---
date: '2024-02-19'
description: on personal identity
id: identity
modified: 2026-06-05 15:08:28 GMT-04:00
seealso:
  - '[[thoughts/hermeneutics]]'
  - '[[thoughts/love]]'
  - '[[thoughts/functionalism]]'
  - '[[thoughts/Freud]]'
  - '[[thoughts/Wittgenstein]]'
  - '[[thoughts/ethics]]'
socials:
  pg: https://paulgraham.com/identity.html
tags:
  - philosophy
  - pattern
title: type-identity theory
created: '2024-02-19'
published: '2024-02-19'
pageLayout: default
slug: thoughts/identity
permalink: https://aarnphm.xyz/thoughts/identity.md
generator:
  quartz: v4.6.0
  hostedProvider: Cloudflare
  baseUrl: aarnphm.xyz
full: https://aarnphm.xyz/llms-full.txt
---
Personal identity is a structure you enact.

> The question “who am I?” is not answered by finding an essence but by understanding processes: embodiment, recognition, interpretation, integration.

Identity emerges through relations—with your body, with others, with your past, with possibilities.

Identity is fundamentally relational (not substantial), processual (not static), and constituted through practices of self-relation and other-relation. Whether phenomenological, existentialist, psychoanalytic, or formal-mathematical, <mark>you are not a thing but a way of being-in-relation.</mark>

## phenomenology

cf [[library/Phenomenology of Perception|Phenomenology of Perception]]

### the body-subject

Merleau-Ponty’s 1945 _Phenomenology of Perception_ \[@merleauponty1945phenomenology\] establishes that the body is not merely an object (_Körper_) but a “body-subject” (_Leib_)—simultaneously the seat of perception and the perceived. This dual nature dissolves the traditional subject-object dichotomy. You don’t _have_ a body; you _are_ your body. Identity emerges through embodied practice, not abstract cognition.

In habits, the body adapts to intended meanings, creating embodied consciousness. Mind is an accomplishment of structural integration conditioned by the matter and life in which it is embodied. When you learn to type, the keyboard becomes an extension of your body-schema. When you drive, the car’s dimensions become yours. Identity is not what you think about yourself but how you inhabit the world pre-reflectively.

### flesh, chiasm, and reversibility

In his unfinished _The Visible and the Invisible_ \[@merleauponty1964visible\], Merleau-Ponty introduces “flesh” (_la chair_)—not a substance but “the concrete emblem of a general manner of being.” Flesh is the primordial element underlying both subject and object, encompassing intercorporeality and the anonymous sensibility shared among distinct bodies.

The “chiasm” (χιασμός) describes a crisscrossing structure: touching/touched, seeing/seen, self/other exist in reversible relation. When you touch your left hand with your right, you are simultaneously touching and touched. The sentient and sensible never coincide but are separated by a gap (_écart_) that defers unity while maintaining connection. Self and other are obverse and reverse of the same flesh.

### intercorporeality

Identity formation occurs through intercorporeality (_intercorporéité_)—the pre-personal, embodied relation with others. Before intersubjectivity (which assumes distinct subjects), there is intercorporeal entwinement. You gesture and connect through an expressive, ambiguous space where meanings are directly shared without mental representation.

Personal identity is constituted through bodily engagement with the world at a pre-reflective level. We are our projects, our motor intentionality, our practical mastery before we are subjects of representation. You are what you do, how you move, who you touch, how you inhabit shared space.

## existentialism

_satre_

### being-in-itself vs. being-for-itself

Sartre’s _Being and Nothingness_ \[@sartre1943being\] distinguishes:

- **Being-in-itself** (_être-en-soi_): Fixed, complete, self-contained existence of objects—fully realized being that simply “is”
- **Being-for-itself** (_être-pour-soi_): Human consciousness characterized by freedom, lack, negativity (_néant_)—existence aware of itself and thus never self-identical

Consciousness exists as for-itself with intrinsic lack of self-identity. This gap between what we are and our awareness of it creates anxiety but also freedom. You are not a static essence; you are perpetual becoming, perpetual self-transcendence.

### existence precedes essence

Identity is not given but constructed. We are not born with a nature; we create ourselves through choices. The unity of self is a task, not a given. “Existence precedes essence” means you first exist, then define yourself through projects. You are your future-oriented commitments more than your past or objective attributes.

### bad faith

Bad faith (_mauvaise foi_) is self-deception that uses freedom to deny freedom. Two forms:

1. Denying what one is (refusing facticity)
2. Identifying completely with a role or essence (denying transcendence)

The famous waiter example: A waiter in bad faith reduces himself to being-in-itself (“I am a waiter”) rather than acknowledging he freely plays that role. Any exclusive affirmation of transcendence OR facticity—or motivated oscillation between them—constitutes bad faith.

### being-for-others

The Other’s gaze objectifies, transforming being-for-itself into being-for-others (_être-pour-autrui_). Identity becomes partially constituted by how others see us—a theft of freedom. Sartre describes this as fundamental conflict: to see the Other as subject threatens my subjectivity; to objectify them denies their freedom.

You need the Other’s recognition to achieve objective existence, but you resent this dependency. Your identity is perpetually negotiated in the tension between your own self-conception and how you appear to others.

## psychoanalysis

### [[thoughts/Freud]]

#### structural model: id, ego, superego

Freud’s 1923 _The Ego and the Id_ \[@freud1923ego\] divides the psyche:

- **Id**: Unconscious reservoir of instincts and desires seeking immediate gratification (pleasure principle). Contains libido and destructive impulses.
- **Ego**: Mediator between id, superego, and reality. Modified portion of id influenced by perception. Employs rational thought and reality testing (reality principle).
- **Superego**: Moral conscience and ego-ideal. Internalized parental/societal prohibitions and ideals.

The id is entirely unconscious; ego and superego contain both conscious and unconscious elements. Healthy identity requires a balanced ego capable of managing id impulses and superego demands. You are the perpetual negotiation between desire, reality, and moral constraint.

#### narcissism and object-relations

Freud’s 1914 _On Narcissism_ \[@freud1914narcissism\] establishes narcissism as “the libidinal complement to the egoism of the instinct of self-preservation.”

- **Primary narcissism**: Necessary early self-love during infancy when ego-instincts and sex-instincts are inseparable
- **Secondary narcissism**: Pathological return of object-libido to ego when external love is unreciprocated or traumatic

To love another is converting ego-libido to object-libido—giving self-love to another. But returned affection restores libido and self-worth. Love serves self-preservation even as it transcends pure egoism.

The ego-ideal (later superego) is the “substitute for the lost narcissism of childhood.” You seek to recover infantile narcissistic perfection through ego-ideal formation. Identity develops through identification—setting lost objects inside the ego. Object-cathexis replaced by identification shapes character.

### Jung

#### the self vs. the ego

Jung distinguishes \[@jung1951aion\]:

- **Ego**: Center of consciousness acquired during lifetime. Personal identity and continuity of experience.
- **Self**: Central archetype of total personality including consciousness, unconscious, and ego. Superior to ego in rank. Organizing principle oriented toward unifying conscious and unconscious realms.

The Self transcends ego—it is the totality, the archetype of wholeness. Ego is partial; Self is complete. Identity formation is the process of ego gradually relating to Self.

#### individuation

Individuation is becoming a “single, homogeneous being”—self-realization embracing “innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness.” The process involves:

1. **Shadow integration**: Recognizing and integrating the personal unconscious (rejected, disowned, unrecognized traits)
2. **Persona dissolution**: Dismantling social masks to access authentic self
3. **Anima/animus integration**: Confronting contrasexual archetypes
4. **Ego-Self axis**: Developing stronger connection between conscious ego and unconscious Self

Goal: harmony between conscious identity and deeper unconscious self. You individuate by owning what you’ve rejected, by recognizing your masks as masks, by integrating opposite qualities.

#### shadow, persona, anima/animus

- **Persona**: The “conformity archetype”—masks adapted for social convenience. Outward face shown to world. Must be recognized as mask, not confused with Self.
- **Shadow**: Hidden, suppressed side of persona containing traits consciously opposed. Embodies compensating values. Shadow integration is central to individuation.
- **Anima/Animus**: Unconscious feminine qualities in men (anima) / masculine qualities in women (animus). More archetypal than shadow. Appear in dreams and influence attitudes toward opposite sex.

These archetypes structure how identity forms and deforms. You are shaped by what you project onto others, what you refuse to acknowledge in yourself, what roles you identify with.

## hermeneutics and narrative identity

For the hermeneutic framework of identity as interpretive achievement

> self-understanding is circular. You interpret yourself from within existing self-conception, which is revised through interpretation. No external standpoint exists.

Ricoeur’s narrative identity \[@ricoeur1992oneself\] proposes that personal identity is constituted by narratives. Self-understanding requires grasping one’s story—not just facts, but how one makes sense of facts, trajectory, possibilities.

**Idem vs. ipse**:

- **Idem-identity** (sameness): What remains identical over time. Unbroken continuity, rigid immutability.
- **Ipse-identity** (selfhood): Sameness across and through change. Develops with temporal becoming.

Narrative identity occupies middle ground: stable yet open to change and reinterpretation. Emplotment organizes contingencies into coherent whole, mediating permanence and change.

Identity is not static essence but ongoing interpretive achievement. Your self-narrative is provisional, always open to revision. Gadamer’s fusion of horizons \[@gadamer1960truth\]: you understand yourself by fusing your current horizon with your past horizons, others’ perspectives, cultural horizons. The self is this ongoing fusion.

## mathematics

### category theory and structural identity

Category theory refines “sameness” by distinguishing isomorphism from equality.

> implies that identity is relational, not substantial.

**Identity morphisms**: Objects acquire identity formally through existence of identity morphisms. For any object $A$, there exists $\text{id}_A: A \to A$ satisfying:

- For any $f: A \to B$, $f \circ \text{id}_A = f$
- For any $g: C \to A$, $\text{id}_A \circ g = g$

**Isomorphism vs. equality**: Two objects can be “the same in a way” while different—isomorphic but not equal. Objects can be same in multiple ways (different isomorphisms). This matches phenomenological insight: identity admits degrees and multiplicities.

**Objects up to isomorphism**: Category theory characterizes objects up to isomorphism (ideally unique isomorphism). This embodies mathematical structuralism—structures characterized by their relationships, not intrinsic properties.

What matters is not “what something is” internally but “how it relates” to everything else. Identity is relational, not substantial. This aligns with Merleau-Ponty (identity through embodied relations) and Sartre (identity through projects and being-for-others).

### homotopy type theory and univalence

In homotopy type theory (HoTT), identity types behave like path spaces—identity is a path between points in type space.

The univalence axiom (Voevodsky, 2009): “Identity is equivalent to equivalence.” Two types are identical iff they are equivalent (isomorphic in appropriate sense).

Philosophical implications:

- Isomorphic structures can be identified (mathematicians’ working principle now formalized)
- Reasoning invariant under isomorphism
- Identity refined from equality to equivalence

Awodey: “Univalence embodies mathematical structuralism” and “expands notion of identity to that of equivalence.” \[@awodey2010category\]

### tensor products and compositional identity

Tensor products model compositional structure. For vector spaces $V$, $W$, the tensor product $V \otimes W$ represents compositional combinations.

Applied to distributional compositional semantics:

- Words as vectors in semantic space
- Phrases/sentences as tensors
- Composition via tensor product
- Identity of meaning as proximity in tensor space

Tensor algebra provides formal framework for how complex identities compose from parts. Your identity as tensor: multiple roles, relationships, commitments combined non-linearly.

**Functorial preservation**: Functors preserve structure: $F(\text{id}_A) = \text{id}_{F(A)}$. Identity transforms functorially—preserved under structural mappings. How your identity persists across contexts (work, family, solitude) can be modeled as functorial transformation.

### connections to personal identity

These mathematical structures provide formal models for:

1. **Relational identity**: Category theory’s structure-preserving morphisms
2. **Identity transformation**: Functorial mappings preserving identity across contexts
3. **Compositional identity**: Tensor products modeling how complex identities compose from parts
4. **Multiple identity criteria**: Different notions of sameness (equality, isomorphism, equivalence, homotopy)

The shift from “what is identity?” to “what structure does identity have?” parallels phenomenology’s shift from essence to structure.

## [[/tags/love]] as selfish act

All the frameworks above reveal something uncomfortable: love serves self-formation. Narcissistic foundation (Freud), projection (Jung), recognition (Sartre), intercorporeal completion (Merleau-Ponty), interpretive horizon expansion (Gadamer). Love is how you become yourself through another. Not sacrifice but constitution.

### the narcissistic foundation

Freud: to love is converting ego-libido to object-libido—giving away self-love. But this serves self-preservation. Returned affection restores libido and self-worth. Even “altruistic” love serves ego needs. The anaclitic type seeks parental care from lovers; the narcissistic type seeks self-reflection. Love helps recover lost infantile narcissistic perfection through the beloved.

You cannot give what you don’t have. Primary narcissism—early self-investment—is necessary for development. If you don’t love yourself first, you have no love to give. The instruction to “love your neighbor as yourself” assumes self-love as foundation, not opposition.

### projection as self-discovery

Jung: “love at first sight” is projecting your unconscious onto another. You fall in love with your own projected qualities. The beloved is screen for self-discovery. You don’t see them clearly; you see anima/animus—what you lack, what completes you.

But here’s the uncomfortable part: even mature love, where you withdraw projections and see them clearly, still serves individuation. You integrate shadow and anima/animus by encountering them in others. Love serves self-realization. The Other is instrument (however sacred) of becoming whole.

Withdrawing projections doesn’t make love selfless. It makes selfishness conscious. You move from unconscious self-completion to conscious self-development through relationship. Still fundamentally self-oriented, now transparent about it.

### the recognition struggle

Sartre: love is “bad faith attempt to capture the Other’s freedom to secure for oneself a fixed nature.” You need the Other’s gaze to exist objectively. You love to achieve recognition, to confirm your freedom, to construct identity through sustained engagement with another consciousness.

Being-for-others: the Other gives you objective existence. You need this but resent the theft of freedom. Love is how you negotiate this dependency. Even “authentic love” (if possible) serves your existential project. You choose to make someone central because the choice affirms freedom. You sustain attention because it develops authentic selfhood. You refuse to instrumentalize them because instrumentality would corrupt your self-conception.

The commitment serves the project of being an authentic self. Fundamentally self-oriented.

### intercorporeal necessity

Merleau-Ponty’s account seems gentler but reveals the same structure: you literally form yourself through bodily engagement with others. The flesh is shared—self and other are chiasmic reversals. You need the Other to complete the reversibility structure—to be touched, to be seen, to exist as body-subject.

Love is how you inhabit shared flesh. Identity emerges through expressive space between bodies. You create this space, but for your own becoming. The Other is not external to self-formation but constitutive of it.

The generosity is real. The care is genuine. But it serves the self’s need to exist as embodied, relational being. You cannot be a body-subject alone. The structure requires another.

### hermeneutic self-expansion

Understanding others is mode of self-understanding. Fusion of horizons expands your horizon—you understand yourself better through understanding them. Love as interpretive practice serves self-knowledge:

- Staying in hermeneutic circle with Other reveals your projections
- Checking interpretive frameworks shows your assumptions
- Generous interpretation develops your interpretive capacities
- Narrative identity constructed partly through their story

The Other is irreplaceable for your self-understanding. But this irreplaceability serves your interpretive project. You need them to know yourself.

### what this means

Here’s what makes this more than cynicism: the self is not pre-given atom using others. Self emerges through relations. “Selfish” loses meaning when there’s no self independent of these relations.

Love transforms the self it serves. Not instrumental (using fixed self to get goals) but constitutive (becoming different self through loving). Your flourishing and theirs are intertwined. Not zero-sum. Serving your self-realization requires their flourishing.

The philosophical depth: love is selfish not as vice but as ontological necessity. You are a being who becomes yourself through others. Love is how you do this consciously, generously, authentically—making your constitutional need for the Other into ethical practice.

You choose to attend to this particular person not despite self-interest but because of it—rightly understood. They shape who you become. Their flourishing enables yours. The intertwining is so complete that “selfish” and “selfless” cease to be opposites. They become two names for the same commitment: to become yourself through another, to let another become themselves through you.

This is why love requires practice, not just feeling. Why it demands attention, not just attraction. Why it involves staying in the hermeneutic circle when understanding breaks down. Why it means checking your projections, integrating your shadow, withdrawing your anima/animus to see them clearly. All of this serves you—but only by serving them. The structure is chiasmic: touching and touched, seeing and seen, self and other as reversible aspects of shared flesh.

The most selfish thing you can do is love well. The self you serve is not separate from the other you love. Recognizing this doesn’t diminish love. It reveals love’s true structure: mutual constitution, reciprocal becoming, the only kind of selfishness that works.

## keep your identity small

source: <https://paulgraham.com/identity.html>

> Do religion and politics have something in common that explains this similarity? One possible explanation is that they deal with questions that have no definite answers, so there’s no back pressure on people’s opinions. Since no one can be proven wrong, every opinion is equally valid, and sensing this, everyone lets fly with theirs.

The similarity between religion and politics is that you only need a strong conviction towards an opinion to become “domain-expert”.

> I think what religion and politics have in common is that they become part of people’s identity, and people can never have a fruitful argument about something that’s part of their identity. By definition they’re partisan.

Which topics engage people’s identity depends on the people, not the topic. Because the point at which this happens depends on the people rather than the topic, it’s a mistake to conclude that because a question tends to provoke religious wars, it must have no answer[^example].

[^example]: For example, the question of the relative merits of programming languages often degenerates into a religious war, because so many programmers identify as X programmers or Y programmers. This sometimes leads people to conclude the question must be unanswerable—that all languages are equally good. Obviously that’s false: anything else people make can be well or badly designed; why should this be uniquely impossible for programming languages? And indeed, you can have a fruitful discussion about the relative merits of programming languages, so long as you exclude people who respond from identity.

> More generally, you can have a fruitful discussion about a topic only if it doesn’t engage the identities of any of the participants.