Self and Other: Exploring Subjectivity, Empathy, and ShameCan you be a self on your own or only together with others? Is selfhood a built-in feature of experience or rather socially constructed? How do we at all come to understand others? Does empathy amount to and allow for a distinct experiential acquaintance with others, and if so, what does that tell us about the nature of selfhood and social cognition? Does a strong emphasis on the first-personal character of consciousness prohibit a satisfactory account of intersubjectivity or is the former rather a necessary requirement for the latter? Engaging with debates and findings in classical phenomenology, in philosophy of mind and in various empirical disciplines, Dan Zahavi's new book Self and Other offers answers to these questions. Discussing such diverse topics as self-consciousness, phenomenal externalism, mindless coping, mirror self-recognition, autism, theory of mind, embodied simulation, joint attention, shame, time-consciousness, embodiment, narrativity, self-disorders, expressivity and Buddhist no-self accounts, Zahavi argues that any theory of consciousness that wishes to take the subjective dimension of our experiential life serious must endorse a minimalist notion of self. At the same time, however, he also contends that an adequate account of the self has to recognize its multifaceted character, and that various complementary accounts must be integrated, if we are to do justice to its complexity. Thus, while arguing that the most fundamental level of selfhood is not socially constructed and not constitutively dependent upon others, Zahavi also acknowledges that there are dimensions of the self and types of self-experience that are other-mediated. The final part of the book exemplifies this claim through a close analysis of shame. |
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According account of empathy Albahari argues autism aware basic behaviour bodily body characterized claim concept consequently consider constituted contrast criticism Dainton defended deny diachronic dimension discussion distinct distinguish doesn’t doesnLt emotional contagion encounter enological entail existence experiencing experiential expressions facial fact feel first-person perspective first-personal character focus for-me-ness Gallese Gallup given Goldman Husserl identity individual infant inference intentional intentional object interaction interpersonal understanding intersubjectivity involves joint attention kind Kriegel latter Lipps mental merely Merleau-Ponty mirror neurons mirror self-recognition narrative notion object observer obviously one’s oneLs oneself other’s otherLs perceive perception person phenomenal character phenomenal consciousness phenomenological pre-reflective self-consciousness precisely present presupposes problem proposal psychological question reflective relation Sartre Sartre’s Scheler Schutz self-awareness self-experience selfhood sense shame simply simulation theory social cognition specific Stein Strawson stream of consciousness subject of experience temporal term theory of mind theory-theory unity Whereas Zahavi