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This chapter proposes that if one wants to enquire into the existence and nature of the self (Is there such a thing? What is it like if it exists?), then it's wise, and perhaps necessary, to start with an investigation of the experience of there being such a thing. One should start with an investigation of the general form of the experience of there being such a thing. It approaches the metaphysics or ontology of the self, which addresses the questions just raised, through the phenomenology of the self. Metaphysics (or ontology) is the general study of how things are or can be or must be. It's a matter for scientists and mathematicians as well as philosophers, and includes physics as an evolving part. Phenomenology is the study of a particular part of how things are or can be or must be. It's the general study of the character of experience in all its sensory and cognitive richness.

This chapter takes up the proposal about the minimal form of self-experience in order to consider the relation between self-experience and self-consciousness. Does self-consciousness require or presuppose self-experience? It presents the case for answering No, while acknowledging that the two things go naturally together. It puts the case for Yes, and tentatively endorses it. The chapter then asks the converse question: Does self-experience require or presuppose self-consciousness? If the answer is Yes, then all the grounds or conditions of self-consciousness are also grounds or conditions of self-experience, and the absorbing and time-honoured task of trying to work out the grounds or conditions of self-consciousness becomes part of the task of giving a general account of self-experience. However, there are grounds for thinking that the best answer to the second question is No. There is nevertheless a natural understanding of what self-experience is that delivers the answer Yes, and on this basis the chapter goes ahead with the task of considering the grounds or conditions of self-consciousness. On the whole the chapter is more about metaphysics than phenomenology, but metaphysical and phenomenological concerns sometimes run close.

This chapter defends the proposal about the minimal case of genuine self-experience made Chapter 2 and drawn on in Chapter 3. It argues that any genuine form of self-experience must involve some sense or conception of the self as a subject of experience that is a single mental thing, in a sense that requires further characterization, but need not involve anything more. The chapter considers expressions like ‘conception of the self’ and ‘sense of the self’ to be similar to ‘self-experience’, in that they do not imply that there are any such things as selves.

This chapter analyzes human self-conscious psychology from the perspective of development. Human psychology is ontologically self-conscious, with an exacerbated care for reputation at its core. This psychology defines us as a species and becomes explicit by the end of the second year, with the expression of self-conscious emotions such as shame or pride. From this point on, children not only demonstrate evidence of recognizing themselves in a mirror, but they also show apparent emotional weariness and self-consciousness. As a human trademark, mirror self-experience changes status, becoming construed in reference to the evaluative gaze of others. Human self-conscious psychology cannot be thought of independently of the particular evolution of childhood, an evolution that led toward a prolonged immaturity and the incomparably protracted social dependence of the human young. As a by-product of this evolution, the gaze of others gained unique power as a social signal: the power to assess and reflect self-worth. This evolution also led us to become the shameful and guilt-prone species we are, always under the spell of the evaluative gaze of others.

Many analytic philosophers have denied that the expression ‘the self’ refers to anything. Others have said its meaning is too unclear for it to be used in philosophy. Others have claimed that the only legitimate use of ‘I’ or ‘the self’ or ‘the subject of experience’ in the human case is to refer to the human being considered as a whole. This chapter aims to endow ‘the self’ (and ‘I’ and ‘subject of experience’) with sufficiently clear meaning, within a wholly materialist framework, without taking it to refer to the whole human being. It looks first at the phenomenology of self-experience, the experience of there being such a thing as the self, and see how the self is figured in self-experience. This provides materials with which to give the classical metaphysical questions (Do selves exist? What is their nature?) substantive and testable content.

This chapter pursues the project of ‘“The Self”’. A description of the nature of self-experience leads to a metaphysics of the self, according to which a self is a ‘sesmet’, that is, a [1] subject of experience that is a [2] single [3] mental [4] thing. The relevant sense of ‘thing’ requires careful specification. The specification allows [i] that all things are equally well thought of as processes, and [ii] that Fichte’s characterization of the self as a Tathandlung or ‘deed-activity’ qualifies as a characterization of the self as a thing. Does the claim that a self is a ‘single mental thing’ support a picture of the self as an immaterial soul? The chapter argues that human selves are correctly said to be ‘single mental things’ although materialism is true: Selves are wholly physical entities, and are perhaps fleeting, transient, short-lived in the way Buddhists suppose.

This chapter considers Hume’s account of personal identity. It argues for three connected claims. [1] Hume does not endorse a ‘bundle theory’, according to which the mind or self or person is just a ‘bundle’ of perceptions; he thinks that ‘the essence of the mind [is] unknown to us’ (Treatise Introduction §8). [2] Hume does not deny the existence of subjects of experience; he does not endorse a ‘no self’ or ‘no ownership’ view. [3] Hume does not claim that the subject of experience isn’t encountered in experience. The chapter also examines [4] Hume’s phenomenological account of self-experience: his account of what he comes across when he engages in mental self-examination by ‘entering intimately into what I call myself’, and [5] his psychological account of how we come to believe in the existence of a persisting self as a result of the mind’s ‘sliding easily’ along certain series of perceptions.

This chapter explores Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology of self-knowledge, including his conceptions of subjectivity, sense constitution, and the divide between natural and transcendental self-experience. Husserl regards self-knowledge as the key to all knowledge, and he sees his project as a radicalization of Descartes’ exploration of the first person. All objectivity is the achievement of constituting subjectivity, and so coming to know this subjectivity is of the greatest importance to overcome naturalistic objectivism. Self-knowledge, moreover, for Husserl, involves a commitment to be an autonomous responsible subject living a life of clarified rational motives. This chapter outlines Husserl’s rich conception of the self and its self-knowledge, including its temporal and habitual character, the nature of the splitting of the ego in natural and transcendental reflection, and the relation of I to not-I.

This chapter engages with the topic of shame. What does the fact that we feel shame tell us about the nature of self? Does shame testify to the presence of a self-concept, a (failed) self-ideal, and a capacity for critical self-assessment, or does it rather, as some have suggested, point to the fact that the self is in part socially constructed? Should shame primarily be classified as a self-conscious emotion or is it rather a distinct social emotion, or is there something misleading about these alternatives? The chapter explores these questions and discusses whether the experience of shame presupposes a possession of a first-person perspective and a capacity for empathy, and whether it exemplifies an other-mediated form of self-experience and to that extent involves a more complex self than the thin experiential self.