What Is This “I” That I Know?

What is it that we call self ?What do we mean by the sense of me ness and mine ness?What is the relation between bodily owner ship and agency?What are the necessary conditions for the appearance of a minimal phenomenal self?The history of philosophy and, more recently, of cognitive science are replete with pos si ble answers and ways to articulate these questions.This chapter selectively reviews some influential analytical models and conceptual distinctions relating to self-knowledge.I shall be focusing on classifications that capture some major aspects of self-experience that I am hoping to rethink from a material engagement perspective.Beyond conceptual clarification, this chapter's aim is to introduce the basic analytical tools for the articulation of the dif fer ent levels, va ri e ties, and qualitative transformations that mark the emergence of self-awareness from an ontoge ne tic and phylogene tic perspective.To this end, I will be looking at several distinctions that may help us reveal and highlight aspects and nuances of selfhood that would other wise go unnoticed.Establishing a clear conceptual foundation is essential for grounding the relational ontology of the situated person perspective, which forms the key idea of this book (fully discussed in chapter 9).It will also facilitate cross-disciplinary analy sis by helping us to evaluate the validity of competing methodologies and the criteria for avoiding incommensurability in the way we frame our research questions.Are an anthropologist, a philosopher, and a neuroscientist really dealing with the same question when they ask what a self is?Our conceptual analy sis of selfhood in this chapter, seen as an ontology of selfhood, will provide the necessary background for exploring in chapter 7 some of the historical and anthropological nuances and complexities of the notion.6 What Is This "I" That I Know?