Self-Consciousness as a Construction All the Way Down

Author:

Marraffa Massimo1ORCID,Meini Cristina2

Affiliation:

1. Department of Philosophy, Communication and Performing Arts, Roma Tre University, 00144 Rome, Italy

2. Department of Ecological Transition and Sustainable Development, University of Eastern Piedmont, 13100 Vercelli, Italy

Abstract

Contemporary mind and brain sciences provide theories and data that seem to confirm a hypothesis about human nature that we might formulate as follows. Human life is conditioned by a need that is no less important than elementary biological needs (such as survival and reproduction) or universal forms of social competition: the need to build and, indeed, defend a subjective identity whose solidity and clarity are the foundation of our intra- and inter-personal equilibrium and therefore of psychological well-being and mental health. In this article, distancing ourselves from a neo-Cartesian position still prevalent in the philosophy of mind and approaching instead the outcomes of contemporary cognitive sciences, we sketch the complex interweaving of the cognitive, emotional, and affective elements that are constitutive of subjective identity, with a focus on the role played in self-identity construction by Theory-of-Mind abilities. We will suggest that, at every stage of self-construction, individuals engage in processes of understanding others that have a largely innate basis. In this perspective, a mature self-awareness is somewhat secondary to the knowledge of others, an evolutionarily refined acquisition primarily serving as a defense mechanism.

Funder

MUR – M4C2 1.3 of PNRR

Publisher

MDPI AG

Reference49 articles.

1. McAdams, D.P. (1985). Power, Intimacy, and the Life Story: Personological Inquiries into Identity, Dorsey Press.

2. Nelson, K. (1989). Narratives from the Crib, Harvard University Press.

3. McLean, K.C., and Syed, M. (2015). The Oxford Handbook of Identity Development, Oxford University Press.

4. James, W. (1981). The Principles of Psychology, Harvard University Press.

5. Personality, modernity, and the storied self: A contemporary framework for studying persons;McAdams;Psychol. Inq.,1996

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