CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2014
| Author | Balogh, Zsuzsanna |
|---|---|
| Title | Senses of Self and Senses of the Body: Phenomenological Aspects of Self- and Bodily Awareness |
| Summary | ABSTRACT. My dissertation aims to investigate two aspects of the experience we have characteristically as human subjects; our experience of ourselves, which I understand as the so-called sense of self and our experience of our bodies. The approach taken towards these subjects is predominantly phenomenological and purposefully not metaphysical. In my discussion of the phenomenal aspects of experience, I also refer to findings and studies of psychology and neuropsychology in order to draw philosophical conclusions. Importantly, my theses and conclusions are compatible with a variety of metaphysical views of the self. The sense we have of ourselves is understood to entail two different levels of experience. The first of these is argued to be the experience of being a subject who undergoes experiences and is embedded in our everyday experiences of the world, which has phenomenal elements we can characterise and conceptualise and which work in a peripheral manner on the level of unreflected, first-order conscious states. A pathological condition is also taken into consideration for the purposes of gaining relevant phenomenological insights. The second level of our sense of ourselves is understood as that which constitutes the experience of who we sense we are as individuals, and it is also argued to entail phenomenal elements we can characterise on the level of a subject’s psychology. This discussion also involves dealing with the challenge of social psychology with respect to character. The second major aspect investigated in my dissertation is our awareness of our bodies qua our bodies. This involves inspecting the specific phenomenal elements of bodily awareness and certain pathologies thereof. Subjective bodily awareness is contrasted with the objective body and it is shown that the phenomenological view of our experience of our bodies can be accommodated by a different metaphysical framework of subjective experience. Conclusions with respect to the phenomenal aspects are also drawn from a specific pathology of bodily awareness. My dissertation concludes in analysing which specific aspects of the sense of our bodies contribute to which phenomenal aspects of the senses of self and how. |
| Supervisor | Farkas, Katalin |
| Department | Philosophy PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2014/balogh_zsuzsanna.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University