AUTOCONSCIÊNCIA, SUICÍDIO E FINITUDE: REFLEXÕES SOBRE MEDIAÇÃO COGNITIVA

Abstract

This article promotes a reflection on the possible cognitive mediation between self-awareness, finitude, and suicide. Initially, some philosophical and psychological conceptions about finitude were explained; then, a brief history about the representations of suicide, starting from Antiquity, where self-extermination was understood as a path to happiness, going through historical periods where the act was associated with something sinful, criminal, resulting from social and/or individual, to more current conceptions that relate to a complex and multifactorial phenomenon. Subsequently, a description of the process of self-awareness was elaborated, understood as an aspect that involves several cognitive processes, which provided an opportunity for theoretical scrutiny on the possibility of mediating the functional relations between finitude and suicide. The results of this theoretical reflection provided the opportunity to score questions that urge a better clarification on cognition and its relationship with the psychological meaning of suicide and the formation of complex concepts related to Death and the Self, such as Finitude.

Keywords: Self-awareness, Suicide, Finitude, Cognitive Mediation, Cognitive Psychology.