Are we our brains?

Burwood, Stephen

Abstract

My aim in this paper is to destabilise the brain-is-self thesis, something that is now regarded in some quarters as philosophical commonsense. My contention is that it is the epithelial body that enters into the formation of our sense of self and that largely bears the burden of personal identity as well as playing the key role in grounding our psychological ascriptions. Lacking any sensorimotor or social presence of its own, the brain by itself cannot "underlie" selfhood, but only as part of the whole living human being. If the minded individual is embodied, this must mean more than being embrained.

Citation

Burwood, S. (2009). Are we our brains?. Philosophical Investigations, 32(2), 113-133. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9205.2008.01366.x

• Journal Article Type: Review
• Online Publication Date: Feb 24, 2009
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2009
• Deposit Date: Nov 13, 2014
• Journal: Philosophical Investigations
• Print ISSN: 0190-0536
• Electronic ISSN: 1467-9205
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 32
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 113-133
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9205.2008.01366.x
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/461489
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9205.2008.01366.x