Dan Zahavi

Biography

Dan Zahavi was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and initially studied phenomenology at the University of Copenhagen. He obtained his PhD in 1994 from the Husserl Archives at the Katholieke Universiteit in Leuven, Belgium, with Rudolf Bernet as his doctoral supervisor. In 1999 he defended his Danish Disputats (Habilitation) at the University of Copenhagen. In 2002, at the age of 34, he became Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Subjectivity Research at the University of Copenhagen.

Work

Zahavi writes on phenomenology (especially the philosophy of Edmund Husserl) and philosophy of mind. In his writings, he has dealt extensively with topics such as self, self-consciousness, intersubjectivity and social cognition. He is co-editor of the journal Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. Zahavi's work has been translated into more than 25 languages.

Pre-reflective self-consciousness and the minimal self

One central part of Zahavi’s work has been devoted to the analysis of the relation between experience, self, and self-consciousness. In several books and articles, he has defended the existence and significance of pre-reflective self-consciousness, and argued in favor of the idea that our experiential life is characterized by a form of self-consciousness that is more primitive and more fundamental than the reflective form of self-consciousness that one finds in various kinds of introspection. He has also argued that a theory of consciousness that wishes to take the subjective dimension of our experiential life seriously needs to operate with a minimalist notion of self, with what he has also called the minimal or experiential self. More generally speaking, Zahavi has spoken out against different reductionist approaches to consciousness, and insisted on the theoretical significance of subjectivity and the first-person perspective.

In working on these issues, Zahavi has collaborated and debated with psychiatrists, developmental psychologists, and Buddhist scholars. Critics have included those who either deny the existence of self or the existence of pre-reflective self-consciousness.

Empathy and social cognition

Another part of Zahavi’s work has focused on problems related to intersubjectivity, empathy, and social cognition. His PhD thesis defended a phenomenological approach to intersubjectivity. In various papers and books since then he has in particular focused on the role and structure of empathy. He has argued in favor of the bodily and contextual character of interpersonal understanding, and criticized dominant positions within the so-called ’theory of mind’ debate, including simulation theory and theory-theory.

Shame and collective intentionality

Since 2010, Zahavi has worked increasingly on social emotions and on issues in social ontology. He has written on shame, on shared emotions, we-experiences, collective intentionality, and the importance of the I-thou relation.

Phenomenology

In parallel with his systematic work on the above-mentioned topics, Zahavi has also written on phenomenology, especially the work of Edmund Husserl. He has argued that phenomenology is a powerful and systematically convincing voice that contemporary philosophy and empirical science shouldn’t ignore. In addition to offering extensive analyses of Husserl’s analyses of intersubjectivity and self- and time-consciousness, Zahavi has also discussed the nature of Husserl’s transcendental philosophy and the metaphysical implications of phenomenology in various publications. Throughout his work, Zahavi has criticized what he takes to be overly simplistic interpretations of Husserl that depicts the latter as a solipsist and subjective idealist, and instead accentuated the continuity between Husserl’s phenomenology and the work of post-Husserlian phenomenologists, especially that of Merleau-Ponty.

Selected publications

Zahavi is the author of a number of books, including:

Zahavi is also the editor of more than 10 volumes, including:

Honors and awards

Zahavi has received a number of honors and awards, including: