Self conscious
Parent categories: self - conscious
Related: self referentiality
Definition
Aware of oneself as an individual or of one's own being, actions, or thoughts. --AHDSelf awareness
Self-awareness is the ability to perceive one's own existence, including one's own traits, feelings and behaviours. In an epistemological sense, self-awareness is a personal understanding of the very core of one's own identity. It is the basis for many other human traits, such as accountability and consciousness, and as such is often the subject of debate among philosophers. Self-awareness can be perceived as a trait that people possess to varying degrees beyond the most basic sentience that defines human awareness. This trait is one that is normally taken for granted, resulting in a general ignorance of one's self that manifests as odd contradictory behavior. This ignorance of one's own self is viewed in existentialism and Zen buddhism as the source of much human suffering, as noted by the famous saying from Zen buddhism "we are each the source of our own suffering."See also: Sentience --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-awareness [Dec 2004]
Human self reflection in the modern era
The Enlightenment was driven by a renewed conviction, that, in the words of Immanuel Kant, "Man is distinguished above all animals by his self-consciousness, by which he is a 'rational animal'". In the 19th century, Karl Marx defined man as "labouring animal" (animal laborans) in conscious opposition to this tradition. In the early 20th century, Sigmund Freud dealt a serious blow to positivism by postulating that human behaviour is to a large part controlled by the unconscious mind. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_self-reflection#Modern_era [Apr 2005]
your Amazon recommendations