A Single “Consciousness-and-‘I’” From Childhood to Old Age Consciousness in the Study of Human Life and Experience III

• Published in: Qualitative inquiry Vol. 18; no. 8; pp. 699 - 710
• Main Authors: Witz, Klaus G., Goodwin, David R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01-10-2012; Sage Publications; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Aging; Child development; Childhood; Consciousness; Elderly; Interviews; Memory; Personality. Social role; Petrol; Phenomenology; Self; Social psychology; Sociology; Species; Subjectivity; subjectivity; consciousness; qualitative; essence; I; self; portraiture; Life Cycle; Consciousness; Self Concept; Objectivity; Subjectivity; Interviews
• ISSN: 1077-8004; 1552-7565
• DOI: 10.1177/1077800412452852

This article argues that the fact that most people feel that they have always been “the same person” represents an intrinsic phenomenon of subjective experience in introspection and consciousness in life (it is not just a peculiarity of the memory of the human species as it appears from an “objective” point of view). We summarize this phenomenon by saying the individual feels herself to be a “single consciousness-and-‘I’ from childhood on.” Portraits based on interviews tend to try to give impressions of the participant’s “single consciousness-and-‘I’” at the time of the interviews. We suggest that this “single consciousness-and-‘I’” represents a new, extremely powerful way of understanding subjectivity.