An earlier draft of this article was presented at San Raffaele University, in October 2024, during the conference Exploring Personal Identity. Philosophical Perspectives and Insights from Arts. Special thanks are due to the organizers and to all those in attendance on this occasion. I am especially indebted to Alberto Barbieri, Andrea Bottani, Edoardo Fugali, Francesca Forlè, Sara Heinämaa, Alfredo Tomasetta, Elisabetta Sacchi, Federico Zilio for their feedback during the conference. The ideas articulated in this article take inspiration from the work of Buddhist teacher Franco Bertossa and the research team of the ASIA Research Center, Bologna, to whom I am deeply grateful.

1. Introduction

1It seems to me that I am the bearer or owner of the present experience. However, in this paper I shall argue that this impression is misleading.

3The distinction between being internal or external to some experience is exhaustive and provides us with a way of classifying views about the nature of the self. The argument of this paper is that both views that regard the self as internal and views that regard the self as external face problems in justifying the claim that the self is the bearer or owner of experience.

4This way of carving up the logical space of views on the nature of the self is not standard, so it needs some comments before proceeding.

5First, something can be internal to some experience e if it is a part of e, but also if it is identical with e. In other words, something can be internal to e by being identical with some sub-part of the total phenomenal character of e, but it can also be internal to e by being identical with the total phenomenal character of e. Also, to be clear, there is no distinction between e and, as we say, its phenomenal character: the present experience is its phenomenal character.

6Second, there can be self-experiences, that is, the self can have some phenomenal character, even if the self is not internal to experience. That is, in some views the self is not reducible to some phenomenal character, and yet the self can (or even must) appear in experience. Some forms of animalism regard the self as something that can be experienced even if it is external to experience, that is, even if it is something that is not reducible to the way in which it appears in experience.

7Third, it is important to stress that the extension of the predicates ‘internal’ and ‘external’, as defined above, is itself a controversial philosophical matter. There might be nothing that is external to experience (if solipsism is true, say), and there might be nothing that is internal to experience (if some form of naive realism is true of all that appears in experience).

8Fourth, if something is internal to experience, then a fortiori it can be experienced. This notion – being internal to experience – is meant to be neutral among different views about self-consciousness. Something internal to experience can be experienced pre-reflectively, reflectively, or in any other ways. For something to be internal to experience is for it to be identical with the way in which it shows up, that is, with the way it appears. In other words, however we think about self-consciousness, for something to be internal to experience is for it to be identical with some phenomenal character.

9Since this way of carving up the logical space is not standard in contemporary debates, some recent theories of the self might not have made fully explicit whether the self is reducible to the way in which it appears to the present experience. That being said, recent views that seem to regard the self as internal to experience include, among others, (Strawson, 2017), (Zahavi, 2014), (Ramm, 2017). To illustrate, in Strawson’s view, every single experience is a self, for what I am now just is the totality of the present phenomenal character. In Ramm’s view, the self is internal to experience because it is identical with a specific part of experience that is there in every experience, namely a phenomenal character that he describes, following (Harding, 1988/2001, p. 109), as a “visibly boundless Space”.

10Recent views that regard the Self as external to experience include, among others (Dainton 2008), (Olson, 1997), (Snowdon, 2014), (Hudson, 2001) and (Parfit, 2012). To illustrate, according to Snowdon and Olson, I am a biological organism, so I am a body, and a body is not not reducible to some phenomenal character.

11Let us now look at the arguments for the conclusion that the self is not the bearer of experience. In §2 I shall argue that I am not external bearer of experience; in §3 I shall briefly mention and put on a side the view that there can be an external bearer of experience that is not me; in §4 I shall argue that I am not the internal bearer of experience.

2. I am not an external bearer of experience

12The argument for the conclusion that I am not an external bearer of experience runs as follows. First, I can know non-inferentially and infallibly that I exist. Second, I can know non-inferentially and infallibly that I exist only if I am not external to experience. Therefore, I am not external to experience. And if I am not external to experience, then, a fortiori, I am not the external bearer of experience. So, I am not the external bearer of experience. Let’s look at the motivation for each premise.

13I can suppose that right now I am deceived by an (almost) all powerful evil demon who is creating the impression that some propositions are true even if in fact they are false. As I am so supposing, it seems that there are some truths of which I can be absolutely certain: that there is this (what I call “the present experience”), that I am thinking (cogito), that I exist (sum).

14This is Descartes’ point (see his Reply to the Second Set of Objections, Descartes, 1984, p. 100), at least on some interpretations of it (for a different reading see e.g. Peacocke, 2012). Here we are concerned with the truth that I exist. The first premise of the argument says that it is possible to have knowledge of this truth that is both non-inferential – it is based on the present experience only – and infallible – its ground is sufficient to rule out the possibility that I don’t exist. For brevity’s sake, I shall sometimes speak of certainty in order to refer to knowledge that is both non-inferential and infallible.

15This premise can be challenged (and we shall see in a moment some ways to do so). But I take it that to reject this premise comes with some significant cost. It does seem, to say the least, that even in the most radical skeptical scenario I can still know with certainty that I exist. Any theory that rejects this premise needs to explain away its apparent truth.

16Let’s move to the second premise of the argument. The claim that I can know non-inferentially and infallibly that I exist is compatible with the claim that I am external to experience only if it is also possible to know non-inferentially and infallibly the existence of something that is external to experience. However, in the sort of radical skeptical scenario that we envisage in a Cartesian-like meditation, we are supposing that all beliefs about things that go beyond the present experience might be false. In particular, it seems to be impossible to know non-inferentially – that is, on the basis of the present experience alone – and infallibly the existence of some particular thing that is not identical with (or a sub part of) the present experience. This claim is, if anything is, virtually universally accepted in contemporary debate in epistemology. Thus, the supposition that I am external to experience is not compatible with the claim that I can know non-inferentially and with certainty that I exist.

17To clarify, let’s suppose, for reductio, that I am identical with some particular body (and of course, let us also suppose, for the argument’s sake, that a body is external to experience). The present experience is not sufficient to know with certainty that some particular body exists. I can have the experience as of my harms, as of my head, as of my feet, etc., but, given the supposition that I might be living in a radical skeptical scenario, the existence of the present experience does not guarantee that there actually exists a body there.

18Consider, by analogy, this case. I am in a park and see what looks like a rabbit that is hidden behind the trees. In fact, I am only seeing its muzzle. For there to be a rabbit there must be something more than a muzzle. It might be that behind the trees there aren’t any of the other parts that are regarded as necessary for something to be a rabbit. Hence, I can’t know non-inferentially and infallibly that there is a rabbit there.

19The same applies in the case of my own existence if I regard the self as external to experience. It seems that I exist (this impression is the same thing as seeing the muzzle), but I take it that for me to exist something more than the present experience must exist as well (the experience of the muzzle is not enough for concluding infallibly that the rabbit exists). Now, experience alone is not enough to conclude with certainty that what seems to exist out there really exists. Hence, if I am external to experience, then I can’t know with certainty that I exist. But I do know non-inferentially and infallibly that I exist (or so the first premise says). Hence I am not external to experience.

21Let’s now consider some ways to reject the first premise of the argument – which is, I think, the most controversial one. One way to reject the first premise is to deny the existence of the self. If there is no self then I can’t know with certainty that I exist. We might have the impression of existing, but this impression is misleading. However, if I don’t exist, then a fortiori I can’t be the bearer of my experience, and this is enough to establish the point of this paper. If there is no self then in some important sense no one bears the present experience (though see the hypothesis mentioned in the next paragraph).

23It is perhaps easier to reject the claim that it is possible to know one’s own existence infallibly. But even if we were to reject the possibility of infallible knowledge of one’s own existence, still it seems true that we can have fallible knowledge of our own existence, and that this knowledge can be gained non-inferentially. Consider, again, the skeptical scenario in which the existence of the external world is a sheer illusion. Still, while I am so supposing, I am having an experience, and the experience seems to be the experience of me having it. It is me who is doubting, and in order to know that it is me who is doubting I do not need to appeal to any further principle that functions as a bridge from the existence of the present experience to my existence. Perhaps I might appeal to some such principle, but I need not to.

24Even if we suppose that this experience does not provide me with infallible grounds for concluding that I exist, still I think that most of us will concede that it provides us with strong grounds indeed to so believe. And, arguably, the best explanation why the present experience is enough to provide strong grounds for concluding non-inferentially that I exist seems to be that the self is internal to experience.

25So, even if one has some independent grounds for believing that the self is external to experience, some story must be told to explain why, even if the Self is external to experience, it can be known non-inferentially and with infallible or anyway strong evidence that the self exists. I do not deny that there might be some prima facie plausible story to be told here. I just wish to highlight that there is a challenge to theories that regard the self as external to experience: the challenge is that it is hard to explain how it is possible for me to know non-inferentially and infallibly (or, at any rate, with strong evidence) that I exist if I am not something internal to experience.

3. Can there be an external bearer of experience that is not me?

26Suppose that it is true that I am not the external bearer of experience. Does this rule out the possibility that there is an external bearer of experience that is not me? One might think, as Frege at some point speculates in his Der Gedanke, that the bearer of experience is some divine transpersonal entity. He writes:

It is so much of the essence of each of my ideas to be the content of my consciousness, that every idea of another person is, just as such, distinct from mine. But might it not be possible that my ideas, the entire content of my consciousness might be at the same time the content of a more embracing, perhaps divine, consciousness? Only if I were myself part of the divine consciousness. But then would they really be my ideas, would I be their bearer? This oversteps the limits of human understanding to such an extent that one must leave its possibility out of account. (Frege, 1956, p. 300)

27Another view might be that there is something that is not me but somehow belongs to me – perhaps a body – which is the owner or bearer of the present experience. In these views, I exist, there is a bearer of what I ordinarily regard as my experiences, but this bearer is not me. Although I do not wish to argue here that these views are false, it is important to stress that the very idea of a bearer of what appears as my experience that is not me is, to say the least, prima facie puzzling. However, the puzzlingness of the view in part depends on the apparently intuitive thought that the self, if it exists, is the bearer of experience. But if this view turns out to be false – as I am arguing in this paper – then perhaps we can make room in our way of conceptualizing experience for the idea of something that is not me and yet is the bearer of what nonetheless prima facie appears as my experience. This could be a way to make room for the idea of a transpersonal bearer of experiences, or even, as Frege speculates in the passage quoted above, for some divine consciousness. To see why this can make any sense at all we need, however, to make some steps forward in the argument.

4. I am not the internal bearer of experience

28I have excluded the possibility that I am the external bearer of experience on the ground that I can know with certainty that I exist and that this knowledge is possible only if I am internal to experience. The previous argument from certainty is a direct argument for believing that the self exists and is internal to experience. If we have some independent grounds to think there is a bearer of my experience, and that this bearer should be me, then with the argument from certainty we can conclude that the bearer of experience is internal. However the view that the bearer of experience is internal faces its own problems.

29Consider, first, the view according to which the self is identical with the total phenomenal character of a given experience. In this view, it is hard to understand how the self can be said to bear or own experience. For, in this view, the self just is the present experience. What kind of ownership can experience have with itself – beside, precisely, being identical with itself?

30One way to articulate the reason why self-identity can’t be self-ownership is the following. It seems that something can bear or own something only if there is some distinction between that which is own and that which owns. Everyday ascriptions of ownership always seem to concern distinct objects: I own my bike, I bear my thoughts, I own my rights, I own my body etc. True, sometimes we can say things like “I own myself” or “own yourself”, but these are just ways of specifying relations between oneself and one’s own thoughts, desires, choices, etc. so these cases do not count as counterexamples.

31Consider now the view according to which the self is identical with a particular part of the total phenomenal character of the present experience. This view does not face the problem of identifying the self with that which it is supposed to own. However, this view faces other problems.

32First of all, how can a part of some larger whole be also the bearer or owner of the whole? It seems that something can bear or own something else not only if there is a difference between the two, but also only if the former is not a part of the latter. Everyday ascriptions of ownership conform to this observation: I own my bike, but I am not part of the bike, I possess my body but I am not part of my body, etc. No star, however shining, can own the sky, just as no self, however sui generis its phenomenal character might be, can own the present experience.

33Second, one can perhaps try to save the claim that the self owns its experiences by saying that the self, a sub-part of the total present experience, owns the other sub-part of the present experience. Thus, to illustrate, if a proper characterization of the present experience features sounds and a self, then one can perhaps say that the experience of sounds belongs to the self, that is, to me. But even if the self-part of experience is sui generis in its phenomenological status, still, from a metaphysical point of view, it is on a par with all the other things that are internal to experience. After all, the self is just a phenomenal character like any other thing that is reducible to a phenomenal character (e.g., colors, sounds, etc., depending on one’s theory). So, again, in what relevant sense of ownership is a self, conceived of as a part of experience, can bear the other part of experience?

34Similar insights are elaborated in Sartre’s discussion of the Ego in his The Transcendence of the Ego. Sartre argues, as I just did, that if the Ego is internal to consciousness, then it can’t be said to be the owner of consciousness. What he calls “consciousness” – what I have called “experience” – has a priority over the Ego, for the Ego itself appears within consciousness. Here is one passage in which he makes the point:

As the me is an object, it is obvious that I will never be able to say: my consciousness, i.e. the consciousness of my me (except in a purely designating sense, in the sense in which one says for example ‘The day of my baptism’). The Ego is not the proprietor of consciousness, it is its object. (Sartre, 2004, p. 26)

35And few lines later he says:

I can thus formulate my thesis: transcendental consciousness is an impersonal spontaneity. (Sartre, 2004, p. 27)

36Sartre’s claim in this book is that the Ego is transcendent, it is an object within consciousness, and he relies on this claim in order to conclude that the Ego cannot be the owner of consciousness. However, there is no need to claim that the Ego or the self is an object in order to reach this conclusion. In fact, my argument against the view of the self as the internal bearer of experience does not rest on the premise that the self is experienced as an object. The argument applies to any view that regards the self as internal to experience, that is, as identical with the way in which it appears in experience. It doesn’t matter how it appears – whether it appears as an object or as a subject, reflectively or pre-reflectively, whether it is identical with the whole present experience or just to some part of it. In other words, it doesn’t matter what the correct account of its phenomenal character is. All it matters is that it is a phenomenal character. For, if the self appears in experience, then it is part of experience or identical with it, and as such cannot count as the bearer of experience, in any relevant sense of the term. This is why there is an important sense in which experience – what Sartre calls “transcendental consciousness” – is impersonal. If the self exists, and it is internal, then there is the appearance of a personality, but this appearance itself – and the totality of experience – is impersonal. There is the experience of a self, but precisely because there is this experience – and a self is nothing more than what is given in experience – the self is not its bearer.

5. Conclusions