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That the model is false suggests that consciousness must be
acquainted with itself immediately, independently of objectifi cation
by a successive consciousness. Fichte expresses this by talking of
the complete non- differentiability of subject and object in self-
consciousness (compare Sartre [51, p. 382]). In Kantian terminology,
such an immediate consciousness is an intuition (Anschauung);
in contrast to sensory intuition it has no object in space and time.
4. Excursion: an Eastern answer to circularity
and some similarities in neurophilosophical approaches
Another answer to the question whether there is an internal
spectator of perceptions and ideas who guarantees their unity is
given by some forms of Buddhism, particularly Zen- Buddhism.
Based on Hinduism, in which the individual soul (Atman) is
supposed to participate in the absolute (Brahman), Buddhism
focuses on the danger that a human being may confuse her or
his individual “concept” of the own soul with the absolute soul
itself [43]. This danger may also be refl ected in Hume’s words:
“When I turn my refl ection on myself, I never can perceive this
self without some one or more perceptions” [27]. To mistake an
idea of the own soul with the soul itself would thus be akin to
mistaking the slide projected by a projection machine with the
projection machine itself. Buddhism tries to avoid this danger by
negating the idea of an individual self. According to Allen Watts,
a proponent of Zen concepts, it is important to be aware that I am
not this body, this perception, these feelings, these thoughts or
this consciousness – that the basic reality of anyone’s life is not
identical with any imaginable object. Instead, the self is basically
defi ned by a categorical difference from any specifi c concept of
consciousness or perception – it has “never been seen”, “relates
to nothing”, and it “neither can be touched nor described” [64].
A helpful metaphor to understand this approach may be the
statement that “light cannot shine upon itself”.
Comparable concepts have been proposed by Metzinger
(2005), a contemporary philosopher. Based on his interpretation
of phantom limb perception, Metzinger suggested that our
ideas of “ourselves”, the so called “phenomenal self – model”
are a concept created by the brain, i.e. the result of processing
information and input in the central nervous system [42].
Unlike all other perceptions and impressions, the self- model is
characterized by continuous sensory and sensitive input from
internal organs, body representations and other senses. Further,
the brain- created self model, the “virtual self”, would be characterized
by a reduced representation of processes occurring in the
real world. Metzinger emphasizes that our virtual self moving
in the perceived “phenomenal world” carries no brain, no motor
system and no sensory organs: “Parts of the environment appear
directly in its mind, the process of perception is effortless and
immediate. Also, we experience body movements as directly
initiated. However, we are not aware that our virtual self is a
construction of the brain” [42]. Instead, Metzinger suggested
that the brain or central nervous system fails to recognize its
own self- model as a self- created model on the level of conscious
experience. And he warns human beings not to confuse their own
picture of themselves with these selves [42]. Buddhism may add
that such confusion has adverse consequences beyond theoretical
confusion, and that the identifi cation with our own wishes,
A. Heinz et al. / European Psychiatry 27 (2012) / supplement n°2 / S32-S43 S35
abilities and successes will necessarily lead into suffering. Watts
(1981) therefore suggested that self- liberation is a continuous
process of separating the self from any kind of identifi cation [64].
5. Prerefl ective self- awareness versus
a narrative self concept?
So how is the phenomenal self- model constructed, at least in
the Western tradition? Metzinger suggested that three phenomenal
qualities characterize the self- model: 1) “Mineness (Meinigkeit)”,
the sense that for example “my leg” has always belonged to me, 2)
“Prerefl ective Self-awareness”, an intimate knowledge of the self
that is prerefl ective and constitutes the experience of myself as an
“ego” as a fundamental fact of experience, and 3) “Perspectivity”,
a kind of central perspective which centres all consciously experienced
objects around the acting and experiencing subject. All
these characteristic qualities of self- experience can supposedly
be altered in mental disorders, e.g. in acute schizophrenia, when
consciously experienced thoughts are no longer perceived as my
own [42]. Interestingly, this assumption is in contradiction with
Kant’s hypothesis, that the “I think” can necessarily be placed in
front of each of my thoughts without itself being accompanied by
an act of sense perception – if Kant is right, then why can a patient
suffering from acute psychosis experience a lack of ownership
of his own thoughts, e.g. if the thought is experienced as being
“projected into the mind” by some foreign force? Does this mean
that there is a certain feeling or perception of ownership associated
with one’s own thoughts that can be lost in psychosis? And if so,
how can this ownership of thoughts be understood?
It is often assumed that a person’s relationship to his or her
own thoughts can be conceptualised in the same way as his or her
relationship to intentional objects or objects of perception. For
example, if I focus my attention not on the perception of a tree
but on myself as I perceive this tree, the resulting shift of attention
from the object of attention to “my self” as a perceiving subject is
supposed to result in refl ective self- consciousness. However, how
do I know that it is actually me who processes these thoughts or
feelings? How is my intimate relationship with myself grounded
in this experience? Different hypotheses tried to answer these
questions. For example, Mead suggested that this relationship
to myself is established by a certain condition of (pre)lingual
communication: this hypothesis suggests that whenever I voice
an opinion, I react to it in the same way as my partner in communication
would do. Therefore, I acquire an excentric perspective,
which provides me with a picture or perception of myself and
thus endows me with an awareness of my own identity [25].
This hypothesis suggests that I perceive myself like a partner in
communication would do, i.e. that the third person perspective
is primary and that my fi rst person perspective is derived from
it. However, this has been negated by other philosophers; for
example Frank [14] pointed to the work of Henrich and suggested
that there has to be a primary intimate awareness of my own self,
which is prerefl ective and in itself necessary in order to attribute
any object of refl ection to myself. Otherwise, how should I know
that a certain utterance or thought actually belongs “to me”?
Thus, any attempt to perceive self- consciousness (“Ichheit”)
as arising from refl ectivity cannot escape the circularity of the
infi nite regress. This means that whenever such attempts tried
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