Two Modes of Self-Consciousness in the Structure of Consciousness

It has been substantiated that there is not only explicit self-consciousness but there is also tacit, implicit self-consciousness in the structure of consciousness. The author has revealed that so called from-to model of individual consciousness and tacit knowing, proposed by the 20th-century philosopher of science M. Polanyi, is applicable to self-consciousness. According to this model, interaction of two kinds of awareness is at the very core of any cognitive act - focal and subsidiary awareness. In every act of tacit knowing we attend from subsidiaries to a focus whose object they give a rise. Within the framework of Polanyi's conception of personal knowledge, corporeality is of great importance, which constitutes the realm of tacit, subsidiary clues. If we extend the structure of individual consciousness to the processes of self-consciousness, then reflection may be considered as overt, explicit self-consciousness. In the process of reflection, the image of one's self, the most significant personal characteristics are in the focus of attention. Explicit self-consciousness is most fully embodied in a narrative, a life story. Narrativity constitutes a stable conceptual image of one's self, ensures the unity of the internal experience, gives a new meaning to the events in one's life. In its turn, tacit selfconsciousness embraces subsidiary components of personal experience which determine a person's individuality. It underlies both self-cognition and cognition of the surrounding reality. The primary mode of implicit self-consciousness is the awareness of embodied self which manifests itself during motor activity. The embodied self proves to be an active and independent subject capable of performing purposeful actions voluntarily. Based on the analysis of the neural “central monitoring hypothesis of action recognition”, it has been concluded that the image of the embodied self is brought into correlation with the subjective model of one's own action. The internal model of motor activity has been considered to be the basis of embodied, tacit self-consciousness. By means of the neurophysiological “simulation theory”, it has been shown that images of our supposed movements constitute the realm of tacit, covert actions which are combined with overt actions. Covert actions affect the content of tacit knowledge, underlie implicit self-consciousness and seem to be essential conditions for the cognition and transformation of the surrounding reality.

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