ABSTRACT

Extensively investigated across disciplines such as psychology, psychiatry, education, and social policy, self-esteem has been comparatively under-researched in philosophy. However, a number of theories and notions relevant to the understanding of self-esteem and related experiences have been put forward in both classical and contemporary phenomenology of emotion. In both philosophy and psychology, self-esteem is thus often associated with a conception of the self as worthy, and cognition is attributed a central role in such self-evaluation. Self-esteem is indeed seen as an evaluative response to the conception one has of oneself, thus requiring both reflective awareness and a degree of self-knowledge. Embarrassment is a social emotion, which we experience when author find themselves in a particular relationship to other people.