Self-Portrait, Ink on Paper

Abstract

I have heard it said that film stars dislike sharing the screen with animals; the latter inhabit their space so fully, with no trace of self-consciousness, that they can make an actor seem false. Like virtually all humans, actors manifest, if only subtly, a sense of self. Indeed, it is easy to believe that awareness of self makes the crucial difference between us and lesser beasts, and that our species’ attainment of self-consciousness constitutes the giant step out of Eden. But self-awareness requires a self—the thing one is aware of. The two seem inseparably linked; self-consciousness requires self; self is by its nature self-reflective. In this chapter and the next, I look at the “self” part of that duo. My aim is to establish the illusory nature of the I. If development of self is one of the crucial passages out from Eden, it is a step into delusion.

when there is thinking, something must be there which thinks—that is merely a formulation of our grammatical habit, which posits a doer for what is done.…

Nietzsche