On the Observability of the Self

Abstract

The two great traditions of contemporary western philosophy phenomenology and logical analysis seem to meet, unfortunately, at extremes. The point of contact is thesis according to which one is never aware of a subject of experience. The thesis in question does not pertain to perception of one's body. If we are identical with our bodies and if, as all but skeptics hold, we do perceive our bodies, then, whether we realize it or not, we also perceive ourselves. The thesis has to do, rather, with what we find when we consult data of our immediate experience, or when, as Hume puts it, we enter most intimately into what we call ourselves. Thus Sartre seems to say that, although we may apprehend things that are pour-soi, things that are manifested or presented to self, we cannot apprehend self to which, or to whom, they are manifested we cannot apprehend self as it is in itself, as it is en-soi.2 And Russell has frequently said that self or subject is not empirically discoverable; Carnap expressed what I take to be same view by saying that the given is subjectless. 3 I say it is unfortunate that members of two great philosophical traditions happen to meet at this particular point, of all places. For at this particular point, if I am not mistaken, both groups have lost their way.

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