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Document Details : Title: Minimal Self and Existential Phenomenology Subtitle: Sartre vs. Zahavi Author(s): KOLOSKOV, Daniil Journal: Etudes phénoménologiques - Phenomenological Studies Volume: 9 Date: 2025 Pages: 147-173 DOI: 10.2143/EPH.9.0.3293694 Abstract : The article explicates the methodological background of Zahavi’s notion of minimal self and defends a more balanced approach that would account better for the interaction between minimal and more enriched versions of self. While Zahavi’s account relies on a particular interpretation of the phenomenological method, which searches for the 'invariant structures' of lived experience and holds a strict distinction between fact and essence, the paper focuses on the reconsideration of this opposition by existential phenomenology (expressed most obviously by Merleau-Ponty). To illustrate the significance of this difference, I will contrast Zahavi’s formalistic account of self with Sartre’s analysis of pre-reflective consciousness. Sartre’s emphasis on pre-reflective consciousness may have a lot in common with Zahavi’s criticism of the narrative approaches to the self; however, Sartre’s investigation of the constitutive negativity of consciousness culminates in his theory of fundamental act of choosing oneself, which organizes and unifies consciousness. The unity of pre-reflective consciousness is not seen here as a 'structure' of experience but as a basic movement of consciousness, which cannot be seen as indifferent to particular events of its being and for which consciousness remains responsible. Something like awareness here becomes possible only along with acquiring some fundamental project and some content of one’s own life. |
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