The origins of self : an anthropological perspective / Martin P.J. Edwardes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Edwardes, Martin P. J., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Self--Social aspects.

Self.

Physical Description:

xviii, 230 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

London : UCL Press, 2019.

Summary:

The Origins of Self explores the role that selfhood plays in defining human society, and each human individual in that society. It considers the genetic and cultural origins of self, the role that self plays in socialisation and language, and the types of self we generate in our individual journeys to and through adulthood. Edwardes argues that other awareness is a relatively early evolutionary development, present throughout the primate clade and perhaps beyond, but self-awareness is a product of the sharing of social models, something only humans appear to do. The self of which we are aware is not something innate within us, it is a model of our self produced as a response to the models of us offered to us by other people. Edwardes proposes that human construction of selfhood involves seven different types of self. All but one of them are internally generated models, and the only non-model, the actual self, is completely hidden from conscious awareness. We rely on others to tell us about our self, and even to let us know we are a self. Developed in relation to a range of subject areas - linguistics, anthropology, genomics and cognition, as well as socio-cultural theory - The Origins of Self is of particular interest to students and researchers studying the origins of language, human origins in general, and the cognitive differences between human and other animal psychologies. -- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. What Is A Self?

The priest's turn

The philosopher's turn

The psychologist's turn

The neurologist's turn

The anthropologist's turn

Is there an answer?

2. Where Did Self Come From?

The sense of not-self

The sense of almost-self

Senses of other and sense of self

Awareness

Sharing information

Do animals have awareness of self?

Non-humans using human language

What is special about human self-awareness?

Does having an awareness of selfness mean there is a self to be aware of?

3. The Modelled Self

How to make models of others

How to make models of relationships between others

Sharing models of others

Making models of my self

Me, myself and I

Awareness of selfness: for humans only?

Language, culture and the self

The disadvantages of a modelled self: deficient self and self-deception

4. How Do We Become Selves?

The developing child: traditional approaches

The developing child: modern approaches

The developing child: deception

Timescales for self in childhood

How to make a human adult (start with other human adults)

5. Where Did Social Calculus Come From?

Social networks, genes and brains

Machiavellianism

The tragedy of the commons

Altruism

Altruistic punishment and free-riders

From altruistic punishment to social model-sharing

So where did social calculus come from?

6. The Language Of Self

Pronominalisation and selfhood

Where names come from

The origin of they

The origin of you and me

The origin of possession and the possessive

The origin of recursion and reflexivity

Self out of language, language out of self?

7. Metaphors Of Self

The Model Is The Actual

The Group Is An Entity

Self Is Other

I Am Me

One Among Equals

Mapping Metaphor To Rhetoric And Deception

8. What Is A Self? There And Back Again

The Actual self: unknowable

The Social self: the self others believe me to be

The self-model: the self I believe me to be

The Episodic self: the self as modelled in individual past events

The Narrative self: the remembered self, the self with history

The Cultural self: the self I should be

The Projected self: the self I want others to believe me to be

... And there's more: some other selves

Why self defines us

9. Epilogue: Snarks Or Boojums?

The route to self-modelling

Yes, but ... who am I?.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Ebook version :

ISBN:

1787356329

9781787356320

9781787356313

1787356310

OCLC:

1097580118