The residual problem of the self: a re-evaluation of Vygotsky and social constructionism

This paper addresses the problem concerning the ontoiogical existence of the first-person self, as analysed from within the Wittgensteinian framework of philosophy of psychology, and the philosophy of meaning. The paper critiques Social Constructionism as having negated a substantive analysis of the first-person experience of the meaning of the self. This collective negation arises from a conceptual bind which was traced to Vygotsky who has omitted an analysis of the "conceptual criteria" required for a first-person act of "psychological transformation, and to Harreʹs reduction of the ʹselfʹ to a ʹsocial constructionʹ. With this omission, two problems remain in social constructionist discourse: the first-person right to a "truthful expressionʹ of the experiences of the self, and the right to a ʹcriterionless justificationʹ of the meanings of the self.