An Interdisciplinary study of self and body: from the perspectives of philosophy, neuroscience and psychiatric cases.

• Main Authors: Hsin-Min Chiang, 江心敏
• Other Authors: Pei-Chi Tu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/52gzqt

碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 心智哲學研究所 === 102 === The mind-body dualism originally proposed by René Descartes, leaves a far-reaching influence in the field of philosophy and science. In this study, I focus on the relationship between the self – consciousness the body from the perspective of neuroscience and scientific and psychiatric cases. However, the opinions of anti-dualism has gradually been gaining the overwhelming position since 20th century. The contemporary self-theory hasn’t offered a definite answer to the relationship between the self-consciousness and the body. The methodologies of this study involve not only philosophical theories, but also neuro-scientific evidence as well as psychiatric cases. Antonio Damasio and Thomas Metzinger are two major figures in my work. The former demonstrates the nature of self-consciousness as occurring in the boundary of body by his neurobiological studies, while the latter takes an opposite position based on a number of mental diseases and experiments. In this study, I first articulate the relationship between self-consciousness and physical body based on theories about self as developed by Antonio Damasio and Thomas Metzinger. I then use the evidence originated from the neurosciences to explore the relationship between self-consciousness and body boundary. A main conclusion derived is that self-consciousness does occur in the body’s boundary in most situations, but in some special cases, self-consciousness also happens outside the body’s boundary.