The core of experience chapter 2

 Self and Acervo

©By Abdel Hernandez San Juan

   Written in English and translated to English 

by Abdel Hernandez San Juan

      Of an importance without equal since the George helbert mead sociology, the self is not yet, however, sufficiently theorized in all its possibilities to the theory and research of subjectivity and culture. One of the reasons of this lack might be explained from the etymology of the word itself in terms of language

   Many pivotal concepts and words are in one idioms but not in another’s, Hegel for example insisted on several cases about German and Derrida too about France and several idioms. When we analyze the semantique subtly senses of certain words an amazing feeling surprise us with the question about how a language might work without certain words. The self between others is one of this paradoxical words

    It exists in English but not in Spanish. Its importance in English language is crucial and major while nothing in Spanish cover its senses and meanings while of course we can make an effort to explain its sense to a Spanish audience. Whence something as differences in terms of subjectivity and culture leads us to think on the reasons of the emptiness of such major words in certain languages. 

   This essay is focused in letting know the main aspects of my theory of the self, my own one, developed as result of extensive years of analysis and theoretical writings around the self. Many of the things I will discuss further this time are new questions inside my own elaborations since I will recall my first writings on the self since my essays of Venezuela so as to mix it with my reflections on the self from the usa

    Before discussing my analysis will be necessary to revisit the issue of the self as it appeared in sociology and at the same time to abound in its philosophical implications 

   Nothing in Spanish as a word or a relations of words as suggested above explain the specific sense of the self. To try to seize it in Spanish three relations of words are needed to be encompassed no one of which attain to enclose it, this words relations are “it itself”, the translation in English already use a word with self in a half included but in Spanish nothing as it is included even in terms of sense, trying to translate back to English how “it itself” is said in Spanish we might say something as “it sameness”, the sameness seize the identical of it as the same but without the return to a core that the word “self” imply to a subjectivity, a monad, a one and overall the inside of an individual or a subject as the self-contains, so that “it sameness”, the literal translation of the Spanish expression while translated to English must be said as it itself in doing so we are avoiding the inexistence or the lost of the core that the Spanish expression evolve, we may translate it itself because self in English while source from the inside core of a subject what might be used to the itself of anything beyond a subject but this is not how in Spanish the sense is solve, “it sameness” never included the core of a subject or an individual, it is only the it of any things and objects, the second word must be “one itself”, but again, as nothing as the self-exist in Spanish so that the literal, the exact translation should be “one sameness” or “one same” nothing as the core of a subjectivity or an individual is solved inside that, this time the “one help” to seize something but a one must be the one of anything, one house, one rice, one fruit and finally the I which in Spanish is exactly than in english yo, the I, while as we know the I is not the self, the self-encompass, includes and defines inside us a well-defined moment, zone or territory of our inside different to that one of the I while of course related.

     The concept of self-have as its main distention or as its main implicit and constitutive issue the pair of the individual and the social, while the self is located on the side of the individual and not on the side of the social, it means inside individual subjectivity the processing of the social, interiorization and permeability of the internal and later the socialization of such interiorization, self and the social are in fact as individual and the social, opposite pairs, otherness, alterity, in this sense saying self seems to be or mean almost like saying individual, but the self is not the whole individual and as such it is a moment, an aspect a level of the individual as the I, ego or alterego but well differenced inside as something itself from that.

   The pair of the social is not the self but the individual which are at the same time opposites and inclusive in between like the pair of the one and the multiple, the relation of the self and the social is then of the same kind, but with a major difference, the individual and the social are extrinseques in between, a radical exteriority mark the emptiness or the absent of a pass by in between. 

   The concept of the individual cutted in itself appear as a formation closed over itself without containing something to explain or contain the permeability in between both. We know that the individual receives from the social that from the moment it acquires a language the social pregiven have an entrance with participate in the taking shape of it, but we don’t know how this entrance occur, by only the pair of the individual and the social nothing on how to solve the extrinsecation and exteriority in between is covered by the semantique of both concepts

   All that we seize and comply to full the meaning of the how of such a permeability is nothing else than seizing that which the self-explain and contain, the self in fact is that which located inside us consist about the step and the procedure of that permeability

   Without the self all we can do is a list of things without relations in between, we said that since acquiring a language the individual is socially formed as nothing in both notions contains semantically the sense of how to mediate between its exteriority, all that pass by in between is listed as a contiguity of unrelated thing one following the next, we know nothing thus on the phenomenological order of such a taking shape in both direction from the individual to the social and in reverse, the self is the part of us which is specialized in that translation and as such explaining the self is nothing else than explaining how that translation and processing of the taking shape in both direction made a whole area, a whole zone of our subjectivity and interiority. The self is then as the I a well-defined, cutted and located moment of us as relevant and major as the I while differenced from it. In a few world, the self-explain the phenomenological constitution of such a pass by or translation and as such a well differenced phenomenological world itself.

   About the extrinsecation and exteriority between the internal and the external, the individual and the social I discussed a lot in my first book almost dedicated to it but now we must addition that beyond recognizing such exteriority and questioning it by proposing ways to avoid it we must understand how the passing by of one think into the other take shape, and the main purposiveness of this essay is focused in attempt to attain that such a pass by explain the consistency of the phenomenology of the self it self

  We recognize again that the configuration of the individual take shape by interiorizations of the social world since language is acquired, habits and customs, we also recognize that the process of self-individuation and formation of the self of the person is related with a progressive differentiation of the individual over the social as Piaget sustained, but we don’t know yet how to go beyond a list of collected things participate in that process without understanding how those thing relates in between

   All individual have a self and the self-belong only to individuals, nothing as a self on the side of the social exist ontologically speaking, the ontological location of the self is on the side of the individual and only by the addition of autonomous individuals we must, like we do between the pair of one and multiple understand how the single and the plural are inclusive through universals principles. 

    Moreover, the individual and the social as concepts are limited and externals in between, nothing in the semantique of both concepts explain or contain in terms of sense the meanings of the permeability in between, each individual have a self as much as an I, the I must be defined as that which maintain a certain stability or permanence being one with itself and identical to itself ever, but the self-represent the opposite sort of thing, it reflect the permeability process by which the subject is again and again transformed and reconfigured by that constant relation, the relation itself include a duple level, on the one hand, the individuation process, consist about translating, processing and interiorizing the social so as transforming the extrinsique into something intrinsique to subjectivity while at the same time such an interiorized social is later socialized in the form of socialized former individuations

   The work by which the subject made this dual or duple movement of going and returning, of translating the external to the internal as individuation and in reversal, is made exclusibly and only by the self-inside subjectivity, no one other concept such as the I, ego or alterego, made this work inside our internal subjectivity, this is the exclusive zone and area of the self-work so it is necessary to understand that the self is not a subordinated or subsidiary instance which made only the work of intermediating between two concepts to which it is added, the individual and the social, 

    instead of that, the self-occupy an autonomous phenomenological area of work, this is not a bridge between two concepts, not an strainer which as the liquid give entrance of the social to the individual and in reverse, before well the self is itself and area of formation and elaboration which participate in the configurational process of both individuation and socialization in the form of creating the autonomy of that work as a phenomenological universe itself

   On the one hand the self is what transform the extrinsique into an intrinsique phenomenology by fixing experience as a cumulative acervo, experience and acervo are in fact nothing else that one and the same with the self and if we can said that experiencing evolve the contingency of external things such as when we said experiencing as experimenting something in the world, it later constitute a fully internal phenomena inside subjectivity establishing an intrinsique memory created only by the self, this is the basis of what derrida defined as the flour of our interiority, the self-transform the experience as extrinsique in something intrinsique, it constitute our experience and acervo as one and identical with ourself

   So we have here two clear areas of work to the self, individuation and socialization which must be considered as the main processing areas of the self and second the relation between experience and acervo, the first work in the form of a process of translation translating the external into the internal by the pass of the social into individuation and in return the socialization of individuated symbols, the second one transform the extrinsique into the intrinsique by a process of memory, a taking shape of retentions which establish the permeability of the mutual relation. 

   An individual is ever the same one from his I, but is also at the same time always a new one or a becoming of something new as reflected in his self, if we may said, for example, that someone who migrated from a province or a rural village to a modern metropolis in a country is not the same one years after migrating as attempted and attained when this individual visit his original culture it is just because this individual in the process of being permeated by the metropolitan culture transformed such an external experience into an intrinsique experience which is one with itself and by the way while seen from his I this individual is the same one, seen from its self, this individual is transformed. 

     The same might be sustained without necessity of a migration example, such a process goes as such anywhere the individual experience its permeability with the social, in any case, the self will ever be at the fore front of becoming’s according to permeability’s on the internal and the external so as to stablish a permanent flux of translations with the I, the ego and the alter ego.

    In fact the pair in play is defined by opposites which are otherness in between, externals and extrinsiques, the individual and the social, the self-arrive there to mediate that relation qualifying it as well as eliminating the opposites, it transform the exclusive into the inclusive and phenomenologically offers to the relation the translation that permeate one into the other, the result is nothing else than the elimination of the pair since precisely through the formation of the self the contradiction of extrinsecation and externality is eliminated, but in this form the elements of the pair are no longer the same but located inside the individual in a permanent dialogue with the I, the ego and the alter ego.

   All individual through his or her life learn to incorporate a variety of knowledge’s but all individual return ever again and again to be exposed to a continuum processing of interiorizations ---individuations—and socialization, this process never stop to the point that those which made him or her one with itself in his must be constantly adapted and readecuated to the self-processing of the new, its taking shape as individual will constantly include and be configured by the self-processing and formations and as such the permeability between the internal and the external is transformed into an accumulation as something to be taken from again and again, so the self is a permanent area of work and of identity, it is something that return to be him or herself again and again as participating in the phenomenology creates the world and universe of its own subjectivity

   Experience and acervo are majors in the phenomenology of the self, it is a process of constantly adding new levels to the former ones, this level, the cumulative one is the one through which culture is reflected under the self-phenomenology. Although indeed we might say that in terms of the active side of the self, the process of individuation and socialization of individuated symbols define the main area of the self-translations and formations, the more opposite and contrasted characteristics of the side, the fact that it is defined by the exteriorized relation between the individual and the social far it to culture and work as the side of the social and of subjectivity, instead, the cumulative one side of the self-defined by experience and acervo is the main one defines the pass by of culture into the self through the permeability process that the self-turn to be intrinsique to its own phenomenology

  We define here the concept of phenomenology in terms of the impressions to the body as to subjectivity, this is nothing else than what derrida defined as the idealization process created in subjectivity the sense of an internal or interiority and phenomenological speaking is nothing else than the feeling of a world or an universe, the world and universe is of course internal and individual but as such culture is reflected under as individuated

Thus truly what happen at this level is that we recognize that the self-take shape not only at the two discussed levels but according to a thirst additional one we may define as self-representational, the self in fact suppose a return, a kind of presence of us in front of us like it happen with conscience and the sign as derrida discussed it, there is in the self not only accumulation and translation, but also self-representation, auto-perception

   This return is however different to the kind of self-perception we have in conscience. Certainly in conscience we seize the feel of perceiving ourselves and overall of perceiving ourselves perceive as it is reflected in self-conscience, but the self-representational level of the self is distinct and unique, it is in fact less reflective than the conscience.

   Let then go in deep by discussing this thirst level of the self. Back to the main ontological issue of phenomenology since it origin in ancient and classical thought the issue of something that is itself to itself without extrinsecations to it suppose that we are already feeling and perceiving it and as such as subjects in from of it, so doing presence in front of us something derrida defined as the first form of appearing in front of us in representation, this issue I have discussed several times, is also major to understand the self-perception of the self, in fact, the self is not like conscience a pure reflection or representation of the reflected separated as another thing to what simply is, but something in between the immanence that simply is and the perceiving of it. We must at this point recognize, of course, that what is perceived as being is nothing else here than another moment of us differently to when such becoming of the being itself is referred to forms of the substance or any other chemical, physical or phenomenic issues such as time, space or an event of any kind

   A self is a it itself sameness of one-self, but a self is something more, it is at the same time before and at the same time a process of individuation in the human being, one is oneself but from the moment we said that one is, that which is itself is already pass by first to be the individuated, so it is not the one self-sameness of any one but the oneself sameness of an individual individuation, at the ontological level this principle leads us to some aspects of the concept of conscience, through conscience we represent ourselves, meaning that we return on ourselves in a representation, the self-have this same movement of return the conscience have, however, this return on itself of the self is different than the simply it itself and of the simply one selves, although it is formed of certain aspects usual in the reflexivity and representational subjectivity of the internal system which leads us to the phenomenology of the sprit and the subjective and distinguished from the world of matter and forms, this return of the self is less representational than the conscience return one

  Instead of something separated from sensible multiplicities and being as another reflected autonomous thing, the self-encompass both things inside itself, one the one hand, something that is at the level of being without being yet a reflected as a separated dimension, and on the other, the moment of self-perceiving that identity as one with ourselves. In conscience we represent everything subjective and objective things, at the self-level we self-represent only that which reconsolidate what we are just being with the certitude and assure of coincidence that self-represent it as an identity of ourselves with ourselves, this self-perception is not exactly an auto-perception, but a perception of that which made the self in us, that which we are and become

   According to an epistemological principles similar in respect to the relation between a first essence of what is itself and a division of that essence in concept, the form we self-represent the self-occupy at this levels of ontology a precise and well defined place, a place by the way which was not included in that former classical representation of the issue, it is different precisely because  the self is in a meddle way between what is itself and what represent it, it is located in a meddle way between us when we simply are and us and we represent that we are, a meddle way between the extrinsique and the intrinsique, the self in fact consist in the translation, the strainer, the pass by the intermedia dot between this two moments, the work of individuation and its socialization consist precisely in a way to bring to an interiority and translate it to an exteriority, internalizing and exteriorizing, in mediating what is itself and what is extrinseque to it

  We are in fact this paradox, on the one side we are and on the other we represent that we are and if we gaze or see to that which we are not such as the physical universe, the infinity, astronomy or anything outer, we experience the exteriorization, such exteriorization between us as subjects and that external to us is big, we are not that in front of which we are externals, but if that we perceive is a moment of ourselves the self-will console how it is one with ourselves since the self as occupying an intermedia place, will seize precisely the turn from something which is to something we consist in as self-representing it 

   This is not a way to said that the self is the same than being, not something equal to being while similar, it is not equal to be from the moment in the case of being yes we have the sense of something that simply is as being is, but we don’t have in being the return to itself, we perceive being with another thing, external to it, subjectivity, conscience, the sense of concepts, etc, while in the self we have differently also to conscience, a dimension that simply is as in the being, but having also the perception of it as a dimension that the self includes by itself, the self s in this sense a principle of identity, like the I is, the I in fact, according to Hegel is nothing else but conscience, so that we perceive the I with the I, as such or in a similar way while less reflective, we perceive the self with the self since it have inside like the I and conscience a return, a self-perception

   The main proposal here as suggested above is to sustain that the theory of culture through the phenomenology of the self as a theory on what is already individuated and as what is reflected under experience and acervo, return the symbols to the plots of the intramundane impossible to be separated from the ontological place the symbols play in that translations of the self between the internal and the external, by discussing culture within the self-phenomenology all the universe of culture is understand as already transformed in something intrinsique instead of extrinsique to the subject and as such culture appear reflected  within the fine sense and meaning that the self has provided to it, so that the theory of culture as part and as reflected under the self-focus in the intrinsique relation between the individuated self and acervo 

Bibliography

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