Against Unnecessary Duplication of Selves: A Sartrean Argument Against Zahavi

Abstract

In this article I argue that Zahavi's Sartre-inspired combination of the experiential and narrative self entails an unnecessary duplication of selves. Sartre himself accused Husserl of the same mistake in The Transcendence of the Ego. He claims that Husserl's combination of the transcendental I and the Me is unnecessary, and that we can do without the first. I try to show that Sartre's critique of Husserl also applies to Zahavi. Sartre's critique is based on his idea of impersonal consciousness, which I explain by comparing it to Armstrong's example of the long-distance truck-driver. Furthermore, I explicate how the alternative notion of self that Sartre proposes in the same work avoids unnecessary duplications of selves, and thereby evades further problems concerning how the two selves relate to one another.

Notes

1 Gallagher, “Philosophical Conceptions of the Self”, 14.

2 James, The Principles of Psychology.

3 For all intents and purposes, I shall refer to what Sartre in The Transcendence of the Ego calls the “Ego” as the self.

4 Gallagher, “Philosophical Conceptions of the Self”, 20.

5 Zahavi, D., “The Experiential Self”, 57–58.

6 Gallagher and Zahavi, The Phenomenological Mind, 202.

7 Ibid., 203.

8 Zahavi, “The Experiential Self”, 58.

9 Ibid., p. 59.

10 Zahavi, “Unity of Consciousness”, 326.

11 Ibid., p. 314.

12 Gallagher and Zahavi, The Phenomenological Mind, 204.

13 Zahavi, “The Experiential Self”, 56.

14 Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 9.

15 Zahavi equates Sartre's notion of pre-reflective self-consciousness with Sartre's notion of ipséité, translated by Zahavi as “ipseity” but usually as “selfness”. See Gallagher and Zahavi, The Phenomenological Mind, 203. Sartre, however, considered this to be two distinct notions: “Selfness represents a degree of nihilation carried further than the pure presence to itself of the pre-reflective cogito[.]” See Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 128.

16 Zahavi, “The Experiential Self”, 58.

17 Gallagher and Zahavi, The Phenomenological Mind, 205.

18 Zahavi, “Self and Other”, 191.

19 Gallagher and Zahavi, The Phenomenological Mind, 205.

20 Ibid.

21 Zahavi, “Self and Other”, 193.

22 Zahavi, “Unity of Consciousness”, 327.

23 Ibid., p. 325.

24 Zahavi, “Self and Other”, 180–81.

25 Ricoeur, Temps et Récit III, 443.

26 MacIntyre, After Virtue, 205.

27 Gallagher and Zahavi, The Phenomenological Mind, 205.

28 Zahavi, “Self and Other”, 185.

29 Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego, 3. Hereafter this work will be cited as TE.

30 Priest, The Subject in Question, 34.

31 Ibid., 34–35.

32 Sartre distinguishes the grammatical me in italics from the philosophical concept Me with a capital letter, although he does not seem to do so consistently.

33 Armstrong, “What is Consciousness?”, 59.

34 Ibid., 60.

35 The reason Sartre changed his views concerning the personality of consciousness is attributed by Fretz to Sartre's experiences in the Second World War, and the influence of Heidegger. See Fretz, “Individuality in Sartre's Philosophy”, 77–80.

36 Wider, “Sartre and the Long Distance Truck Driver”, 232–49.

37 Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 127.

38 Gallagher and Zahavi, The Phenomenological Mind, 45–46, 65–66.

39 Wider, The Bodily Nature of Consciousness, 167.

40 Zahavi, “The Experiential Self”, 59.

41 Gallagher and Zahavi, The Phenomenological Mind, 66.

42 Armstrong, “What is Consciousness?”, 56.

43 As opposed to Zahavi, Sartre himself thought that coherence in the contents of one's life story, especially in the sense of one's aims, ideals, and aspirations, is not only unnecessary but also impossible. He expressed this view in his novel La Nausée.

44 This way of speaking about the self as a virtual locus of unity seems to me to be very similar to the metaphor Dennett implores when he compares the self to a centre of gravity (Dennett, “The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity”). The most obvious similarity is perhaps the use of words, with Sartre using the French word foyer for “locus” and pôle for “pole” as in axis of rotation (Sartre, “La Transcendance de l'Ego”). Both can be understood as central points around which other things revolve, be it literally or figuratively. Another similarity is that although the self is the infinite totality of all actions, states and qualities, but is itself not one of these, just like the centre of gravity is the abstract center of the weight of all particles of an object, without being a particle itself. The self transcends the reflected conscious experiences just like the centre of gravity transcends the particles of the object. More similarities are for example that both only appear in an act of reflection or interpretation, both can in principle be accessible to everyone and both can change as more constitutive elements are added or taken away.

45 Priest, The Subject in Question, 112.

46 Gallagher and Zahavi, The Phenomenological Mind, 201.