Le soi à la lumière des émotions

This work revisits the way the notion of self is dealt with in philosophy but also in other humanities or even in cognitive science. Building on an innovative reading of D.Hume's Treaty On Human Nature, the thesis seeks to reconsider the way the concept is approached, no longer aiming to define what the self is or what characterizes it or even if such a concept does exist, but rather aiming to discover where our representation of the self and then of our self through that first representation – that of individuals endowed with a sense of identity and continuity over time – emanates from. So, it willfully sets aside the question that prevails in contemporary debates on the self, arguing that such debates can neither be solved nor make absolute sense while this approach can offer sense and solution. Thus, in presenting debates that are still little known to the French audience, this work sustains a sentimentalist perspective according to which the representation of the self naturally originates in our emotional lives, based on theories pertaining to the various fields of the philosophy of mind as well as on empirical elements that also remain little known, including to those debating on the self.