Abstract

In his paper ‘Minimal self and narrative self: A distinction in need of refinement?’ Dan Zahavi argues that we need more notions of the self then the common dichotomy between minimal and narrative self. Zahavi proposes an ‘interpersonal self’ to bridge the gap between the embodied, but not yet social minimal self, and the narrative self that is obviously social, but through an emphasis on language. The interpersonal self would include pre-linguistic forms of sociality as well. His notion of the interpersonal self is, however, ambiguous. It can refer both to 1) the ability to be aware of being an object of attention for another person and 2) to the ability to take the perspective of another person towards oneself. I argue that the pre-linguistic forms of sociality in the first sense are already part of the minimal self, and that hence the minimal self is a social self.