This book presents the philosophical subject as a self-in-loss structured in continuous openness to the other-than-self: I welcome, therefore I am. With Marion and Derrida for foil, Martis examines Cartesian-Augustinian self-based substantiality, discovering a self jointly constituted in Kantian transcendentality and phenomenological givenness.

Intervervening in a lively debate in contemporary European philosophy, this book offers a radically revisioned account of the self subjected to experience. Patiently yet vigorously engaging Jean-Luc Marion's reading of selfhood in St Augustine, Martis reaches back deeply into the Western Philosophical tradition to propose a bold solution to the phemomenological problem of how a self can recognise an other, while remiaining itself. Insights from Descartes, Kant, Derrida, Blanchot, Romano and others are brought together to undergird an account of a self that remains itself only in ceaseless loss to necessary incursions of the other: "I Welcome therefore I am."