[PEN-L:9438] My Ideologies

[Brad De Long <delong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>
>
>Brad, for us ignorati could you briefly explain what belief in the
>"autonomous subject" entails and why you think it is false?
>
>
>Bill

That I have a very hard time believing that my deep opinions, my
views, my tastes and preferences are in any sense "mine", or
constitutive of "me" in a strong sense that implies that other people
ought to pay attention to them.

Instead, they are the result of a whole bunch of forces--society,
nature, chance--that have molded who I think I am.

Thus when I make choices, who is really doing the choosing? Some
combination of society, nature, and chance. Not an autonomous agent,
but instead simply the locus of the effects of a structure of
structures...

Even worse are those times when I get in the car in the evening to go
to the grocery store, start thinking about something, and the next
thing *I* know I'm pulling into the Upper Haste Parking Garage.
Exactly who has been driving the car?...


Brad DeLong