Abstract

This thesis project presents a phenomenology of the self that, in addition to providing an account of what the self is, suggests some ethical ramifications of being a self. As such, the project has two dimensions: an ontology of selfhood and an ethics of being a self. It begins with a justification of the language of selfhood. This is accomplished in two stages. First, it is suggested that all human beings have a sense of their own agency, which I call a sense of self. This sense of self includes four features: self-possession, narrativity, moral situatedness and relations to other like beings. Second, it is shown that the sense of self does not lie exclusively in a sense of the self as an inwardly located substance but in a historically located language of self-description. The modern sense of self, however, is articulated in terms of a language of "the self" as a substantive locus. Following Charles Taylor's account of the sources of modern selfhood from Sources of the Self, the project suggests that the modern language of selfhood, which is the language we have immediately at our disposal in an inquiry of this sort, implies that the self is an inwardly located, self-responsible, particular and committed self. Next, the project demonstrates the inadequacy of this version of the self. I demonstrate that the modern self's self-responsible individuality, particularity and committedness, can be understood better and more consistently if we eliminate the substantive assumption that the self is a thing located inside, and replace this with a relational version of the self as a self-choosing synthesis. The final step in the ontology of selfhood is to determine the sense in which self-making is situated and as such is made possible by others. Invoking Levinas, I argue that self-making occurs by an intrusion of the other person, that the other person comes first and so is the source of the self: the self comes to be a self in face of the other person. However, in showing this I add, through a brief consideration of Jean-Luc Nancy's account of the singular plural, that this implies that I am not only related to my others; rather, there is a sense in which I am my others: my-self is my-others. Finally, I undertake to provide a brief intimation of the ethical consequences of this version of the self. If the self is its others, then we must reconsider ethics. Three proposals are made. First, it is suggested that ethical questions must change. Instead of evaluating ethical behaviour alone or ethical being alone, we must consider ethical being as a doing; we must ask whether the self has come to be a self worth becoming. Second, we must direct ethics to the other person. I cannot determine my success as a self by rationally examining myself alone. I must direct my inquiry to the other who I am. Third, the usual tropes of ethics must be pushed aside. Rather than concerning ourselves with themes like virtue, duty and utility, we should begin to examine the themes of responsibility and love, because it is in responsibility and love that the self is constituted.