Response: Who Is There? Finding the Other in the Self

Abstract

First paragraph: Richard Shusterman has written an exemplary essay. Not only does he provide a detailed overview of the philosophical history of his topic, showing the wide range of different views about the virtues and vices of self-knowledge. He also pays detailed attention to the pragmatic dimensions of his topic: the questions of when, where, and how self-knowledge matters. Whereas many of the philosophers and psychologists he discusses point to the dangers of self-examination - particularly that of slipping into melancholia and depression - Shusterman provides us with a more positive outlook, partly by refuting the suggestion of a necessary link between self-examination and depression, partly by distinguishing different modes of self-attentiveness, such as the neurotic and the intellectually curious mode, and partly by distinguishing different foci of self-reflection. It is in relation to the latter that Shusterman makes a case for the role and importance of somatic self-awareness.