Damasio proposes a staged hierarchy from proto-self up to extended consciousness and conscience

Evidence

The construction of the link to the object demands the formation of images, or ”second-order maps,” and thereafter of signs. In detail, the stages are the following: ”the nonconscious neural signaling of an individual organism begets the proto-self, which permits core self and core consciousness, which allow for an autobiographical self, which permits extended consciousness. At the end of the chain, extended consciousness permits conscience.” From one end of the chain to the other, Damasio explains, one must assume that the brain somehow recounts its own becoming, that it elaborates it in the form of an ”account.” — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 196

Categorization

• DEFINE: Useful for precisely laying out Damasio’s chain of neural-to-mental stages when contrasting his model with Malabou’s plasticity argument.