Self (MITEC)
<p class=default>
<b>Self</b>
<br/>
Questions about the self are typically posed as questions about persons or minds, about
such self-reflexive capacities as
<u>SELF-KNOWLEDGE <van_gulick.html></u>
and self-reference, or about the semantics and pragmatics of "I." For example, we think
of the self or person as something that endures through changes in its mental states; but
what is it that makes us the same person now who we were ten years ago? Among those who
reject the idea of a nonphysical substance or soul, the debate has focused on the relative
importance of bodily continuity (especially continuity of the brain) and psychological
continuity (Williams 1973; Parfit 1984). Because the focus on psychological continuity
entails that there could in principle be more than one person in a single human body, the
debate has clear implications for controversies in clinical psychology such as that
surrounding multiple personality subjects (Hacking 1995). More recently the debate has
expanded to include such normative issues as the nature of the justification of the
sacrifices that we ordinarily make for our future selves (White 1991; Rovane 1997),
raising the question whether personhood is a metaphysical or a normative concept.
<br/>
<b>See also</b>
<br/>
<u>ECOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY <neisser.html></u>
<br/>
<u>IMITATION <meltzoff.html></u>
<br/>
<u>SIMULATION VS. THEORY-THEORY <gordon.html></u>
<br/>
<u>SITUATEDNESS/EMBEDDEDNESS <smithbc.html></u>
<br/>
-- Stephen L. White
<br/>
<b>References</b>
<br/>
Anscombe, G. E. M. (1975). The first person. In S. Guttenplan, Ed.,
<i>Mind and Language: Wolfson College Lectures.</i>
New York: Oxford University Press.
<br/>
Ayer, A. J. (1954). Freedom and necessity. In A. J. Ayer, Ed.,
<i>Philosophical Essays.</i>
London: Macmillan.
<br/>
Butterworth, G. E., Ed. (1982).
<i>Infancy and Epistemology: An Evaluation of Piaget's Theory.</i>
New York: St. Martin's Press.
<br/>
Cicchetti, D., and M. Beeghly, Eds. (1990).
<i>The Self in Transition: Infancy to Childhood.</i>
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
<br/>
Gibson, J. J. (1986).
<i>The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception.</i>
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
<br/>
Hacking, I. (1995).
<i>Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory.</i>
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
<br/>
Heidegger, M. (1962).
<i>Being and Time.</i>
New York: Harper and Row.
<br/>
Hume, D. (1888).
<i>A Treatise of Human Nature.</i>
L. A. Selby-Bigge, Ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
<br/>
Mach, E. (1939).
<i>The Analysis of Sensations.</i>
New York: Dover.
<br/>
Mark, L. S. (1987). Eyeheight-scaled information about affordances: A study of sitting and
stair climbing.
<i>Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance</i>
13:361-370.
<br/>
Meltzoff, A. N., and M. K. Moore. (1995). Infants' understanding of people and things:
From body imitation to folk psychology. In J. L. Bermúdez, A. Marcel, and N. Eilan, Eds.,
<i>The Body and the Self.</i>
Cambridge, MA: Bradford/MIT Press.
<br/>
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962).
<i>Phenomenology of Perception.</i>
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
<br/>
Neisser, U. (1988). Five kinds of self-knowledge.
<i>Philosophical Psychology</i>
1:35-59.
<br/>
Neisser, U., Ed. (1993).
<i>The Perceived Self: Ecological and Interpersonal Sources of Self-Knowledge.</i>
New York: Cambridge University Press.
<br/>
Parfit, D. (1984).
<i>Reasons and Persons.</i>
New York: Oxford University Press.
<br/>
Rovane, C. (1997).
<i>The Bounds of Agency: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics.</i>
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
<br/>
Sartre, J.-P. (1956).
<i>Being and Nothingness.</i>
New York: Simon and Schuster.
<br/>
Schlick, M. (1949). Meaning and verification. In H. Feigl and W. Sellars, Eds.,
<i>Readings in Philosophical Analysis.</i>
New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
<br/>
Shoemaker, S. (1968). Self-reference and self-awareness.
<i>Journal of Philosophy</i>
65:555-567.
<br/>
Stern, D. N. (1985).
<i>The Interpersonal World of the Infant.</i>
New York: Basic Books.
<br/>
Strawson, P. F. (1959).
<i>Individuals.</i>
Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
<br/>
Strawson, P. F. (1962). Freedom and resentment.
<i>Proceedings of the British Academy</i>
48:1-25.
<br/>
Warren, W. H., and S. Whang. (1987). Visual guidance of walking through apertures:
Body-scaled information for affordances.
<i>Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance</i>
13:371-383.
<br/>
White, S. L. (1991).
<i>The Unity of the Self.</i>
Cambridge, MA: Bradford/MIT Press.
<br/>
Williams, B. (1973).
<i>Problems of the Self.</i>
New York: Cambridge University Press.
<br/>
<b>Further Readings</b>
<br/>
Bermúdez, J. L., A. Marcel, and N. Eilan, Eds. (1995).
<i>The Body and the Self.</i>
Cambridge, MA: Bradford/MIT Press.
<br/>
Campbell, J. (1994).
<i>Past, Space, and Self.</i>
Cambridge, MA: Bradford/MIT Press.
<br/>
Cassam, Q., Ed. (1994).
<i>Self-Knowledge.</i>
New York: Oxford University Press.
<br/>
Cassam, Q. (1997).
<i>Self and World.</i>
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
<br/>
Dennett, D. C. (1992). The self as a center of narrative gravity. In F. Kessel, P. Cole,
and D. Johnson, Eds.,
<i>Self and Consciousness: Multiple Perspectives.</i>
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
<br/>
Eilan, N., R. McCarthy, and B. Brewer, Eds. (1993).
<i>Spatial Representation.</i>
Oxford: Blackwell.
<br/>
Elster, J. (1986).
<i>The Multiple Self.</i>
New York: Cambridge University Press.
<br/>
Evans, G. (1982).
<i>The Varieties of Reference.</i>
New York: Oxford University Press.
<br/>
Gallagher, S., and J. Shear, Eds. (1997). Special issue: Models of the self.
<i>Journal of Consciousness Studies</i>
4:385-540.
<br/>
Husserl, E. (1950).
<i>Cartesian Meditations.</i>
Dordrecht: Kluwer.
<br/>
James, W. (1950). The consciousness of self. In
<i>The Principles of Psychology.</i>
New York: Dover.
<br/>
Lewis, M., and J. Brooks-Gunn. (1979).
<i>Social Cognition and the Acquisition of Self.</i>
New York: Plenum.
<br/>
Mead, G. H. (1934).
<i>Mind, Self, and Society.</i>
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
<br/>
Peacocke, C., Ed. (1994).
<i>Objectivity, Simulation, and the Unity of Consciousness.</i>
New York: Oxford University Press.
<br/>
Radden, J. (1996).
<i>Divided Minds and Successive Selves: Ethical Issues in Disorders of Identity and
Personality.</i>
Cambridge, MA: Bradford/MIT Press.
<br/>
Sartre, J.-P. (1957).
<i>The Transcendence of the Ego: An Existentialist Theory of Consciousness.</i>
New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
<br/>
Shoemaker, S. (1963).
<i>Self-Knowledge and Self-Identity.</i>
Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
<br/>
Taylor, C. (1989).
<i>Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity.</i>
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
<br/>
Tugendhat, E. (1986).
<i>Self-Consciousness and Self-Determination.</i>
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
<br/>
Vygotsky, L. (1986).
<i>Thought and Language.</i>
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
<br/>
Wilkes, K. (1988).
<i>Real People: Personal Identity without Thought Experiments.</i>
New York: Oxford University Press.
<br/>
Wittgenstein, L. (1958).
<i>The Blue and Brown Books.</i>
Oxford: Blackwell.
<br/>
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