Phenomenology counts as one of the most influential philosophical movements in twentieth-century philosophy. Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) was its founder, but other influential proponents were Max Scheler (1874–1928), Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961), and Emmanuel Lévinas (1906–1995). Over the years, phenomenology has made major contributions to many areas of philosophy, including transcendental philosophy, philosophy of mind, social philosophy, philosophical anthropology, aesthetics, ethics, philosophy of science, epistemology, theory of meaning, and formal ontology. It has offered important analyses of topics such as intentionality, embodiment, self-consciousness, intersubjectivity, temporality, historicity, truth, evidence, perception, and value theory. It has delivered a targeted criticism of reductionism, objectivism, and scientism, and argued at length for a rehabilitation of the lifeworld.

If the self—as a popular view has it—is a narrative construction, if it arises out of discursive practices, it is reasonable to assume that the best possible avenue to self-understanding will be provided by those very narratives. If I want to know what it means to be a self, I should look closely at the stories that I and others tell about myself, since these stories constitute who I am. In the following I wish to question this train of thought. I will argue that we need to operate with a more primitive and fundamental notion of self; a notion of self that cannot be captured in terms of narrative structures. In a parallel move, I will argue that there is a crucial dimension of what it means to be other that is equally missed by the narrative approach. I will consequently defend the view that there are limits to the kind of understanding of self and others that narratives can provide.

The narrative account of self

Let me start out by presenting the narrative account of the self in some detail. A central starting point is the assumption that we need to distinguish between merely being conscious or sentient, and being a self. The requirements that must be met in order to qualify for the latter are higher. More precisely, being a self is an achievement rather than a given. How is selfhood achieved? In and through narrative self-interpretation.

Abstract

Initially, three different philosophical concepts of self are distinguished: a Kantian, a hermeneutical, and a phenomenological concept. The phenomenological concept is then analysed in detail. The first step of the analysis consists in an investigation of the first-personal givenness of phenomenal consciousness; the second step involves a discussion of different concepts of self-consciousness, a discussion which culminates in a criticism of the so-called higher-order representation theory. In conclusion, the article provides some examples of how the phenomenological concept of self may be of use in empirical science (psychiatry and developmental psychology).

Introduction

In the following chapter, I wish to outline and discuss some of the reflections on self that can be found in phenomenology. But let me start with a cautionary remark. Phenomenology is not the name of a philosophical position. It is the name of a philosophical tradition inaugurated by Husserl (1859–1938), and comprising among its best-known champions philosophers like Scheler, Heidegger, Schutz, Gurwitsch, Fink, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Levinas, Ricoeur and Henry. Like any other philosophical tradition, the phenomenological tradition spans many differences. This also holds true for its treatment and analysis of the self. In short, there is not one single phenomenological account of the self, just as there is not one single account of the self to be found in analytical philosophy. There are a variety of different accounts. In what follows, I have consequently been forced to make a certain selection, and to focus on what I take to be one of the most promising proposals.