Exploring the Thinking Self – Performance and Persistence

Abstract: This paper explores a rather specific and neglected part within the studies of thinking and the self: the self in thinking action. First, pure thinking action is defined as a thinking process dealing with pure conceptual relations with no explicit or implicit reference to sensory qualities. Second, this kind of action is explored to discover features of the self-performing activity. First-person methods are applied to reveal the phenomenology of such actions. By way of an example and using the method of phenomenal contrasts, the phenomenal material is sampled, analyzed, and further evaluated. We point to five dimensions of the thinking self and contrast them to some traditional concepts of the self, such as the minimal self or the narrative self, leading to important extensions of the literature. This leads up to another series of experiential results which finally allow us to unearth the “core self” immersed in thinking action. This “core self” reveals itself as the source of its thinking action and as the center of awareness.