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Volition Under Hypnosis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

J. T. Stevenson
Affiliation:
University of Toronto

Extract

It Seems that a major impetus to philosophical thought about volitional concepts — the concepts of action, purpose, choice, intention, deliberation, freedom, of the voluntary and the like — has often been a reflection on the discoveries and theories of science. Sometimes philosophy is stimulated by a broad-ranging scientific theory. Thus we have recently seen a flurry of debates about B.F. Skinner's Beyond Freedom and Dignity which challenges the validity of our commonsense notions and forces us to clarify and defend them or accept a drastic revision in our conception of ourselves and of human society. Sometimes, on the other hand, it is not a grand theory which excites our interest but rather a new discovery or the investigation of a particular type of phenomenon which generates some new problems or throws light on old ones.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1976

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References

1 See Skinner, B.F., Beyond Freedom and Dignity, New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1971Google Scholar and Carpenter, Finley, The Skinner Primer: Behind Freedom and Dignity, New York: Collier, 1974Google Scholar. Throughout this paper Ishall often make no sharp distinctions amongst terms such as “voluntary”, “intentional”, “deliberate”, etc. I am aware of the nice Austinian points that have been made concerning them, but forreasons which gradually emerge they are not always helpful, and in contexts where I use the terms indifferently nothing of consequence hinges on the loose usage.

2 Miller, Neal, “Learning of Visceral and Glandular Responses”, Science, 163 (1969) pp. 434445CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. DiCara, Leo V., “Learning in the Autonomic Nervous System”, Scientific American (Jan. 1970) pp. 3039.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

3 Delgado, J.M.R., Physical Control of the Mind, New York: Harper, Row, 1969, Chap. 14.Google Scholar

4 L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, sec. 621.

5 Milton, Paradise Lost.

6 Taylor, R., Action and Purpose, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966Google Scholar and Melden, A.I., Free Action, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961.Google Scholar

7 See, for example, Shaffer, Jerome A., Philosophy of Mind, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1968Google Scholar and Davis, L.H., “Actions”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supp. Vol. 1 Part 2.Google Scholar

I do not wish to suggest that all these theories are mutually exclusive or that one could not devise an eclectic theory incorporating elements from several of them.

8 Barber, T.X., Hypnosis: A Scientific Approach, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1969, p. 3.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., pp. 4–5.

10 Hilgard, Ernest R., Hypnotic Susceptibility, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. 1965, p. 3.Google ScholarPubMed

11 Quoted in Hilgard, op. cit., p. 81.

12 Ibid., pp. 97–98.

13 Ibid., p. 99.

15 Orne, Martin T., “On the Simulating Subject as Quasi-Control Group in Hypnosis Research: What, Why and How” in Hypnosis: Research Developments and Perspectives, Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1972, edited by Fromm, Erika and Shor, Ronald E., p. 415.Google Scholar

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17 Orne, op. cit., p. 442.

18 Ibid., p. 421.

19 Ibid., p. 400.

20 Hilgard, op. cit., p. 99.

21 Ibid., p. 214.

22 Ibid., p. 98.

23 Ibid., p. 216.

24 Ibid., p. 98.

25 Barber, op. cit., p. 7.

26 Ibid., p. 10.

27 E. Hilgard, op. cit., pp. 12–131.

28 Ibid., p. 13.

29 Shor, Ronald E., ”Three Dimensions of Hypnotic Depth”, International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 1962, 10, 2338.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

31 Hilgard, Josephine, Personality and Hypnosis: A Study of Imaginative Involvement, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970, p. 5.Google Scholar

32 Ibid., p. 36.

33 Ibid., pp. 44–52.

34 Ibid., p. 243.

35 Ibid., pp. 247–249.

37 Ibid., p. 35.

38 Ibid., pp. 38–39.

39 Ibid., p.87.

40 Fitzgerald, P.J., “Voluntary and Involuntary Acts”, in Readings in the Theory of Action, ed., by Care, N.S. and Landesman, C., Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968.Google Scholar

41 LeCron, Leslie M., Self-Hypnosis, New York: The New American Library, 1964, p. 42.Google Scholar

42 Fitzgerald, op. cit., p. 388.

43 Barber, op. cit., p. 201. See Williams, Glanville L., Criminal Law, London: Stevens and Sons Ltd., 1953, p. 12Google Scholar. For an olderview see Bjornstrom, Fredrick, “Hypnotism and the Law” from Hypnotism, Its History and Present Development, reprinted in Foundations of Hypnotism, from Mesmer to Freud, ed. by Tinterow, M.M., Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1970.Google Scholar

44 Ibid., p. 202.

45 Estabrooks, G.H., Hypnotism, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co.Inc., 1957, p. 13.Google Scholar

46 These experiments are discussed in Barber, op. cit., pp. 196–201.

47 Milgram, S., “Behavioural Study of Obedience”, Journal of Abnormal Social Psychology, 1963, pp. 371378.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49 The four verbal ‘prods’ used in the experiment were:

“Prod 1: Please continue, or Please go on.

Prod 2: The experiment requires that you continue.

Prod 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue.

Prod 4: You have no other choice, you must go on.”

50 See Das, J.P., “The Pavlovian Theory of Hypnosis: An Evaluation”, in The Nature of Hypnosis: Selected Basic Readings, ed. by Shor, R.E. and Orne, M.T., New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc., 1965Google Scholar. See also “L'inconscient du point de vue Pavlovien et selon la cybernétique” by P.W. Bassine and “Les mécanismes des différentes profondeurs de l'hypnose” by Rojnov, V.E. in Hypnoses and Psychosomatic Medicine, ed. by Lassner, J., Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1967.Google Scholar

51 Gill, M.M. and Brennan, M., Hypnosis and Related States, New York: International Univ. Press, 1959Google Scholar. See also Kubie, L.S. and Margolin, S., “The Process of Hypnotism and the Nature of Hypnotic State”, The American Journal of Psychiatry, 100, March 1944, pp. 611622.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

52 Hull, Clark L., Hypnosis and Suggestibility: An ExperimentalApproach, New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, 1968, p. 391.Google Scholar

53 Ibid., p. 392.

54 Ibid., p. 394.

55 Ibid., p. 395.

56 Ibid., pp. 395–396.

57 Ibid., p. 396.

58 I am not asserting that all thinking is internalized speech, for there are other cognitive styles and modalities. But thought does have some special relations with overt speech. See Geach, Peter, Mental Acts, London: Routledge and Kegan PaulGoogle Scholar and Sellars, Wilfred, “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind” in Science, Perception and Reality, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963.Google Scholar

59 See F.F. Wagner, “The Delusion of Hypnotic Influence andHypnotic State” in Lassner, op. cit.

60 See LeCron, op. cit.

61 Allport, Gordon W., “The Ego in Contemporary Psychology” in Personality and Social Encounter, Boston: Beacon Press, 1960.Google Scholar

62 Berne, Eric, Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy, New York: Ballantine Books, Inc., 1973.Google Scholar

63 Ibid., p. xix.

64 Ibid., p. 23.

65 Ibid., p. 24.

66 Ibid., p. 23.