The Conceptual Self in Context

This book explores the 'self-concept', its cultural, psychopathological and philosophical implications.

We all believe certain things about ourselves; take together those beliefs make up our 'self concept'. In this book a prestigious group of psychologists, linguists, anthropologists and philosophers address the basic questions about selves and self-concepts.What is the self-concept and how does it develop? Do people in different cultures have sharply different concepts of self? Can we believe what our informants tell us on this point? What is known about the self-concepts of depressives? of schizophrenics? How does meditation affect the sense of self? Is there an inner 'self of selves' as James once suggested? These are, of course, hotly debated questions in the social sciences. In this book a prestigious group of psychologists, linguists, anthropologists and philosophers addresses these questions and presents some surprising answers. This is the third and last of the Emory Symposia organized around Ulric Neisser's cognitive theory of self-knowledge, it goes beyond The Perceived Self and The Remembering Self to deal with psychological and philosophical questions surrounding the self.