Metodo

International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Book | Chapter

176001

Abstract

In this chapter, we explore the role of habit in giving shape to conscious experience and importantly to our pre-reflective awareness of ourselves which includes the sense of mineness that accompanies our conscious experience. For the most part, discussions in philosophy of mind and phenomenology concerning pre-reflective self-awareness are focused on determining the relationship between phenomenal consciousness and selfhood. For this reason perhaps, the existence of pre-reflective self-awareness is usually appealed to as evidence for a form of selfhood that appears within conscious experience as a component of its synchronic unity. In this chapter, however, we will concern ourselves with the pre-reflective sense of ourselves that appears in conscious experience as it pertains to the diachronic unity of the self—that is the sense of a unitary self as existing over the course of multiple episodic experiences. Our aim is to provide a phenomenological account of the relationship between the minimal, pre-reflective sense of self and what is often termed the "narrative self.' We will argue that habits play a role in preserving the significance of our past in our present experience and in unifying our experience as a self for whom the world is present across disparate episodes of experience.

Publication details

Published in:

Altobrando Andrea, Niikawa Takuya, Stone Richard (2018) The realizations of the self. New York, Palgrave Macmillan.

Pages: 47-63

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-94700-6_4

Full citation:

Butler Michael G., Gallagher Shaun (2018) „Habits and the diachronic structure of the self“, In: A. Altobrando, Niikawa & Stone (eds.), The realizations of the self, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 47–63.