Salje, L.-C.;
(2012)
Self-perception: prospects for a multimodal perceptual model of self-consciousness.
Masters thesis , UCL (University College London).
Abstract
It is natural to think that we are each aware of ourselves as bodily objects located in an extra-bodily world. It is also natural to think that this kind of awareness is unique in its peculiarly first personal character; I am aware of this bodily object in the world as me or mine in a way that I am not aware of any other object in the world. Intuitively, then, it seems that we are each conscious of ourselves as essentially first personal objects in the world. The starting point of this thesis is an explanatory demand arising from this intuition: what could explain our capacity for self-consciousness as essentially first personal objects in the world? The response contemplated in this thesis looks to the special ways in which we are perceptually aware of our own bodies. Through our perception of our bodies ‘from the inside’, it is argued, we have a form of self-perception which, as a state with essentially first personal content that is the basis of judgments that are immune to error through misidentification, bears two important hallmarks of self-consciousness qua subject, or as first personal in the relevant sense. In compliment to these features of ‘internal’ bodily perception, it is submitted that through our exteroceptive sense modalities we perceive our bodies as objects among others in the world. The central proposal of this thesis is that when these two kinds of perception are combined in a multimodal state of bodily perception, the result is a state of self-perception that provides a potential explanation for our self-consciousness as essentially first personal objects in the world. This thesis undertakes to argue for both the viability and the appeal of this approach.
| Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Title: | Self-perception: prospects for a multimodal perceptual model of self-consciousness |
| Language: | English |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of Philosophy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1352453 |
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