LIT-463: Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First-Person Perspective

Dan Zahavi (2005), Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First-Person Perspective, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (A Bradford Book) — DOI 10.7551/mitpress/6541.001.0001.

On the citation. The brief’s details are right: author, title, subtitle, MIT Press, 2005.

Key takeaways

Registered from the publisher’s description and the chapter list, not a reading.

• The publisher’s description, in part: “What is a self? Does it exist in reality or is it a mere social construct—or is it perhaps a neurologically induced illusion? … Countering this, in Subjectivity and Selfhood, Dan Zahavi argues that the notion of self is crucial for a proper understanding of consciousness. He investigates the interrelationships of experience, self-awareness, and selfhood, proposing that none of these three notions can be understood in isolation. Any investigation of the self, Zahavi argues, must take the first-person perspective seriously and focus on the experiential givenness of the self.” Its aim is “to use phenomenological analyses to clarify issues of central importance to philosophy of mind, cognitive science, developmental psychology, and psychiatry”.
• Contents (Crossref chapter DOIs, with pages): Introduction (1–10); Self-Awareness and Phenomenal Consciousness (11–30); The Concept(s) of Consciousness in Early Phenomenology (31–48); The Structure of Time-Consciousness (49–72); Reflection and Attention (73–98); Consciousness and Self (99–146); Self and Other (147–178); Theory of Mind, Autism, and Embodiment (179–222); Notes (223–240); References (241–260); Index (261–266).

Standing in the record

Filed on 2026-10-02 at the owner’s request to fill out the record’s coverage of selfhood, as the phenomenological defence of a minimal, experiential self. No anthology topic holds it, it carries no instruction for machine-learning practice, and the anthology does not hold it.

Deferred because it was not read. Where it bears on the record, inferred from the description and contents, not from the book:

• Against the no-self views. The description’s targets, the self as “a mere social construct” or “a neurologically induced illusion”, are the positions of Dennett’s narrative self (LIT-442) and of Metzinger’s Being No One (LIT-467), published two years before it. Its longest chapter, “Consciousness and Self”, is where a reading should look for the reply.
• The minimal self. It is the phenomenologist’s version of the minimal self that Gallagher’s review (LIT-453, read) introduced to cognitive science; Gallagher and Zahavi later wrote together. Its “Theory of Mind, Autism, and Embodiment” chapter is the ground Gallagher’s neonatal-imitation argument covers.
• Primary topic. self holds its subject. What no word in the vocabulary says is its method, phenomenology as a philosophical tradition; consciousness and cognition carry the subject matter it shares with philosophy of mind. I record the gap in method rather than stretch a neighbour.

Access when seeded: Crossref (description, chapters); Open Library (edition list, no lendable copy). MIT Press Direct (direct.mit.edu) returned HTTP 403 to this session. Google Books’ API refused for an exhausted daily quota.