Ordinary Self-consciousness and the Self-Conscious Emotions

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Context:There is a familiar feeling of self-consciousness one experiences, say, when walking into a room full of strangers. It is a distinctive and somewhat puzzling feeling. (i) It seems to involve a subject taking two perspectives on herself at a time: an observer's perspective and a subject's perspective. (ii) It seems to involve an evaluative component without there needing to be a particular evaluation. (iii) It seems to involve the idea of someone evaluating one without there needing to be a particular evaluator. Indeed, one can feel self-conscious all by oneself. Although familiar, this is a somewhat philosophically neglected form of self-consciousness. The emotions known as the 'self-conscious' emotions: embarrassment, shame, guilt, pride have received much more attention. Aims and Objectives:The proposed research aims to describe and analyse this variety of self-consciousness. However, it also seeks to explore the relation between it and those self-conscious emotions. The research will argue that while self-consciousness, in this sense, is distinct from these emotions, the self-conscious emotions are dependent on the more primitive capacity to feel self-conscious. It will further argue that we can explain distinct characteristics of embarrassment, shame, guilt and pride, by appealing to the analysis of self-consciousness offered.Applications and Benefits:Understanding such self-consciousness promises to be part of a better understanding of our relation to ourselves and others. Study of such self-consciousness will also connect, in new ways, two more familiar areas of philosophical concern: the more purely philosophical notions of self-consciousness on the one hand, and the self-conscious emotions of shame, guilt, and pride, on the other. The work envisaged would result in a philosophical contribution to an area that is resurgent in both Psychology and Literature departments. The work may be of interest to researchers in those departments and would facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration with researchers on the self-conscious emotions.