Petar Dimkov
MSc (Cognitive Science), PhD (Contemporary Philosophy); Areas of Interest: Philosophy of Mind and Cognition, Gnoseology, Phenomenology, Existentialism, Cognitive Science, Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology, Correlational Neuropsychology, Neurophysiology, Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychoanalysis, Neuropsychopharmacology, Brain Imaging, Consciousness, Psychedelics, Creativity and Mysticism Studies.
Address: Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
Address: Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
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The natural existence of man is a being-in-situation. Boundary situations cause man to experience existential breakdowns, but they also offer the possibility of an adaptive reconstructing one's worldview. Today, we live in global boundary situations, which affect us all. Two tendencies dominate: 1) Ignitions of (existential) communicative sparks among people and 2) Complete breaches and ruptures in communication. The current inquiry focuses on the possibility of establishing existential communication within political discourse itself. The contrast between political discourse (as struggle for existence) and existential communication (as struggle for selfhood/Existenz) is staggering. For Karl Jaspers, such a possibility is real, but it is directly destructive to Existenz (the metaphysical "soul"), because it is loaded with falsehood and guilt. Instead, he encourages everyone to enter publicity, in search for existential communication, in order to realize one's selfhood and actualize one's existential freedom. In any case, society needs politicians, nonetheless. However, the reality is such that political discourse is threateningly and grossly inauthentic, overloaded with sophistry and demagogy. To elucidate this confused situation, I introduce the conception of the Continuum "Concealment-Elucidation", on which the characteristics of both political discourse and the struggle for selfhood/Existenz could be ordered, according to their valency. It is the figure of the "great statesman", who is able to perform such a service to society by entering politics to establish existential communication with his people and elucidate all falsehoods and deceptions in political discourse, instead of falling prey to all manipulative political concealments, without ever losing access to his authentic transcendent selfhood/Existenz and existential freedom.
In times of global boundary situations we look backward towards our predecessors and traditions. Politics and political philosophy today are subjected to a multitude of perturbations, which involve basic notions, such as freedom and democracy. In this vein, Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, the two fathers of German existentialism, have a peculiar relation to the history of political philosophy. Both thinkers tried to adjust their philosophies to the ever-changing realities. After a relatively long friendship, a breach occurred in their communication and interrelation, which is suspected to have been caused by the difference in their opinions not so much on philosophy, but on politics. Heidegger gave up any involvement with politics, after his involvement with Nazism, whereas after the Second World War Jaspers tried to put in order the political thought of the present-day, in which endeavor he succeeded partially, but his ideas were never practically implemented. Thus, the potential possibility for cooperation between Heidegger and Jaspers for an eventual common politico-philosophical project was never realized. In the first part of my inquiry, I exposed the history of the friendship of the two thinkers and their academic interrelation, as well as the involvement of both of them in the political thought and the politics of the day. In this second part, I will present the rest of my historico-philosophical analysis by focusing on the interpretations of both Germans on the philosophy of their opponent, which did challenge both not for good, but for bad. At the end, I will present a general conclusion on the encounter Heidegger-Jaspers, which had begun with inspiration for high hopes and big successes, but in reality ended with the silence of Heidegger and Jaspers' attempts for communication renewal and understanding even through pathobiographical analysis.
Our contemporaneity is marked by what is called "global boundary situations". Karl Jaspers introduced the concept of "boundary situation" to designate situations in which the individual confronts the ultimate limit between what can possibly be known and what cannot be known at all. This is the limit of one's worldview, which suffers a dysfunctional failure. Through one's authentic failure, as a shock to one's fundamental ground, one is nonetheless granted the opportunity to adapt and to self-reeducate. Classically, boundary situations were defined as individualistic, but now are placed and interconnected into a global inter-subjective plane, giving rise to a single global boundary situation. In the current paper, my intention is to use as a lesson the interaction, both personal and professional, between Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, the two "fathers" of German existentialism, which resulted in a complete breach of communication, manifested as inauthenticity, loss of being and betrayal of reason, in order to illustrate how it, in fact, in the spirit of political philosophy, could elucidate the anamneses of the present-day relationship between politics and philosophy, as well as the political discourse effected during global boundary situations and its efficiency. As philosophers, Heidegger and Jaspers were very successful; in the political sphere, they both failed to achieve what was an imperative then, namely: a successful quest for a new German identity and a rejuvenation of the German universities. Neither did they succeed in developing a shared philosophical and/or political project. The text is divided into two parts. Both thinkers failed in their endeavors, which were individualistic, and they did not benefit from their personal friendship and professional academic relationship as a possibility to improve and to augment their ideas and thus alter the results of the practical implementation of these very ideas.
Keywords: delusions, overvalued ideas, continuum, comparative analysis, philosophy of mind, dopaminergic mind, neurobiology
Depression is characterized by the classical triad of a delayed process of thought, abulia and dysthymia. Another feature of depression is rumination. Rumination is a penetration in the field of consciousness of past events, their multiple reflections, accompanied by a negative emotional experience and an inability to voluntarily stop the process. The classic understanding of rumination and the delayed thought process is that they are negative findings in the clinical picture, and are subject to therapeutic interference. The article proposes an alternative hypothesis, backed by scientific and philosophical facts, that rumination or what we call depressive-pessimistic realism, actually has positive aspects and represent, albeit strange, a means of adaptation to stressful situations.
spirit, this article focuses on the dynamics of creativity with respect to Freudian psychoanalytical
thought processes and Jaspers’ conception of a boundary situation. This effort is correlated
with the newest research findings in cognitive neuroscience and neurocognitive psychology of
creativity. Philosophical research is also brought in to explain the activity of creative thought
and a new conception of creativity is offered, with a third thought process used, along with
a miniature boundary situation. This represents a development and extension of the original
ideas of Sigmund Freud and Karl Jaspers. The current article thus constitutes an examination
of the intersection of creativity research, the metapsychology of Sigmund Freud, and the existential
philosophy of Karl Jaspers. It makes it a neuro-philosophical discussion par excellence
and represents both a theoretical project and translation. Subsequently, a novel conception is
offered, namely that creativity as unique human experience is illuminated in the miniature of
boundary situation as controlled disinhibition of the intellect or regression in the name of the
ego and as controlled spiral movement via dialectical “jumps” or “leaps.”
Abstract. In the current paper, the temperament typology of Ernst Kretschmer or the so-called schizo-thymic and cycloid temperaments are reviewed. A scientific neurobiopsychological explanation that culminates in a general philosophical elucidation is offered. On the basis of the research in the area of psychology of creativity it is concluded that creativity as a personality trait represents a combination of schizothy-mic and cycloid traits of the character, whereas, at the biological level, it represents a combination of a me-solimbic hyperdopaminergia along with a preserved mesocortical dopaminergic function. From this perspective , creativity represents an adaptive evolutional function of coping with everyday problems, which, paradoxically, is related to the psychotic spectrum of mental disorders. Why and how creativity has led to psychosis or vice versa, why and how psychosis has led to creativity, remains an open question, which requires further research. The relation creativity-psychosis is not a random one perhaps and most probably it represents a question of the intermixture of endogenous and exogenous noxae.
of his meta-psychology of the psychic apparatus. Nowadays, with the advancements in technology and science, his meta-psychological
structural model of the psyche might be either confirmed or denied by comparing the account of the psychic apparatus of the classical
psychoanalysis to the newest findings in neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience. Indeed, the founded interdisciplinary project of
neuro-psychoanalysis strives to answer such questions. In this article, the current thinking on the discussions around Freudian ego and its
possible brain correlates is presented. In 2010, Robin Carhart-Harris and Karl Friston introduced a neuro-psychoanalytic account of the
psychic apparatus, where the ego correlated with a large-scale brain network called the default-mode network. In the end of this paper, an
original theoretical hypothesis is offered, supplemented with review of the literature, namely that the central-executive network and the
salience network are viewed as the true representatives of Freudian ego. The offered hypothesis criticizes Carhart-Harris and Friston’s
postulating of the default-mode network as being the brain representative of Freudian ego.
The natural existence of man is a being-in-situation. Boundary situations cause man to experience existential breakdowns, but they also offer the possibility of an adaptive reconstructing one's worldview. Today, we live in global boundary situations, which affect us all. Two tendencies dominate: 1) Ignitions of (existential) communicative sparks among people and 2) Complete breaches and ruptures in communication. The current inquiry focuses on the possibility of establishing existential communication within political discourse itself. The contrast between political discourse (as struggle for existence) and existential communication (as struggle for selfhood/Existenz) is staggering. For Karl Jaspers, such a possibility is real, but it is directly destructive to Existenz (the metaphysical "soul"), because it is loaded with falsehood and guilt. Instead, he encourages everyone to enter publicity, in search for existential communication, in order to realize one's selfhood and actualize one's existential freedom. In any case, society needs politicians, nonetheless. However, the reality is such that political discourse is threateningly and grossly inauthentic, overloaded with sophistry and demagogy. To elucidate this confused situation, I introduce the conception of the Continuum "Concealment-Elucidation", on which the characteristics of both political discourse and the struggle for selfhood/Existenz could be ordered, according to their valency. It is the figure of the "great statesman", who is able to perform such a service to society by entering politics to establish existential communication with his people and elucidate all falsehoods and deceptions in political discourse, instead of falling prey to all manipulative political concealments, without ever losing access to his authentic transcendent selfhood/Existenz and existential freedom.
In times of global boundary situations we look backward towards our predecessors and traditions. Politics and political philosophy today are subjected to a multitude of perturbations, which involve basic notions, such as freedom and democracy. In this vein, Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, the two fathers of German existentialism, have a peculiar relation to the history of political philosophy. Both thinkers tried to adjust their philosophies to the ever-changing realities. After a relatively long friendship, a breach occurred in their communication and interrelation, which is suspected to have been caused by the difference in their opinions not so much on philosophy, but on politics. Heidegger gave up any involvement with politics, after his involvement with Nazism, whereas after the Second World War Jaspers tried to put in order the political thought of the present-day, in which endeavor he succeeded partially, but his ideas were never practically implemented. Thus, the potential possibility for cooperation between Heidegger and Jaspers for an eventual common politico-philosophical project was never realized. In the first part of my inquiry, I exposed the history of the friendship of the two thinkers and their academic interrelation, as well as the involvement of both of them in the political thought and the politics of the day. In this second part, I will present the rest of my historico-philosophical analysis by focusing on the interpretations of both Germans on the philosophy of their opponent, which did challenge both not for good, but for bad. At the end, I will present a general conclusion on the encounter Heidegger-Jaspers, which had begun with inspiration for high hopes and big successes, but in reality ended with the silence of Heidegger and Jaspers' attempts for communication renewal and understanding even through pathobiographical analysis.
Our contemporaneity is marked by what is called "global boundary situations". Karl Jaspers introduced the concept of "boundary situation" to designate situations in which the individual confronts the ultimate limit between what can possibly be known and what cannot be known at all. This is the limit of one's worldview, which suffers a dysfunctional failure. Through one's authentic failure, as a shock to one's fundamental ground, one is nonetheless granted the opportunity to adapt and to self-reeducate. Classically, boundary situations were defined as individualistic, but now are placed and interconnected into a global inter-subjective plane, giving rise to a single global boundary situation. In the current paper, my intention is to use as a lesson the interaction, both personal and professional, between Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, the two "fathers" of German existentialism, which resulted in a complete breach of communication, manifested as inauthenticity, loss of being and betrayal of reason, in order to illustrate how it, in fact, in the spirit of political philosophy, could elucidate the anamneses of the present-day relationship between politics and philosophy, as well as the political discourse effected during global boundary situations and its efficiency. As philosophers, Heidegger and Jaspers were very successful; in the political sphere, they both failed to achieve what was an imperative then, namely: a successful quest for a new German identity and a rejuvenation of the German universities. Neither did they succeed in developing a shared philosophical and/or political project. The text is divided into two parts. Both thinkers failed in their endeavors, which were individualistic, and they did not benefit from their personal friendship and professional academic relationship as a possibility to improve and to augment their ideas and thus alter the results of the practical implementation of these very ideas.
Keywords: delusions, overvalued ideas, continuum, comparative analysis, philosophy of mind, dopaminergic mind, neurobiology
Depression is characterized by the classical triad of a delayed process of thought, abulia and dysthymia. Another feature of depression is rumination. Rumination is a penetration in the field of consciousness of past events, their multiple reflections, accompanied by a negative emotional experience and an inability to voluntarily stop the process. The classic understanding of rumination and the delayed thought process is that they are negative findings in the clinical picture, and are subject to therapeutic interference. The article proposes an alternative hypothesis, backed by scientific and philosophical facts, that rumination or what we call depressive-pessimistic realism, actually has positive aspects and represent, albeit strange, a means of adaptation to stressful situations.
spirit, this article focuses on the dynamics of creativity with respect to Freudian psychoanalytical
thought processes and Jaspers’ conception of a boundary situation. This effort is correlated
with the newest research findings in cognitive neuroscience and neurocognitive psychology of
creativity. Philosophical research is also brought in to explain the activity of creative thought
and a new conception of creativity is offered, with a third thought process used, along with
a miniature boundary situation. This represents a development and extension of the original
ideas of Sigmund Freud and Karl Jaspers. The current article thus constitutes an examination
of the intersection of creativity research, the metapsychology of Sigmund Freud, and the existential
philosophy of Karl Jaspers. It makes it a neuro-philosophical discussion par excellence
and represents both a theoretical project and translation. Subsequently, a novel conception is
offered, namely that creativity as unique human experience is illuminated in the miniature of
boundary situation as controlled disinhibition of the intellect or regression in the name of the
ego and as controlled spiral movement via dialectical “jumps” or “leaps.”
Abstract. In the current paper, the temperament typology of Ernst Kretschmer or the so-called schizo-thymic and cycloid temperaments are reviewed. A scientific neurobiopsychological explanation that culminates in a general philosophical elucidation is offered. On the basis of the research in the area of psychology of creativity it is concluded that creativity as a personality trait represents a combination of schizothy-mic and cycloid traits of the character, whereas, at the biological level, it represents a combination of a me-solimbic hyperdopaminergia along with a preserved mesocortical dopaminergic function. From this perspective , creativity represents an adaptive evolutional function of coping with everyday problems, which, paradoxically, is related to the psychotic spectrum of mental disorders. Why and how creativity has led to psychosis or vice versa, why and how psychosis has led to creativity, remains an open question, which requires further research. The relation creativity-psychosis is not a random one perhaps and most probably it represents a question of the intermixture of endogenous and exogenous noxae.
of his meta-psychology of the psychic apparatus. Nowadays, with the advancements in technology and science, his meta-psychological
structural model of the psyche might be either confirmed or denied by comparing the account of the psychic apparatus of the classical
psychoanalysis to the newest findings in neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience. Indeed, the founded interdisciplinary project of
neuro-psychoanalysis strives to answer such questions. In this article, the current thinking on the discussions around Freudian ego and its
possible brain correlates is presented. In 2010, Robin Carhart-Harris and Karl Friston introduced a neuro-psychoanalytic account of the
psychic apparatus, where the ego correlated with a large-scale brain network called the default-mode network. In the end of this paper, an
original theoretical hypothesis is offered, supplemented with review of the literature, namely that the central-executive network and the
salience network are viewed as the true representatives of Freudian ego. The offered hypothesis criticizes Carhart-Harris and Friston’s
postulating of the default-mode network as being the brain representative of Freudian ego.
философия на Карл Ясперс
В тази глава се анализира понятието „гранична ситуация“ в рамките на философията на Карл Ясперс или т. нар. Existenzphilosophie. Става въпрос не за вид екзистенциална философия, а за философия на Existenz. Разгледани са в детайли основните понятия на Existenzphilosophie, а именно: Всеобхватно, Existenz, Transcendenz, Разум, Операцията „трансцендиране“, Крушение и Философска вяра. Понятието „гранична ситуация“ е дискутирано, от тази перспектива, в следните главни точки: Същност, Кой попада в гранична ситуация?, Методи за превъзмогване (вж. Глава 3), Гранични ситуации и психопатология, Видове гранични ситуации и Навлизане в гранични ситуации. Разгледано е и понятието „мистично преживяване“ в рамките на Ясперсовата Existenzphilosophie. Приведени са голямо количество цитати от основните трудове на Ясперс (от преводите от немски на английски език), които не са преведени на български език и които сами по себе си представляват една миниатюрна антология на Ясперсовата Existenzphilosophie.
Глава 2: Науката на психо-соматичния комплекс срещу философското съзнание
В тази глава изложението включва главно дискусията на научни понятия и концепции, но са дадени и редица философски такива. Ясперс е считал, че за философстващия са от ключово значение наличните обширни научни познания.
Това е така поради факта, че самата Existenzphilosophie или философската светова ориентация, така да се каже, надгражда научния светоглед или т. нар. от Ясперс научна светова ориентация. Поради този факт, главата започва с дискусия върху отношението, взаимовръзката и взаимоотношението между науката и философията. След това в детайли е анализирано понятието „съзнание“, както от научна, така и от философска перспектива. На читателя се предоставя и кратка научна дискусия върху функционалността на човешкото съзнание и човешката психика в норма и в патология; тук е включено и изложение върху т. нар. механизми за психична защита по А. и З. Фройд. Главата завършва с кратко изложение на главните постановки в когнитивната наука, вкл. и афективната наука: възприятие, познание, емоции и
деятелност. Включено е и изложение, което представлява кратко въведение в основите на функционалната невроанатомия, както и основните принципи на неврои психофармакологията. Емоционалността или афективността е разгледана и от философска перспектива в лицето на т. нар. екзистенциални чувства. Главата завършва с кратко, но богато изложение върху психологията и философията на креативността.
Глава 3: Динамика на креативността във феномена „гранична
ситуация“
Тази глава се базира на Глава 1 и Глава 2, като представлява синтез между двете глави. Фокусът е върху динамиката на креативността, която се анализира в рамките на преживяванията на гранични ситуации. Приведен е списък с възможните методи за превъзмогване на граничните ситуации, който е далеч по-пълен от този, представен в съответната секция в Глава 1. Разгледан е случаят със SARS-CoV-2 като актуална световна гранична ситуация. Впоследствие се въвежда понятието „миниатюра на гранична ситуация“, което представлява смес между креативността като процес (и черта) и граничните ситуации – самата креативност се разглежда като миниатюра на гранична ситуация. Към всичко това, ние сме привели и следните дискусии (като вид практическо приложение на знанието за граничните ситуации):Логотерапията на Виктор Франкъл (и изобщо екзистенциалната психотерапия) като метод за превъзмогване на граничните ситуации, Феноменология на психеделичното състояние (като метод за превъзмогване на гранични ситуации и като метод за индуциране на гранични ситуации, респ. мистични преживявания), Видовете светогледи и граничните ситуации – в частност т. нар. от нас Депресивнопесимистичен реализъм, Философията на човешкото когнитивно фармакологично подобрение – Фармакометафизика и граничните ситуации, Екстазната аура като мистично преживяване при епилепсията на Достоевски и граничните ситуации (вж. секцията за мистичното преживяване в Глава 1), Метафизиката на душата като парафрения на психиката – случаят на Емануел Сведенборг – граничните ситуации и обективацията на езика на Трансценденцията по А. и З. Фройд. Главата завършва с кратко изложение на главните постановки в когнитивната наука, вкл. и афективната наука: възприятие, познание, емоции и деятелност. Включено е и изложение, което представлява кратко въведение в основите на функционалната невроанатомия, както и основните принципи на неврои психофармакологията. Емоционалността или афективността е разгледана и от философска перспектива в лицето на т. нар. екзистенциални чувства. Главата завършва с кратко, но богато изложение върху психологията и философията на креативността.
Глава 3: Динамика на креативността във феномена „гранична ситуация“
Тази глава се базира на Глава 1 и Глава 2, като представлява синтез между двете глави. Фокусът е върху динамиката на креативността, която се анализира в рамките на преживяванията на гранични ситуации. Приведен е списък с възможнитеметоди за превъзмогване на граничните ситуации, който е далеч по-пълен от този, представен в съответната секция в Глава 1. Разгледан е случаят със SARS-CoV-2 като актуална световна гранична ситуация. Впоследствие се въвежда понятието „миниатюра на гранична ситуация“, което представлява смес между креативността като процес (и черта) и граничните ситуации – самата креативност се разглежда като миниатюра на гранична ситуация. Към всичко това, ние сме привели и следните дискусии (като вид практическо приложение на знанието за граничните ситуации): Логотерапията на Виктор Франкъл (и изобщо екзистенциалната психотерапия) като метод за превъзмогване на граничните ситуации, Феноменология на психеделичното състояние (като метод за превъзмогване на гранични ситуации и като метод за
индуциране на гранични ситуации, респ. мистични преживявания), Видовете светогледи и граничните ситуации – в частност т. нар. от нас Депресивнопесимистичен реализъм, Философията на човешкото когнитивно фармакологично подобрение – Фармакометафизика и граничните ситуации, Екстазната аура като мистично преживяване при епилепсията на Достоевски и граничните ситуации (вж. секцията за мистичното преживяване в Глава 1), Метафизиката на душата като парафрения на психиката – случаят на Емануел Сведенборг – граничните ситуации и обективацията на езика на Трансценденцията.