Self-defense: Deflecting Deflationary and Eliminativist Critiques of the Sense of Ownership
Frontiers in Psychology September 21, 2017 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01612 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Keywords | Sense of ownership Minimal self Mineness Deflationary account Sense of agency |
| Citations | 59 |
| Key points | Argues that the phenomenological account of the sense of ownership is deflationary because it treats the sense of ownership as implicit or intrinsic to experience and bodily action, and that empirical evidence supports the concept of pre-reflective self-awareness underpinning this sense. |
Abstract
I defend a phenomenological account of the sense of ownership as part of a minimal sense of self from those critics who propose either a deflationary or eliminativist critique. Specifically, I block the deflationary critique by showing that in fact the phenomenological account is itself a deflationary account insofar as it takes the sense of ownership to be implicit or intrinsic to experience and bodily action. I address the eliminativist view by considering empirical evidence that supports the concept of pre-reflective self-awareness, which underpins the sense of ownership. Finally, I respond to claims that phenomenology does not offer a positive account of the sense of ownership by showing the role it plays in an enactivist (action-oriented) view of embodied cognition.
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Citations in the library
Cited by 6
- Nothingness Is All There Is: An Exploration of Objectless Awareness During Sleep Frontiers in Psychology June 10, 2022
- Forgetting ourselves in flow: an active inference account of flow states and how we experience ourselves within them Frontiers in Psychology June 3, 2024
- The why of the phenomenal aspect of consciousness: Its main functions and the mechanisms underpinning it Frontiers in Psychology July 28, 2022
- Psychedelics, subjectivity, and self-awareness Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences August 13, 2026
- Functional fragmentation of the minimal self: an in-depth explanation of self-individuation Synthese May 4, 2026
and 1 more in the library
Cites 5
- I Me Mine: on a Confusion Concerning the Subjective Character of Experience. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 2017
- The bodily self as power for action. Neuropsychologia February 2010
- Threatening a rubber hand that you feel is yours elicits a cortical anxiety response. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences June 5, 2007
- Subjectivity and Selfhood December 9, 2005
- Philosophical conceptions of the self: implications for cognitive science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences January 2000