Aging is an integral part of human existence. The problem of aging addresses the most fundamental coordinates of our lives but also the ones of the phenomenological method: time, embodiment, subjectivity and intersubjectivity, and even the social norms that grow into the very notion of aging as such. In my article, I delineate a phenomenological analysis of aging and show how such an analysis connects with the debate concerning personal identity: I claim that aging is not merely a physical process, but is far more significantly also a spiritual one as the process of aging consists in our awareness of and conscious relation to our aging. This spiritual process takes place on an individual and on a social level, whereas the latter is the more primordial layer of this experience. This complicates the question of personal identity since it will raise the question in two ways, namely who I am for myself and who I am for the others, and in a further step how the latter experience shapes the former. However, we can state that aging is neither only physical nor only spiritual. It concerns my bodily processes as it concerns the complex reflexive structure that relates my former self with my present and even future self.

衰老是人类生存不可或缺的一部分。衰老问题不仅解决了我们生活中最基本的问题，而且还解决了现象学方法上的问题：时间，个性，主体性和主体间性，甚至社会规范也逐渐演变成衰老的概念。在我的文章中，我描述了对衰老的现象学分析，并说明了这种分析如何与有关个人身份的辩论联系起来：我声称衰老不仅是一个物理过程，而且更重要的是，它也是精神上的衰老过程在于我们对衰老的意识和意识。这种精神过程发生在个人和社会层面上，而后者则是这种体验中更为原始的层面。这使个人身份问题变得复杂，因为它将以两种方式提出这个问题，即我是谁，我是谁，谁是他人，以及在进一步的步骤中，后者的经历如何塑造前者。但是，我们可以说，衰老不仅是身体上的，而且不是精神上的。它涉及到我的身体过程，因为它涉及到复杂的反射结构，该结构将我以前的自我与现在甚至未来的自我联系起来。