It comes as no surprise that the topic of self-consciousness is widely discussed. With the development of science and the “empirically responsible” philosophy of mind, we can found ourselves to be still at the beginning of understanding this phenomenon. Nonetheless, one may be suspicious of yet another publication on this topic. In the case of latest Radu J. Bogdan’s book, one should not be. While spending a lot of time reading this in-depth book (that is actually worth reading slowly due to its density (he accurately discusses works from Lev Vygotsky to authors like Dan Dennett, Donald Davidson, Thomas Metzinger or Antonio Damasio, while focusing on making his own arguments as clear as possible), I found it to be a inspiring piece of philosophical work on the topic. Bogdan is Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science and Director of the Cognitive Studies Programme at Tulane University and Visiting Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey. If I was to narrow the possible audience for this rich reading, summarized shortly below, I would recommend it to academics. Mostly because those are likely to find his style of writing and argumentation interesting.

Bogdan starts his Our Own Minds with exhibition of his main ideas. Although it is quite common to inform the readers about chosen line of argumentation, he seems to show all of his cards pretty quickly. But this is why this book becomes especially interesting. In the pages following his introduction, we are invited to follow his way of thinking and constructing his arguments in a very detailed, but never oversimplified way. Like the book’s main focus, developmental perspective on self-consciousness, we are encouraged to witness how his ideas grow with relation to prominent interdisciplinary literature. I will start this review (aimed to encourage readers to take the cruise with Radu J. Bogdan’s writing) with presenting the abovementioned main ideas and overall message of the book. Secondly, I will introduce the contents of chapters.

For the author, self-consciousness is a type of consciousness of one being related to various targets in the world and of affordances / opportunities that this relatedness opens up for thought and action [p. x]. It is vital for any organism to regulate (or: guide, monitor) its relation to the surroundings. Self-consciousness thus provides organism with a sense that becomes conscious when the process of self- regulation operates under certain parameters. These parameters do primarily reflect the executive abilities of intuitive psychology that is responsible for handling the sociocultural tasks and practices that a growing child must master. To put the main idea of the book in another words: the functional design of human consciousness develops of self-regulatory machinery that adopts to and handles the major sociocultural challenges of human ontogeny. This development, according to the author of Our Own Minds goes through two major phrases: (1) before the age of 4, when children develop a world — oriented / extravert form of self-consciousness, and (2) after the age of 4, when child begins to turn toward their own mind and attitudes mostly under the sociocultural pressure. The overall message of Radu J. Bogdan’s book is the one that minds cannot be conscious, without being (functionally) self-conscious.

The book consists of eight well-structured and plainly written chapters. Each of these chapters is opened with helpful upshot and the description of its relations to previous ones. In Chapter 1, Radu sets the stage for further deliberations, introduces terminology and central questions and arguments of his work. He narrows the scope of his book to the questions of what enables an organism: (a) to register its target-related mental states, attitudes as its own? (what he dubs “the sense of selfhood question”) and to (b) to know (and to what degree) that (and what) one perceives, remembers, think? (this question, rising from Cartesian tradition, is what Bogdan calls “the self-knowledge questions”). Thus, he does not attempt to discuss the phenomenal character of consciousness. Rather, his aim is to explain the reasons for which the conditions in which self-consciousness [p. 14] materializes and grows in children’s mind. In both Chapters 1 and 2 he focuses on the overarching asymmetry in how children relate in different modalities to their own minds and world. As mentioned above, the greatest divide is between the age of 4 and 5. In the age of 4 children are interested almost exclusively in the outside world, then year later it changes. In Chapter 3 the author of Our Own Minds argues that the reason for the abovementioned asymmetry is the asymmetric development of intuitive psychology (first directed outside, later on: inside). Following Chapter 4, draws on the distance between his proposition and the “standard”, Cartesian view on consciousness. Later on, through Chapter 5, Bogdan focuses on the children’s implementation of his scenario by suggesting that human infants need and expect adult co-regulation, and in the age of 4 this very co-regulation is increasingly handled by “naïve psychology” (that is: intuitive psychology of young children). In Chapters 6 and 7, we come to the point where older children turn into their own minds (respectively, in Chapter 6 he draws on neuropsychological and commonsense developments after the age of 4, while in Chapter 7 he explores the sociocultural reasons for the self- regulatory works of commonsense psychology translating into self-understanding leading to the introvert form of self-consciousness). Finally, in the last, eight chapter the author proposes how self-consciousness have emerged as a byproduct of development of other competencies.

To conclude, this book is worth recommending, although mainly for academic audience. It serves not only as an interesting attempt to discuss self-consciousness from developmental perspective, but also as a rich discussion on this topic. It is also very clearly written, what makes it pleasure to read.

© 2012 Jakub Matyja

Jakub Matyja (MSc in Philosophy) works in embodied, enactive and extended music cognition. Website: avant.edu.pl/en/,  email: jrmatyja@gmail.com