 Descartes’s bridge to the external world: the piece of wax 123
7 Locke and Leibniz on personal identity 151
8 Shaftesbury and Hume on personal identity 171
9 Hume on space (and time) 194
10 Kant’s two premises in the transcendental deductions 211
11 Brentano’s intentionality of consciousness 222
newgenprepdf
viii Contents
12 The science of matter and the philosophy of mind 236
13 Loneliness: an interdisciplinary approach 253
14 Loneliness and the dynamics of narcissism 288
15 The limits of self- knowledge 301
16 The dynamics of intimacy and empathy 317
Index 322
Introduction
The goal of the present study is to survey the kaleidoscopic history of
Western theories of consciousness and conclude on the inevitability of
existential loneliness. The book defends the metaphysical immateri-
ality of human consciousness along with its epistemic activity, while
insisting on three inherent forces within the mind: (a) its spontaneity;
(b) the reflexive nature of self-c onsciousness; and (c) its transcendent
intentionality. It opposes the principle of causal psychological deter-
minism endorsed by the sciences of psychoanalysis; cognitive behav-
ioral therapy; and the current neurosciences and biosciences. It opposes
Freud’s principle of libidinal sexual energy as the determinant source
of human affect and behavior; the stimulus>response paradigm of
cognitive behavioral psychology; and the neuroscientific metaphor
of the brain as a programmed computer. Instead, I wish to propose
that the primary universal motivational drive in human beings is two-
fold: to avoid loneliness and to secure intimacy with other members
of our species. I offer a comprehensive systems- approach grounded in
(a) metaphysical dualism; (b) subjective idealism; and (c) its culmin-
ation in man’s solitary existential condition. My guiding premises are
that both active immaterial minds and a material world exist; that each
self epistemically fashions reality for its self alone; and therefore that
each of us uniquely transpires throughout life alone. We do, however,
manage to forge strong sustaining alliances along the way that makes
the voyage of life worthwhile and meaningful.
What follows is an attempt to offer an interdisciplinary and compre-
hensive approach to the historical and conceptual relationship between
consciousness and loneliness. In pursuit of this goal, I am guided by a
DOI: 10.4324/9781003156130-1