Asia Sakchatchawan (The Queen’s College): 'Towards a Dramaturgical Theory of Self-Constitution'
Faculty commentator: Monima Chadha
Abstract: Let us call Reflectivism about self-constitution the view that we become particular persons through exercising our capacity for reflection (traditionally called ‘rationality’): stepping back from our mental states to endorse or reject them, thereby legislating practical identities whose excellence lies in unified coherence and whose social dimension consists in membership of the Kingdom of Ends. While capturing something important about rational self-authorship, I argue, the view faces three objections. First, it over-intellectualizes by treating explicit reflection as necessary for self-constitution, yet we constitute ourselves pre-reflectively through absorbed actions. Second, it under-intellectualizes by treating endorsement that unifies practical identity as sufficient for excellent self-constitution, yet genuine transformation of the self requires sustained interpretative activity that may pull in the direction of disunification. Third, reflectivism remains too individualistic by treating the universal members of the Kingdom of Ends as the ultimate tribunal when our experience of who we are is conditioned and sustained by the direct uptake of the members of the particular community we live in. In response, I develop a dramaturgical account of self-constitution that, drawing on Jean-Paul Sartre’s phenomenological ontology, distinguishes three modes of self-consciousness corresponding to distinct self-constitutive activities: enactment in pre-reflective, implicit self-consciousness (the actor stepping into character and act in absorption within the world); authorship in reflective, explicit self-consciousness (the author steps back and attend imaginatively in interpreting, drafting, and revising); and staging in complicit self-consciousness (experiencing oneself as an object to others). The result is a phenomenologically sophisticated evolution of reflectivism.
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