The Self

2021 ◽  
pp. 167-178
Author(s):  
Mattia Riccardi
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
First Person ◽  
Person Pronoun ◽  
Personal Level

This chapter argues that Nietzsche distinguishes (in particular, in his Zarathustra) between the bodily self that is constituted by the drives and affects and the reflectively conscious self. According to the reading proposed by the author, the latter depends on the former. More precisely, the reflectively conscious self is just the personal-level upshot of the subpersonal order among drives and affects. The chapter also addresses Nietzsche’s diagnosis of the intuitive but mistaken conception of the conscious self as independent from our bodily constitution, and his belief that the sui generis usage of the first-person pronoun is among the sources of this illusion.

First-Person Experiments in Thinking

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 189-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renatus Ziegler ◽  
Ulrich Weger
Keyword(s):  
Physiological Parameters ◽  
The Self ◽  
First Person ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Current Article ◽  
Thinking Process ◽  
Mental Contents

Abstract. In psychology, thinking is typically studied in terms of a range of behavioral or physiological parameters, focusing, for instance, on the mental contents or the neuronal correlates of the thinking process proper. In the current article, by contrast, we seek to complement this approach with an exploration into the experiential or inner dimensions of thinking. These are subtle and elusive and hence easily escape a mode of inquiry that focuses on externally measurable outcomes. We illustrate how a sufficiently trained introspective approach can become a radar for facets of thinking that have found hardly any recognition in the literature so far. We consider this an important complement to third-person research because these introspective observations not only allow for new insights into the nature of thinking proper but also cast other psychological phenomena in a new light, for instance, attention and the self. We outline and discuss our findings and also present a roadmap for the reader interested in studying these phenomena in detail.

Expressing the Self

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
The Self ◽  
Epistemic Status ◽  
First Person ◽  
Semantic Categories ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Person Reference ◽  
De Se ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
Cultural Pragmatics

This book addresses different linguistic and philosophical aspects of referring to the self in a wide range of languages from different language families, including Amharic, English, French, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Newari (Sino-Tibetan), Polish, Tariana (Arawak), and Thai. In the domain of speaking about oneself, languages use a myriad of expressions that cut across grammatical and semantic categories, as well as a wide variety of constructions. Languages of Southeast and East Asia famously employ a great number of terms for first-person reference to signal honorification. The number and mixed properties of these terms make them debatable candidates for pronounhood, with many grammar-driven classifications opting to classify them with nouns. Some languages make use of egophors or logophors, and many exhibit an interaction between expressing the self and expressing evidentiality qua the epistemic status of information held from the ego perspective. The volume’s focus on expressing the self, however, is not directly motivated by an interest in the grammar or lexicon, but instead stems from philosophical discussions of the special status of thoughts about oneself, known as de se thoughts. It is this interdisciplinary understanding of expressing the self that underlies this volume, comprising philosophy of mind at one end of the spectrum and cross-cultural pragmatics of self-expression at the other. This unprecedented juxtaposition results in a novel method of approaching de se and de se expressions, in which research methods from linguistics and philosophy inform each other. The importance of this interdisciplinary perspective on expressing the self cannot be overemphasized. Crucially, the volume also demonstrates that linguistic research on first-person reference makes a valuable contribution to research on the self tout court, by exploring the ways in which the self is expressed, and thereby adding to the insights gained through philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science.

scholarly journals When the World Breaks Down: A 3-Stage Existential Model of Nihilism in Schizophrenia

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Philipp Klar ◽  
Georg Northoff
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
First Person ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
Existential Crisis ◽  
Third Stage ◽  
The World ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Pathological Development ◽  
Sense Of Reality ◽  
Intentional Structure

The existential crisis of nihilism in schizophrenia has been reported since the early days of psychiatry. Taking first-person accounts concerning nihilistic experiences of both the self and the world as vantage point, we aim to develop a dynamic existential model of the pathological development of existential nihilism. Since the phenomenology of such a crisis is intrinsically subjective, we especially take the immediate and pre-reflective first-person perspective’s (FPP) experience (instead of objectified symptoms and diagnoses) of schizophrenia into consideration. The hereby developed existential model consists of 3 conceptualized stages that are nested into each other, which defines what we mean by existential. At the same time, the model intrinsically converges with the phenomenological concept of the self-world structure notable inside our existential framework. Regarding the 3 individual stages, we suggest that the onset or first stage of nihilistic pathogenesis is reflected by phenomenological solipsism, that is, a general disruption of the FPP experience. Paradigmatically, this initial disruption contains the well-known crisis of common sense in schizophrenia. The following second stage of epistemological solipsism negatively affects all possible perspectives of experience, that is, the first-, second-, and third-person perspectives of subjectivity. Therefore, within the second stage, solipsism expands from a disruption of immediate and pre-reflective experience (first stage) to a disruption of reflective experience and principal knowledge (second stage), as mirrored in abnormal epistemological limitations of principal knowledge. Finally, the experience of the annihilation of healthy self-consciousness into the ultimate collapse of the individual’s existence defines the third stage. The schizophrenic individual consequently loses her/his vital experience since the intentional structure of consciousness including any sense of reality breaks down. Such a descriptive-interpretative existential model of nihilism in schizophrenia may ultimately serve as input for future psychopathological investigations of nihilism in general, including, for instance, its manifestation in depression.

The use of second person pronouns in a literary work

2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen de Hoop ◽  
Lotte Hogeweg
Keyword(s):  
Literary Work ◽  
First Person ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Person Pronoun

AbstractFor this study we investigated all occurrences of Dutch second person pronoun subjects in a literary novel, and determined their interpretation. We found two patterns that can both be argued to be functionally related to the de-velopment of the story. First, we found a decrease in the generic use of second person, a decrease which we believe goes hand in hand with an increased distancing of oneself as a reader from the narrator/main character. Second, we found an increase in the use of the descriptive second person. The increased descriptive use of second person pronouns towards the end of the novel is very useful for the reader, because the information provided by the first person narrator himself becomes less and less reliable. Thus, the reader depends more strongly on information provided by other characters and what these characters tell the narrator about himself.

Blackface Abolition and the New Slave Narrative

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura T. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Slave Narratives ◽  
The Self ◽  
Forced Labor ◽  
Slave Narrative ◽  
First Person ◽  
White American ◽  
Political Turn

Since the 1990s, survivors of forced labor have been authoring first-person narratives that consciously and unconsciously reiterate the tropes and conventions of the nineteenth-century American slave narrative. These “new slave narratives” typically conform to the generic tendencies of the traditional slave narratives and serve similar activist purposes. Some of the most popular of the narratives have taken a particular political turn in the post-9/11 context, however, as neoliberal political agendas and anti-Muslim sentiments come to dominate the form and content of many of the African narratives that have been produced. This paper identifies a “blackface abolitionist” trend, in which the first-person testimonies of formerly enslaved Africans is co-opted by some politically motivated white American abolitionists to play a black masquerade, in which they adorn themselves with the suffering of enslaved Africans to thinly veil the self-exonerating and self-defensive crusade politics that motivate their engagement in anti-slavery work.

‘Be Me’: I-Vampire/I-Zombie

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stacey Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Self ◽  
First Person ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Cultural Anxiety ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
Byronic Hero ◽  
Narrative Format ◽  
The Right ◽  
Subsequent Rise

This chapter examines the adoption and development of the first person narrative format within vampire, and more recently zombie, film and television. It considers how this trope has contributed to the rise of the sympathetic/romantic vampire figure from the Byronic hero within Polidori’s The Vampyre to Interview with the Vampire and Byzantium and the subsequent rise of the sympathetic zombie. This chapter questions if this first person point of view empties the vampire and zombie of symbolic agency, or manipulates the genre to explore new meanings. It considers how the genres of the vampire and the zombie are increasingly interconnected, moving away from themes of apocalypse and cultural anxiety to explore questions of identity and the self within a changing world, effectively queering the vampire and zombie for new audiences.Case studies include Let the Right One In, Byzantium, Only Lovers Left Alive, Warm Bodies, Colin, and In the Flesh.

Bodily Awareness and Self-Consciousness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Luis Bermúdez
Keyword(s):  
First Person ◽  
Basic Form ◽  
Bodily Awareness ◽  
Person Pronoun ◽  
Spatial Content

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.

The First-Person Pronoun

2004 ◽  
pp. 174-202
Author(s):  
Eros Corazza
Keyword(s):  
First Person ◽  
Person Pronoun

Self and Self-Representation in the Long Twentieth Century

2021 ◽  
pp. 295-316
Author(s):  
Christopher Peacocke
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
First Person ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Person Concept

Six issues are salient in discussions of the first person since 1900: immunity to error through misidentification; the possibility of survival without survival of one’s body; the elusiveness of the self; the role of the first person attitudes in the explanation of action; the first person component in mental concepts; and the role of the first person simulation in explaining the actions of others. Since 1900, there have been accounts both of the nature of the first person concept, and accounts of the nature of subjects of experience. This paper discusses the achievements and limitations of these accounts in addressing the preceding six issues. These issues are also assessed against a wider range of possibilities, both for the first person and for the subject to which it refers, than are considered in this literature.

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