Exceeding Self-Awareness and Being Aware of the External World

The fruit of several centuries of rationalistic thought in the West has been to reduce both the objective and the subjective poles of knowledge to a single level. In the same way that the Cogito of Descartes is based on reducing the knowing subject to a single mode of awareness, the external world which this ‘knowing self’ perceives is reduced to a spatio-temporal complex limited to a single level of reality – no matter how far this complex is extended beyond the galaxies or into aeons of time, past and future. The traditional view as expressed in the metaphysical teachings of both the Eastern and Western traditions is based, on the contrary, upon a hierarchic vision of reality, not only of reality's objective aspect but also of its subjective one. Not only are there many levels of reality or existence stretching from the material plane to Absolute and Infinite Reality, but there are also many levels of subjective reality or consciousness, many envelopes of the self, leading to the Ultimate Self which is Infinite and Eternal and which is none other than the Transcendent Reality beyond. Moreover, the relation between the subjective and the objective is not bound to a single mode. There is not just one form of perception or awareness. There are modes and degrees of awareness leading from the so-called ‘normal’ perception by man of both his own ‘ego’ and the external world to awareness of Ultimate Selfhood, in which the subject and object of knowledge become unified in a single reality beyond all separation and distinction.

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FERRETS MAY LEARN AWARENESS IF THEIR OWN BODY LIMITS

Psychological Applications and Trends 2021 ◽

10.36315/2021inpact105 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ivan A. Khvatov ◽

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Alexander N. Kharitonov ◽

Alexey Yu. Sokolov ◽

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...

Keyword(s):

Small Area ◽

External World ◽

Body Awareness ◽

Physical Parameters ◽

Experimental Setup ◽

Self Awareness ◽

Human Consciousness ◽

Mustela Putorius ◽

Experimental Problem ◽

Mental Properties

"The study of the ability of self-awareness (self-awareness, the ability to perceive one's own body and mental properties separately from objects of the external world) in animals contributes to the study of the specifics of human consciousness. One of the aspects of self-awareness is body-awareness, which is expressed in the ability of an animal to take into account the physical parameters of its body when regulating behavior. We studied the ability of ferrets (Mustela putorius furo) to be aware of the limits of their own bodies. To solve the experimental problem, the animals had to choose holes suitable in size for penetration in the partition that divided the sections of the experimental setup. The shapes and sizes of the holes varied. We have used both small area holes that are suitable for penetration and large areas that are not suitable for penetration. It was found that all 6 animals participating in the experiment were able to choose a hole suitable for penetration from the first trial, despite the fact that it was smaller than the unsuitable one in area. In 18 test trials, ferrets made 105 successful penetrations and 3 unsuccessful attempts. This distribution differs from the uniform one (?2 = 97.25; df = 2; p <0.01). None of the individuals showed a significant reduction or increase in unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the holes This data may indicate that ferrets have knowledge of the boundaries of their bodies and the ability to compare them with the parameters of the penetration hole."

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Transcendental Idealism and the Self-Knowledge Premise

Journal of Transcendental Philosophy ◽

10.1515/jtph-2019-0014 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 19-41

Author(s):

Chiu Yui Plato Tse

Keyword(s):

Mental Content ◽

External World ◽

Transcendental Idealism ◽

The Self ◽

Personal Perspective ◽

Self Awareness ◽

Philosophical Naturalism ◽

Self Knowledge ◽

And Function ◽

Meaning And Function

AbstractThe relation between transcendental idealism and philosophical naturalism awaits more careful determination, i. e. whether the issue of their compatibility hinges on their ontological view on the relation between physical and mental phenomena (i. e. whether it is supervenience or emergence) or on their epistemological view on our access to mental content. The aim of this paper is to identify a tension between transcendental idealism and philosophical naturalism, which lies not in their ontological view on the nature of substances, but in their epistemological view on the relation between self-awareness and the first-personal access to mental content. I will first trace the (mis)understanding of transcendental idealism as Berkeleyan idealism to a misinterpretation of the self-knowledge premise in transcendental arguments. I will argue that transcendental idealism is not so much concerned with grounding reality of the external world as with establishing the agential nature of the first-personal perspective of experience, and it has an important implication on the meaning and function of self-awareness in transcendental idealism.

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Prologue

10.1093/med/9780198792062.003.0001 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Giovanni Stanghellini

Keyword(s):

Clinical Practice ◽

External World ◽

Moral Sense ◽

Self Awareness ◽

Human Being ◽

Distinctive Features ◽

Self Knowledge ◽

Mental Pathology ◽

Unitary Concept ◽

Human Rationality

The Introduction explains the overall project and focuses on the question ‘What is it to be human?’. Rationality, language, self-awareness, self-knowledge, and moral sense have been indicated as the distinctive features of being human. In this book, I will build on and develop the assumption that to be human means to be in dialogue. Dialogue is a unitary concept that will guide me in attempting to address in a coherent way three essential issues for clinical practice: ‘What is a human being?’, ‘What is mental pathology?’, and ‘What is care?’. I will argue that to be human means to be in dialogue with alterity, that mental pathology is the outcome of a crisis of one’s dialogue with alterity, and that care is a method wherein dialogues take place whose aim is to re-enact interrupted dialogue with alterity within oneself and with the external world.

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Setting up New Identity: Prova Teknike

Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies ◽

10.36941/ajis-2019-p202 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 202

Author(s):

Rumalf Afat

Keyword(s):

External World ◽

Human Mind ◽

Self Awareness ◽

Self Reflection ◽

Starting Point ◽

History Of ◽

Dynamic Series ◽

The Mind ◽

Critical Discourses ◽

Objective Existence

This paper focuses on the approaches of two rationalist philosophers, namely Avicenna from the East, and Descartes from the West, on the epistemic relationship between the human mind and the external world. The introspective reflection of both philosophers is the starting point on which they establish their epistemic structure spanning a passage over this gap. Their engagement in this introspection bears some considerable similarities and distinctions which allow me to do a comparison between some of their epistemic theories which are based on their rationalism and explain how a person exceeds self-awareness to be aware of the external world. Taking a detailed look at the two thinkers' methodologies and their approaches to self-awareness, the effort tries to analyze systematically their epistemological theories explicating the cognitive relationship between the mind and the external world. In the course of the discussion, Avicenna’s theory concerning the actualization of quiddity either with the mental or with the objective existence is compared with Descartes’ meditations according to which through a dynamic series of mental exercises the mind follows in its journey from an absolute doubt to an absolute certainty. The discussion leads to raise some fundamental questions of their expositions proceeding from self-reflection to the awareness of the outer world. Although the critical discourses in the history of philosophy on the ideas of the two philosophers assist me in this research, the methodology of this research is concerned with the conceptual analysis rather than historical influences.

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Practioner Reflection That Enhances Interprofessional Collaborative Practices for Serving Children Who Are Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing

Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups ◽

10.1044/persp2.sig9.3 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 2 (9) ◽

pp. 3-9 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Kristina M. Blaiser ◽

Mary Ellen Nevins

Keyword(s):

Young Children ◽

Professional Practice ◽

Hard Of Hearing ◽

Service Providers ◽

Interprofessional Collaboration ◽

The Self ◽

Self Awareness ◽

Collaborative Practices ◽

Interprofessional Teams ◽

Client Care

Interprofessional collaboration is essential to maximize outcomes of young children who are Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing (DHH). Speech-language pathologists, audiologists, educators, developmental therapists, and parents need to work together to ensure the child's hearing technology is fit appropriately to maximize performance in the various communication settings the child encounters. However, although interprofessional collaboration is a key concept in communication sciences and disorders, there is often a disconnect between what is regarded as best professional practice and the self-work needed to put true collaboration into practice. This paper offers practical tools, processes, and suggestions for service providers related to the self-awareness that is often required (yet seldom acknowledged) to create interprofessional teams with the dispositions and behaviors that enhance patient/client care.

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