NOTE-1289: Second-Person Engagement, Self-Alienation, and Group-Identification

Contribution

It recovers an argument of Husserl’s that Heidegger overlooked: empathy matters for the “we” not only because it lets me understand the other but because it changes how I understand myself. Zahavi makes that argument the basis of a systematic claim. Second-person engagement is a condition of a we-identity, because only through it do I come to apprehend myself as others do, and so as one of us. He defends the claim against two rivals that take the “we” to be prior to any I–you relation.

Key insight

To say “we” I must see myself from outside, as one self among others, and I get that view by taking over another’s view of me. Husserl: when I take over “the apprehension that others have of me”, I “fit myself into the family of man … It is only now that I am, in the proper sense, an Ego over against an other and can then say ‘we’” (p. 10, quoting Husserl 1989: 254). The resulting “we” keeps the plurality it unites: “A we, a first-person plural, is not an enlarged I. The social unification and integration of the involved subjects never amounts to fusion” (p. 10).

Assumptions

• Phenomenological empathy. Empathy is a perceptually based, direct experience of another’s mind, not inner imitation or projection, and it “required a preservation of the self-other difference” rather than “leading to fusion” (p. 1). The rest of the argument builds on this.
• The “we” is experienced from within. Group identification is “phenomenologically real” (Abrams and Hogg, as quoted, p. 11). Belonging to a category by birth or by outsiders’ classification is “not of much relevance” to a we-identity unless one experiences it “from within” (pp. 11–12).
• Reading Husserl’s manuscripts. The argument rests on Husserl’s texts Gemeingeist I (1921) and Phänomenologie der Mitteilungsgemeinschaft (1932) in Husserliana 14 and 15, and on Ideen II. It is offered as both exegesis and a systematic position (p. 2).
• Minimal self-awareness. Infants have self-awareness from very early, on some views from their first experiences (Zahavi 2005). This is used against Schmid (p. 15).

Key results

• The division in phenomenology (pp. 1–2). Should the foundations of sociality be sought in the face-to-face encounter and the self–other difference (Husserl, Scheler, Stein, Walther, Schutz), or in an everyday being-with marked by “anonymity and substitutability”, among others from whom “one mostly does not distinguish oneself” (Heidegger 1996: 111)?
• Heidegger’s objection (§1, pp. 2–4). Dasein is being-with from the start, so there is no gap for empathy to bridge. The I–Thou relation presupposes the with-one-another, and “even the self-comprehension of an I … arise[s] only on the basis of the with-one-another” (Heidegger 2001, as quoted, p. 4).
• Husserl’s ladder of reciprocity (§2, pp. 5–7).
  • Simultaneous empathy: A experiences B and B experiences A; neither is aware of the other’s attention.
  • Reflexive empathy: A experiences B attending to A; B is unaware of this.
  • Reciprocal empathy: each is aware of being attended to by the other.
  • The I–Thou relation: reciprocal empathy plus communicative address, “the intention and will to intimate” (Husserl 1973c: 473, as quoted, p. 6). Only this is the primordial social relation and a condition of communalization.
• The we-synthesis (pp. 7–8). In communicative acts each motivates the other, intentions interlock (Willensverflechtung), and “a unity of willing is established that encompasses both subjects” (p. 8).
• Second-person engagement defined (§3, pp. 8–9). Against Pauen, who collapses it into simulation, and beyond Schilbach et al., who stress interaction: it is “a subject-subject (you-me) relation where I am aware of and directed at the other and, at the same time, implicitly aware of myself in the accusative, as attended to or addressed by the other” (p. 9). It is a form of “interpersonal self-consciousness” and is not reducible to first- plus third-person perspectives.
• Persons are socially constituted (pp. 9–10). For Husserl, personality “is constituted only as the subject enters into social relations with others” (Husserl 1973b: 175, as quoted, p. 10). My being a person results from “communicative intertwinement”.
• The formal condition of a we (pp. 10–11). A we must preserve plurality, yet the self–other difference cannot stay too salient or no unity forms. Husserl’s solution: one can group-identify “only … if the difference between self and others is present but somewhat downplayed” (p. 10), and this happens when one adopts the other’s perspective on oneself. This socially mediated self-apprehension is not innate. Husserl calls it self-alienation (Selbstentfremdung), meaning a self-experience “enriched and matured through the incorporation of an external perspective” (p. 11).
• Necessary, not sufficient (p. 11). Self-alienation does not explain why one identifies with philosophers, EU-supporters, Danes or one’s family. That needs “more substantive elements such as shared norms, values, emotions, goals etc.”.
• The parallel with self-categorization theory (pp. 11–12). Turner’s self-stereotyping downplays individual differences and accentuates in-group similarities “such that social uniformity is generated”, which Turner calls depersonalization. “The similarity to Husserl’s proposal should be obvious” (p. 12). The difference is that Husserl attends far more to the interpersonal understanding beneath group identification.
• Schmid’s rival (§4, pp. 12–13). The “sense of us” is a fundamental explanans, prior to any I–you relation. Identification merely confirms it after the fact. Communication presupposes it. Singular self-awareness presupposes plural self-awareness, since small children do not separate their goals from others’.
• Zahavi’s replies (pp. 13–15).
  • Explicit identification is often after the fact, but earlier, developmental identifying-with is not (Hobson: the assimilation of the other’s orientation toward self).
  • Taking the “we” as primitive abandons analysing it, and erases the difference between standing in any social relation, “commanding, hostile, abusive or dismissive”, and being part of a we (p. 14).
  • Joint attention (proto-declaratives) shows infants separate their focus from others’. In-group bias and conformity appear at about 3–4 years; mirror self-recognition at 18–24 months; on other definitions self-awareness is present far earlier (p. 15).
• The concession (§5, pp. 16–17). The face-to-face “we” is “fairly restrictive”. There are “sedimented, institutionalized and anonymous forms of we”, from the bus queue to the nation, and “it is by no means obvious” that all can be analysed the same way (Lickel et al.’s four group types; Tomasello’s second-personal versus collective intentionality). An account of the dyadic “we” alone “is insufficient” (p. 17).

Claims

id	claim	strength	support
C1	Truly social acts, and the communalization they ground, require an I–Thou relation of communicative address, which goes beyond reciprocal empathy	moderate as exegesis of Husserl, with quotations; argued, not shown, as a systematic claim	§2, pp. 5–8
C2	Second-person engagement is a subject–subject relation involving implicit awareness of oneself as addressed, irreducible to first- and third-person perspectives	moderate: a conceptual proposal, contrasted with Pauen and Schilbach et al.	§3, p. 9
C3	Adopting the other’s perspective on oneself (self-alienation), which keeps the self–other difference but downplays it, is necessary for group identification	weak to moderate: argued from Husserl; no independent argument for necessity, and no evidence	pp. 10–11
C4	A we is not an enlarged I; it preserves plurality and is not fusion	asserted as Husserl’s view and shared with Schmid; not argued at length	p. 10
C5	This condition parallels self-categorization theory’s self-stereotyping	weak: an analogy, stated as “obvious”, without examining Turner’s texts beyond Turner 1981	pp. 11–12
C6	Against Schmid, singular self-awareness precedes awareness of group membership	moderate: developmental findings cited (mirror test at 18–24 months, in-group bias at 3–4 years), not analysed	p. 15
C7	An account built on the face-to-face “we” does not cover anonymous and institutional “we”s	conceded by the author	pp. 16–17

Concepts

• second-person engagement: a reciprocal you–me relation in which I am directed at the other and implicitly aware of myself in the accusative, as addressed by them (p. 9).
• self-alienation (Husserl’s Selbstentfremdung): experiencing oneself through another’s eyes, by taking over their apprehension of oneself; for Husserl an enrichment, not a loss (p. 11).
• simultaneous, reflexive and reciprocal empathy; I–Thou relation: the four steps of Husserl’s ladder of reciprocity (p. 7).
• we-synthesis: the unity of willing formed when two subjects’ intentions interlock in communication (pp. 7–8).
• plural self-awareness (Schmid): a primitive “sense of us”, prior to any I–you distinction (p. 13).

Connections

• León (NOTE-1309; THEORY-1115). León criticizes this paper for taking the “we” to require “social uniformity” and for pairing depersonalization with self-alienation. The reading confirms both: the phrase is Zahavi’s gloss on Turner, and he calls the similarity obvious. But Zahavi’s own condition is weaker than interchangeability: difference “present but somewhat downplayed”, plurality preserved, no fusion. And it is built on the dyadic I–Thou relation, the kind of case León uses. Zahavi also flags that intimacy groups and social categories may need different analyses (p. 16). So the disagreement is narrower than León presents it. That is an inference.
• Turner et al. 1994 (NOTE-1284). León’s fn. 11 notes that Turner et al. have the perceiver appraise self “in relation to others, not from the perspective of others”. Zahavi’s self-alienation is exactly appraisal from the perspective of others. So the parallel he draws to self-categorization theory (THEORY-1114) is looser than “obvious”: the two accounts reach downplayed difference by different routes.
• Salice and Miyazono (NOTE-1266). Their team reasoner has undergone self-transformation. Zahavi’s self-alienation is a phenomenological account of one such transformation, of the self-apprehension rather than of the reasoning.
• Group entity versus category (TERM-096). Zahavi adds a third line: belonging to a category by birth or by others’ classification versus a “we” “experienced from within” (p. 12). He also separates standing in a social relation from being part of a we (p. 14).
• Batson (CLAIM-494). The phenomenologists’ empathy preserves the self–other difference and does not lead to fusion (p. 1). That is a conceptual cousin of Batson’s empathy without merging. Zahavi does not discuss helping or motivation.

Bearing on the record

• The owner’s thesis (CLAIM-491). The thesis’s “What it does not say” places Zahavi among those who ask whether a “we” is a self at all. His answer is no, in one sense. These are inferences; the paper says nothing about selflessness, interest or motivation.
  • The we is not a larger self. “A we … is not an enlarged I” and never “fusion” (p. 10). If the thesis needs the we to be a self whose good the agent pursues, Zahavi denies the premise. The thesis already says the extended self is not a group subject but the individual’s self-identification. Zahavi gives that a precise form: what changes in group identification is the individual’s self-apprehension.
  • It is a changed self, not an enlarged one. The individual comes to see herself as others see her, as one self among others. That is a “transformation or modulation” of self-experience (p. 11), closer to the claim’s own worry that depersonalization is a change of self than to “larger self”. Identity fusion (NOTE-1256) stays the record’s case for “larger”.
  • Even the personal self is socially made. If personhood is constituted through “communicative intertwinement” (p. 10), the contrast between a personal self and an extended one is not the contrast between an unsocial and a social self. That weakens any version of the thesis that treats the personal self as the baseline that then extends.
• The triviality objection (CLAIM-492). Zahavi offers a criterion of group identification that is not caring: taking over the other’s perspective on oneself in second-person engagement. But he calls it formal and not sufficient, and particular identifications need “shared norms, values, emotions, goals” (p. 11), which brings caring back. It is not measurable as stated. It does not supply the independent criterion the objection asks for.
• Batson’s objection (CLAIM-494). Conceptual support only: the phenomenological tradition takes empathy to keep self and other distinct. It is not evidence about helping.
• QUESTION-300. It names this paper for how one comes to see oneself as one of us. The answer read here is: through being addressed and taking over the addresser’s view of oneself, for the face-to-face case only.
• Dated note. Proposed on CLAIM-491 (Section 3 of the draft). No THEORY is filed: the account is exegetical and conceptual, and the record already files León’s rival.
• No ML instruction.

Limitations

• No data. Developmental findings are cited, not analysed.
• Scope. The account covers the face-to-face, dyadic “we”, by the author’s own concession (pp. 16–17). Most of what the record’s social-identity material concerns, nations, fanbases, crowds, is the anonymous kind it does not reach.
• Exegesis and position run together. It is often unclear whether a claim is Husserl’s or Zahavi’s, for instance the necessity of self-alienation.
• The self-categorization comparison is thin. It rests on Turner 1981 and on Abrams and Hogg, and does not engage the 1987 or 1994 statements (cf. NOTE-1284).
• Accepted manuscript. Not compared with the published text; wording and page breaks may differ.
• Typos and reference slips (manuscript pages).
  • “Not everybody, however, were convinced” (p. 1).
  • “This is point with important ramifications” (p. 6).
  • “I-Tthou relation” (p. 7).
  • “that I does not simply stand next to the other” (p. 8).
  • “better known that Husserl’s analysis” (fn. 1, p. 11).
  • “shared objective features such a biological kinship” (p. 12).
  • “One first become aware of oneself” (p. 13).
  • “dyadic forms of we that emerge in and is bound to” (p. 16).
  • The text cites Sartre 1956, Stein 2008, Abrams and Hogg 1990, Husserl 1950 and 1952, Schmid 2014a and Zahavi 2014. The list has Sartre 2003 and Stein 1989, no Abrams and Hogg 1990 (only “Hogg & Abrams 1998”, Social Identification, which is the 1988 book Social Identifications), no Husserl 1950 or 1952, and Schmid 2014 and Zahavi 2014a/b only.

Open questions

• Does the account extend to anonymous “we”s, or do they need another route, as Zahavi suspects? Brinck, Reddy and Zahavi (2017) and Zahavi 2017b are cited for this and are not held.
• Can self-alienation be measured? A study relating how far a person takes over others’ view of herself (meta-perception of the in-group’s view of her) to self-stereotyping and to identification would test whether it and depersonalization are one process or two.
• Is the downplayed difference of the I–Thou “we” the same as León’s mutual individualization, or its opposite? Zahavi’s account seems compatible with both, and neither paper decides it.