MinimalSelf · Embodiment, Intersubjectivity, and the Minimal Self
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2016-07-01 → 2018-06-30
- EU contribution
- €166,157
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
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Results in brief
Embodiment, Intersubjectivity, and the Minimal Self
The project studied the most fundamental sense of self from a philosophical and interdisciplinary perspective. Its starting point was the concept of the “minimal self,” as recently employed by philosophers such as Gallagher and Zahavi, who suppose that the minimal self is given in every conscious experience before we reflect on the experience. In traditional and contemporary debates there is considerable confusion concerning how to conceive of the most fundamental sense of the self and its relation to subjectivity, consciousness, intersubjectivity, and the embodied person. The project showed that the minimal self is integral to conscious experience rather than merely formal, that it is an important constituent of the person as a whole, and that it can only relate to the world because it is part of an embodied being that is embedded in an intersubjective community. How we conceive of the minimal self is at the heart of how we conceive of ourselves and others. If, for instance, there is ultimately no self but only brain activity, this not only has implications for the concept we have of ourselves and others, but also for the responsibility for our actions. Many people thus rightly feel confused by claims such as that brain science proves there is no self. The project made sense of the general intuition that there is a self by arguing that there is at least a minimal self, and that it is fundamental to other concepts of the self. The project found that consciousness is structured in such a way that it connects apparently contradictory concepts, such as that of the subject and that of the embodied self in the world. It was furthermore shown that a better appreciation of the complexity of consciousness is pivotal to our understanding of the possibilities in which technology can handle cognition.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The proposed project is a philosophical and interdisciplinary study of the most fundamental sense of self. It will take, as its starting point, the concept of “minimal self”, as recently employed by philosophers such as Gallagher and Zahavi. The aim of the project is to develop a clearer, more elaborate, and substantially revised conception of minimal self.First of all, I will engage in depth with relevant phenomenological scholarship, focusing on the work of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. I will then use the results of this engagement to critically discuss, elaborate and revise current conceptions of minimal self. Finally, I will examine applications of the concept of “minimal self” in psychiatry and psychopathology, for instance by Parnas et al. and Sass.The project will be structured around three guiding questions, to which others have given conflicting or insufficiently clear answers:1. Is the minimal self given in experience, or is it a formal abstraction from experience?2. Is the minimal self prior to intersubjectivity, or is it inextricably intertwined with intersubjectivity?3. In what sense is the minimal self 'embodied', and how does this relate to the issue of intersubjectivity?I will argue that the minimal self is integral to experience rather than an abstraction from it. Furthermore, it is inextricable from interpersonal experience, to an extent that others, such as Zahavi (2014), have not sufficiently acknowledged. I will also make clear how the intersubjective structure of minimal self relates to its bodily nature.This view will be supported through a detailed study of the phenomenology of self-disturbances such as schizophrenia, and I will show how the revised concept of minimal self has significant implications for our understanding of psychopathological disturbances.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITAT WIEN · WienCoordinatorAustria
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union