ABSTRACT
Awareness of the self as an agent, as an experiencer and a social being, does not emerge suddenly in the individual at the time of his or her birth, or at a particular moment during his or her life. Instead, it develops gradually from its precursors into more and more complex forms, never accomplishing any final state in the course of a single human life. The conception of selfawareness discussed in this chapter is based on the hypothesis that the self has two components, the I as an agent and experiencer, and the Me as a socially formed object. This conception was first proposed in psychology by James (1890) and elaborated by Mead (1934), and just like any other conception of self-awareness it is historically and culturally determined, and therefore transient. We shall start this chapter by clarifying the two concepts, the I and the Me, and their mutual relationships.
