Conceptualizing the Self Across Four Paradigms: Substantiality vs. Processuality

Abstract

Purpose. The article aims to conduct a philosophical and comparative analysis of the conceptualisation of the Self in premodern, modern, postmodern and metamodern intellectual traditions through the prism of the dichotomy between multiplicity and wholeness, as well as to identify the internal logic of their transformations in relation to the type of sociality. The theoretical basis is grounded on a synthesis of classical and contemporary concepts of subjectivity: from C. Taylor’s "porous self" and P. Ricoeur’s narrative identity to the reductionist models of D. Parfit, P. Churchland, D. Dennett, T. Metzinger, the embodied Self in cognition, which views the mind as embodied, embedded, extended and enactive (F. Varela, E. Thompson, S. Gallagher), and the integrative approaches of K. Wilber, H. Hermans and R. Schwartz. Originality lies: firstly, in the definition of the logic of the fractal reconstruction of transformations in the concept of the Self – from the ontological multiplicity of premodernity, through the autonomous rational subject of modernity and the deconstruction of the unified Self in postmodernity, to the integrative-oscillatory model of metamodernity; secondly, in the introduction of an analytical model of the phases of circular causality between the Self and sociality; thirdly, in the inclusion of the Buddhist concept of the non-self and approaches of embodied cognition in the comparative analysis as non-classical precedents of the processual Self; fourthly, in the argumentation of the integrative nature and thinking of the Self in a mode of openness to its further transformations. Conclusions. Analysis shows that transformations in conceptions of the Self were accompanied by corresponding changes in the nature of sociality through a mechanism of circular causality. In pre-modern cultures, the Self emerged as the spiritual centre within the sacred cosmos, where inner multiplicity was considered ontologically normative. Modernity established the autonomous rational subject, pathologising multiplicity. Postmodernity deconstructed the monolithic Self, revealing the contextual nature of identity, but giving rise to the risk of total fragmentation. Contemporary integrative approaches form a metamodern paradigm, where multiplicity is a necessary condition, and wholeness is understood as dynamic oscillatory integration rather than static unity. Consequently, the Self emerges as a processual, relational subject, open to interaction between its own parts, with other subjects, and with the cultural and social environment. One might hypothesise an approach to a bifurcation point, where the accumulated complexity of previous forms of thought opens up the possibility of a transition to new configurations of understanding the Self and openness to subsequent forms of subjectivity.