Self awareness and the vehicle air

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes In Jean-Luc Nancy's Being Singular Plural (2000 Nancy, Jean-Luc. 2000. Being Singular Plural, Standford: Standford University Press. trans. Robert D. Richardson & Anne E. O’Byrne[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]: 4, 194), the expression right at is used as the English translation for the French à même. The translator's note concerning this expression, clarifies the relation I would like to take here as reference: ‘an undershirt is worn à même the skin; something sleeping outdoors might sleep à même the ground. Nancy himself has written about a heart his body received in a transplant operation, but later rejected, as being à même his body. The relation is one of being right next to, right at, or even in, without being wholly a part of.’ (my underlining). In portuguese, the verb ‘assistir’ is to observe, to be the witness of something (while it also means to help somebody with something, as in English). I can say that I ‘assisted’ a performance, meaning that I was in the audience, watching it. The fact that as an audience member I can define my observational act with a word that also suggests a helpful and collaborative activity (as opposed to passivity) supports the concept of touch that I am embracing here. The specific concept I have of myself has been developed through my acknowledging the other. This idea has been delveloped Tomasello (1993 Tomasello, Michael. 1993. “The interpersonal origins of self-concept”. In The Perceived self: Ecological and interpersonal sources of self-knowledge, Edited by: Neisser, Ulric. Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]: 174–84), when describing how the perception of the self from the inside is completed by the perception of the self from the outside–the eyes of the other are a vehicle for the creation of my notion of my self. First-person perspective (broadly discussed in terms of being some form of privileged access) emerges, then, with the second-person perspective. In order for me to refere to myself, I need to be a she or a you to someone else. I attain my individuality through the other. Parrhesia is a classical term, used in Greek literature around the fifth century BC, to refer to truthful and free speech. Foucault (1983 Foucault, Michel. 1983. Discourse and Truth: the Problematization of Parrhesia. Foucault Info, (2006) <http://www.foucault.info/documents/parrahesia/> Accessed 29.07.09 [Google Scholar]) writes about this term, highlighting notions such as belief, truth, justice, transparency, courage, freedom and ‘the care of the self’. The search for what one‘s relation to truth is becomes a quest for self-knowledge. Examination and mastery are to be applied to oneself by oneself, with a sense of the ‘self’ in evolution–connected to a continual recycling of human behaviour. This embraces a concern for purity, which approaches a form of spirituality.