Reconsidering the Self in Social Thought: Existential-Phenomenological and Dialogical Perspectives

Abstract

The present article attempts to draw a general analytical framework within which to reconsider the notion of the self in the wide interdisciplinary field of social thought. This reconsideration pertains to the self as a fluid social process and as an interrelational meaningful outcome constituent of lived experience, which is neither intrapsychically located, nor able to be defined in isolation, as something “in and of itself”. The self is therefore seen as paradoxically both autonomous and interdependent, that is reflexively open, socially embedded and interactively constituted. Our critical historicising interrogation also highlights the inherently dialogical nature, character, and dynamics of the self in contemporary society, thus opening up the conceptual space to better grasp, theorise, and evaluate the irreducible complexity of self-formation.