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“I” and “Me”: The Self in the Context of Consciousness
James (1890) distinguished two understandings of the self, the self as “Me” and the self as “I”. This distinction has recently regained popularity in cognitive science, especially in the context of experimental studies on the underpinnings of the phenomenal self. The goal of this paper is to take a...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2018
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6131638/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30233474 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01656 |
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author | Woźniak, Mateusz |
author_facet | Woźniak, Mateusz |
author_sort | Woźniak, Mateusz |
collection | PubMed |
description | James (1890) distinguished two understandings of the self, the self as “Me” and the self as “I”. This distinction has recently regained popularity in cognitive science, especially in the context of experimental studies on the underpinnings of the phenomenal self. The goal of this paper is to take a step back from cognitive science and attempt to precisely distinguish between “Me” and “I” in the context of consciousness. This distinction was originally based on the idea that the former (“Me”) corresponds to the self as an object of experience (self as object), while the latter (“I”) reflects the self as a subject of experience (self as subject). I will argue that in most of the cases (arguably all) this distinction maps onto the distinction between the phenomenal self (reflecting self-related content of consciousness) and the metaphysical self (representing the problem of subjectivity of all conscious experience), and as such these two issues should be investigated separately using fundamentally different methodologies. Moreover, by referring to Metzinger’s (2018) theory of phenomenal self-models, I will argue that what is usually investigated as the phenomenal-“I” [following understanding of self-as-subject introduced by Wittgenstein (1958)] can be interpreted as object, rather than subject of experience, and as such can be understood as an element of the hierarchical structure of the phenomenal self-model. This understanding relates to recent predictive coding and free energy theories of the self and bodily self discussed in cognitive neuroscience and philosophy. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6131638 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-61316382018-09-19 “I” and “Me”: The Self in the Context of Consciousness Woźniak, Mateusz Front Psychol Psychology James (1890) distinguished two understandings of the self, the self as “Me” and the self as “I”. This distinction has recently regained popularity in cognitive science, especially in the context of experimental studies on the underpinnings of the phenomenal self. The goal of this paper is to take a step back from cognitive science and attempt to precisely distinguish between “Me” and “I” in the context of consciousness. This distinction was originally based on the idea that the former (“Me”) corresponds to the self as an object of experience (self as object), while the latter (“I”) reflects the self as a subject of experience (self as subject). I will argue that in most of the cases (arguably all) this distinction maps onto the distinction between the phenomenal self (reflecting self-related content of consciousness) and the metaphysical self (representing the problem of subjectivity of all conscious experience), and as such these two issues should be investigated separately using fundamentally different methodologies. Moreover, by referring to Metzinger’s (2018) theory of phenomenal self-models, I will argue that what is usually investigated as the phenomenal-“I” [following understanding of self-as-subject introduced by Wittgenstein (1958)] can be interpreted as object, rather than subject of experience, and as such can be understood as an element of the hierarchical structure of the phenomenal self-model. This understanding relates to recent predictive coding and free energy theories of the self and bodily self discussed in cognitive neuroscience and philosophy. Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-09-04 /pmc/articles/PMC6131638/ /pubmed/30233474 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01656 Text en Copyright © 2018 Woźniak. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Woźniak, Mateusz “I” and “Me”: The Self in the Context of Consciousness |
title | “I” and “Me”: The Self in the Context of Consciousness |
title_full | “I” and “Me”: The Self in the Context of Consciousness |
title_fullStr | “I” and “Me”: The Self in the Context of Consciousness |
title_full_unstemmed | “I” and “Me”: The Self in the Context of Consciousness |
title_short | “I” and “Me”: The Self in the Context of Consciousness |
title_sort | “i” and “me”: the self in the context of consciousness |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6131638/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30233474 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01656 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT wozniakmateusz iandmetheselfinthecontextofconsciousness |