Five Perspectives to Enhance Self-Understanding (original) (raw)

Self-Awareness and Self-Understanding

European Journal of Philosophy, 2019

In this paper, I argue that self-awareness is intertwined with awareness of possibilities for action. I show this by critically examining Dan Zahavi's multidimensional account of the self. I show how the distinction Zahavi makes among 'pre-reflective minimal', 'interpersonal', and 'normative' dimensions of selfhood needs to be refined in order to accommodate what I call 'pre-reflective self-understanding'. The latter is a normative dimension of selfhood manifest not in reflection and deliberation, but in the habits and style of a person's pre-reflective absorption in the world. After reviewing Zahavi's multidimensional account and revealing this gap in his explanatory taxonomy, I draw upon Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Frankfurt in order to sketch an account of pre-reflective self-understanding. I end by raising an objection to Zahavi's claim for the primitive and foundational status of pre-reflective self-awareness. To carve off self-awareness from the self's practical immersion in a situation where things and possibilities already matter and draw one to act is to distort the phenomena. A more careful phenomenology of pre-reflective action shows that pre-reflective self-awareness and pre-reflective self-understanding are co-constitutive, both mutually for each other and jointly for everyday experience.

Organization and development of self-understanding and self-regulation: Toward a general theory

In M. Boekaerts, P. R. Pintrich, & M. Zeidner (Eds.), Handbook of Self-regulation (pp 209-251). New York: Academic Press, 2000., 2000

This chapter reviews research and theory on self-understanding and self-regulation, focusing on the understanding of mind, self-concept, and self-regulation. It specifies the mental processes involved in each and outlines their development from childhood to early adulthood. Also, it places these processes in the broader context of cognition and personality.

Self-Awareness Part 1: Definition, Measures, Effects, Functions, and Antecedents

Self-awareness represents the capacity of becoming the object of one's own attention. In this state one actively identifies, processes, and stores information about the self. This paper surveys the self-awareness literature by emphasizing definition issues, measurement techniques, effects and functions of self-attention, and antecedents of self-awareness. Key self-related concepts (e.g., minimal, reflective consciousness) are distinguished from the central notion of self-awareness. Reviewed measures include questionnaires, implicit tasks, and self-recognition. Main effects and functions of self-attention consist in self-evaluation, escape from the self, amplification of one's subjective experience, increased self-knowledge, self-regulation, and inferences about others' mental states (Theory-of-Mind). A neurocognitive and socioecological model of self-awareness is described in which the role of face-to-face interactions, reflected appraisals, mirrors, media, inner speech, imagery , autobiographical knowledge, and neurological structures is underlined.