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The Experiential Self: objections and clarifications
Zahavi (2011) The Experiential Self: objections and clarifications
Abstract
- This chapter first outlines a view regarding the relationship between consciousness, self-consciousness, and a minimal notion of self that is widespread in the phenomenological tradition. It then discusses some of the motivations behind this proposal, and then in the main part of the chapter critically engages with various objections that have recently been raised against this view by Albahari and Dreyfus. Discussing these objections will allow for an important clarification of the view defended here. Also discussed are some of the semantic and metaphysical disagreements that separate defenders and deniers of self, concluding with some reflections regarding the relation between self and diachronic unity.
- Concepts Cognition, Decentralized Self, Epistemology, Identity, Intuition, Metacognition, Mindfulness, Perception, Philosophy of Mind, Selfhood
- Relevant learning goals Conceptual Thinking, Critical Thinking, Metacognitive Competency
- Relevant subject areas Philosophy, Selfhood in Philosophy
- Relevant research methods Conceptual clarification, Content analysis, Scientific clarification
- Relevant projects Annotated Reading List, Decentralized Self, Understanding Agency
Related Lesson Materials
Related Literature
- Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is regarded as part of the “third wave” of cognitive- behavioral therapy (CBT) that has emerged over the past quarter century (Hayes, Reference Hayes2004). It is a transdiagnostic approach recognized by Division 12 of the American Psychological Association (Society of Clinical Psychology, n.d.) as having strong research support in the treatment of chronic pain and modest empirical support in addressing depression, mixed anxiety, obsessive–compulsive disorder, and psychosis. Rather than seeking to directly change problematic thoughts, emotions, and other private events, ACT and related approaches within the latest generation of CBT writ large incorporate mindfulness, acceptance, and decentering/defusion strategies to change the function of such psychological events and alter how clients relate to them (Hayes, Luoma, Bond, Masuda, & Lillis, Reference Hayes, Luoma, Bond, Masuda and Lillis2006). Unlike other third-wave approaches such as dialectical behavior therapy (Linehan, Reference Linehan1993), mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT; Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, Reference Segal, Williams and Teasdale2002), and metacognitive therapy (Wells, Reference Wells2009), ACT is unique in (a) being explicitly grounded within a modern pragmatic philosophy of behavioral science known as functional contextualism (Hayes, Reference Hayes, Hayes, Hayes, Reese and Sarbin1993), (b) being informed by relational frame theory as an associated account of human language and cognition (Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, & Roche, Reference Hayes, Barnes-Holmes and Roche2001), and (c) identifying increased psychological flexibility, or the ability to make behavioral adjustments in the service of one’s values, as its superordinate goal. Some discussion of each of these defining features of ACT is necessary to understand its stance on the self.