The self is a semiotic process

Author: Pickering J.

Source: Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 6, Number 4, 1999 , pp. 31-47(17)

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Abstract:

Galen Strawson (1997) accepts that the common experience of being a social self is of something that continues through time. However, he excludes this from what ‘the self’ means in a stricter ontological sense. Here I will argue that this experience of self as enduring can be taken to be ontologically real as well. I will suggest that selfhood arises from the assimilation of cultural signs by a semiotic process that is a fundamental aspect of nature. I will also consider how the phenomenological encounter with ‘the self’ is conditioned by prior beliefs and their ethical entailments.

Keywords: Selfhood; semiotics; Pierce; cultural assimilation; meditation

Language: English

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: Psychology Department, Warwick University, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK. Email:j.pickering@warwick.ac.uk

Publication date: 1999-01-01