The Stream of Consciousness: XIV. Two Contrasting Accounts of Pervasive Bodily Self-Awareness

1997 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Natsoulas
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Stream Of Consciousness ◽  
Bodily Feelings

The present installment in this series of articles continues in consideration of the role that bodily self-awareness plays in the very structure of the basic durational components constituting William James's stream of consciousness. The focus here is dual, on both the prominent phenomenologist Aron Gurwitsch's account of this role and on James's account. Critically addressed is Gurwitsch's claim concerning the awareness of the behaviors involved in the process of perceiving. Such awareness is proposed to be typically marginal, in the sense of having a distinct and separate content within each component of the stream. Addressed too is James's account of pervasive bodily self-awareness as integrated within each state, or pulse, of consciousness although varying in attentiveness. Such awareness is always part of, at least, the fringe of every pulse of consciousness, which is not to be confused with Gurwitsch's margin. The present article explains how the awareness of bodily feelings is crucial to James's account of personal identity.

The Stream of Consciousness: XII. Consciousness and Self-Awareness

1996 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Natsoulas
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Location ◽  
Present Series ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Stream Of Consciousness ◽  
Unity Of Consciousness ◽  
Bodily Feelings ◽  
Personal Consciousness ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
Diachronic Unity ◽  
Intrinsic Feature

Consciousness and self-awareness—how are they mutually related? This contribution to the present series of articles begins to consider replies to this question from the Jamesian perspective of The Principles. First, several relevant senses of consciousness are made explicit. Then, I give attention to James's notion of personal consciousness: How do the basic durational components of a stream of consciousness “cohere” to form a stream, given that, on James's mind—body dualism, they do not have a spatial location? Continuities of content among the components of a single stream is supposed to be the unifying factor; James held bodily feelings are an intrinsic feature of every component of a stream. The diachronic unity of consciousness rests heavily on a kind of self-awareness. Also addressed here are inner awareness, or the immediate awareness that one can have of one's mental-occurrence instances, and whether remembering past experiences requires that one had not only inner awareness of them when they occurred, but self-awareness as well.

The Stream of Consciousness: XVII. James in Recent Context (1991–1996)

1998 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 345-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Natsoulas
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Possible Selves ◽  
The Self ◽  
Present Series ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Stream Of Consciousness

By examining work published in this Journal, I bring present-day issues to bear on my ongoing exploration of William James's stream of consciousness. How do knowledgeable psychological scientists demonstrate or acknowledge the relevance to their own work of their illustrious predecessor's introspectively grounded theses and arguments? In installments number XV, XVI, and XVII of the present series, I consider in units of five the initial fifteen volumes of Imagination, Cognition and Personality—the final five of these volumes in the present article. I inquire here into what specifically it was that each of five particular teams of psychologists who published in this Journal from 1991 to 1996 explicitly drew from James; and I address the corresponding topic from James's perspective insofar as space allows. Thus, the topics of the present article turn out to be these: 1) two kinds of self-awareness, 2) consciousness as impulsive in its very nature, 3) how the self is comprised, 4) the scope of psychology, and 5) possible selves.

The Stream of Consciousness: XIII. Bodily Self-Awareness and Aron Gurwitsch's Margin

1997 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Natsoulas
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
William James ◽  
Present Series ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Stream Of Consciousness ◽  
Bodily Feeling ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Aron Gurwitsch

According to William James, bodily self-awareness (bodily feeling) is pervasive throughout the stream of consciousness; such awareness is included in each and every pulse of mentality that makes up the stream of consciousness. This installment of the present series of articles begins to consider the role that bodily self-awareness plays in the very structure of the basic durational components of James's stream. The focus here is on an account of this role that the prominent phenomenologist Aron Gurwitsch preferred. Gurwitsch held that pervasive bodily self-awareness belongs to the margin of consciousness; such bodily self-awareness occurs in the form of distinct acts of awareness possessing a separate content from that of the central thematic process which also characterizes every pulse of consciousness. The present article discusses Gurwitsch's account in order to set up a contrast, which will be drawn explicitly in the next installment, with James's more phenomeno-logically integrated conception of pervasive bodily self-awareness.

Artificial Identity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James DiGiovanna
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Intentional States ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Persistence Conditions ◽  
Moral Problems ◽  
Extreme Change ◽  
At Will

Enhancement and AI create moral dilemmas not envisaged in standard ethical theories. Some of this stems from the increased malleability of personal identity that this technology affords: an artificial being can instantly alter its memory, preferences, and moral character. If a self can, at will, jettison essential identity-giving characteristics, how are we to rely upon, befriend, or judge it? Moral problems will stem from the fact that such beings are para-persons: they meet all the standard requirements of personhood (self-awareness, agency, intentional states, second-order desires, etc.) but have an additional ability—the capacity for instant change—that disqualifies them from ordinary personal identity. In order to rescue some responsibility assignments for para-persons, a fine-grained analysis of responsibility-bearing parts of selves and the persistence conditions of these parts is proposed and recommended also for standard persons who undergo extreme change.

scholarly journals Phenomenology of Visuo-spatial Working Memory Task Performance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleš Oblak ◽  
Anka Slana Ozimič ◽  
Grega Repovš ◽  
Urban Kordeš
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Bodily Feelings ◽  
Psychological Tasks

In experimental cognitive psychology, objects of inquiry have typically been operationalized with psychological tasks. If we are interested in measuring the target phenomena, we must inquire into the validity of the task; that is, to what extent does the task elicit the phenomenon in question. If we subscribe to the second view, evaluating the validity and the interpretation of the gathered data can be supplemented by understanding the experience of solving psychological tasks. The aim of the present article is to investigate how individuals experience performing a psychological task, specifically, a visuo-spatial working memory task. We present ethnographic descriptions of different ways individuals can experience the same task. We focus on aspects of experience that comprise the overall sense of experience (e.g., bodily feelings, emotional atmosphere, mood). We discuss the methodological implications of our findings and the possibility of conducting a neurophenomenology of visuo-spatial working memory.

Deciphering Hume

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 202-215
Author(s):  
Evgeniy N. Blinov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Radical Empiricism ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature ◽  
Gradual Shift ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Philosophical Project

The present article analyzes an ambitious attempt to revisit and reevaluate Hume’s metaphysical project in the early 21th century, proposed by Vadim Vasilyev. His claim is to demonstrate that the problems raised by the author of Treatise of Human Nature and Enquiry concerning Human Understanding are far from being completely resolved and could provide us some valuable hints into the problems of contemporary analytical metaphysics. Against a widespread consensus that the evolution in Hume’s had been insignificant, Vasilyev maintains that his philosophical project underwent crucial transformations. He provides evidence of a gradual shift from a radical empiricism to a moderate rationalism by re-examining some classical problems of Hume’s studies and providing a critical analysis of the problems of causality and personal identity. This review provides some arguments for and against Vasilyev’s claims.

scholarly journals On the (Methodological) Future of Law and Economics. The Uneasy Burden of Value Judgments and Normativity

Global Jurist ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Silvestri
Keyword(s):  
Economic Analysis ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Economic Analysis Of Law ◽  
Value Judgments ◽  
Positive Approach ◽  
Problematic Relationship ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Future

Abstract Taking as its starting-point Guido Calabresi’s latest book – The Future of Law and Economics – the present article aims to explore the often neglected issue of value judgments and normativity in Law and Economics. I will show the importance of enquiring Calabresi’s methodological distinction between Law and Economics and Economic Analysis of Law and the related bilateralism thesis in order to understand the problematic relationship between methodological value judgments and ethical value judgments, the ‘distance’ between Calabresi and Posner and the problematic notion of reformism. Then I will try to introduce a different notion of normativity. I will also show the existence of an unresolved tension in Calabresi’s methodological discourse between a positive approach, which seems to be privileged in this book, and his insistence on the inevitability of value judgments in economic analysis. Finally, I clarify the reasons for the ‘ignorance’ of values by the economist by distinguishing between economists’ “lack of self-awareness”, economists’ idolatry and the economists’ lenses.

Screaming in a Vacuum: Some Adolescents' Search for Meaning

1973 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Eisen
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
The Self ◽  
Clinical Material ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Late Adolescents ◽  
Search For Meaning ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Therapeutic Task ◽  
Special Risk

Late adolescents, often in conflict over establishing an adequate personal identity in a discordant world, are at special risk. Some feel an ideational and affective emptiness and an absence of meaningful “external” experience, which can be likened to screaming in a vacuum. Clinical material from three adolescents is described. Theoretical formulations incorporating the long-term impoverishment of object relationships and lack of definition of “the self” are seen as central issues. The therapeutic task, aimed at establishing an acceptable and reliable self-awareness, is discussed.

Self-Determination and Personal Identity in University Students: The Mediating Role of Future Orientation

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mingming Zhou ◽  
Chester Chun Seng Kam
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Future Orientation ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Psychological Traits ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Perceived Choice

AbstractIn this study, we sought to extend the research on self-determination, future orientation, and personal identity construction by integrating the theories on self-determination and future orientation to provide a conceptual framework for understanding the relations between personal identity and the following individual characteristics: Hope, optimism, awareness of self, and perceived choice. 191 university students in China responded surveys in hardcopies on an individual basis. Our SEM results revealed that proximal future orientation influenced the mechanisms through which distal psychological traits affected identity construction. Specifically, hope mediated the effects of self-awareness on the participants’ personal identity ratings (b = .45, p < .05). Although optimism was related to both awareness of self and perceived choice, it was not significantly related to personal identity. This study suggested an extended framework through which we could understand how the interaction between future orientation and self-determination can predict personal identity. The findings have significant implications for interventions in educational settings.

scholarly journals Leiblichkeit und personale Identität in der Demenz

2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
John Locke ◽  
The Body ◽  
Derek Parfit ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Body Memory ◽  
Basic Criterion ◽  
Dementia Patients ◽  
Rational Choices ◽  
The Brain

Abstract Theories of personal identity in the tradition of John Locke and Derek Parfit emphasize the importance of psychological continuity and the abilities to think, to remember and to make rational choices as a basic criterion for personhood. These concepts, however, are situated within a dualistic framework, in which the body is regarded as a mere vehicle of the person, or a carrier of the brain as the organ of mental faculties. Based on the phenomenology of embodiment, this paper elaborates a different approach to personal identity. In this perspective, selfhood is primarily constituted by pre-reflective self-awareness and the body memory of an individual, which consists in the embodiment and enactment of familiar habits, practices and preferences. As can be shown, this understanding of personhood still applies to dementia patients even in the later stages of the disease.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document