Focusing primarily on Rousseau's work as the object of his inquiry, Derrida examines the role that presence has historically played in the construction of the stable, distinct, authoritative, phenomenological subject—a concept of the self that was theorized by Descartes, Rousseau, Hegel, and countless other Western philosophers. According to this model, the self is determined and known only through self-presence. In the case of Descartes, the subject is formed by applying systematic doubt to everything about which the mind cannot be absolutely certain. The Cartesian self is therefore what remains after everything external to the mind, and everything that could be potentially deceptive, has been eliminated. This subject then is arrived at by making the self as "present" to the mind as possible; by a process of self-reflexive mediation.
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