The Explanatory Value of Steinbock's Self and the Myself as Structures of Givenness

I shall continue to develop the structures of the self and the Myself after Steinbock’s analysis as he himself develops them through Phenomenology & Mysticism, Moral Emotions, and in the prequel to those works, Knowing by Heart. For example, these structures help explain the problem of empathy. Empathy cannot result from a commingling of the selfs and Myselfs between two persons. My self cannot be given over to the Myself of another, and vis versa. To establish why empathy cannot be a commingling or a transference of the self and the myself of two persons, I turn to Edith Stein’s discussion of foreign consciousness and primordiality in On the Problem of Empathy. Stein’s analyses demonstrate that any concept of empathy relying on psychological fusion, assimilation, or the total surrender of one’s subjectivity to another is phenomenologically impossible and fundamentally misinterprets the structure of givenness. Stein's argument is sympathetic to Steinbock's description of givenness: what gives itself from itself give my self to the Myself:  for Steinbock, this is what it means to have an experience (Moral Emotions, 41-42). The core of Stein’s argument rests on the absolute distinction between experiences that are primordial and those that are non-primordial. As she has stated, "All our own present experiences are primordial. What could be more primordial than experience itself?" (p.7) 

For Stein, every experience occurring within my own first-person subjectivity is primordial. When I feel joy, physical pain, or grief, that experience is given to my self directly, originally, and in the living present. It possesses an inherent "mineness" that cannot be outsourced--the self is given to the Myself. This primordiality is the defining characteristic of the experiencing self. It is the absolute subjective orientation point from which I perceive, act, and feel. I cannot escape this primordial orientation without ceasing to be an experiencing subject altogether, or better, a real person experiencing real things in a real world. When I empathize with another person—for instance, when I perceive the other person's grief over a loss—a unique structural split occurs. The act of my empathizing is primordial. It is happening right now, originally, within my self: I am experiencing the other's experience of grief. However, the content of that empathy—this grief of the other person—is non-primordial to me. I do not experience the grief as arising from my own history or my own bodily ego. It is given to me as arising from the other person. The grief is primordial to the other's self, but it appears to my self as inherently non-primordial. It points directly to a foreign center of experiencing. If empathy were a "commingling"—where my self is given over to the other's Myself, or where subjectivities fuse—the essential boundary between the primordial and the non-primordial would collapse. Stein’s analysis shows why this collapse is catastrophic for true interpersonal understanding: If I were to completely commingle with the self and Myself of the other person, the other's non-primordial grief would become my primordial grief. I would no longer be experiencing the other's sorrow; I would simply be sorrowful myself. By turning the other's experience into my primordial reality, I project my own subjectivity onto the other person. My self swallows the other's Myself. This is not empathy; it is a psychological assimilation and even a theft that erases the other's distinct alterity. True empathy requires that the foreign experience remains explicitly non-primordial. I must witness the other's grief as other, which means my experiencing self must remain anchored in its own primordial Leibhaftigkeit, and face-to-face with the other's experience; but I do not inhabit it, nor can I own it. 

If the co-primordial relation of the self and the Myself constitutes the permanent, non-interchangeable architecture of finite being, then empathy can never result from a psychological commingling, fusion, or transference between two persons. My self cannot be given over to the Myself of another, nor can a foreign consciousness penetrate my own structural sanctuary. By anchoring interpersonal encounter within this strict architectural division, the structural necessity of Stein’s "primordiality" becomes fully intelligible. In Stein’s treatment of empathy, primordiality functions as an inviolable sanctuary, structurally impervious to penetration by an external consciousness. The experiencing self serves as the irreducible, first-person witness that can never leave its situated instance or occupy a foreign standpoint. Meanwhile, the myself functions as the unique, field of a call, where the presence of the other is registered. When encountering another person’s grief, for example, the foreign experience does not breach our subjective core. Because the self and the Myself are a unified pairing unique to the individual receiver, the other’s reality cannot become our own primordial reality; it remains structurally non-primordial. This explains why empathy is not a temporary blurring of persons but a relation of co-presence. When the other person—bearing an unexhausted depth—phenomenalizes, their expressive reality acts as an absolute limit. This vertical address does not allow for a horizontal, domesticating assimilation that erases their alterity. Instead, the encounter throws the experiencing self onto its own structural limits, while the vertical impact of the other's presence profoundly awakens, deepens, and reshapes my own Myself. The boundaries of the individual are never compromised; rather, the presence of the other illuminates the depth of the receiving person without ever violating the primordial sanctuary of the self. The explanatory value of the self and the myself lies precisely in their ability to render the impossibility of psychological commingling structurally intelligible. 

By maintaining this strict architectural division, we can explain exactly why empathy preserves alterity rather than dissolving it. When the other person’s expressive reality addresses us, it does not penetrate our subjective core. Instead, the distinction between the experiencing self and the given myself acts as a structural anchor. The self remains the irreducible, primordial witness of the encounter, while the Myself becomes the site where the vertical impact of the other is registered and felt. Ultimately, this framework explains that empathy is not a merging of consciousness, but a resonance between two distinct structures within givenness. The boundaries of the individual are never compromised; rather, the presence of the other illuminates the depth of the Myself without ever violating the sanctuary of the self.