Almost as old as the posing of philosophical questions arises the issue the self who poses such questions. That issue is at once descriptive and prescriptive: the question of the self is a question of what the self ought to be in order to engage in metaphysical questions. The first response is to say that such a self seeks tranquillity and does so through an ascetic practice whereby the ontic disturbances of life are set aside. This goal and this ascetic practice unites Ancient Scepticism and Stoicism with Husserl’s account of the reduction. At play here is a teleological suspension of the epistemological. Similar to Kierkegaard’s account of the suspension of the ethical, the reduction suspends the epistemological goal of knowledge in order to reach the ontological place of absolute consciousness. Dwelling in such a place is only possible, however, through a faith in the promise of the world. However, to be fulfilled such a faith requires an affective engagement with the world, which the ascetic reduction threatens to foreclose. This affective diminishment is a form of death, a death, however, of which the self recognizes itself to be incapable.