The Shattered Self of Komsomol Civil War Memoirs

Slavic Review ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 546-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Guillory
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Russian Civil War ◽  
War Veterans ◽  
Civil War Veterans ◽  
War Memoirs

The Russian civil war was a fratricidal climax of seven years of war and revolution that fractured Russian society. Its traumatic effects on postrevolutionary life are beyond measure. In this article Sean Guillory examines memoirs of Komsomol civil war veterans to illuminate the ways the war shaped their sense of self. Guillory argues that veterans' memoirs reveal a shattering of the self where their efforts to narrate their experience as agents of war was overshadowed by their transformation on the batdefield into instinctual beings, imprisoned by emotions, senses, nerves, and muscles. Guillory engages the scholarship on the Soviet self and subjectivity by calling attention to the ways trauma produces a “darker side” of the self, and in particular, how the body serves as a long-term depository for experiences of loss, disorientation, and deprivation.

scholarly journals Why should any body have a self?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Hohwy ◽  
John Michael
Keyword(s):  
Brain Function ◽  
Prediction Error ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Error Minimization ◽  
Computational Framework ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
Prediction Error Minimization ◽  
Hierarchical Bayesian Inference

We use a general computational framework for brain function to develop a theory of the self. The theory is that the self is an inferred model of endogenous, deeply hidden causes of behavior. The general framework for brain function on which we base this theory is that the brain is fundamentally an organ for prediction error minimization.There are three related parts to this project. In the first part (Sections 2-3), we explain how prediction error minimization must lead to the inference of a network of deeply hidden endogenous causes. The key concept here is that prediction error minimization in the long term approximates hierarchical Bayesian inference, where the hierarchy is critical to understand the place of the self, and the body, in the world.In the second part (Sections 4-5), we discuss why such a set of hidden endogenous causes should qualify as a self. We show how a comprehensive prediction error minimization account can accommodate key characteristics of the self. It turns out that, though the modelled endogenous causes are just some among other inferred causes of sensory input, the model is special in being, in a special sense, a model of itself.The third part (Sections 6-7) identifies a threat from such self-modelling: how can a self-model be accurate if it represents itself? We propose that we learn to be who we are through a positive feedback loop: from infancy onward, humans apply agent-models to understand what other agents are up to in their environment, and actively align themselves with those models. Accurate self-models arise and are sustained as a natural consequence of humans’ skill in modeling and interacting with each other. The concluding section situates this inferentialist yet realist theory of the self with respect to narrative conceptions of the self.

After the Glory: The Struggles of Black Civil War Veterans (review)

2007 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 231-232
Author(s):  
Joseph P. (Joseph Patrick) Reidy
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
War Veterans ◽  
Civil War Veterans

The Bodily Self

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Luis Bermúdez
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Significant Contributor ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Physical Objects ◽  
Selection Of

How can we be aware of ourselves both as physical objects and as thinking, experiencing subjects? What role does the experience of the body play in generating our sense of self? What is the role of action and agency in the construction of the bodily self? These questions have been a rich subject of interdisciplinary debate among philosophers, neuroscientists, experimental psychologists, and cognitive scientists for several decades. José Luis Bermúdez been a significant contributor to these debates since the 1990’s, when he authored The Paradox of Self-Consciousness (MIT Press, 1998) and co-edited The Body and the Self (MIT Press, 1995) with Anthony Marcel and Naomi Eilan. The Bodily Self is a selection of essays all focused on different aspects of the role of the body in self-consciousness, prefaced by a substantial introduction outlining common themes across the essays. The essays have been published in a wide range of journals and edited volumes. Putting them together brings out a wide-ranging, thematically consistent perspective on a set of topics and problems that remain firmly of interest across the cognitive and behavioral sciences.

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