Functional fragmentation of the minimal self: an in-depth explanation of self-individuation
Synthese May 4, 2026 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1007/s11229-026-05592-z via Springer Nature
Summary
The minimal self hypothesis claims that every conscious experience inherently includes a sense of "for-me-ness" that distinguishes self from others. This paper argues that this hypothesis is flawed: it unnecessarily imports a private/public distinction into ordinary experience and fails to explain disownership phenomena or the origin of first- and third-person perspectives. The author proposes replacing the minimal self with more basic functional concepts called "proto-subjects" or "subjective guises," each defined by specific theoretical roles. Their interactions can account for diverse disownership disorders and offer a substantive analysis of perspectives.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | The minimal self hypothesis fails to parsimoniously characterize the experience-experiencer relation and is theoretically infertile, so the author proposes a functional fragmentation into proto-subjects or subjective guises. |
Abstract
The minimal self hypothesis holds that the inherent sense of “for-me-ness” or “mineness” in every plain conscious experience provides a basic solution to the problem of self-individuation: namely, how to establish intrasubjective unity and intersubjective boundary. I advance two objections to this account. First, the minimal self hypothesis fails to present the most parsimonious conception of the experience-experiencer relation. Instead, it smuggles the private/public contrast into the characterization of a plain experience through the linguistic terms “self” and “me.” Second, this hypothesis is theoretically infertile. It accounts for neither the origin of the first/third-person distinction nor the heterogeneity of disownership phenomena. As an alternative, I propose a functional fragmentation of the minimal self into more fundamental concepts of “subject,” which I call “proto-subjects” or “subjective guises.” These functional fragments of the minimal self are conceptually exhausted by their specific theoretical roles. Their convergence and divergence under certain principles can explain the diversity of disownership disorders and provide a substantive analysis of the first- and third-person perspectives. For phenomenologists open to drawing inferences from observable facts, the explanatory benefits of this fragmentation proposal balance its associated costs.