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Instability and Its Discontents

Aviad Kleinberg

in The Sensual God: How the Senses Make the Almighty Senseless

Where the elusiveness of the human person calls for Archimedean levers.

Setting the Stage: The Problem of Self-Consciousness

Kristina Musholt

in Thinking about Oneself: From Nonconceptual Content to the Concept of a Self

This chapter presents the traditional model of self-consciousness, according to which self-consciousness is a form of object cognition, and explains why this model is misguided. Based on this, it ... More

This chapter presents the traditional model of self-consciousness, according to which self-consciousness is a form of object cognition, and explains why this model is misguided. Based on this, it introduces the notion of prereflective self-consciousness and argues that it needs to be further analyzed. It then examines linguistic approaches to self-consciousness and shows that immunity to error through misidentification is an essential feature of paradigmatic forms of self-consciousness. Finally, it motivates the attempt to provide a theory of self-consciousness that appeals to the notion of nonconceptual content by demonstrating how linguistic approaches remain incomplete.Less

Are Dreams Subjective Experiences (I)? Phenomenal Selfhood and Bodily Experiences in Dreams

Jennifer M. Windt

in Dreaming: A Conceptual Framework for Philosophy of Mind and Empirical Research

Chapter 7 introduces the idea, developed over the following chapters, that the key to a unified framework of dreaming is the investigation of phenomenal selfhood, or the experience of being or having ... More

Chapter 7 introduces the idea, developed over the following chapters, that the key to a unified framework of dreaming is the investigation of phenomenal selfhood, or the experience of being or having a self. Chapter 7 lays the groundwork for describing the relationship between phenomenal selfhood and bodily experience in dreams. A preliminary conclusion is that the phenomenology of embodied selfhood is more variable in dreams than in wakefulness. Importantly, in dreams, phenomenal selfhood can persist even when bodily experience is lost altogether. I introduce different conceptual tools for describing phenomenal embodiment in dreams, ranging from phenomenal indeterminacy and phenomenal disembodiment to strong phenomenal embodiment. Their metatheoretical relevance consists in the fact that the phenomenology of being an embodied self is shown to be unnecessary for the experience of being or having a self.Less

Nonconceptual Self-Consciousness and Cognitive Science

José Luis Bermúdez

in The Bodily Self: Selected Essays

Taking as point of departure a paradox (the paradox of self-consciousness) that appears to block philosophical elucidation of self-consciousness, this paper illustrates how highly conceptual forms of ... More

Taking as point of departure a paradox (the paradox of self-consciousness) that appears to block philosophical elucidation of self-consciousness, this paper illustrates how highly conceptual forms of self-consciousness emerge from a rich foundation of nonconceptual forms of self-awareness. Attention is paid in particular to the primitive forms of nonconceptual self-consciousness manifested in visual perception, somatic proprioception, spatial reasoning and interpersonal psychological interactions. The study of these primitive forms of self-consciousness is an interdisciplinary enterprise and the paper considers a range of points of contact where philosophical work can illuminate work in the cognitive sciences, and vice versa.Less

Ecological Perception and the Notion of a Nonconceptual Point of View

José Luis Bermúdez

in The Bodily Self: Selected Essays

One of the attractions of Gibson’s concept of ecological perception is that it seems to provide a basic awareness of the bodily self that can serve as the core of a comprehensive account of ... More

One of the attractions of Gibson’s concept of ecological perception is that it seems to provide a basic awareness of the bodily self that can serve as the core of a comprehensive account of full-fledged self-consciousness in thought and action. On the ecological understanding of perception, sensitivity to self-specifying information is built into the very structure of perception in such a way that, as Gibson famously put it, all perception involves co-perception of the (bodily) self and the environment. This paper shows how Gibson’s ecological account is not itself sufficient for self-awareness, even of a primitive form, but suggests what needs to be added to it in order to yield the basic awareness of the bodily self that I term possessing a nonconceptual point of view.Less

The Sources of Self-Consciousness

José Luis Bermúdez

in The Bodily Self: Selected Essays

We can think about the sources of self-consciousness in either a genetic or an epistemic sense. That is, we can think either about the origins of the capacity to think self-conscious thoughts or ... More

We can think about the sources of self-consciousness in either a genetic or an epistemic sense. That is, we can think either about the origins of the capacity to think self-conscious thoughts or about the warrant that we have for our self-conscious judgments. These two sets of questions are independent but related. This paper explores the role that the genetic dimension of self-consciousness plays in understanding the epistemology of self-consciousness. I will take as my foil a recent account of some key features of the epistemic dimension of a particular type of self-conscious judgment – the account offered by Christopher Peacocke in his book Being Known (Peacocke 1999). Working through the example of how the bodily self is represented in visual perception shows how the primitive foundations from which self-consciousness emerges in the course of cognitive development are also the foundation for the epistemic status of full-fledged self-conscious thoughts.Less

Bodily Awareness and Self-Consciousness

José Luis Bermúdez

in The Bodily Self: Selected Essays

We are embodied, and we are aware of our bodies ‘from the inside’ through different forms of bodily awareness. But what is the relation between these two facts? Are these forms of bodily awareness ... More

We are embodied, and we are aware of our bodies ‘from the inside’ through different forms of bodily awareness. But what is the relation between these two facts? Are these forms of bodily awareness types of self-consciousness, on a par, say, with introspection? In this paper I argue that bodily awareness is a basic form of self-consciousness, through which perceiving agents are directly conscious of the bodily self. The first two sections clarify the nature of bodily awareness. Sections III to V I explore how bodily awareness functions as a form of self-consciousness and how this is connected to the property of being immune to error through misidentification relative to the first person pronoun. In section IV I consider, and remain unconvinced by, an argument to the effect that bodily awareness cannot have first person content (and hence cannot count as a form of self-consciousness). Finally, section V sketches out an account of the spatial content of bodily awareness and explores the particular type of awareness of the bodily self that it provides.Less

Self-Consciousness, Self-Ownership, and Natural Rights

S. Adam Seagrave

in The Foundations of Natural Morality: On the Compatibility of Natural Rights and the Natural Law

This chapter elaborates on the Lockean idea of self-ownership through self-consciousness, arguing for the derivation of the idea of natural rights from the idea of self-ownership, and the derivation ... More

This chapter elaborates on the Lockean idea of self-ownership through self-consciousness, arguing for the derivation of the idea of natural rights from the idea of self-ownership, and the derivation of self-ownership in turn from an analysis of the phenomenon of self-consciousness. The idea of self-ownership, it is argued, constitutes an “ordering fact,” that is, a special type of descriptive proposition that possesses normative implications. The idea of a natural right is defined as a basis for moral claims residing within or deriving from the individual, and three primary objects of natural right are identified and explained: the Lockean triad of life, liberty, and property.Less

Fichte’s Idealism

Patrick Shade and John Lachs

in Freedom and Limits

Lachs seeks to clarify the distinctive features of Fichte's version of idealism, giving special emphasis to his view of the self. In discussing Fichte's view that the self posits itself (and posits ... More

Lachs seeks to clarify the distinctive features of Fichte's version of idealism, giving special emphasis to his view of the self. In discussing Fichte's view that the self posits itself (and posits itself as positing), Lachs argues that positing is a nontemporal act whose model is the Aristotelian concept of activity. He ends with a critical appraisal of Fichte's treatment of finite selves.Less

Hegel/Marx: Consciousness and Life

Andrzej Warminski

in Ideology, Rhetoric, Aesthetics: For de Man

This chapter demonstrates how a certain ‘Marxian’ material moment already inhabits Hegel's very difficult argument in the Phenomenology of Spirit at the crucial point in the dialectic of ‘Self- ... More

This chapter demonstrates how a certain ‘Marxian’ material moment already inhabits Hegel's very difficult argument in the Phenomenology of Spirit at the crucial point in the dialectic of ‘Self- consciousness’ where the text resorts to a phenomenalization of the sign in order to suture the break between ‘life’ and ‘consciousness’. This material moment is what produces a remainder and a residue: among other things, Marx and the Marxian tradition.Less

Kant on the Unity of Self-Consciousness and Moral Agency

Patricia Kitcher

in The Self: A History

Kant agreed with Hume that humans have no impression of a self; the concept of the self does not enter the mind through the senses. It is, rather, an a priori representation that arises from the ... More

Kant agreed with Hume that humans have no impression of a self; the concept of the self does not enter the mind through the senses. It is, rather, an a priori representation that arises from the activities of the mind in cognizing objects. It is nonetheless a necessary representation for any creature capable of cognition. Even to be able to judge that some thing is some way, a creature must have and use the concept of a ‘self-conscious unified self.’ Kant also argued that the use of the I or self concept was possible only for creatures who were free in thought and action. In later writings, though, he seemed to differentiate the kinds of freedoms involved in thought and action.Less

Reflection: “You Are an I”: Elizabeth Bishop’s “In the Waiting Room”

Gary Ostertag

in The Self: A History

Elizabeth Bishop’s celebrated poem relates a story in which six-year-old Elizabeth is confronted, in the mundane surroundings of a dentist’s waiting room, with her self as an entity in the public ... More

Elizabeth Bishop’s celebrated poem relates a story in which six-year-old Elizabeth is confronted, in the mundane surroundings of a dentist’s waiting room, with her self as an entity in the public world. Her discovery—that she is “one of them”—is met first with disbelief, then horror. This reflection argues that the poem provides a unique expression of a profound philosophical discovery—one not communicable in standard philosophical writing.Less