Self-Consciousness and Intersubjectivity: Exploring the role of the awareness of others in the possibility and development of self-consciousness
Lead Research Organisation:
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
Department Name: Sociology, Philosophy, Anthropology
Abstract
The broader aim of this project is to investigate whether the awareness of others is a requirement for the very possibility of self-consciousness. This question is important as it bears implications on our existence as individuals and social beings. Exploring this issue would help us understand more about how we experience ourselves and how we relate to others. There are two dimensions to this question that I will be addressing:
1) The empirical question of whether the awareness of others constitutes a factor in the development of self-consciousness.
2) The philosophical question of whether the awareness of others is a necessary and/ or sufficient condition for the conceivability and epistemic possibility of self-consciousness.
These two questions have been primarily addressed as independent from one another. In my project I aim to reverse this tradition by showing that these two questions are interconnected and must be ultimately answered together. Regarding the developmental issue, there is widespread agreement that the development of self-consciousness is mediated by early interpersonal interactions and therefore, social in nature. This conclusion is supported by growing empirical evidence from developmental psychology and cognitive science. With respect to the second question, the picture looks much different. There is a long philosophical tradition attributable to Descartes of assigning priority and epistemic privilege to the first-person. Self-consciousness is traditionally conceptualized as opposed to and independent from the consciousness of others. The primacy of the first-person constitutes an operating assumption behind many accounts of interpersonal understanding.
One pressing issue that I intend to address is whether there is a tension between the developmental story about the social roots of the self and the traditional Cartesian view on the primacy of self-consciousness. Can the answers to these two questions diverge or is there any significant interconnection between the developmental and theoretical issue? I anticipate that two questions cannot be addressed independently from one another. So, the initial part of my project will be devolved to make the case for this: showing that there is an interdependence between the conditions of possibility and the conditions of development of self-consciousness. This in turn would amount to a refutation of the Cartesian picture of selfhood.
I believe the main import of this project is to provide a new direction to both philosophical and empirical research on intersubjectivity and social cognition. In fact, the philosophical issue of other minds has been traditionally framed as the problem of bridging the gap between self-enclosed subjectivities. If, however, the other is already present in self-consciousness, we would have reasons to rethink the very nature of our knowledge and experience of others. This could also motivate and provide conceptual foundations for further empirical studies on the relation between the development of social skills and the emergence of a sense of identity. My research project could also find interesting applications in psychopathology, especially disorders in the autism spectrum which might be analysed in terms of a disturbed development of this social self-consciousness.
1) The empirical question of whether the awareness of others constitutes a factor in the development of self-consciousness.
2) The philosophical question of whether the awareness of others is a necessary and/ or sufficient condition for the conceivability and epistemic possibility of self-consciousness.
These two questions have been primarily addressed as independent from one another. In my project I aim to reverse this tradition by showing that these two questions are interconnected and must be ultimately answered together. Regarding the developmental issue, there is widespread agreement that the development of self-consciousness is mediated by early interpersonal interactions and therefore, social in nature. This conclusion is supported by growing empirical evidence from developmental psychology and cognitive science. With respect to the second question, the picture looks much different. There is a long philosophical tradition attributable to Descartes of assigning priority and epistemic privilege to the first-person. Self-consciousness is traditionally conceptualized as opposed to and independent from the consciousness of others. The primacy of the first-person constitutes an operating assumption behind many accounts of interpersonal understanding.
One pressing issue that I intend to address is whether there is a tension between the developmental story about the social roots of the self and the traditional Cartesian view on the primacy of self-consciousness. Can the answers to these two questions diverge or is there any significant interconnection between the developmental and theoretical issue? I anticipate that two questions cannot be addressed independently from one another. So, the initial part of my project will be devolved to make the case for this: showing that there is an interdependence between the conditions of possibility and the conditions of development of self-consciousness. This in turn would amount to a refutation of the Cartesian picture of selfhood.
I believe the main import of this project is to provide a new direction to both philosophical and empirical research on intersubjectivity and social cognition. In fact, the philosophical issue of other minds has been traditionally framed as the problem of bridging the gap between self-enclosed subjectivities. If, however, the other is already present in self-consciousness, we would have reasons to rethink the very nature of our knowledge and experience of others. This could also motivate and provide conceptual foundations for further empirical studies on the relation between the development of social skills and the emergence of a sense of identity. My research project could also find interesting applications in psychopathology, especially disorders in the autism spectrum which might be analysed in terms of a disturbed development of this social self-consciousness.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Beatrice Pagliarone (Student) |