Jung's self represents a mixture of metaphysical and empirical heritages and it denotes a singularity from which everything originates - a very common idea forming the basis of the main disciplines in Western thinking. In contrast to the preference for a primordial unity guaranteeing the identity of opposites, the idea of a constitutive otherness (alterity) has become a key concept in continental philosophy. By contrast to both options the theory of self-difference seeks to show that one should not deal with the foundationalism of an either-or, reducing one side to the other, the self to difference or vice versa, but interpreting it as an as-well-as: with a self-difference (of the self as well as of difference).
Gerhard Burda
Sigmund Freud Privatuniversität Verlag, Wien 2013
ISBN 987-3-902626-38-7
