Introduction to Beyond the Self

Abstract

This is an introduction to Paul Standish's book, Beyond the Self: Wittgenstein, Heidegger and the Limits of Language (1992) (hereafter abbreviated as 'BTS'). Naoko Saito, in collaboration with five graduate students from Kyoto University, is in the final stage of translating the book (to be published from Hosei University Press). The value of the book has been rediscovered centring on the theme of self, other and language, and how their inseparable relation presented in the book can serve today in envisioning an alternative route to education: 'education for otherwise' (Standish 2002) and 'ethics before equality' (Standish 2001). The purpose of our dialogical presentation is to explore the possibilities and limits of BTS; and to show how the preliminary declaration of the author's stance in going 'beyond the self' has been developed since then in venturing into the territory of 'beyond Beyond the Self, especially in his critique of Heidegger through Levinas and Cavell.