Self‐awareness and self‐understanding

Abstract

In this paper, I critically examine Dan Zahavi's multidimensional account of the self and show how the distinction he makes among “pre‐reflective minimal,” “interpersonal,” and “normative” dimensions of selfhood needs to be refined in order to accommodate what I call “pre‐reflective self‐understanding.” The latter is a normative dimension of selfhood manifest not in reflection and deliberation, but in the habits and style of a person's pre‐reflective absorption in the world. After reviewing Zahavi's multidimensional account and revealing this gap in his explanatory taxonomy, I draw upon Heidegger, Merleau‐Ponty, and Frankfurt in order to sketch an account of pre‐reflective self‐understanding. I end by raising an objection to Zahavi's claim for the primitive and foundational status of pre‐reflective self‐awareness. To carve off self‐awareness from the self's practical immersion in a situation where things and possibilities already matter and draw one to act is to distort the phenomena. A more careful phenomenology of pre‐reflective action shows that pre‐reflective self‐awareness and pre‐reflective self‐understanding are co‐constitutive, both mutually for each other and jointly for everyday experience.

Existential selfhood in Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception

“…13 Jacobson focuses on our memory-mediated relation to meaningful things, such as the things in our home, that support us in who we are and reflect us back to ourselves. In her short article, Jacobson does not extend her 9 I present a detailed criticism of this aspect of Zahavi's view in Rousse (2019). 10 Beith (2018, p. 103).…”

“…Zahavi characterizes this minimal, pre-reflective self as a formal, strictly 4 Of course, the notion of sense is fundamental to Merleau-Ponty's philosophy and grounds the notion of a "pre-reflective sense of self." In previous work, I referred to this dimension of selfhood as a "pre-reflective self-understanding" (Rousse, 2019). Merleau-Ponty does not make much use of the term of "interpretation."…”

“…To spell this out, I will again draw from Taylor's conception of articulation and self-interpretation, which Taylor himself developed largely from his reading of Merleau-Ponty (and Heidegger). 33 32 I say more about the active modality of reflective self-interpretation inRousse (2019).…”