On the status of "I" in the cultural and activity discourse

Abstract

The concept of the I that is present in the scholarly and mundane consciousness is inwardly paradoxical, as it contains the risk of regression to “bad infinity”. Thus, “I see an object” obviously creates in me the image of the object; by implication, “someone” inside me sees the image of the perceived object and, consequently, an image of the image, which has just arisen, emerges then; this new image further transforms into an object of internal perception, and so on and so forth, “to infinity”. The same logic of regression into bad infinity applies to the individual’s experiences and aspirations regressing into the far reaches of the Transcendental I. An alternative to such an understanding forms a viewpoint on the I as a dynamic whole in the unity of its four modes, “the Existential I”, “the Phenomenological I”, “the Presuming I”, and the “Self-valuable I”. The assumed fact that initially there is “someone” “in me”, as part of the Phenomenological I, that “feels”, “looks”, “acts” and “experiences”, is revised. It is surmised that the assumed (imaginary) I becomes real (acquires agency) through the mediation of the individual’s contacts with his or her environment. The four modes of the I are generated through the individual’s activity manifested in various ways (search, imitation, purposeful activity and supra-adaptive activity). The involvement of the I in the culture and activity discourse enables the unified interpretation of concepts that are present in philosophical and psychological systems that are significantly different in their premises.