Self-Awareness and the “I” in the Phenomenological Tradition
The Self August 20, 2021 Sacha Golob
The Phenomenological tradition rethinks the self and self-awareness by emphasizing the first-person perspective and a hierarchical model of experience. This chapter traces key developments from Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty to later writers such as Henry. It positions Phenomenology's account of self-awareness between Brentano's spectatorial model and Kantian intellectualism. Innovations include Sartre's non-positional self-consciousness, Heidegger's links between self and society, and Merleau-Ponty's conception of embodiment.