Editorial: Self-Consciousness Explained—Mapping the Field

Abstract

Self-Consciousness ranks among the most urgent topics in today's Philosophy of Mind.In particular, one of the most challenging agenda is the explanation of prereflective self-consciousness. 1 According to philosophers like Anna Giustina and Uriah Kriegel pre-reflective self-consciousness consists in a subject's awareness of her ongoing experience. 2 It is a case of "peripheral" self-consciousness, i.e. while a subject's attention is mostly focused on the external objects, events, and states of affairs, the experience itself is much more dimly conscious.3 Pre-reflective self-consciousness is a constant "humming in the background of our stream of consciousness." 4 By consciousness Giustina and Kriegel mean phenomenal consciousness, i.e. conscious mental states, such as a conscious visual perception of a tomato, which have a conscious qualitative character.5 The conscious qualitative character is characterized, in Thomas Nagel's famous words, by "what it is like"1 Instead of the expression 'pre-reflective self-consciousness' the expressions 'inner awareness', 'subjective character', 'sense of self' and others are also used.For an overview cf.