SELFHOOD AND THE FLOW OF EXPERIENCE

Abstract

Analytic philosophy in the 20th century was largely hostile territory to the self as traditionally conceived, and this tradition has been continued in two recent works: Mark Johnston’s Surviving Death, and Galen Strawson’s Selves. I have argued previously that it is perfectly possible to combine a naturalistic worldview with a conception of the self as a subject of experience, a thing whose only essential attribute is a capacity for uni! ed and continuous experience. I argue here that this conception of the self is unthreatened by the otherwise valuable considerations advanced by Johnston and Strawson. Both are inclined to identify selves-at-times with momentary episodes of experience (or centres or ‘arenas’ of consciousness). Both go on to argue, albeit in di erent ways, that individual selves cannot extend beyond the con! nes of these brief episodes. However, in so doing they give insu# cient weight to an important phenomenological datum: the continuity of our ordinary experience. When the latter is recognized, and appropriately understood, it provides us with a secure basis upon which a more recognizable conception of the self can be constructed.