*Jorge Gonçalves* (IFL) apresentará "Is the sense of self
innate?",inserido num ciclo num ciclo de sessões
sobre a vinda de Shaun Gallagher ao IFL.
O Seminário Permanente do projecto "Fundamentos Cognitivos do Si" terá dia
17 de Fevereiro (sexta-feira) às 11 horas uma sessão na sala 2.17 do
edifício ID (Av. Berna, 26).
Resumo:
"Currently several authors give a positive answer to this question. Shaun
Gallagher, one of them, argues that the senses of self and others are
embodied and present from birth. According to him there is a sense of the
self, a body schema, and a body image already present in the nervous system
of the baby even if they are in a minimal form. On this account the child
did not depend on cognitive learning or language to acquire at least the
basic feeling that he is a self distinguished from others and from
environment. Empirical evidence supporting this theory include
the experiments of child imitation. If a few hour old baby can imitate the
movements of an adult then there is a differentiation between self and
other. However other experiments were performed which challenge there is
true imitation in early stages of life. There are alternative explanations
for the apparent imitation in babies. Reflecting on both kinds of evidence
I argue that there is no innate feeling of self. What I think is innate is
the ability to relate to other human beings but this does not mean there is
a sense of self. This sense of self only develops in the interaction
between the child and the others that mirror her actions. In this sense you
can say that the self is a potentially in the body such as speech is in the
tongue."
