This paper provides an interpretation of the existential conception of selfhood that follows from Merleau-Ponty’s account of perception. On this view, people relate to themselves not by “looking within” in acts of introspection but, first, by “looking without” at the field of solicitations in which they are immersed and, eventually, in Merleau-Ponty’s words, by “making explicit” the “melodic unity” or “immanent sense” of their behavior. To make sense of this, I draw out a distinction latent in Merleau-Ponty’s view between a pre-reflective sense of self and a reflective self-interpretation. The former is a suite of abilities and dispositions in light of which a person is aware of and drawn to act in a situation. This sense of self undergoes transitions over time, is constitutively susceptible to moments of disorientation, and tends toward but never achieves full coherence. Reflective self-interpretation is an activity whereby someone—provisionally and defeasibly—clarifies, articulates, and gets a better “grip” on how they are prereflectively drawn to act. I ground this interpretation in a detailed reading of Merleau-Ponty’s treatment of romantic love and I corroborate it by examining his account of the emergence of class-consciousness in the self-interpretation of a worker.

本文根据梅洛-庞蒂对知觉的解释，对存在主义的自我概念进行了解释。根据这种观点，人们与自己的关系不是通过内省行为中的“向内看”，而是首先通过“向外看”他们所沉浸的恳求领域，最后，用梅洛-庞蒂的话来说，是通过“使明确”他们行为的“旋律统一性”或“内在意义”。为了理解这一点，我在梅洛-庞蒂的观点中区分了前反思性自我意识和反思性自我解释之间的区别。前者是一套能力和性格，人们根据这些能力和性格在某种情况下意识到并采取行动。这种自我意识会随着时间的推移而发生转变，本质上很容易迷失方向，并倾向于但从未实现完全的一致性。反思性自我解释是一种活动，通过这种活动，某人可以暂时地、可撤销地澄清、阐明并更好地“掌握”他们如何在反思前被吸引去采取行动。我将这一解释建立在对梅洛-庞蒂对待浪漫爱情的详细阅读的基础上，并通过研究他对工人自我解释中阶级意识的出现的描述来证实这一解释。