The “I” not only confronts itself, making itself as knower the object of its own knowing; but it even judges itself as a third party, esteems or deprecates itself, and so is put above itself. It moves beyond itself constantly, and yet remains in itself, since its subject and object are here identical.

DEFINE: Defines the self-reflexive nature of the 'I' — subject, object, and judge simultaneously. A foundational conceptual framing of selfhood.

DEFINE: Clarifies the paradox of the reflexive self: the 'I' is both subject and object, above itself yet within itself.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 814