scholarly journals On Introspection and Self-Perception: Does Self-Focused Attention Enable Accurate Self-Knowledge?

2001 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 241-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul J. Silvia ◽  
Guido H. E. Gendolla
Keyword(s):  
Indirect Evidence ◽  
Object Perception ◽  
Physical Symptoms ◽  
Focused Attention ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Self Perception ◽  
Self Reports ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Future Work

How is introspection related to accurate self-perception? Self-focused attention is said to facilitate accurate judgments of cognitive aspects (attitudes, standards, and attributions) and somatic aspects (sensations, arousal, physical symptoms, emotions) of self. The present skeptical review concludes that the “perceptual accuracy hypothesis” is unsupported. There is simply little direct evidence, and the indirect evidence is better explained by objective self-awareness theory's core tenet: Self-focus increases consistency motivation. Most studies have also failed to appreciate the complexity of establishing the accuracy of self-judgment. The authors discuss some conceptual issues that future work should recognize, such as the logics of accuracy research, the role of honesty standards in accurate self-reports, differences in self-perception and object perception, and the implications of different self-theories for accuracy.

scholarly journals Philosophy as a project: descriptors of self-knowledge

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 ◽  
pp. 04006
Author(s):  
Sergey Borisov
Keyword(s):  
Practical Experience ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Holistic View ◽  
Main Method ◽  
Basic Relationship ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Philosophical Project ◽  
Relationship Of

Philosophy as a project is defined by us in practical terms, as a form of spiritual activity, spiritual practice aimed at posing, analyzing, and resolving various worldview issues related to the development of a holistic view of a person and his place in the world. The article presents the main characteristics of the philosophical project of self-knowledge, consisting in self-awareness in the present, in personal self-determination and self-transformation. These characteristics are also applicable to the educational process. The article summarizes the practical experience of building up the process of teaching philosophy based on scientific ignorance. The main factors of this process are personal interest, successful self-realization, the role of a mentor and a friendly environment. The main method is dialogue, clarifying the basic relationship of a person with being. In this context, philosophizing fulfills a therapeutic function, becoming a practice of “self-care”.

scholarly journals RADICAL ENACTIVISM AND SELF-KNOWLEDGE

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (141) ◽  
pp. 723-743
Author(s):  
Giovanni Rolla
Keyword(s):  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Privileged Access ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
Radical Enactivism ◽  
Perceptual Model ◽  
Self Knowledge

ABSTRACT I propose a middle-ground between a perceptual model of self-knowledge, according to which the objects of self-awareness (one's beliefs, desires, intentions and so on) are accessed through some kind of causal mechanism, and a rationalist model, according to which self-knowledge is constituted by one's rational agency. Through an analogy with the role of the exercises of sensorimotor abilities in rationally grounded perceptual knowledge, self-knowledge is construed as an exercise of action-oriented and action-orienting abilities. This view satisfies the privileged access condition usually associated with self-knowledge without entailing an insurmountable gap between self- knowledge and knowledge of other minds.

scholarly journals Augustine’s Self-Knowledge in Animals

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karel Klozar
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Information ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Self Perception ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Internal Sense

This paper focuses on Augustine’s concept of self-knowledge or self-awareness in non-rational animals through examining the relation between external senses, internal sense and rationality. The explanation of what causes motion in non-rational living beings is quite puzzling in the case of animal’s self-perception – for what reason do they move, sense or live. This motivation is also connected to the self-preservation principle, which is one of the two sources of confusion regarding self-perception in animals; the other one is the ability of internal sense or anima to perceive themselves, other animals and humans as alive – in spite of the fact that this can in no way be sensory information.

Artists’ Innocent Eye as Extended Proximal Mode of Vision

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leon Lou
Keyword(s):  
Middle Childhood ◽  
Visual Memory ◽  
Object Perception ◽  
Retinal Images ◽  
Perceptual Expertise ◽  
Focused Attention ◽  
Step Model ◽  
Potential Challenge ◽  
Pedagogical Approaches

The innocent eye, or seeing ‘what the eye sees’ is a meaningful expression many artists use to capture their experience in observational drawing and painting. However, a literal interpretation of the innocent eye does not comport with a science of vison focused on object perception. Nor is a two-step model involving a ‘bottom-up strategy’ a plausible account of the notion. Consistent with an emerging body of neuroscientific and psychophysical evidence for the pivotal role of attention in conscious vision, artists’ innocent eye is best construed as an extended proximal mode of vision involving focused attention on pictorial relationships in an identified object or scene. The innocent eye is open to creative expansion, made possible by a competency developed most likely in the early through middle childhood that underpins the visuocognitive skills for flexible deployment of attention, flexible representation, mental imagery and visual memory. The potential challenge from the rare cases of savant-talented artists, who seem to be able to access retinal images directly, is discussed and considered inconclusive. The proposed theoretical framework raises new questions for empirical investigations on the nature and development of the artists’ perceptual expertise, and has implications for science-based pedagogical approaches to drawing, painting, and creativity.

Self-Awareness as a Strategy for Self-Improvement? The Role of Self-Construal

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristy K. Dean ◽  
Wendi L. Gardner ◽  
Swathi Gandhavadi
Keyword(s):  
Self Awareness ◽  
Self Construal

The problem of reflection in German philosophy of the XVIII - XIX centuries

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (152) ◽  
pp. 141-145
Author(s):  
L. A. Checal ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Conceptual Representation ◽  
German Philosophy ◽  
Historical Aspect ◽  
Theoretical Significance ◽  
Self Knowledge

This study focuses on a conceptual representation of the metaphysical and non-classical context of reflection in its subjective dichotomous understanding. The author successively reviews the specifics of reflection, as well as the features of methodology of cognition and self-knowledge in the context of determining the values and priorities of human development and consciousness. The article also includes an overview of the main categories of reflection through a breakdown of theoretical relationships and the most important conceptual discourses. The theoretical significance of the problem of cognition and self-knowledge is determined by the central role of man in society and history. The analysis shows that the methodology of cognition and self-knowledge should be based on the principles of axiological disengagement, a combination of logical and historical aspect, as well as on the coherence of theory and practice.

Idleness and Freedom in Michel de Montaigne’s “Essays”

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-202
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
Spiritual Quest ◽  
Guiding Principle ◽  
Sextus Empiricus ◽  
History Of ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship

The article advances a hypothesis about the composition of Michel de Montaigne’s Essays. Specialists in the intellectual history of the Renaissance have long considered the relationship among Montaigne’s thematically heterogeneous thoughts, which unfold unpredictably and often seen to contradict each other. The waywardness of those reflections over the years was a way for Montaigne to construct a self-portrait. Spontaneity of thought is the essence of the person depicted and an experimental literary technique that was unprecedented in its time and has still not been surpassed. Montaigne often writes about freedom of reflection and regards it as an extremely important topic. There have been many attempts to interpret the haphazardness of the Essays as the guiding principle in their composition. According to one such interpretation, the spontaneous digressions and readiness to take up very different philosophical notions is a form of of varietas and distinguo, which Montaigne understood in the context of Renaissance philosophy. Another interpretation argues that the Essays employ the rhetorical techniques of Renaissance legal commentary. A third opinion regards the Essays as an example of sprezzatura, a calculated negligence that calls attention to the aesthetic character of Montaigne’s writing. The author of the article argues for a different interpretation that is based on the concept of idleness to which Montaigne assigned great significance. He had a keen appreciation of the role of otium in the culture of ancient Rome and regarded leisure as an inner spiritual quest for self-knowledge. According to Montaigne, idleness permits self-directedness, and it is an ideal form in which to practice the freedom of thought that brings about consistency in writing, living and reality, in all of which Montaigne finds one general property - complete inconstancy. Socratic self-knowledge, a skepticism derived from Pyrrho of Elis and Sextus Empiricus, and a rejection of the conventions of traditional rhetoric that was similar to Seneca’s critique of it were all brought to bear on the concept of idleness and made Montaigne’s intellectual and literary experimentation in the Essays possible.

Self-Knowledge in Ancient Philosophy

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Agent ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Self Perception ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Synoptic View

In a tradition inspired by the Delphic injunction to ‘know thyself’, ancient philosophical works contain a variety of treatments of self-knowledge—of knowing the content of certain kinds of one’s own thought, or knowing one’s own status as a knower or moral agent. This book draws together contributions from an international collection of scholars working in ancient philosophy, and explores self-knowledge in ancient thought in Plato, Aristotle, Hellenistic thinkers, and Plotinus, noting continuities and discontinuities with its contemporary counterpart. The nature and structure of ancient self-knowledge is investigated in different thinkers—whether it is higher-order or a kind of self-presence, consists in a synoptic view or is diachronic, is arrived at directly via self-perception or some other kind of grasp, or mediated by dialogue or friendship with others. So too the book enquires into the relation of self-knowledge to virtue or tranquillity, either as a condition on attaining that state, or a result of the agent’s development, resulting from a process of effortful reflection.

Self–Other Knowledge Asymmetry (SOKA) Model

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn L. Bollich-Ziegler
Keyword(s):  
Personality Traits ◽  
The Self ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Self Perception ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Self Perceptions ◽  
Self Reports ◽  
Knowledge Asymmetry ◽  
Blind Spots

Despite the strong intuition that people know themselves well, much research in self-perception demonstrates the biases present when evaluating one’s own personality traits. What specifically are these blind spots in self-perceptions? Are self-perceptions always disconnected from reality? And under what circumstances might other people actually be more accurate about the self? The self–other knowledge asymmetry (SOKA) model suggests that because individuals and others differ in their susceptibility to biases or motivations and in the information they have access to, self- and other-knowledge will vary by trait. The present chapter outlines when and why other-perceptions are sometimes more accurate than self-perceptions, as well as when self-reports can be most trusted. Also discussed are next steps in the study of self- and other-knowledge, including practical, methodological, and interdisciplinary considerations and extensions. In sum, this chapter illustrates the importance of taking multiple perspectives in order to accurately understand a person.

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