The Conceptual Self in Context: Culture Experience Self Understanding (Emory Symposia in Cognition, Series Number 7)

For years, thinkers have debated the meaning and origin of the self-concept. Among contested issues are how people in different cultures can have sharply different concepts of self, what can be known about the self-concepts of depressives and schizophrenics, how meditation can affect the sense of self, and if there is an inner "self of selves," as James once suggested. In this collection, a prestigious group of psychologists, anthropologists, and philosophers addresses these topics 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 some of the oldest--as well as some of the newest--psychological and philosophical questions surrounding the concept of self.

We all believe certain things about ourselves; taken together, those beliefs make up our "self-concept." In this book a prestigious group of psychologists, anthropologists, and philosophers tackles the basic questions about selves and self-concepts: how they develop in childhood, whether they vary from one country to the next and in what ways, how they change in some forms of mental illness. These are among the most hotly debated questions in the social sciences today; the contributors to this volume lay out their positions vigorously and clearly.