Conflicting images of the self: A metaphilosophical inquiry into the constitution of selfhood

Neither minimal nor narrative conceptions of the self are inherently tied to either the manifest or the scientific image of the world; both can support either framework depending on how they are articulated. The article reconciles phenomenological–enactive accounts of minimal selfhood with non-eliminativist neurobiological models, arguing that neuroscience's appeal to mental images often uncritically transfers metaphors from the manifest image into the scientific one. It reconsiders the narrative self through niche construction theory, proposing that language is a form of second nature grounded in embodied sense-making rather than a break with biological selfhood. Four kinds of primacy are distinguished—ontological, epistemological, heuristic, and pragmatic—and a synoptic integration of both images is held to be both possible and philosophically necessary for an adequate account of selfhood.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This article develops a metaphilosophical account of the constitution of selfhood by situating contemporary debates on the minimal and the narrative self within Wilfrid Sellars’s distinction between the manifest and the scientific images. I argue that neither a minimal nor a narrative conception of the self straightforwardly entails a commitment to either image. Rather, depending on how they are articulated, both can be used to support either framework. The paper proceeds in four steps. First, I outline the main positions in the current debate, showing how narrative and minimal accounts of the self negotiate, in different ways, the tension between first-person experience and scientific explanation. Second, I argue for a reconciliation between phenomenological–enactive accounts of minimal selfhood with non-eliminativist neurobiological models, suggesting that the appeal to “mental images” in neuroscience often relies on an uncritical transfer of metaphors from the manifest image into the scientific one. Third, I reconsider the narrative self through the lens of niche construction theory, proposing a continuist interpretation in which language is understood as a form of second nature grounded in embodied sense-making rather than as a break with biological selfhood. I conclude by distinguishing four kinds of primacy—ontological, epistemological, heuristic, and pragmatic—and maintain that a synoptic integration of the manifest and scientific images is both possible and philosophically necessary for an adequate account of selfhood.