scholarly journals Self-description in everyday interaction: Generalizations about oneself as accounts of behavior

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-364
Author(s):  
Laura Visapää
Keyword(s):  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
The Self ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
First Person ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Habitual Behavior ◽  
Everyday Interaction ◽  
First Person Perspective

This article suggests that there are systematic ways in which the identity of the ‘self’, as created and performed through first-person markers, can be made relevant and consequential in particular episodes of interaction. More specifically, the study looks at generalizations that people present about themselves in local interactional contexts: displays of the types of people they are and the ways in which they always or never behave (‘I am this kind of person’, ‘I never do this’). It will be shown that such self-generalizations are typically used to account for one’s behavior, and that this tendency is tied to the epistemic and moral rights provided by the first-person perspective, having the primary rights to one’s own experience. The study suggests that speakers’ personal characteristics or habitual behavior can be offered as a locally produced micro-identity, which can come to have interactional significance.

A New Deflationary Account of the “Primitive Sense of Selfhood”

2018 ◽  
Vol 95 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-328
Author(s):  
Roberto Horácio de Sá Pereira
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
First Person ◽  
Mental Phenomenon ◽  
Clear Case ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Ecological Self ◽  
First Person Perspective ◽  
Circumstance Of Evaluation ◽  
Self Reference ◽  
Orthodox View

This paper proposes a new deflationary reading of the metaphor of the “primitive sense of selfhood” in perception and proprioception, usually understood as an “experiential self-reference” that takes place before reflection and any use of concepts. As such, the paper is also a new defense of the old orthodox view that self-consciousness is a highly complex mental phenomenon that requires equally complex concepts. The author’s defense is a clear case of inference to the best explanation. He argues that postulating an “experiential self-reference” to explain the “primitive sense of selfhood” (ecological self, proprioception and the first-person perspective) is as explanatory overkill as attributing perceptions to bacteria to explain the remarkably sophisticated ways in which they adapt, attune, and respond to their environments. This is what the author calls trivialization of self-consciousness. The metaphor of the “primitive sense of selfhood” in perception and proprioception is far less extravagantly explained by what, based on Recanati, the author calls self-involvement without self-consciousness: there is no “experiential self-reference” because there is no self-reference in the first place. Rather than being articulated as a constituent of the contents of her/his perceptions or proprioception, the self/subject is the key element of the circumstance of evaluation of these selfless contents.

Pre-Reflective Self-Consciousness

Janus Head ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 493-519
Author(s):  
Dorothée Legrand ◽  
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Intentional Object ◽  
The Self ◽  
First Person ◽  
Process Information ◽  
Bodily Experience ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Bodily Experiences ◽  
First Person Perspective ◽  
Opaque Body

Empirical and experiential investigations allow the distinction between observational and non-observational forms of subjective bodily experiences. From a first-person perspective, the biological body can be (1) an "opaque body" taken as an intentional object of observational consciousness, (2) a "performative body" pre-reflectively experienced as a subject/agent, (3) a "transparent body" pre-reflectively experienced as the bodily mode of givenness of objects in the external world, or (4) an "invisible body" absent from experience. It is proposed that pre-reflective bodily experiences rely on sensori-motor integrative mechanisms that process information on the external world in a self relative way. These processes are identification-free in that the self is not identified as an object of observation. Moreover, it is defended that observational self-consciousness must be grounded on such identification-free processes and pre-reflective forms of bodily experience.

Self-Awareness and the “I” in the Phenomenological Tradition

2021 ◽  
pp. 267-286
Author(s):  
Sacha Golob
Keyword(s):  
Hierarchical Model ◽  
The Self ◽  
First Person ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Phenomenological Tradition ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Features ◽  
First Person Perspective ◽  
Key Innovations

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.

scholarly journals SUBJEKTYVUMAS, SAVIPATIRTIS IR ANONIMIŠKUMAS

Problemos ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 84 ◽  
pp. 60-71
Author(s):  
Dalius Jonkus
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
First Person ◽  
Unity Of Consciousness ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
First Person Perspective

Straipsnyje nagrinėjama egologinės sąmonės problema ir jos santykis su savipatirtimi. Kriti­kuodami egologinę sąmonės sampratą tiek Gurwitschius, tiek Sartre’as parodo, kad sąmonės išgyvenimų vienovei užtikrinti nereikalinga jokia išorinė instancija. Tuo remdamiesi jie tvirtina, kad ego kaip sąmonę vienijantis pradas neegzistuoja. Tačiau sąmonės intencionalumas reiškia ne tik sąmonės vienovę ar nu­kreiptumą į pasaulio objektus, bet ir sąmonės saviduotį. Sąmonė įsisąmonina save pačią ne tik refleksijos, kaip tai supranta klasikinė filosofija, bet ir tiesioginės savipatirties būdu. Toks patirties, kuri implikuoja tiesioginį sąlytį su savimi, modelis siūlomas Husserlio ir kitų fenomenologų, šiandien reikšminamas Dano Zahavi tyrinėjimuose. Refleksija reiškia nuotolį savęs atžvilgiu, o tiesioginė savipatirtis yra ikireflektyvus cogito arba ikireflektyvi savimonė. Straipsnio tikslas – atskleisti intencionalumo sąryšį su pirmojo asmens perspektyva ir sąmonės sąmoningumo problema. Pasąmonės kaip sąmonę determinuojančio pagrindo apibrėžtis yra nepakankama, nes ji suponuoja išorinį sąmoningumo ir nesąmoningumo santykį. Sąmonė turėtų būti suprasta ne kaip užbaigtas daiktas, bet kaip siekis tapti sąmoningam.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: fenomenologija, patirtis, subjektyvumas, ego, savipatirtis, sąmonė, pasą­monėSubjektyvumas, savipatirtis ir anonimiškumasDalius Jonkus   AbstractThis article investigates the problem of egological consciousness and its connection with self-experience. By criticizing the conception of egological consciousness Gurwitsch and Sartre demonstrate that no foreign instance is neccecary to guarantee the unity of consciousness. By using that theory they claim that the ego, as a unifying entity for consciousness, does not exist. However, the intentionality of consciousness means not only its unity or focus on wordly objects, but also its self-givenness. Consciousness realizes itself as self-consciousness not only with the help of reflection as understood in classic philosophy but also by means of direct self-experience. The model of this kind of experience, which implicates self-experience, proposed by Husserl and other phenomenologists, is actualized today in the studies of Dan Zahavi. Reflection means distance to the self, but direct self-experience is a pre-reflective cogito. The aim of this artice is to reveal the connection between intentionality and egological self-experience, between selfgivenness of consciousness and a first-person perspective. The subconsciousness is insufficient as a consciousness determinating basis, because it supposes an outer connection of consciousness with subconsciousness. The consciousness should be understood not as a finished object, but as an intention to become conscious.Keywords: phenomenology, experience, subjectivity, ego, self-experience, consciousness, subconsciousness

scholarly journals Differentiating Real-World Autobiographical Experiences without Recourse to Behaviour

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 521
Author(s):  
Jonathan Erez ◽  
Marie-Eve Gagnon ◽  
Adrian M. Owen
Keyword(s):  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Brain Injuries ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Extrastriate Cortex ◽  
First Person ◽  
Autobiographical Memories ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Machine Learning Model ◽  
First Person Perspective

Investigating human consciousness based on brain activity alone is a key challenge in cognitive neuroscience. One of its central facets, the ability to form autobiographical memories, has been investigated through several fMRI studies that have revealed a pattern of activity across a network of frontal, parietal, and medial temporal lobe regions when participants view personal photographs, as opposed to when they view photographs from someone else’s life. Here, our goal was to attempt to decode when participants were re-experiencing an entire event, captured on video from a first-person perspective, relative to a very similar event experienced by someone else. Participants were asked to sit passively in a wheelchair while a researcher pushed them around a local mall. A small wearable camera was mounted on each participant, in order to capture autobiographical videos of the visit from a first-person perspective. One week later, participants were scanned while they passively viewed different categories of videos; some were autobiographical, while others were not. A machine-learning model was able to successfully classify the video categories above chance, both within and across participants, suggesting that there is a shared mechanism differentiating autobiographical experiences from non-autobiographical ones. Moreover, the classifier brain maps revealed that the fronto-parietal network, mid-temporal regions and extrastriate cortex were critical for differentiating between autobiographical and non-autobiographical memories. We argue that this novel paradigm captures the true nature of autobiographical memories, and is well suited to patients (e.g., with brain injuries) who may be unable to respond reliably to traditional experimental stimuli.

scholarly journals An immersive first-person navigation task for abstract knowledge acquisition

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Doerte Kuhrt ◽  
Natalie R. St. John ◽  
Jacob L. S. Bellmund ◽  
Raphael Kaplan ◽  
Christian F. Doeller
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Navigation ◽  
First Person ◽  
Abstract Space ◽  
Motion Platform ◽  
Head Mounted Display ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Abstract Knowledge ◽  
Behavioural Patterns ◽  
Spatial Domains ◽  
First Person Perspective

AbstractAdvances in virtual reality (VR) technology have greatly benefited spatial navigation research. By presenting space in a controlled manner, changing aspects of the environment one at a time or manipulating the gain from different sensory inputs, the mechanisms underlying spatial behaviour can be investigated. In parallel, a growing body of evidence suggests that the processes involved in spatial navigation extend to non-spatial domains. Here, we leverage VR technology advances to test whether participants can navigate abstract knowledge. We designed a two-dimensional quantity space—presented using a head-mounted display—to test if participants can navigate abstract knowledge using a first-person perspective navigation paradigm. To investigate the effect of physical movement, we divided participants into two groups: one walking and rotating on a motion platform, the other group using a gamepad to move through the abstract space. We found that both groups learned to navigate using a first-person perspective and formed accurate representations of the abstract space. Interestingly, navigation in the quantity space resembled behavioural patterns observed in navigation studies using environments with natural visuospatial cues. Notably, both groups demonstrated similar patterns of learning. Taken together, these results imply that both self-movement and remote exploration can be used to learn the relational mapping between abstract stimuli.

scholarly journals Human Enhancements and Voting: Towards a Declaration of Rights and Responsibilities of Beings

Philosophies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
S. J. Blodgett-Ford
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Governance Structure ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Person ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
First Person Perspective ◽  
To Come ◽  
Additional Option

The phenomenon and ethics of “voting” will be explored in the context of human enhancements. “Voting” will be examined for enhanced humans with moderate and extreme enhancements. Existing patterns of discrimination in voting around the globe could continue substantially “as is” for those with moderate enhancements. For extreme enhancements, voting rights could be challenged if the very humanity of the enhanced was in doubt. Humans who were not enhanced could also be disenfranchised if certain enhancements become prevalent. Voting will be examined using a theory of engagement articulated by Professor Sophie Loidolt that emphasizes the importance of legitimization and justification by “facing the appeal of the other” to determine what is “right” from a phenomenological first-person perspective. Seeking inspiration from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948, voting rights and responsibilities will be re-framed from a foundational working hypothesis that all enhanced and non-enhanced humans should have a right to vote directly. Representative voting will be considered as an admittedly imperfect alternative or additional option. The framework in which voting occurs, as well as the processes, temporal cadence, and role of voting, requires the participation from as diverse a group of humans as possible. Voting rights delivered by fiat to enhanced or non-enhanced humans who were excluded from participation in the design and ratification of the governance structure is not legitimate. Applying and extending Loidolt’s framework, we must recognize the urgency that demands the impossible, with openness to that universality in progress (or universality to come) that keeps being constituted from the outside.

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