Abstract

ANTON-MLINAR, Ivana. Minimal Sense of Self and Agency: an Analysis of the Core of Subjective Activity. discus.filos [online]. 2018, vol.19, n.32, pp.85-95. ISSN 0124-6127.  https://doi.org/10.17151/difil.2018.19.32.6.

The self has been an explanatory principle to understand consciousness in its subjective character. This paper analyses what Gallagher has called the minimal self, its essential core, in its two separable modalities: the sense of ownership and the sense of agency. Some objections are offered to this sharp distinction, which, in turn, considers the sense of ownership as the founding aspect. The phenomenology of normal experiences (involuntary movements or unbidden thoughts) as well as pathological ones (thought insertion or delusion of control) should lead us to the essential component of the agentic nature of the self: intentionality, that is, a relational character or capacity. The minimal and fundamental sense of self seems consequently not to be originally linked neither to neurons or movements nor to psychological states of consciousness.

Keywords : Minimal sense of self; sense of ownership; sense of agency; intentionality; psychopathologies.

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