The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre believed that our encounters with other people constitute the primal circumstance of self-formation.17 On his account, each of us is perpetually in the position of a voyeur who, while gazing upon the object of his lust, suddenly hears the sound of someone stepping up directly behind him. Again and again, we are thrust out of the safety and seclusion of pure subjectivity by the knowledge that we have become objects in the world for others. I believe that Sartre was onto something. The primitive impression that another creature is aware of us seems to be
...more
