The key to understanding self-identity is identifying the transcendental structures that make a temporally extended, continuous, and unified experiential life possible. Self-identity is rooted in the formal, temporalizing structure of intentional experience that underlies psychological continuity. Personal identity, by contrast, is rooted in the content of the particular flow of experience, in particular and primarily, in the convictions adopted passively or actively in reflection by a self-identical subject in the light of her social and traditional inheritances. Secondarily, a person’s identity is rooted in others’ characterizations of that person in the light of the social conventions and constructs of the cultures and traditions that have shaped the personal identity of the ones who make the attributions. Personal identity, on this view, is fundamentally rooted in beliefs, traits—especially character traits—sentiments, and moods, that is, in the subject’s convictions about the true, the good, and the right—and in the commitments to the pursuit of (apparently) worthwhile goods and to the practical identities rooted in those convictions.

理解自我身份的关键是确定超越性结构，从而使时间延长，连续和统一的体验生活成为可能。自我认同植根于心理上连续性基础上的有意经历的形式化，临时化的结构。相比之下，个人身份则植根于特定经验流的内容，特别是主要是基于一个自我认同的主体根据其社会和传统继承而被动或主动地采用的信念。其次，一个人的身份根植于他人的表征，这是根据社会习俗以及塑造归因者的个人身份的文化和传统构造而得出的。就此而言，个人身份