Look who's talking! : Varieties of ego-dissolution without paradox

Abstract: How to model non-egoic experiences – mental events with phenomenal aspects that lack a felt self – has become an interesting research question. The main source of evidence for the existence of such non-egoic experiences are self-ascriptions of non-egoic experiences. In these, a person says about herself that she underwent an episode where she was conscious but lacked a feeling of self. Some interpret these as accurate reports, but this is questionable. Thomas Metzinger (2004, p. 566, 2018), Rocco Gennaro (2008), and Charles Foster (2016, p. 6) have hinted at the self-defeating nature of such statements if we take them to be genuine reports: Apparently, the reporter (a) explicitly denies her existence during the selfless experience, but (b) implicitly affirms her existence as a witness to that selfless experience in order to give a first-person report about it. So the content of such a report conflicts with the pragmatics of reporting. If all self-ascriptions of non-egoic experi.... https://www.philosophymindscience.org/index.php/phimisci/article/view/40

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Look who's talking! ; volume:1 ; number:I ; day:12 ; month:02 ; year:2020 ; Philosophy and the mind sciences ; 1, Heft I (12.02.2020)

Contributors, Places and Time

• Creator: Sascha Benjamin Fink

Further information

• DOI: 10.33735/phimisci.2020.I.40
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2020051409565549156381
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 14.08.2025, 10:51 AM CEST