Aging and Identity-in-the-World: A Phenomenological Analysis

Abstract

This paper uses a criticism of “objectivistic” approaches to aging and identity as a vehicle for a phenomenological rethinking of those topics. This phenomenological approach to “identity-in-the-world” as it is experienced in everyday life leads necessarily to a theory of the temporal limits of that experience in the aging process; that is, a theory of identity, properly understood, is already a theory of aging. It is concluded that this approach overcomes the parallel problems of objectivism versus subjectivism and biologism versus sociologism, demanding a rethinking of conceptions of human nature that have predominated in social science.