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Philosophy of Mind > Philosophy of Consciousness > Self-Consciousness > Self-Consciousness in Experience
Self-Consciousness in Experience
Assistant editor: Anna Lena Weyand (Universität Leipzig)
About this topic
Summary | Is the self an intentional object of experience when we are self-conscious? Put differently, is self-consciousness to be construed along the lines of perceiving (or quasi-perceiving) the self? Following Hume, many philosophers have denied that introspection provides us with awareness of the self in a way similar to our awareness of objects in the world. They claim that the experiences based upon which we form 'I'-thoughts do not represent the self. On the other hand, many philosophers also hold that a minimal form of self-awareness is a pervasive structural feature of all conscious experience, which raises the question as to how we should think about such a minimal form of self-awareness. Moreover, according to a Kantian line of thought, in order to experience the world as being objectively structured and mind-independent, one has to be self-conscious. |
Key works | Hume & Macnabb 1738 famously denied that we can be directly aware of the self through introspection. Moreover, Fichte 1970 and, more recently, Shoemaker 1968 have argued that thinking of self-consciousness as a form of self-perception leads into a regress. Self-consciousness isn't a form of object-awareness, rather we are aware of the self 'as subject' (Wittgenstein 1958). In response, phenomenologists such as Sartre, Husserl or Merleau-Ponty, and, more recently Zahavi 2005, as well as some writers in the tradition of German Idealism, such as Frank 2007 have argued that conscious experience is always characterized by a minimal or pre-reflective sense of self. |
Introductions | Bermúdez 2007 gives a brief introduction to and overview of relevant issues. Gallagher & Zahavi 2008 give an overview of phenomenological approaches to the self in experience. |
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Related categories
Siblings:
- Self-Consciousness in Psychology (465)
- Immunity to Error through Misidentification (148)
- Animal Self-Consciousness (149)
- Functionalism and Self-Consciousness (61)
- First-Person Contents (721)
- Self-Consciousness in Action (207)
- Nonconceptual/Prereflective Self-Consciousness (199)
- Self-Consciousness, Misc (637)
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David Bourget (Western Ontario) David Chalmers (ANU, NYU) Area Editors: David Bourget Gwen Bradford Berit Brogaard Margaret Cameron David Chalmers James Chase Rafael De Clercq Ezio Di Nucci Esa Diaz-Leon Barry Hallen Hans Halvorson Jonathan Ichikawa Michelle Kosch Øystein Linnebo JeeLoo Liu Paul Livingston Brandon Look Manolo Martínez Matthew McGrath Michiru Nagatsu Susana Nuccetelli Giuseppe Primiero Jack Alan Reynolds Darrell P. Rowbottom Aleksandra Samonek Constantine Sandis Howard Sankey Jonathan Schaffer Thomas Senor Robin Smith Daniel Star Jussi Suikkanen Aness Kim Webster Other editors Contact us Learn more about PhilPapers |