Self-Consciousness as a Construction All the Way Down.
Massimo Marraffa, Cristina Meini
Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) March 1, 2024 DOI: 10.3390/bs14030200 via PubMed
Summary
Human life depends on building and defending a subjective identity, which is foundational for psychological well-being and mental health, as important as biological needs or social competition. Drawing on contemporary cognitive sciences rather than neo-Cartesian philosophy, the authors examine how cognitive, emotional, and affective elements intertwine to construct subjective identity, focusing on the role of Theory-of-Mind abilities. They suggest that at every stage of self-construction, individuals engage in largely innate processes of understanding others, and that mature self-awareness is secondary to knowledge of others, serving primarily as an evolutionarily refined defense mechanism.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Narrative self Physical self Self-consciousness construction Subjective identity Theory of mind |
| Citations | 2 |
| Key finding | Mature self-awareness is secondary to knowledge of others, serving as an evolutionarily refined defense mechanism in the construction of subjective identity. |
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.