The Role of Self-Experience in Personality Theory
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THE ROLE OF SELF-EXPERIENCE IN PERSONALITY THEORY: A STUDY OF THE ALLPORT-BERTOCCI DEBATE by J. H. Kentigern Connelly Thesis presented to the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Ottawa in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ^^ OTTAWA, CANADA, 1973 ^Sity 0\ © J.H. Kentigern Connelly, Ottawa, Canada, 1974. UMI Number: DC53568 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI® UMI Microform DC53568 Copyright 2011 by ProQuest LLC All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis was prepared under the supervision of Professor Jacques Croteau, Ph.D., of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Ottawa. Gratitude is hereby expressed for his kind interest and invaluable help. Gratitude must also be expressed for the encouragement and assistance offered in conversations and correspondence, and in the permission to use manuscript material, by Dr. Peter A. Pertocci, Borden Parker Bowne Professor of Philosophy at Boston University. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION i CHAPTER I: THE NATURE OF THE DEBATE 1 PART ONE: GORDON W. ALLPORT CHAPTER II: G. W. ALLPORT'S APPROACH TO PSYCHOLOGY 1. Introduction 18 2. Psychology as a Natural Science 21 3. Psychology as Science: Its Unique Dilemma 25 4. Allport's Presuppositions 34 5. The Goal of Psychology according to Allport 40 (a) Heuristic Realism 41 (b) Personality as an Open System 44 6. Allport*s Dilemma 48 CHAPTER III: G. W. ALLPORT'S APPROACH TO PERSONALITY 1. Personality Defined 54 2. Requirements for an Adequate Theory of Motivation 60 3. The Functional Autonomy of Motives 64 4. Traits and Personal Dispositions 70 5. The Recurring Dilemma 76 CHAPTER IV: A CRITICISM OF G. W. ALLPORT'S POSITION ON THE NATURE OF THE SELF 1. Allport's Initial Tentativeness 81 2. The Proprium 86 3. Allport's Rejection of the Self g3 4. The Significance of Allport*s Dilemma 98 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS ON THE STUDY OF G. W. ALLPORT Summary 10 3 1. Allport's Naturalism 10 7 2. Allport's Pluralistic View of Truth H5 3. The Basic Issues PART TWO: PETER A. BERTOCCI CHAPTER VI: P. A. BERTOCCI'S APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 1. Introduction 123 2. Philosophical Method: 127 (a) E. S. Brightman 128 (b) P. A. Bertocci 138 3. The Goal of Philosophy: 151 (a) E. S. Brightman 151 (b) P. A. Bertocci 155 (c) An Alternative Philosophical Perspective 159 (d) Philosophical Perspectives: Mutually Exclusive or .Complementary? 162 CHAPTER VII: P. A. BERTOCCI'S APPROACH TO PERSONALITY 1. The Starting Point as Consciousness: The Self: 172 (a) E. S. Brightman 174 (b) P. A. Bertocci 194 2. The Self as the Unity of its Activities: Rejection of any Soul-Theory 198 3. The Self, The Ego, and Personality 217 4. The Personalistic Dilemma: The Person and His Body 231 CHAPTER VIII: A CRITICISM OF P. A. BERTOCCI'S POSITION ON THE NATURE OF THE SELF 1. Allport*s Homunculus Charge 248 2. Bertocci's Developing Reply 252 3. The Problem of Freedom 260 4. The Problem of Introspection 267 CHAPTER IX: CONCLUSIONS ON THE STUDY OF P. A. BERTOCCI 275 PART THREE: THE BASIC ISSUES CHAPTER X: A RESOLUTION OF THE ALLPORT-BERTOCCI DEBATE 1. The Allport-Bertocci Points of Agreement 1) The Uniqueness of the Person 284 2) The relationship between understanding and prediction, truth and wisdom 285 3) The role of common sense conviction 292 4) The complementary nature of psychology and philosophy 294 2. The Allport-Bertocci Points of Disagreement 1) The Problem of Starting Point: a) Allport's Starting Point 298 b) Bertocci's Starting Point 301 c) The Starting Points Compared 305 2) A Secondary Focal Point of Disagreement: Freedom 306 a) Bertocci's Theory of Human Freedom 309 b) The Significance of this Secondary Focal Point of Disagreement 321 3) A Primary Focal Point of Disagreement: The Self 324 a) The Problem of Personal Continuity 325 b) The Problem of the Self as Khower 335 3. A Resolution of the Allport-Bertocci Debate a) Concessions: G.W. Allport 344 b) Concessions: P.A. Bertocci 347 c) The Resolution 348 CHAPTER XI: THE ROLE OF SELF-EXPERIENCE IN PERSONALITY THEORY 1. Self-Experience and Self-Awareness a) Bertocci's Lack of Clarity 352 b) Self-Experience as Implicit or Marginal 361 (i) Knowledge as Observation and Knowledge as Introspection 361 (ii) Self-Experience and Intentionality 369 (iii) Self-Experience as Secondary Object 376 c) Self-Awareness as Explicit: The Cogito 377 2. Self-Experience, Self-Awareness, and Bodiliness a) Volo, ergo sum 384 b) Bertocci's Dilemma 389 c) The Paradoxical Nature of Experience 397 d) The Relationship between Reflexive Attention and Intentionality 400 3. The Role of Self-Experience in Personality Theory a) Self-Experience and Allport 403 b) Self-Experience and Bertocci 404 c) Self-Experience, Introspection and Homunculism 405 d) Self-Experience, Common Sense, Science, and Reason 408 PART FOUR: CONCLUSION CONCLUSION 411 BIBLIOGRAPHY 425 ABSTRACT 463 INTRODUCTION This study has grown out of a concern over the study and understanding of the individual person. Each individual person is unique by virtue of that area of unqualified privacy referred to by Hopkins: when I consider my selfbeing, my consciousness and feelings of myself, that taste of myself, of I_ and me above and in all things, which is more distinctive than the taste of ale or alum, more distinctive than the smell of walnutleaf or camphor,and is incommunicable by any means to another man.. .Nothing else in nature comes near this unspeakable stress of pitch, distinctiveness, and selving, this selfbeing of my own. Nothing explains it or resembles it, except so far as this, that other men to themselves have the same feeling. But this only multiplies the phenomena to be explained so far as the cases are like and do resemble. But to me there is no resemblance: searching nature I taste self but at one tankard, that of my own being. The development, refinement, condensation of nothing shews any sign of being able to match this to me or give me another taste of it, a taste even resembling it.^ GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS, Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins, ed. by W. H. Gardner (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1953), pp. 145-46. 11 Yet this same uniqueness which is the core of selfhood and the source of all personal values is at the same time the source of many problems. Thus,like Maugham, the individual person can claim that "to myself I am the most important person in the world; though I do not forget that...from the standpoint of common sense, I am of no consequence whatever. It would have made small difference to the universe if I had never existed." For the individual person to discover a mean between this subjective sense of importance and this objective sense of inconsequentiality is not an easy task, as Maritain has pointed out: These two images - of myself and of my situation in respect of other subjects - can positively not be superposed. These two perspectives cannot be made to coincide. I oscillate rather miserably between them. If I abandon myself to the perspective of subjectivity, I absorb everything into myself, and, sacrificing everything to my uniqueness, I am riveted to the absolute of selfishness and pride. If I abandon myself to the perspective of objectivity, I am absorbed into everything, and, dissolving into the world, I am false to my uniqueness and resign my destiny. \}. SOMERSET MAUGHAM, The Summing Up (New York: Garden City Publishing Co., 1940), p. 11; quoted in JACQUES MARITAIN, Existence and the Existent, transl. by L. Galantiere and G. B. Phelan (Garden City, New York: Doubleday S Co., 1957), p.81. iii This dilemma facing the individual person is reflected in the dilemma facing those disciplines which attempt to study and understand the nature of personal being: too much emphasis on one aspect upsets the delicate balance which must be maintained in order to perserve intact these subjective and objective perspectives. Two thinkers who were acutely aware of this dilemma were Gordon W. Allport and Peter A. Bertocci. While Allport approached the nature of personal being from the perspective of a psychologist, Bertocci approached the nature of personal being from the perspective of a philosopher. The fact that their approaches did not coincide accounts in part for the debate which sprang up between them, and which was to become "a classic dialogue in psychological and philosophical literature". While both could agree on many issues, they nevertheless remained divided, despite mutual concessions, on one particular issue of major importance, namely, the theoretical accounting for the unity and continuity of the person. Here, then, hi. I. EVANS, Gordon Allport: The Man and His Ideas (New York: E.P. Dutton S Co., 1970), p. 38. The details concerning the nature and loci of this debate will be given in Chapter I below. iv is an ideal situation for an objective study which focuses on the nature of personal being. The debate, which lasted twenty seven years ending only with the death of Allport, remains unresolved.