Commentary: The Affective Core of the Self: A Neuro-Archetypical Perspective on the Foundations of Human (and Animal) Subjectivity

Frontiers in Psychology

Gregory Bonn¹ 

关键词: consciousness;    emotions;    animal consciousness;    self-awareness;    affective neuroscience;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02098

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

This commentary argues that Alcaro, Carta, and Panksepp's model of the self, consciousness, and emotion is scientifically sound as well as ontologically preferable to other recently advocated theories (Alcaro et al., 2017). Alcaro et al.'s model locates the roots of self-processes within the same subcortical midline structures that Panksepp (1998) and Panksepp and Northoff (2009) identify as the bases for “primary-process” emotions. They argue that this emotional core provides the fundamental sense of subjectivity, or being-in-relation-to-something, upon which complex, self-referential experiences are built. Many neuroscientists and philosophers, however, contend that human consciousness and emotion should be conceived as clearly distinct from that of animals. A recent article by LeDoux and Brown (2017), for example, argues for a redefinition of the term emotion that requires human-like self-reflection: Because human experience involves the ability to reflect upon and label emotional self-states, they argue that experiences lacking these qualities cannot be called emotions.

【 授权许可】

CC BY