Abstract
What is it to occupy a first-person stance? Is the first-personal idea one has of oneself in conflict with the idea of oneself as a physical being? How, if there is a conflict, is it to be resolved? In this book a new way to address those questions, drawing inspiration from theories about the self in first millennial India, is formulated. These philosophers do not regard the first-person stance as in conflict with the natural-their idea of nature not that of scientific naturalism but rather a liberal naturalism non-exclusive of the normative. A wide range of ideas are explored: reflexive self-representation, mental files, and quasi-subject analyses of subjective consciousness; the theory of emergence as transformation; embodiment and the idea of a bodily self; the centrality of the emotions to the unity of self. Buddhism's claim that there is no self too readily assumes an account of what a self must be. This book argues instead that the self is a negotiation between self-presentation and normative avowal, a transaction grounded in unconscious mind. Immersion, participation, and coordination are jointly constitutive of self, the first-person stance at once lived, engaged, and underwritten. And all is in harmony with the idea of the natural.
Original language | English (US) |
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Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Number of pages | 392 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9780191740718 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780199652365 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 24 2012 |
Keywords
- Consciousness
- Coordination
- First-person stance
- Immersion
- India
- Naturalism
- Participation
- Self
- Subjectivity
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Arts and Humanities