The Body and the Self

by José Luis Bermúdez (Editor)

The Body and the Self brings together recent work by philosophers and psychologists on the nature of self-consciousness, the nature of bodily awareness, and the relation between the two. The central problem addressed is How is our grasp of ourselves as one object among others underpinned by the ways in which we use and represent our bodies? The contributors take up such issues as how should we characterize the various distinctive ways we have of being in touch with our own bodies in sensation, proprioception, and action? How exactly does our grip on our bodies as objects connect with our ability to perceive the external environment, and with our ability to engage in various forms of social interaction? Can any of these ways of representing our bodies affect a bridge between body and self?

Genres: Psychology, Philosophy, Nonfiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published October 18, 1995

About the author

José Luis Bermúdez is Professor of Philosophy at Texas A&M University, where he previously served as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and as Associate Provost for Strategic Planning. Before joining Texas A&M in 2010 he was Professor of Philosophy, Director of the Center for Programs in Arts and Sciences, and Director of the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program at Washington University in St. Louis.

Dr. Bermúdez has more than 100 publications, including five single-author books and six edited volumes. His research interests are interdisciplinary in nature at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. His first book, The Paradox of Self-Consciousness (MIT Press, 1998) analyzed the nature of self-awareness. Thinking without Words (Oxford UP, 2003) offered a model for thinking about the cognitive achievements and abilities of prelinguistic infants an nonlinguistiuc humans. Decision Theory and Rationality (Oxford UP, 2009) explores tensions in how the concept of rationality is defined and formalized in different academic disciplines. The second edition of his textbook Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Science of the Mind was published by Cambridge University Press in March 2014. He is the editor of the New Problems in Philosophy book series, published by Routledge. Dr Bermudez is currently completing a book on the first person in language and thought, in addition to papers in the philosophy of mind and the theory of rationality.

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