CE VEDEM CÂND ÎL VEDEM PE OMUL VITRUVIAN DIN SPATE?

Summary

The self does not automatically coincide with itself; the command 'know thyself' implies a gap. Experience is always given for a subject, but this does not mean the subject experiences it as its own. The paper distinguishes structural reflexivity (immanent to experience) from metanoic reflexivity (a reflective distance that allows disidentification from substitute selves).

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Abstract

The Socratic injunction “know thyself” already suggests that the self may fail to coincide with itself; if such coincidence were immediate, the injunction would be unnecessary. This paper examines how the relation of identity with oneself can appear as substituted within the very structure of self-relation, as articulated through the symbolic figure of the Vitruvian Man seen from behind. Subjectivity is not exhausted by the mere occurrence of experience in consciousness, even if every experience is given for a subject. This structural feature, however, does not guarantee that the self coincides with itself, leaving open the possibility that experience may be lived without being given as originating. Against this background, the paper shifts the problem of consciousness from the existence of experience to the way in which it is given to itself: as originating or not. It distinguishes between structural reflexivity and metanoic reflexivity: the former is immanent to conscious experience, whereas the latter introduces a reflective distance that makes possible a disidentification from substitutive forms of self-relation.

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