Perspectives on the Self: Reflexivity in the Humanities

The volume develops the concepts of the self and its reflexive nature as they are linked to modern thought from Hegel to Luhmann. The moderns are reflexive in a double sense: they create themselves by self-reflexivity and make their world – society – in their own image. That the social world is reflexive means that it is made up of non-subjective (or supra-subjective) communication. The volume's contributors analyze this double reflexivity, of the self and society, from an interdisciplinary perspective, focusing both on individual and social narratives. This broad, interdisciplinary approach is a distinctive mark of the entire project. The volume will be structured around the following axes: Self-making and reflexivity – theoretical topics; Social self and the modern world; Literature – self and narrativity; Creative Self – text and fine art. Among the contributors are some of the most renowned specialists in their respective fields, including J. F. Kervégan, B. Zabel, P. Stekeler-Weithofer, I. James, L. Kvasz, H. Ikäheimo and others.

Frontmatter --; Table of Contents --; List of Abbreviations --; Introduction --; I Self-Making and Reflexivity – Theoretical Topics --; Being in the World as Self-Making: On the Logical Concept of a Personal Life --; “Spirit” – or the Self-Creating Life-Form of Persons and Its Constitutive Limits --; The System Must Construct Itself – Narrativity and Autopoiesis in Fichte’s 1804 Wissenschaftslehre --; Autobiography and the Construction of Human Nature: Rousseau on the Relation between Self-Love and Pity --; II Social Self and the Modern World --; Is the Grand Narrative of Rights at Its End? --; Post-Metaphysical Right? Modernity – Between Self-Reflection and Crisis --; Autopoiesis and (Prosaic) Heroism: Of Gods and Overmen (and Giant Insects) --; III Literature – Self and Narrativity --; Narrative Voice, Heteropoiesis, and the Outside --; Paradoxes of Self-Creation and Narrativity in the Symbolist Novel --; On Recognition, Duplication, and Self-Creativity in Colonial Contexts: Hegel, Fanon, Tournier --; “Sketch for a Self-Analysis”: Self-Reflexivity in Bourdieu’s Approach to Literature --; IV Creative Self – Text and Fine Art --; Changes of the Pictorial Form and the Development of the Self --; Why Doesn’t Laocoön Scream? Autopoiesis in Art --; Index of Names --; Index of Subjects