“Senses of Self” Conference

How do you know who you really are? What even is the ‘real’ you? This conference aims to bring together scholars working on this issue, as well as related questions, including, but not limited to: is it just the self–all of you–or is there reason to think that within the self, there is a ‘real,’ ‘deeper,’ or ‘true’ self? Are all actions expressive of the real self? Is having a self related to being a person and/or having moral status?

Answers to these questions are given from different perspectives, literatures, and even disciplines in terms of constructs including (but again not limited to) character, the ‘deep’, ‘real’, or ‘true’, self, personal identity, and personality. Uniquely, this conference will focus on the relationship between these various questions, and the constructs we use to answer them. When we ask these various questions, and use these various constructs, are we talking about the same ‘self’? Accordingly, the conference welcomes scholars working on these issues across literatures and traditions in philosophy and related fields (e.g., psychology, anthropology).

Dates: 11-14 March 2025

Organiser: Jeremy Pober (LanCog, University of Lisbon)

This event is funded by Portuguese national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., within the project UID/00310, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa.