Self and Other: A Phenomenological Exploration

In phenomenological tradition self is conceived as a subject-object, as Husserl would define it. (Ideas,II, p.205). It has an intrinsic connection with the world in which it is a subject to objects and it is an object to subjects. Such a world is inter-subjectively shared in terms of 'social subjectivities' and in terms of 'world of social objectivities'. The question, how such a subject-object forms the concept of self? Further how such a self is necessarily social and constituted by sharing relationship with ‘Others’?

The term constitution needs to be understood in the sense of meaning-bestowing by means of conscious finds its objects, which is a kind of recognition and framing instead of construction or creation ex-nihilo.

Merleau Ponty's even richer idea of self as a field of subjectivity in which body and world are co-present to constitute each other. Departing from Husserl, Merelau Ponty suggested that between differently constituted self and other, there is a passage from 'I' of experience to 'I' of phenomenological subject of sensing which is directed towards the world and the other. So the content of ‘I’ arises from this passage from I as a subject-object of experience to I as an identity expressing self- consciousness in identifying myself to others, an ‘I’ owned by me.

This transition from subject-object to mine-ness of 'I' calls for a broader and in depth understanding of under constructability of the very concept of 'I' that sets a a limit to phenomenology of otherness. This limit is the open field of interrelationship between self and other that needs to be explored in epistemological terms. Could there be knowledge that I am loved by the other and could there be a shared knowledge between self and other that reciprocates in mutual understanding and shared perspective upon the world? This project aims to raise such questions and plans to investigate them through the phenomenological tradition starting with Husserl to Merleau Ponty to later ones.