Being No One: The Self-model Theory of Subjectivity (Bradford Book) - Hardcover

Metzinger, Thomas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262134179 ISBN 13: 9780262134170

Publisher: MIT Press, 2003

Synopsis

According to Thomas Metzinger, no such things as selves exist in the world: nobody ever had or was a self. All that exists are phenomenal selves, as they appear in conscious experience. The phenomenal self, however, is not a thing but an ongoing process; it is the content of a "transparent self-model." In Being No One, Metzinger, a German philosopher, draws strongly on neuroscientific research to present a representationalist and functional analysis of what a consciously experienced first-person perspective actually is. Building a bridge between the humanities and the empirical sciences of the mind, he develops new conceptual toolkits and metaphors; uses case studies of unusual states of mind such as agnosia, neglect, blindsight, and hallucinations; and offers new sets of multilevel constraints for the concept of consciousness. Metzinger's central question is: How exactly does strong, consciously experienced subjectivity emerge out of objective events in the natural world? His epistemic goal is to determine whether conscious experience, in particular the experience of being someone that results from the emergence of a phenomenal self, can be analyzed on subpersonal levels of description. He also asks if and how our Cartesian intuitions that subjective experiences as such can never be reductively explained are themselves ultimately rooted in the deeper representational structure of our conscious minds.

About this title

Review:

A convincing philosophical exposition and a well-structured compendium... without a doubt, a milestone of modern Philosophy of Mind. -- Reiner Hedrich Philosophy of Science Metzinger's interdisciplinary approach opens a new path toward a scientific theory of consciousness and self-consciousness. -- Franz Mechsner and Albert Newen Science This book is a 'must' for anyone who is interested in empirical studies related to first-person issues or subjectivity. -- Kai Vogeley TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences

About the Author:

Thomas Metzinger is Professor of Philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universitat Mainz, Germany. He is the editor of Neural Correlates of Consciousness (MIT Press, 2000).

About this edition

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0262134179
• ISBN 13: 9780262134170
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 584