This paper proposes an account of the self as a multilevel system consisting of social, individual, neural, and molecular mechanisms. It argues that the functioning of the self depends on causal relations between mechanisms operating at different levels. In place of reductionist and holistic approaches to cognitive science, I advocate a method of multilevel interacting mechanisms. This method is illustrated by showing how self-concepts operate at several different levels.

In the history of philosophy, the concept of self has been perennially elusive. The philosophical quest to understand the self is rife with phenomenological and metaphysical analyses, often overlooking other kinds of selves present in the biological realm. To systematically explore this question of non-human selves, I categorize the literature on philosophical and biological notions of self into the biogenic, the zoogenic, and the anthropogenic approaches to self. This article attempts to chart the genesis, the continuum, and the lowest bound (...) of the self. Further, I enumerate challenges in developing a biogenic approach to self or taking the concept of self all the way down in the phylogenetic tree. (shrink)

Narrative views of the self argue that we constitute our self in self-narratives. Embodied views hold that our self is shaped through embodied experiences. In that case, what is the relation between embodiment and narrativity in the process of self-constitution? The question demands a clear definition of embodiment, but existing studies remains unclear on this point (section 2). We offer a correction to this situation by drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of the body that highlights its habituality. On this account, the (...) body has an inherent tendency to cultivate an organization of habits through its history of engagement with the world (section 3). Next, we explore its role in narrative self-constitution by distinguishing between two aspects of the narrative self, the narrated I and the narrating I (section 4). We argue on phenomenological grounds that self-narratives are informed by bodily perspectives in both respects. Furthermore, a focus on the habituality of the body allows for a better explanation of self-constitution than those based on implicit self-narratives (section 5). For these phenomenological and theoretical reasons, we conclude that narrative self-constitution is an embodied and embedded practice (section 6). (shrink)

Brain imaging technologies are increasingly used to find networks and brain regions that are specific to the functional realization of particular aspects of the self. In this paper, we aim to show how neuroscientific research and techniques could be used in the context of self-formation without treating them as representations of an inner realm. To do so, we show first how a Cartesian framework underlies the interpretation and usage of brain imaging technologies as functional evidence. To illustrate how material-technological inventions (...) and developments can have a significant and lasting impact on views of the self, we show how this framework was influenced by another technology: the camera obscura. Subsequently, we show that brain imaging technologies challenge the idea that privileged access to the self can be obtained merely through introspection, indicating a strong discontinuity between the Cartesian and the current neuroscientific framework. Building on these insights, we reframe the self in terms of self-formation. This view neither regards the brain as an independent realizer of aspects of the self, nor assumes that self-knowledge can be obtained through introspection. From this perspective, self-formation is realized throughcritical self-identification: instead of offering representational knowledge of an ‘inner self,’ the potential use of brain imaging technologies within this framework lies in their capacity to offer what we call ‘extrospective knowledge’ that pragmatically can contribute to self-formation. Brain imaging technologies contribute to this process because they foreground our neurophysiology, which helps to critically integrate biological aspects into self-formation. (shrink)

Research seeking to explain the perpetration of violence and atrocities by humans against other humans offers both social and individualistic explanations, which differ namely in the roles attributed to empathy. Prominent social models suggest that some manifestations of inter-human violence are caused by parochial attitudes and obedience reinforced by within-group empathy. Individualistic explanations of violence, by contrast, posit that stable intra-individual characteristics of the brain and personality of some individuals lead them to commit violence and atrocities. An individualistic explanation argues (...) that the chief cause of violence is the perpetrator’'s lack of empathy with the victim. To offer the rudiments of a critique of the individualistic approach, I critically examine a model stating that violence is caused by empathy erosion. Specifically, the discussion of the empathy-erosion model is applied to the case of honour-based violence, a type of violence known for its communal character. Building from prior enquiries into violence and social cognition, I argue that an empathy-erosion explanation of HBV is defective because it does not consider important cultural and historical enablers of violence. Finally, as an alternative to individualism, I propose a psychohistorical approach to HBV in the migration context. This alternative combines psychological and philosophical enquiry with historical and ethnographical analysis. The psychohistorical approach hypothesises that distinct processes of cultural learning of honour codes both scaffold HBV and modulate the perpetrators’ emotions and empathy. (shrink)

Although most aspects of world and self-consciousness are inherently subjective, neuroscience studies in humans and non-human animals provide correlational and causative indices of specific links between brain activity and representation of the self and the world. In this article we review neuroanatomic, neurophysiological and neuropsychological data supporting the hypothesis that different levels of self and world representation in vertebrates rely upon i) a 'basal' subcortical system that includes brainstem, hypothalamus and central thalamic nuclei and that may underpin the primary (or (...) anoetic) consciousness likely present in all vertebrates; and ii) a forebrain system that include the medial and lateral structures of the cerebral hemispheres and may sustain the most sophisticated forms of consciousness (e.g. noetic (knowledge based) and autonoetic, reflective knowledge). We posit a mutual, bidirectional functional influence between these two major brain circuits. We conclude that basic aspects of consciousness like primary self and core self (based on anoetic and noetic consciousness) are present in many species of vertebrates and that, even self-consciousness (autonoetic consciousness) does not seem to be a prerogative of humans and of some non-human primates but may, to a certain extent, be present in some other mammals and birds. (shrink)

For millennia self has been conjectured to be necessary for consciousness. But scant empirical evidence has been adduced to support this hypothesis. Inconsistent explications of “self” and failure to design apt experiments have impeded progress. Advocates of phenomenological psychiatry, however, have helped explicate “self,” and employed it to explain some psychopathological symptoms. In those studies, “self” is understood in a minimalist sense, sheer “for-me-ness.” Unfortunately, explication of the “minimal self” (MS) has relied on conceptual analysis, and applications to psychopathology have (...) been hermeneutic, allowing for many degrees of interpretive latitude. The result is that MS’s current scientific status is analogous to that of the “atom,” at the time when “atom” was just beginning to undergo transformation from a philosophical to a scientific concept. Fortunately, there is now an opportunity to promote a similar transformation for “MS.” Discovery of the brain’s Default Mode Network (DMN) opened the door to neuroimaging investigations of self. Taking the DMN and other forms of intrinsic activity as a starting point, an empirical foothold can be established, one that spurs experimental research and that enables extension of research into multiple phenomena. New experimental protocols that posit “MS” can help explain phenomena hitherto not thought to be related to self, thereby hastening development of a mature science of self. In particular, targeting phenomena wherein consciousness is lost and recovered, as in some cases of Unresponsive Wakefulness Syndrome (UWS), allow for design of neuroimaging probes that enable detection of MS during non-conscious states. These probes, as well as other experimental protocols applied to NREM Sleep, General Anesthesia (GA), and the waking state, provide some evidence to suggest that not only can self and consciousness dissociate, MS might be a necessary precondition for conscious experience. Finally, these findings have implications for the science of consciousness: it has been suggested that “levels of consciousness” (LoC) is not a legitimate concept for the science of consciousness. But because we have the conceptual and methodological tools with which to refine investigations of MS, we have the means to identify a possible foundation—a bifurcation point—for consciousness, as well as the means by which to measure degrees of distance from that foundation. These neuroimaging investigations of MS position us to better assess whether LoC has a role to play in a mature science of consciousness. (shrink)

Addiction remains a challenging disorder, both to treat and to conceptualise. While the temporal dimension of addiction has been noted before, here the aim is to ground this understanding in a coherent phenomenological-neuroscience framework. Addiction is partly understood as drawing the subject into a predominantly “now” orientated existence, with the future closed or experienced as extremely distant. Another feature of this temporal structuring is that past experiences, which are crucial in advancing intentionally forward, are experienced in addiction as a void. (...) This has implications for the generation of meaning and forming of self, amongst others. While there are areas of the brain that regulate temporal processing, there is no single location. Recent addiction research has implicated the insula and in turn this area is implicated in temporal and interoceptive awareness. Similarly these areas of disruption may affect self processes. Disruption of interoception and thus of self, may help explain why addiction is complex and involves multiple aspects of subjectivity. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe distinction between minimal self and narrative self has gained ground in recent discussions of selfhood. In this article, this distinction is reassessed by analysing Zahavi and Gallagher’s account of selfhood and supplementing it with Husserl’s concept of person. I argue that Zahavi and Gallagher offer two compatible and complementary notions of self. Nevertheless, the relationship between minimal self and narrative self requires further clarification. Especially the embeddedness of self, the interplay between passivity and activity, and the problems of uniqueness (...) and persistence are better understood with Husserl’s analysis of person and its central concepts of position-taking, habitualities, and overall style. The embeddedness of self is elucidated by outlining how person is related to its environment, to other people, and to its past. This relational notion of self is both passively constituted and actively shaped: person mediates between minimal self characterized by perspectival ownership... (shrink)

Keskityn siihen miten Leibnizilla yksittäiset mielihyvän tai mielipahan tiedostamattomat havainnot voivat kasautua tai tiivistyä ja muodostaa vähitellen tunteita, joista tulemme tietoisiksi.

Philosophical discussion tends to converge on the view that narratives are at the center of the emotion of grief. In this article, I expand on this kind of view. On the one hand, I argue that key strands of phenomenological and neuroscientific studies suggest that grief consists in a complex emotional process of disconfirmation-and-updating of the narrative self-model. By heuristically drawing on an analogy between binocular rivalry and grief, I show that certain salient aspects of the phenomenology of grief, such (...) as self-alienation and ambiguity, are straightforwardly reflected by this account. On the other hand, I argue that this hierarchical approach has the resources to: (i) show that both narratable and unnarratable experiences of personal loss are both instances of grief; and (ii) differentiate between narratable and unnarratable experiences of grief, without compromising the view that self-constituting narratives are at the center of the phenomenon. (shrink)

Patients in a Minimally Conscious State (MCS) constitute a subgroup of awareness impaired patients who show minimal signs of awareness as opposed to patients in a Vegetative State who do not exhibit any such signs. While the empirical literature is rich in studies investigating either overt or covert signs of awareness in such patients the question of self-awareness has only scarcely been addressed. Even in the occasion where self-awareness is concerned, it is only higher-order or reflective self-awareness that is the (...) target of such investigations. In the first part of this paper, I briefly review the relevant clinical neuroscience literature to demonstrate that the conception of self-awareness at play in such studies is indeed that of reflective self-awareness. In the second part, I present the philosophical notion of pre-reflective (or minimal) self-awareness. This is shown to primarily refer to the implicit awareness of our embodied subjectivity which essentially permeates all our experiences. As discussed, this minimal self-awareness is not specifically addressed when clinically or experimentally assessing patients in MCS. My suggestion is that neuroimaging studies targeting minimal self-awareness as in First-Person Perspective-taking paradigms could be used with MCS patients to shed light on the question of whether those individuals are minimally self-aware even in the case where they lack self-reflective abilities. Empirical evidence of this kind could have important theoretical implications for the discussion about the notion of self-awareness but also potential medical and social/legal implications for awareness impaired patients’ management. (shrink)

This dissertation in Theory of Practical Knowledge contends that depression is a disorder of the self. Using the existential-phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I argue that if we want to disclose the basic structure of depressed experience, then we must likewise disclose how selfexperience is inseparable from depressed experience. However, even though depression is a contemporary psychiatric category of illness, it is nevertheless a historically and heterogenous concept. To make sense of depression in the context of contemporary psychiatric practice, I show (...) that depression has historically been characterized by two broad models of causation; that is, a phenomenon that is causally explained by either a biological dysfunction or a psychological conflict. But this stark characterization is not limited just to history; by conducting qualitative interviews with psychiatric professionals, I illustrate how this causal dichotomy remains prevalent in contemporary psychiatric practice. On one hand, the clinicians report dissatisfaction with the depression diagnostic criteria (i.e. it is impersonal or vague), while on the other hand, the clinicians also recognize that a depression diagnosis is useful insofar as a diagnosis facilitates access to various resources associated with psychiatric care. Consequently, clinicians have developed a coping strategy that is witnessed in their empathetic desire to distance patients from their depression diagnosis, which led to statements such as, “you are not the problem, the problem is depression.” One consequence of this approach is that depression is artificially cleaved from the person who experiences depression, which subsequently means that depression is viewed to be something independent of oneself. Because I argue that depression and the self are mutually implicated, it is crucial to disseminate some of the most influential contemporary models of selfhood. I show that the brainbound, situated, psychological, and narrative model of self, all have respective strengths and weaknesses. But I also go beyond these models and characterize selfhood as a developmental phenomenon that is expressed as an embodied-style. This style reflects the way in which we establish perceptual contact with the otherness, without which there could be no self-experience. (shrink)

The paper outlines a structuralist unification between two existing relational theories of the self, i.e., Beni's Structural Realist theory of the Self and Gallese's Embodied Relational Self. Each one of these theories provides a structuralist account of some aspects of the self but leaves out some other aspects which are indispensable to a comprehensive account of the self. SRS accounts for the reflective aspects of the self, and ERS accounts for the environmental and social aspects of the self. In this (...) paper, I argue that when paired with one another, SRS and ERS could amend one another's shortcomings, without giving way to a non-relational conception of the self. I draw on neurology of the connection between Cortical Midline Structures and the mirror neuron system to inform my unifying proposal. I also show that an informational framework can underlie the union. (shrink)

My response to the preceding essays begins with some preliminaries about my terminology, approach, and conception of rationality as a regulative ideal. I then comment on the Murphy's discussion about normal religious belief and religious delusions, and on causal assumptions challenged by Langdon's folies à deux. Responding to Gerrans's imagination-based account of delusion and Hohwy's discussion of illusions, I next try to envision what both doxastic and imagination-based approaches might have overlooked by asking whether there can be delusional feelings. Final (...) comments address the place of phenomenology within Coltheart's two-factor theorizing. (shrink)

Closed Loop medical devices such as Closed Loop Deep Brain Stimulation and Brain Computer Interface are some of the emerging neurotechnologies. New generations of implantable brain–computer interfaces have recently gained success in human clinical trials. These implants detect specific neuronal patterns and provide the subject with information to respond to these patterns. Further, Closed Loop brain devices give control to the subject so that he can respond and decide on a therapeutic goal. Although the implants have improved subjects’ quality of (...) life, their use has raised varied ethical concerns. The aim of this study is to provide an overview of the ethical implications specific to the therapeutic goals of closed loop brain implants. The authors analyze the related work qualitatively and quantitatively so as to help readers in understanding the various ethical implications of closed loop brain implants. (shrink)

Addiction remains a challenging disorder, both to treat and to conceptualise. While the temporal dimension of addiction has been noted before, here the aim is to ground this understanding in a coherent phenomenological-neuroscience framework. Addiction is partly understood as drawing the subject into a predominantly “now” orientated existence, with the future closed or experienced as extremely distant. Another feature of this temporal structuring is that past experiences, which are crucial in advancing intentionally forward, are experienced in addiction as a void. (...) This has implications for the generation of meaning and forming of self, amongst others. While there are areas of the brain that regulate temporal processing, there is no single location. Recent addiction research has implicated the insula and in turn this area is implicated in temporal and interoceptive awareness. Similarly these areas of disruption may affect self processes. Disruption of interoception and thus of self, may help explain why addiction is complex and involves multiple aspects of subjectivity. (shrink)

Abstract: The notion of a self-pattern, as developed in the pattern theory of self, which holds that the self is best explained in terms of the kind of reality that pertains to a dynamical pattern, acknowledges the importance of neural dynamics, but also expands the account of self to extra-neural (embodied and enactive) dynamics. The pattern theory of self, however, has been criticized for failing to explicate the dynamical relations among elements of the self-pattern; as such, it seems to be (...) nothing more than a mere list of elements. We’ll argue that the dynamics of a self-pattern are reflected in three significant and interrelated ways that allow for investigation. First, a self-pattern is reflectively reiterated in its narrative component. Second, studies of psychiatric or neurological disorders can help us understand the precise nature of the dynamical relations in a self-pattern, and how they can fail. Third, referencing predictive processing accounts, neuroscience can also help to explicate the dynamical relations that constitute the self-pattern. (shrink)

This article proposes a model of comparative mysticism that bases its rationale for comparison in the dynamic interaction between three components: neurocognitive mechanisms and substrates, phenomenal experiences, and noetic accounts. In examining the phenomenon of ego- dissolution ( EDn), using this model, a scholar can identify universal and contextual components of a mystic’s experiences. The neurocognitive component is derived from neuroscientific studies including brain injury, psychedelics, and meditative practices. The phenomenal and noetic components are derived from personal accounts as narrated (...) by the mystics themselves. These three components will be applied to the ego- dissolution experiences of the modern Indian mystic Sadhguru (1957–Present), the medieval Spanish mystic Teresa of Ávila (1515–1583), and individuals, including scientists, using the psychedelics psilocybin and LSD. This model should introduce an alternative approach to comparative mysticism as a response to the long-standing debate between Walter T. Stace’s essentialist model and Steven T. Katz’s contextualist model, respectively. In particular, the neurocognitive component should function as a bridge providing a deeper level of analysis encompassing and undermining differences between universalist and contextualist reductions. The advent of comparative mysticism may be seen as a collaborative effort that is multidisciplinary in nature, contributing to theology, religious studies, philosophy, history, cognitive neuroscience, and many other disciplines. (shrink)

Volume 2, Issue 2, June 2018, Page 234-245.