Dissociation and Being-in-the-World

The concept of “dissociation” describes a variety of phenomena that involve a divided or disunified experience, ranging from everyday experiences such as daydreaming to the fascinating and controversial phenomenon of dissociative identity disorder (DID)—formerly called multiple personality disorder. Because of the wide assortment of phenomena, theoretical unity has been difficult to achieve, and there is no received consensus of what dissociation is, with many arguing the concept is imprecise, confusing and/or ambiguous. The aim of the thesis is to use resources from Heidegger’s existential-hermeneutic phenomenology to articulate core structures of dissociative experiences. In pursuing this aim, I identify three problems that any satisfactory theory of dissociation must confront: the motleyness problem, the ontological problem, and the normative problem. Before developing the Heideggerian account, I first track the development of these three problems over a two-part philosophical history of dissociation. After identifying consciousness as one of the ontological commitments that run through the history of consciousness, I then situate dissociation within the philosophy of mind by critically evaluating Tim Bayne’s unity of consciousness thesis with reference to whether it can satisfactorily accommodate dissociative phenomena. After showing that the three problems remain a significant challenge to theorizing dissociative phenomena, I move to articulate dissociative experiences using the Heideggerian ontological structures of Jemeinigkeit (“mineness”) and Unheimlichkeit (“uncanniness”). I conclude by evaluating this Heideggerian account of dissociation against the three problems.