The self is the individualized completion of concrete situated consciousness

Evidence

The meaning of this division organizes itself in the process of the soul’s singularization which, from its beginning in the ‘universal’ (understood as ‘the immaterialism of nature’ or ‘simple ideal life’), moves progressively towards self-individuation until it becomes ‘singular self’. From the ‘sleep of spirit’ to the ‘soul as work of art’ the genesis of the individual is accomplished, that individual which, configured as the ‘Man’, finally stands forth in the guise of a statue. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 318 (#expands, via linked claim)

Now it might seem at first thought that this position would involve an infinite regress. For if the Cartesian cogito reflects not on itself but on the pre-reflective consciousness, then in order for there to be self-consciousness, it might seem that we should need a cogito for the Cartesian cogito, another for this cogito and so on ad infinitum. But this would be the case only if self-consciousness required that the self be posited as an object, and Sartre denies that this is so. The very nature of consciousness is such, he says, that for it, to be and to know itself are one and the same. (p. 112) Consciousness of an object is consciousness of being consciousness of an object. Thus by nature all consciousness is self-consciousness, but by this Sartre does not mean that the self is necessarily posited as an object. When I am aware of a chair, I am non-reflectively conscious of my awareness. But when I deliberately think of my awareness, this is a totally new act of consciousness; and here only am I explicitly positing my awareness or myself as an object of reflection. The pre-reflective cogito is a non-positional self-consciousness. Sartre uses the words conscience non-positionelle (de) soi and puts the de in parentheses to show that there is no separation, no positing of the self as an object of consciousness. Similarly he speaks of it as a non-thetic self-consciousness. Thetic or positional self-consciousness is conscience de soi in which consciousness deliberately reflects upon its own acts and states and in so far as is possible posits itself as an object. The Cartesian cogito, of course, belongs to the second order. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 10 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Self-consciousness is the sole mode of existence for any consciousness of something — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 135; Individual subjectivity emerges through the soul’s progressive self-differentiation from universal nature — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 318; Personality arises from consciousness’s reflective self-presence, not from the Ego (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Personality arises from consciousness’s reflective self-presence, not from the Ego #expands (0.85)
• Individual subjectivity emerges through the soul’s progressive self-differentiation from universal nature #expands (0.82) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 318
• Self-consciousness need not posit the self as an object #expands (0.78) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 10
• Self-presence requires an internal separation that is itself nothing #expands (0.75)
• Presence to being defines the For-itself’s fundamental ontological structure #qualifies (0.72) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 440