Hegel, Heidegger, and the 'I': Preliminary Reflections for a New Paradigm of the Self

In this paper, I contend that both Hegel's and Heidegger's philosophies can be regarded as attempts to overcome Cartesian subjectivism and to by-pass traditional oppositions between subjectivist and objectivist accounts of the 'I'. I explore Hegel's notion of the 'I', stressing how Hegel takes up Kant's 'I-think', freeing Kant's philosophy from its subjectivism. Then, I submit that Heidegger, in the twentieth century, was similarly concerned with the overcoming of subjectivism, and that an analysis of his notion of mineness (Jemeinigkeit) and its development in the context of Heidegger's thought can support this argument. Finally, I suggest that Hegel's and Heidegger's analyses can be used to elaborate an alternative and more flexible model of the 'I', which avoids individualism, allows thinking of the formation of the self as a collective enterprise, and thus provides the conceptual resources to transform our identity without losing it.