Self-Awareness and Alterity: A Phenomenological Investigation

In the rigorous and highly original Self-Awareness and Alterity, Dan Zahavi provides a sustained argument that phenomenology, especially in its Husserlian version, can make a decisive contribution to discussions of self-awareness. Engaging with debates within both analytic philosophy (Elizabeth Anscombe, John Perry, Sydney Shoemaker, H ctor-Neri Casta eda, David Rosenthal) and contemporary German philosophy (Dieter Henrich, Manfred Frank, Ernst Tugendhat), Zahavi argues that the phenomenological tradition has much more to offer when it comes to the problem of self-awareness than is normally assumed.

As a contribution to the current philosophical debate concerning self-awareness, the book presents a comprehensive reconstruction of Husserl's theory of pre-reflective self-awareness, thereby criticizing a number of prevalent interpretations. In addition, Zahavi also offers a systematic discussion of a number of phenomenological insights related to the issue of self-awareness, including analyses of the temporal, intentional, reflexive, bodily, and social nature of the self.

The new edition of this prize-winning book has been updated and revised, and all quotations have been translated into English. It also contains a new preface in which Zahavi traces the developments of the debates around self-awareness over the last twenty years and situates this book in the context of his subsequent work.


Author: Dan Zahavi
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Published: 07/15/2020
Pages: 296
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.90d
ISBN13: 9780810142206
ISBN10: 0810142201
BISAC Categories:
- Philosophy | Movements | Phenomenology
- Philosophy | Movements | Analytic
- Philosophy | Movements | Existentialism

About the Author
DAN ZAHAVI is a professor of philosophy and the director of the Center for Subjectivity Research at the University of Copenhagen and a professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford. He is the author of many books, including Husserl's Phenomenology, Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First-Person Perspective, Self and Other: Exploring Subjectivity, Empathy, and Shame, Husserl's Legacy: Phenomenology, Metaphysics, and Transcendental Philosophy, and Phenomenology: The Basics.