Abstract.In contradistinction to the contemporary human sciences, recent theological accounts of the individual‐in‐relation continue to defend the concept of the singular continuous self. Consequently, theological anthropology and the human sciences seem to offer widely divergent accounts of the sense of self‐fragmentation that many believe pervades the modern world. There has been little constructive interdisciplinary conversation in this area. In this essay I address the damaging implications of this oversight and establish the necessary conditions for future dialogue. I have (...) three primary objectives. First, I show how the notion of personal continuity acquires philosophical theological significance through its close association with the concept of personal particularity. Second, through a discussion of contemporary accounts of self‐multiplicity, I clarify the extent of theological anthropology's disagreement with the human sciences. Third, I draw upon narrative accounts of identity to suggest an alternative means of understanding the experiential continuity of personhood that maintains the tension between self‐plurality, unity, and particularity and thereby reconnects philosophical theological concerns with human‐scientific analyses of the human condition. Narrative approaches to personhood are ideally suited to this purpose, and, I suggest, offer an intriguing solution to understanding and resolving the problem of self‐fragmentation that has caused recent theological anthropology so much consternation. (shrink)

The essays in this volume consider the question of whether the self is a unity or whether it should be conceived without metaphor as divided - as a 'multiple self'. The issue is a central one for several disciplines. It bears directly on the account of rationality and the explanation of individual decision-making and behaviour. Is the hypothesis of a multiple self required to deal with the problems of self-deception and weakness of will; and can the (...) conceptual tools developed in the study of interpersonal conflict be applied to the analysis of intra-personal struggle? Most of the essays, by a number of leading philosophers, psychologists and economists, appear here for the first time. They bring out the interdisciplinary importance of the question, and will interest readers in all those areas. The volume will also usefully supplement The Foundations of Social Choice Theory, edited by Jon Elster and Aanund Hylland, which appears in the same series and is also concerned with the foundations of rationality. (shrink)

The essays in this volume consider the question of whether the self is a unity or whether it should be conceived without metaphor as divided - as a 'multiple self'. The issue is a central one for several disciplines. It bears directly on the account of rationality and the explanation of individual decision-making and behaviour. Is the hypothesis of a multiple self required to deal with the problems of self-deception and weakness of will; and can the (...) conceptual tools developed in the study of interpersonal conflict be applied to the analysis of intra-personal struggle? Most of the essays, by a number of leading philosophers, psychologists and economists, appear here for the first time. They bring out the interdisciplinary importance of the question, and will interest readers in all those areas. The volume will also usefully supplement The Foundations of Social Choice Theory, edited by Jon Elster and Aanund Hylland, which appears in the same series and is also concerned with the foundations of rationality. (shrink)

Is the fact that our universe contains fine-tuned life evidence that we live in a multiverse? Ian Hacking and Roger White influentially argue that it is not. We approach this question through a systematic framework for self-locating epistemology. As it turns out, leading approaches to self-locating evidence agree that the fact that our own universe contains fine-tuned life indeed confirms the existence of a multiverse. This convergence is no accident: we present two theorems showing that, in this setting, (...) any updating rule that satisfies a few reasonable conditions will have the same feature. The conclusion that fine-tuned life provides evidence for a multiverse is hard to escape. (shrink)

This paper examines the issue of what the self is by reviewing neuropsychological research,which converges on the idea that the self may be more complex and differentiated than previous treatments of the topic have suggested. Although some aspects of self-knowledge such as episodic recollection may be compromised in individuals, other aspects—for instance, semantic trait summaries—appear largely intact. Taken together, these findings support the idea that the self is not a single, unified entity. Rather, it is a (...) set of interrelated, functionally independent systems. Implications for understanding the self in various areas of psychological research—e.g., neuroimaging, autism, amnesia, Alzheimer’s disease, and mirror self-recognition—are discussed in brief. (shrink)

Multiple self approaches purport that to have equal concern about all stages of one’s life is not a requirement of rationality. This poses a challenge to the prudential lifespan account which Norman Daniels advocates in Just health: meeting health needs fairly. Daniels has criticised the multiple self approach in earlier works, most extensively in Am I my parents keeper? In Just health, he only takes up the issue except in one footnote, presumably because he is convinced that his (...) preceding discussions settled the matter. This article argues that Daniels underestimates the force of the multiple self objection to prudential lifespan account. (shrink)

BackgroundTo explore how self-disclosure leads to post-traumatic growth in adults who have experienced traumatic events, this study identified the relationship between self-disclosure and post-traumatic growth in Korean adults. We examined a parallel multiple mediating model for this relationship.MethodsParticipants were 318 Korean male and female adult participants aged 20 years or older who had experienced trauma. We measured deliberate rumination, positive social responses, and the meaning of life as mediating variables.ResultsThe results revealed that the study variables positively correlated with (...) PTG. Self-disclosure was positively correlated with deliberate rumination, positive social responses, and meaning of life. In the multiple mediating model, deliberate rumination, positive social responses, and meaning of life mediated the relationship between self-disclosure and PTG.ConclusionSelf-disclosure, deliberate rumination, positive social responses, and meaning of life play an important role in the growth of adults who have experienced traumatic events. The findings of this study should provide valuable information for future research and for mental health professionals who want to promote the PTG of their clients. (shrink)

If a threat is liable to be defensively killed, there is a defeasible justification for killing her. On certain prevailing assumptions about liability, which I accept, there are liability justifications for killing any number of minimally responsible threats, each of whom would otherwise kill a single non-responsible victim. Absent harms to third parties, these justifications appear, counter-intuitively, to be undefeated. I argue that this counter-intuitive appearance is deceptive.

Self and Consciousness: Multiple Perspectives. Edited by Frank S. Kessel. Pamela M. Cole. and Dale L. Johnson. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992. 136 Pp. $16.50 (cloth).

This accessible guide gives a clear introduction to MI and provides concrete examples of how you can use it in your teaching.

One of the most striking manifestations of schizophrenia is thought insertion. People suffering from this delusion believe they are not the author of thoughts which they nevertheless own as experiences. It seems that a person’s sense of agency and their sense of the boundary between mind and world can come apart. Schizophrenia thus vividly demonstrates that self awareness is a complex construction of the brain. This point is widely appreciated. What is not so widely appreciated is how radically schizophrenia (...) challenges our assumptions about the nature of the self. Most theorists endorse the traditional doctrine of the unity of consciousness, according to which a normal human brain generates a single consciousness at any instant in time. In this paper we argue that phenomenal consciousness at each instant is actually a multiplicity: an aggregate of phenomenal elements, each of which is the product of a distinct consciousness-making mechanism in the brain. We then consider how certain aspects of self might emerge from this manifold substrate, and speculate about the origin of thought insertion. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 9 If a threat is liable to be defensively killed, there is a defeasible justification for killing her. On certain prevailing assumptions about liability, which I accept, there are liability justifications for killing _any number_ of minimally responsible threats, each of whom would otherwise kill a single non-responsible victim. Absent harms to third parties, these justifications appear, counter-intuitively, to be undefeated. I argue that this counter-intuitive appearance is deceptive.

This volume contains an array of essays that reflect, and reflect upon, the recent revival of scholarly interest in the self and consciousness. Various relevant issues are addressed in conceptually challenging ways, such as how consciousness and different forms of self-relevant experience develop in infancy and childhood and are related to the acquisition of skill; the role of the self in social development; the phenomenology of being conscious and its metapsychological implications; and the cultural foundations of conceptualizations (...) of consciousness. Written by notable scholars in several areas of psychology, philosophy, cognitive neuroscience, and anthropology, the essays are of interest to readers from a variety of disciplines concerned with central, substantive questions in contemporary social science, and the humanities. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a new account of akrasia based on the idea that human psychology and self-narrativity are more complex and layered than we have traditionally thought. I begin by arguing that, if we have at least some different beliefs, desires, preferences, etc. in different situations, then we can rationally do what we think, at the time of action, is best for, or from the standpoint of, “part of me” while acting contrary to what we think, at (...) the time of action, is best for, or from the more comprehensive standpoint of, “me.” I then argue that many of us do, in fact, think and act this way in everyday life, and that this kind of action satisfies all the criteria for akrasia. Finally, I briefly argue that on my account of akrasia, akratic actions are not necessarily irrational or blameworthy, though they often will be. (shrink)

Understanding everyday behavior relies heavily upon understanding our ability to improvise, how we are able to continuously anticipate and adapt in order to coordinate with our environment and others. Here we consider the ability of musicians to improvise, where they must spontaneously coordinate their actions with co-performers in order to produce novel musical expressions. Investigations of this behavior have traditionally focused on describing the organization of cognitive structures. The focus, here, however, is on the ability of the time-evolving patterns of (...) inter-musician movement coordination as revealed by the mathematical tools of complex dynamical systems to provide a new understanding of what potentiates the novelty of spontaneous musical action. We demonstrate this approach through the application of cross wavelet spectral analysis, which isolates the strength and patterning of the behavioral coordination that occurs between improvising musicians across a range of nested time-scales. Revealing the sophistication of the previously unexplored dynamics of movement coordination between improvising musicians is an important step towards understanding how creative musical expressions emerge from the spontaneous coordination of multiple musical bodies. (shrink)

In view of the fact that culture-inclusive psychology has been eluded or relatively ignored by mainstream psychology, the movement of indigenous psychology is destined to develop a new model of man that incorporates both causal psychology and intentional psychology as suggested by Vygotsky . Following the principle of cultural psychology: “one mind, many mentalities” , the Mandala Model of Self and Face and Favor Model were constructed to represent the universal mechanisms of self and social interaction that can (...) be applied to any culture; both models can be used as conceptual frameworks for analyzing mentalities of people in any given culture. Taking research works from Foundations of Chinese Psychology: Confucian Social Relation as exemplars , this article illustrates how to construct culture-inclusive theories of Confucianism by multiple philosophical paradigms. The mechanism of culture-inclusive theory can be applied to explain qualitative research findings on lifeworld events of people in a particular society. It can also be utilized to predict results of quantitative research conducted to verify theoretical propositions in the scientific microworld by empirical methods. (shrink)

This article focuses on theoretical reflections on sovereignty and constitutionalism in the context of the globalization and Europeanisation of the nation states, their politics, and legal systems. Starting from a critical assessment of the Kelsen-Schmitt polemic, the author claims that sovereignty needs to be analysed by the sociological method in order to disclose its current structural differentiation. The constitution of society may be imagined as the multitude of self-constituted and functionally differentiated social subsystems. The constitutional pluralism argument subsequently reconceptualizes (...) sovereignty as socially differentiated and divided between specific subsystems. The EU's differentiated constitutional domain and the paradox of divided sovereignty are used as examples of profound structural and semantic changes in contemporary national and transnational societies. While the sovereign nation-state institutions have become marginalized in political structures of European societies, the self-constitutionalization of the functionally differentiated EU legal system proceeds by internalizing the concept of divided sovereignty and using it semantically as its mode of self-reference. (shrink)

We introduce a distinct type of choice that has yet to be addressed by self-control research: Choosing between activities that offer both delayed and immediate rewards. We describe when and why such mixed-reward choices pose challenges to self-control, and suggest that self-control in mixed-reward choices may be supported by delay discounting.

This article considers the photographs of Francesca Woodman in terms of the complex and ambivalent set of relations they configure between photographer, photographed subject and viewer. Usually described as ‘self-portraits’, the subject of these fleeting, fractured images simultaneously presents itself whilst seeming to withdraw from them. The self, there where it most openly declares itself, disappears. Drawing on Jean-Luc Nancy's concept of exposition, or exposure, which posits the self as being in-exteriority, thinking the intimacy of subjectivity in (...) terms of an originary relation to the outside or the other, I seek to problematize the possibility both of the portrait and the self that is its subject. (shrink)

This paper describes the lifeworld of one individual, Ann, in an attempt to elucidate the existential impact of early stage multiple sclerosis. Drawing on Ann's own reflections captured in a relatively unstructured interview, I construct a narrative around her first year of living with the diagnosis. Then, existential-phenomenological analysis reveals how Ann's life - lived in and through a particular body and lifeworld context - is disrupted. The unity between her body and self can no longer be taken for (...) granted. The existential possibilities inherent in her lived body are diminished and have to be renegotiated. Her sense of identity, project, relations with others and present/future plans are threatened. Ann's illness is encountered in the context of her life activities and relationships. This is the intertwining of body, self and world. To live with multiple sclerosis is to experience a global sense of disorder - a disorder which incorporates a changed relation with one's body, a transformation in the surrounding world, a threat to the self, and a change in one's relation to others. (shrink)

Estimates of unknown quantities are influenced by both self-generated anchors (SGAs) and externally provided anchors (EPAs; e.g., the advice of others). It was hypothesised that people use the degree of similarity between these anchors to render final responses. Thus we tested predictions drawn from metacognitive accounts of anchoring using procedures similar to the traditional anchoring paradigm. In a single experiment we manipulated SGA–EPA similarity, EPA level, and EPA source credibility. Results showed that the relationship between SGA–EPA similarity and the (...) decision weight given to the EPA, relative to the weight given to the SGA, depended on source credibility. Bolstering the metacognitive framework, participants were most confident about their final responses when their SGA was similar to the EPA and the EPA came from a highly credible source. These results support a metacognitive account of the anchoring heuristic. (shrink)

Some people hate themselves. But if I say, “I hate myself,” who is this “I” that stands apart from “myself”? And notice how in the expression “I am not myself today,” the “I” and “myself” change places. Now it is “myself” who is the authentic, the authoritative, the judgmental “I,” and it is “I” who is the self that is judged and found wanting. Some people talk to themselves; when they do, who is speaking and who is listening?

The books’ goal is to answer the question: Do the weaknesses of value-free economics imply the need for a paradigm shift? The author synthesizes criticisms from different perspectives (descriptive and methodological). Special attention is paid to choices over time, because in this area value-free economics has the most problems. In that context, the enriched concept of multiple self is proposed and investigated. However, it is not enough to present the criticisms towards value-free economics. For scientists, a bad paradigm is (...) better than no paradigm. Therefore, the author considers whether value-based economics with normative approaches such as economics of happiness, capability approach, libertarian paternalism, and the concept of multiple self can be the alternative paradigm for value-free economics. This book is essential reading to everyone interested in the current state of economics as a discipline. (shrink)

Draws from Latina feminism, existential phenomenology, and race theory to explore the concept of selfhood. This original study intertwining Latina feminism, existential phenomenology, and race theory offers a new philosophical approach to understanding selfhood and identity. Focusing on writings by Gloría Anzaldúa, María Lugones, and Linda Martín Alcoff, Mariana Ortega articulates a phenomenology that introduces a conception of selfhood as both multiple and singular. Her Latina feminist phenomenological approach can account for identities belonging simultaneously to different worlds, including immigrants, exiles, (...) and inhabitants of borderlands. Ortega’s project forges new directions not only in Latina feminist thinking on such issues as borders, mestizaje, marginality, resistance, and identity politics, but also connects this analysis to the existential phenomenology of Martin Heidegger and to such concepts as being-in-the-world, authenticity, and intersubjectivity. The pairing of the personal and the political in Ortega’s work is illustrative of the primacy of lived experience in the development of theoretical understandings of who we are. In addition to bringing to light central metaphysical issues regarding the temporality and continuity of the self, Ortega models a practice of philosophy that draws from work in other disciplines and that recognizes the important contributions of Latina feminists and other theorists of color to philosophical pursuits. Mariana Ortega is Professor of Philosophy at John Carroll University and coeditor (with Linda Martín Alcoff) of Constructing the Nation: A Race and Nationalism Reader, also published by SUNY Press. (shrink)