Center for Subjectivity Research > About the center
Danish National Research Foundation:
Center for Subjectivity Research
(Danmarks Grundforskningsfonds Center for Subjektivitetsforskning)
The center is financed by the Danish National Research Foundation, with supplementary funding from the University of Copenhagen (Faculty of Humanities, Faculty of Theology, Faculty of Health Sciences).
General Aim of the Center
The status and nature of the self is increasingly being discussed in a variety of fields, not only in the humanities, but also in cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, and psychiatry. Some scientists have recently questioned the legitimacy of the concept. Some have argued that the self is nothing but a neurologically induced illusion, others that it is a mere social convention. In contrast, the guiding hypothesis of center’s research program is that the notion of self is crucial for a proper understanding of cognition, action, sociality, and experience, and consequently indispensable for a variety of different disciplines including social philosophy, psychiatry, philosophy of mind, developmental psychology, cultural studies and cognitive neuroscience.
Our research is divided into six sections:
Self and consciousness
It has recently been argued that if self-consciousness is understood simply as consciousness with a sense of self, then every conscious mind is self-conscious. We will look closer at the relation between experience, self-awareness and selfhood in order to evaluate this proposal.
Core self and extended self: A viable distinction?
We will seek to clarify the relationship between two currently quite popular notions of self: the core (or minimal) self and the extended (narrative or autobiographical) self. Whereas some have argued that the self is an integral and fundamental part of conscious life, others have argued that the constitution of the self is a social process and that self-experience is necessarily intersubjectively mediated. These two different notions of self are not necessarily at odds. They might be seen as complementary notions.
Infantile self-experience: A developmental perspective
In order to investigate this possibility further, we will seek to clarify the issue by means of resources found in developmental psychology. When and how does selfhood emerge in the infant’s development?
Self, emotions and understanding
We will investigate the affective and cognitive dimension of self-experience. We will focus on emotions and understanding as inseparable ways of orienting oneself in relation to others, and to a world more or less shared with others.
Disorders of self
We will consider pathology, since the study of anomalous experiences and behaviors associated with mental or neurological diseases can enrich our insight into the nature and functioning of selfhood. We will study distorted forms of self-experience in patients with schizophrenia, in patients with various memory disorders, and in patients suffering from autism.
Self and normativity
Finally, we will return to the issue concerning the social dimension of the self, by focusing explicitly on the relation between selfhood and normativity.
Although the clinical and cognitive sciences have started to contribute with important insights to the field, the neuroscientific study of the self is still in its infancy not only in terms of conceptual models but even with respect to the vocabulary. In contrast, the topic is by no means a terra incognita for those familiar with the philosophical tradition. Today the time is ripe for a unified endeavor. Empirical science can offer new tools to investigate problems that philosophers have been debating for centuries. Empirical data can serve to challenge or validate the philosophical distinctions between different concepts of self. Inversely, philosophy can provide directions and conceptual tools to the empirical scientists and might help in the design and development of experimental paradigms. It is a simple fact that the concept of self connotes different things in different disciplines – sometimes radically different things. Given the complexity of the topic, a plurality of perspectives is necessary if the investigation is to be truly successful.
Although the center’s research is mainly focused on conceptual and theoretical issues, it is not a narrowly conceived philosophical investigation, but one that is enriched and informed by empirical research, and which involves active collaboration with psychologists, psychiatrists and neuroscientists.
