Locating the Spatial Hypothesis Outside the Cartesian Circle. The Sense of Bodily Ownership and The Capacity to Differentiate Between Oneself and Not Oneself

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2015 im Fachbereich Philosophie - Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts, Note: 1,3, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Veranstaltung: The Philosophy and Cognitive Science of Embodied Agency, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: The sense of bodily ownership is perhaps the most important aspect to bodily experience. It gives rise to the body`s privilege status as the only object we experience as our own, experienced as subject. But despite how basic this sense is, describing what it is and how it works has been anything but straight-forward. The best explanation for the sense of bodily ownership is arguably the Spatial Hypothesis. It claims that the sense of bodily ownership derives from the spatial representation of the body. Although I support this hypothesis, I argue that past attempts at grounding it risk resulting in a Cartesian circle. I propose a solution distinguishing between capacity and content.

I am a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh and a member of the Philosophy, Psychology, and Informatics Group. I did my graduate studies at the University of Tübingen, where I was a member of the Philosophy of Neuroscience Group at the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience. I specialize in the philosophy of cognitive science, empirically-informed philosophy of mind and phenomenology. I am currently exploring questions regarding the nature of cognitive experience, including insight, metacognition, and cognitive phenomenology