The bodily self

the sensori-motor roots of pre-reflective self-consciousness

Dorothée Legrand

pp. 89-118

in: Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences 5 (1), 2006.

Abstract

A bodily self is characterized by pre-reflective bodily self-consciousness that is "immune to error through misidentification." To this end, the body's double involvement in consciousness is considered: it can experience objects intentionally and itself non-intentionally. Specifically, pre-reflective bodily self-consciousness, by contrast with the consciousness of the body that happens to be one's own, consists in experiencing one's body as the point of convergence of action and perception. Neither proprioception alone nor intention alone is sufficient to underlie this pre-reflective bodily self-consciousness. Rather, it is made possible thanks to a sensori-motor integration, allowing a sensitivity to the sensory consequences of one's action, through action monitoring.