Key Arguments

• Dreyfus states that 'Rather, in discovering what they need they make more specific a general need which was there all along but was not determinate.'
• He illustrates this with love: 'When a man falls in love he loves a particular woman, but it is not that particular woman he needed before he fell in love.'
• Afterwards, 'that is after he has found that this particular relationship is gratifying, the need becomes specific as the need for that particular woman, and the man has made a creative discovery about himself.'
• He concludes, 'He has become the sort of person that needs that specific relationship and must view himself as having lacked and needed this relationship all along.'
• Such events reveal 'a new order of significance which is neither simply discovered nor arbitrarily chosen.'
• He invokes Kierkegaard: 'Sören Kierkegaard has a great deal to say about the way one's personality or self is redefined in such an experience, and how everything in a person's world gets a new level of meaning.'
• Because these changes 'by modifying a person's concerns, changes the whole field of interest in terms of which everything gets its significance, Kierkegaard speaks of these fundamental changes as changes in our sphere of existence.'
• He notes that 'because such a change cannot be predicted on the basis of our previous concerns, yet once it has taken place is so pervasive that we cannot imagine how it could have been otherwise, Kierkegaard speaks of a change of sphere of existence as a leap.'

Source Quotes

Nor, when they are authentic, do they arbitrarily adopt values which are imposed by their environment. Rather, in discovering what they need they make more specific a general need which was there all along but was not determinate. This is most obvious when dealing with less instinctual psychological needs.

This is most obvious when dealing with less instinctual psychological needs. When a man falls in love he loves a particular woman, but it is not that particular woman he needed before he fell in love. However, after he is in love, that is after he has found that this particular relationship is gratifying, the need becomes specific as the need for that particular woman, and the man has made a creative discovery about himself.

When a man falls in love he loves a particular woman, but it is not that particular woman he needed before he fell in love. However, after he is in love, that is after he has found that this particular relationship is gratifying, the need becomes specific as the need for that particular woman, and the man has made a creative discovery about himself. He has become the sort of person that needs that specific relationship and must view himself as having lacked and needed this relationship all along.

However, after he is in love, that is after he has found that this particular relationship is gratifying, the need becomes specific as the need for that particular woman, and the man has made a creative discovery about himself. He has become the sort of person that needs that specific relationship and must view himself as having lacked and needed this relationship all along. In such a creative discovery the world reveals a new order of significance which is neither simply discovered nor arbitrarily chosen.

He has become the sort of person that needs that specific relationship and must view himself as having lacked and needed this relationship all along. In such a creative discovery the world reveals a new order of significance which is neither simply discovered nor arbitrarily chosen. Sören Kierkegaard has a great deal to say about the way one's personality or self is redefined in such an experience, and how everything in a person's world gets a new level of meaning.

Sören Kierkegaard has a great deal to say about the way one's personality or self is redefined in such an experience, and how everything in a person's world gets a new level of meaning. Since such a change, by modifying a person's concerns, changes the whole field of interest in terms of which everything gets its significance, Kierkegaard speaks of these fundamental changes as changes in our sphere of existence. And because such a change cannot be predicted on the basis of our previous concerns, yet once it has taken place is so pervasive that we cannot imagine how it could have been otherwise, Kierkegaard speaks of a change of sphere of existence as a leap.10 This same sort of change of world can take place on a conceptual level.

Since such a change, by modifying a person's concerns, changes the whole field of interest in terms of which everything gets its significance, Kierkegaard speaks of these fundamental changes as changes in our sphere of existence. And because such a change cannot be predicted on the basis of our previous concerns, yet once it has taken place is so pervasive that we cannot imagine how it could have been otherwise, Kierkegaard speaks of a change of sphere of existence as a leap.10 This same sort of change of world can take place on a conceptual level. Then it is called a conceptual revolution.

Key Concepts

• Rather, in discovering what they need they make more specific a general need which was there all along but was not determinate.
• When a man falls in love he loves a particular woman, but it is not that particular woman he needed before he fell in love.
• after he is in love, that is after he has found that this particular relationship is gratifying, the need becomes specific as the need for that particular woman, and the man has made a creative discovery about himself.
• He has become the sort of person that needs that specific relationship and must view himself as having lacked and needed this relationship all along.
• In such a creative discovery the world reveals a new order of significance which is neither simply discovered nor arbitrarily chosen.
• Kierkegaard speaks of these fundamental changes as changes in our sphere of existence.
• because such a change cannot be predicted on the basis of our previous concerns, yet once it has taken place is so pervasive that we cannot imagine how it could have been otherwise, Kierkegaard speaks of a change of sphere of existence as a leap.

Context

Building on Todes’s account of needs, Dreyfus uses the example of falling in love and Kierkegaard’s notion of spheres of existence and leaps to show how human needs and concerns are specified through transformative experiences that reshape the whole field of significance.