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The central question of this chapter is how Plotinus accounts for the fact that two seemingly quite different kinds of plurality arise at the level of Intellect: a duality of subject and object of thought and a plurality within the object of thought. It is proposed, with support from some central passages, that for him the thought of Intellect is first‐personal in the sense that its basic form is ‘I am F’. It is further argued that this kind of thought involves the merging of the two kinds of plurality, which coincide in the self‐thought characteristic of Intellect.

This chapter argues that brain systems must meet several 'hard' requirements to qualify as conscious, while other requirements are 'soft' in that they are important for sustaining normal, daily-life awareness but not strictly necessary for having the most basic form of conscious experience. The hard requirements include, first, the ability to interpret (or reconstruct) sensory inputs as having particular qualities or content, within a rich repertoire of modalities or (sub)modalities, such as visual motion, shape, depth and color. Second, this process of attributing sensory “feel” or meaning to inputs occurs in a dynamic or stable state, depending on the constancy of variables governing the sensory flux. Projection of interpreted sensory inputs into an external, perspectival space (vision) or body map (somatosensation) is seen as a relatively basic process, but patient studies indicate that core consciousness does not strictly depend on this ability, as applies as well to normal requirements on the grouping of similar features and binding of different submodalities into objects. Also the “unity” of consciousness and self-awareness are not classified as an essential feature but rather as a constantly maintained “illusion” of the healthy brain empowered by proper multimodal and motor alignment.

The Phenomenological tradition is defined by its attempt to rethink the self and self-awareness. This chapter provides an overview of some of the fundamental developments within that tradition running from Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty to later writers such as Henry. I begin by sketching the key features: its relationship to naturalistic and transcendental approaches, the centrality of the first person perspective, and the hierarchical model which is central to Phenomenology’s vision of experience. I next introduce the specifics of Phenomenology’s picture of self-awareness, positioning it between the spectatorial model found in Brentano and a Kantian intellectualism. I then turn to some key innovations: Sartre’s notion of non-positional self-consciousness, Heidegger on the links between the self and the social, and finally Merleau-Ponty’s conception of embodiment.

A 1963 op-ed piece in the ruling party newspaper by an American graduate student listing incivilities and breaches of public morality became a call to develop civility in Taiwan that almost immediately spurred the formation by two university students of the China Youth Self-Awareness Movement. It was active for several years, recruiting youths to encourage civil behavior in society, but it was disbanded in 1969 when one of its leaders was arrested for rebellion. This chapter defines and operationalizes civility as it is perceived in Taiwan and China and how it will be applied in this book and enumerates the behaviors regarded as uncivil, noting also that, after Taiwan began its democratization process, its level of civility manifestly increased. It also explains the methodology and sources of information used in the study and outlines the chapters.

Know thyself, advises Socrates. To thine own self be true, recommends Shakespeare. Being cognizant of your attributes, limitations, and style heightens your ability to draw selectively upon your own resources and fuels students strengths. It kindles expanding levels of awareness, competence, and confidence in all of you. Awareness of self as person, practitioner, and as teacher is critical. Competencies distinguishing the best from the worst in the helping professions have little to do with theory and technical acumen. They have everything to do with emotional and social know-how. Such know-how is cultivated though an intensive reflective process, the cornerstone of which exceeds abstract theoretical or technical knowledge. Experience and tacit knowledge upon which you rely everyday, almost automatically, when raised to the conscious level, is even more important. As a teacher, reflection goes well beyond improving performance in one particular course. It concentrates as well on consideration about your teaching in general and awareness of your own reflective processes. Practitioners, as well as teachers, include understanding, as contrasted with explanation, as essential to their work. Understanding entails the discipline of attending, noticing, and appreciating others as human subjects. It is very different from explaining and can emerge only gradually when it is tended and nurtured by reflection. Understanding transcends translating or reducing experience to interpretation. As you teach, engage the left hemisphere, chiefly responsible for explanation of data, in tandem with the right hemisphere, chiefly responsible for overall representation, to engender context-rich understanding. All this is not to say that practitioners and teachers are not scientists and do not think critically, but rather that their unique stance concentrates on their heart as well as their head. Talented practitioners think critically and systematically about client needs, practice tasks, and service outcomes. They possess the ability to incorporate knowledge and skills into their work. That is, they understand client behaviors and concerns, the forces and factors that affect clients lives, and are able to select strategies and techniques appropriate to their clients conditions.

The introduction lays out this book’s methodology and main thesis. Spaces of Feeling takes modernist poems and novels as illustrations of an attitude toward affective awareness that has become lost from contemporary conversations about affect. By engaging with critics such as Lauren Berlant, Charles Altieri, Sianne Ngai, and Brian Massumi, as well as moral philosophers such as Martha Nussbaum, it also highlights reasons why this attitude should, once more, become important to us.

The chapter examines youth identity from a number of perspectives starting with psychological and sociological conceptualisations of self and identity. From there the discussion moves to the controversy over stages of identity development, identity as a biographical resource and the complexities for occupational identity of digital employment. These observations open up to the more recent issues of identity construction by social networking among young people through which a variety of identities may be expressed. Key themes include self-realisation and its counterpoints in relation to different forms of communication and self-presentation and broader statuses such as digital generational national and European identity. The chapter explores challenges arising from these developments to which the effects of the COVID-19 (corona) virus are an added factor.

This chapter focuses on Ava’s humanity and her struggle as a prisoner, piecing together her likely fate from a variety of clues. Meanwhile Caleb arrives at the same conclusion thanks to a disturbing cache of video recordings of previous AI iterations desperately trying – and ultimately failing – to escape. By exploring Ava’s desire to escape, it opens a discussion about sentience, consciousness, and how self-awareness is revealed to be much more than merely a survival instinct, all of which renders Ava’s experience that much more tragic.