2026 Theses Doctoral

Becoming Oneself by Not Being Oneself

Song, Sulki

This dissertation examines a structural paradox of contemporary selfhood: under conditions of accumulation and accelerated comparison, the imperative to Be Yourself often coincides with a form of selfhood that makes becoming oneself more difficult. I argue that, when becoming oneself is tacitly equated with filling oneself up—through learning, achievement, and acquisition—the self is trained into a sovereign stance that seeks to secure meaning by control. Against this additive logic, I develop a counter-intuitive thesis: becoming oneself, in a more truthful sense, begins not through filling but through loss—specifically, through the loss of self-sovereignty before a truth that is neither produced nor mastered by the self.

To articulate this thesis, I analyze an experience I call The Moment: a truth-revealing event in which an ordinary claim to interpretive mastery of oneself is suspended. The dissertation employs a hybrid methodology integrating philosophical analysis (Heidegger, Lukács, Weil, Kierkegaard), phenomenological description, constructed dialogues, and hermeneutic interpretation. The constructed dialogues are not illustrative supplements but constitutive phenomenological descriptions within the overall method.

The argument unfolds through two dialogues and four chapters. Dialogue One presents a detailed depiction of The Moment as experienced by I in conversation with Ritéma. Chapter One clarifies the ontological site of the event through Heidegger’s account of truth (aletheia) and the relation between ontological and existential truth, arguing that The Moment occurs as a fissure in ordinary interpretive constitution. Chapter Two illuminates the structure of The Moment through Lukács’s analysis of the metaphysics of tragedy, reading the event as a miracle, a great moment that discloses the essence of life through form. This analysis clarifies why such disclosure can come to press upon a life with the force of necessity, opening the path for the lived transformation explored in subsequent chapters.

Dialogue Two and Chapter Three then examine the aftermath as lived transformation. Moving through Lukács, Weil, and Kierkegaard, I argue that what is disclosed in The Moment demands to be lived as paradox within ordinary existence. I develop faith not as doctrinal assent but as an existential power to live out paradox without converting truth into possession or sovereign control. I further clarify the ontological stance through which such living becomes possible: honesty, courage, and humility.

Chapter Four turns to education. Critiquing the reduction of education to transactional learning within a culture of accumulation, I propose education as a safe space: not a comfort-securing environment, but a relational field in which existential questions can be endured without coercion or concealment. Education cannot produce The Moment or guarantee faith; attempts to manufacture either would reintroduce the sovereignty under critique. Education can, however, perform a primarily negative and sustaining work—resisting premature closure, weakening sovereign defenses, and holding open a space of questioning sustained in educational dialogue (Higgins, Arcilla)—so that, if faith is given, it can be lived in the ordinary rather than collapsing into self-defensive distortion.

The dissertation concludes by reframing selfhood through the loss of self-sovereignty and education through the relational cultivation of an ontological stance before truth, thereby clarifying how human beings may become more truly themselves precisely by risking being not themselves.