Phenomenal Minimalist Ontology of the Self
Антиномии March 16, 2022 Dmitry S. Tourko 1 citation
The self is real because it is defined by the capacity to have experiences. The author argues that anti-realist critiques, such as those by Metzinger, target a strong notion of the self as a substantial, causally autonomous entity. Instead, a reductive realism is proposed: the self is an emergent property of other things, specifically the experiential faculty. Having experience is both necessary and sufficient for being a self. Other traits like self-awareness, moral agency, or autobiographical memory are contingent. A subject that loses experience ceases to be a subject, while non-human subjects with only experiential ability still qualify. The author endorses essentialist realism and rejects pluralism and conventionalism.