Is bodily awareness a condition on bodily action? I approach this question by weaving an argument based on considerations from action theory, the phenomenology of embodied agency, and from the psychology and neuroscience of action. In this paper, I discuss two accounts on which bodily awareness is a condition on bodily action. The first is an influential philosophical account from O'Shaughnessy, which claims that bodily awareness is necessary for the online control of bodily action. I argue that there are empirical (...) counterexamples to O'Shaughnessy's account. Instead I propose an account on which the capacity for bodily awareness is a condition on our capacity for ordinary bodily action. This alternative account does justice to the causal and functional character of ordinary bodily action as well as its phenomenology. It is also consistent with the psychology and neuroscience of action. I provide a two-stage argument for my view. The first stage shows that a sense of the spatial possibilities of one's body is a condition on intentionally acting with one's body. The second stage demonstrates that bodily awareness is a condition on a normal afferented agent's sense of the actions open to him through examining the role of bodily awareness in motor imagery and the role of motor imagery in preparatory processes for everyday actions. (shrink)

The sense of embodiment is vital for self recognition. An examination of anosognosia for hemiplegia—the inability to recognise that one is paralysed down one side of one’s body—suggests the existence of ‘online’ and ‘offline’ representations of the body. Online representations of the body are representations of the body as it is currently, are newly constructed moment by moment and are directly “plugged into” current perception of the body. In contrast, offline representations of the body are representations of what the body (...) is usually like, are relatively stable and are constructed from online representations. This distinction is supported by an analysis of phantom limb—the feeling that an amputated limb is still present—phenomena. Initially it seems that the sense of embodiment may arise from either of these types of representation; however, an integrated representation of the body seems to be required. It is suggested information from vision and emotions is involved in generating these representations. A lack of access to online representations of the body does not necessarily lead to a loss in the sense of embodiment. An integrated offline representation of the body could account for the sense of embodiment and perform the functions attributed to this sense. (shrink)

The paper defends a version of the perceptual account of bodily feelings, according to which having a feeling is feeling something about one’s body. But it rejects the idea, familiar in the work of William James, that what one feels when one has a feeling is something biological about one’s body. Instead it argues that to have a bodily feeling is to feel an apparent bodily indication of something – a bodily appearance. Being aware of what one’s body is apparently (...) indicating to one is being aware of something about one’s body, but the focus of attention is on what is apparently being indicated, which is not something about one’s body. This is one way of making sense of the idea in contemporary phenomenology that the body is conspicuous in feelings that do not take the body as an object of awareness. Bodily inclinations are apparent indications of what one is going to do, and it is argued that feeling one’s bodily inclinations constitutes an important class of bodily feelings – e.g. feeling like crying or feeling like being sick. Such inclinations are often felt through a process of resisting them. Bodily inclinations also have some intentionality, albeit quite limited, and this goes some way towards explaining Peter Goldie’s concept of feelings towards. (shrink)

A bodily self is characterized by pre-reflective bodily self-consciousness that is.

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. (shrink)

In keeping with recent views of consciousness of self as represented in the body in action, empirical studies are reviewed that demonstrate a bottlenose dolphin’s conscious awareness of its own body and body parts, implying a representational “body image” system. Additional work reviewed demonstrates an advanced capability of dolphins for motor imitation of self-produced behaviors and of behaviors of others, including imitation of human actions, supporting hypotheses that dolphins have a sense of agency and ownership of their actions and may (...) implicitly attribute those levels of self-awareness to others. Possibly, a mirror-neuron system, or its functional equivalent to that described in monkeys and humans, may mediate both self-awareness and awareness of others. (shrink)

Emotions, I will argue, involve two kinds of feeling: bodily feeling and feeling towards. Both are intentional, in the sense of being directed towards an object. Bodily feelings are directed towards the condition of one's body, although they can reveal truths about the world beyond the bounds of one's body – that, for example, there is something dangerous nearby. Feelings towards are directed towards the object of the emotion – a thing or a person, a state of affairs, an action (...) or an event; such emotional feelings involve a special way of thinking of the object of the emotion, and I draw an analogy with Frank Jackson's well-known knowledge argument to show this. Finally, I try to show that, even if materialism is true, the phenomenology of emotional feelings, as described from a personal perspective, cannot be captured using only the theoretical concepts available for the impersonal stance of the sciences. (shrink)

We enjoy first-person authority with respect to a certain class of actions: for these actions, we know what we are doing just because we are doing it. This paper first formulates an epistemological principle that captures this authority in terms of trying to act in a way that one has the capacity to act. It then considers a case of effortful action – running a middle distance race – that threatens this principle. And proposes the solution of changing the metaphysics (...) of action: one can keep hold of the idea that we have first-person authority over what we are doing by adopting a disjunctive account of action. (shrink)

The phenomenology of the self includes the sense of control over one’s body and mind, of being bounded in body and mind, of having perspective from within one’s body and mind and of being extended in time. I argue that this phenomenology is to be accounted for by a set of five dissociable cognitive capacities that compose the self. The focus of this paper is on the four capacities that compose the synchronic self: the agentiveB self, which underlies the sense (...) of control over one’s body; the boundaryB self, which underlies the sense of being bounded within one’s body; the agentiveM self which underlies the sense of control over one’s thoughts; and the boundaryM self which underlies the sense of being bounded within one’s mind. I model the agentiveB and agentiveM selves as parts of the motor control system and the boundaryB self as the capacity to form and integrated map of the body. I point to the delusion of thought broadcast as a possible source of evidence for future research on the boundaryM self. (shrink)

In the past, researchers have focused mainly on the effects and consequences of self-awareness; however, they have neglected a more basic issue pertaining to the specific mechanisms that initiate and sustain self-perception. The author presents a model of self-awareness that proposes the existence of 3 sources of self-information. First, the social milieu includes early face-to-face interactions, self-relevant feedback, a social comparison mechanism that leads to perspective taking, and audiences. Second, contacts with objects and structures in the physical environment foster self–world (...) differentiation in infants; this environment also contains self-focusing and reflecting stimuli, such as mirrors and video cameras. Third, the self can develop bodily awareness through proprioception and can reflect on itself using imagery and inner speech. Furthermore, self-awareness is mainly mediated by the prefrontal lobes. The author establishes various links among these different neurological, social, ecological, and cognitive elements of the model. (shrink)

Self-awareness represents the capacity of becoming the object of one’s own attention. In this state one actively identifies, processes, and stores information about the self. This paper surveys the self-awareness literature by emphasizing definition issues, measurement techniques, effects and functions of self-attention, and antecedents of self-awareness. Key self-related concepts (e.g., minimal, reflective consciousness) are distinguished from the central notion of self-awareness. Reviewed measures include questionnaires, implicit tasks, and self-recognition. Main effects and functions of self-attention consist in selfevaluation, escape from the (...) self, amplification of one's subjective experience, increased self-knowledge, self-regulation, and inferences about others' mental states (Theory-of-Mind). A neurocognitive and socioecological model of self-awareness is described in which the role of face-to-face interactions, reflected appraisals, mirrors, media, inner speech, imagery, autobiographical knowledge, and neurological structures is underlined. (shrink)