Cambridge University Press

978-1-107-41471-6 - Consciousness and the Self: New Essays

Jeeloo Liu and John Perry
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CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SELF

“I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never
can observe any thing but the perception.” These famous words of
David Hume, on his inability to perceive the self, set the stage for
JeeLoo Liu and John Perry’s collection of essays on self-awareness and
self-knowledge. This volume connects recent scientific studies on
consciousness with the traditional issues about the self explored by
Descartes, Locke, and Hume. Experts in the field offer contrasting
perspectives on matters such as the relation between consciousness
and self-awareness, the notion of personhood, and the epistemic access
to one’s own thoughts, desires, or attitudes. The volume will be of
interest to philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, cognitive sci-
entists, and others working on the central topics of consciousness and
the self.

jeeloo liu is Associate Professor of Philosophy at California State

University, Fullerton. She is the author of An Introduction to Chinese
Philosophy: From Ancient Philosophy to Chinese Buddhism (2006).
john perry is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Stanford
University, and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the
University of California, Riverside. He is the author of Knowledge,
Possibility and Consciousness (2001), Identity, Personal Identity and the
Self (2002), and a number of other books.

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Cambridge University Press
978-1-107-41471-6 - Consciousness and the Self: New Essays
Jeeloo Liu and John Perry
Frontmatter
More information

© in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org

Cambridge University Press
978-1-107-41471-6 - Consciousness and the Self: New Essays
Jeeloo Liu and John Perry
Frontmatter
More information

CONSCIOUSNESS AND
THE SELF: NEW ESSAYS

JEELOO LIU
and
JOHN PERRY

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Cambridge University Press
978-1-107-41471-6 - Consciousness and the Self: New Essays
Jeeloo Liu and John Perry
Frontmatter
More information

University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

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© Cambridge University Press 2012
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2012
First paperback edition 2014
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Consciousness and the self : new essays / [edited by] JeeLoo Liu, John Perry.
p. cm.
isbn 978-1-107-00075-9
1. Self-consciousness (Awareness) I. Liu, JeeLoo. II. Perry, John, 1943– III. Title.
bd450.c62677 2011
126–dc23
2011028651
isbn 978-1-107-00075-9 Hardback
isbn 978-1-107-41471-6 Paperback
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or appropriate.

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978-1-107-41471-6 - Consciousness and the Self: New Essays
Jeeloo Liu and John Perry
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Contents

Acknowledgments page vii

List of contributors ix
Introduction
je el o o l iu 1
1 Awareness and identification of self
d a v i d ro s e n t h a l 22
2 Self-representationalism and the explanatory gap
ur iah k rie g el 51
3 Thinking about the self
jo h n pe r ry 76
4 Ordinary self-consciousness
lu c y o ’ br ie n 101
5 Waiting for the self
je ss e p ri nz 123
6 I think I think, therefore I am – I think: skeptical doubts
about self-knowledge
f re d d re t s ke 150
7 Knowing what I want
alex byrne 165
8 Self-ignorance
eric schwitzgebel 184
9 Personhood and consciousness
sy dn e y s h oe m a ke r 198

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978-1-107-41471-6 - Consciousness and the Self: New Essays
Jeeloo Liu and John Perry
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vi Contents
10 My non-narrative, non-forensic Dasein: the first and
second self
ow en flan agan 214

References 241
Index 255

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978-1-107-41471-6 - Consciousness and the Self: New Essays
Jeeloo Liu and John Perry
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Acknowledgments

This book emerged from the 39th annual philosophy symposium on the
same topic, Consciousness and the Self, at California State University,
Fullerton, in April 2009. The symposium speakers included Alex Byrne,
David Chalmers, Fred Dretske, John Perry, Jesse Prinz, Eric Schwitzgebel,
and Sydney Shoemaker. The symposium was a huge success, and all speak-
ers except for Chalmers agreed to put their papers together in a book. On
this basis, I invited several other philosophers working on the issue of self-
awareness and self-knowledge to join the collection: Owen Flanagan (Duke
University), Uriah Kriegel (University of Arizona), Lucy O’Brien
(University College London, UK), and David Rosenthal (CUNY
Graduate Center). My deepest gratitude goes to all the authors who con-
tributed their newest work written just for this collection. They have all
been very supportive of this book project and have taught me a great deal
through their talks, writings, and personal communications. Even though
David Chalmers is not among the contributing authors, I would like to say
that the whole symposium as well as this book would not have materialized
if it were not for his brilliant insights and helpful input in the whole process.
I want to thank my colleagues at CSUF Philosophy Department for their
support during the symposium. My Consciousness and the Self seminar
students in Spring 2009 were an amazing bunch. They were undergraduate
students who had not studied much analytic philosophy before taking my
seminar, but they made a tremendous effort in learning and thinking with
me and with the speakers. Several of them served as speakers or commenta-
tors at the symposium and their performance was highly impressive. I would
like to acknowledge these students for their dedication to learning and their
achievements: Brent Boos, Pamela Chui, Kelsey Fernandez, Nathan Lujan,
Alis Rabet, Jonathan Stracker, Mimi Vong, and Sandra Woloschuk.
I am deeply indebted to my co-editor, John Perry, who has been a mentor
to me ever since we first met in 2002 at the Creighton Club, a long-standing
upstate New York philosophical association. Working with him on this
vii

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978-1-107-41471-6 - Consciousness and the Self: New Essays
Jeeloo Liu and John Perry
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viii Acknowledgments
book has been a great learning experience for me and I am honored to have
had the chance to edit this book with him.
Finally, I would like to thank my beloved husband Michael Cranston,
and our wonderful sons, Collin and Dillon, for always being patient with
me when I was glued to my computer working away in the evenings.
jeeloo liu
I am very grateful for the opportunity to help JeeLoo Liu in converting the
symposium she organized into a book. I have thoroughly enjoyed our
collaboration, and learned a great deal from paying close attention to the
papers by the other authors. We both thank Hilary Gaskin and Cambridge
University Press for their support.
john perry

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Jeeloo Liu and John Perry
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Contributors

alex byrne is Professor of Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of

Technology.
fred dretske is Senior Research Scholar at Duke University and
Professor Emeritus of Stanford University.
owen flanagan is James B. Duke Professor of Philosophy and Professor
of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Duke University.
uriah kriegel is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Arizona.
jeeloo liu is Associate Professor of Philosophy at California State
University, Fullerton.
lucy o’brien is Reader at University College London, United Kingdom.
john perry is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California,
Riverside and Henry W. Stuart Professor of Philosophy (Emeritus) at
Stanford University.
jesse prinz is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the City
University of New York Graduate Center.
david rosenthal is Professor of Philosophy and Coordinator of
Interdisciplinary Concentration in Cognitive Science at the City
University of New York Graduate Center.
eric schwitzgebel is Professor of Philosophy at the University of
California, Riverside.
sydney shoemaker is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Cornell
University, where he was Susan Linn Sage Professor before retirement.

ix

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