The Self

The real self/ the soul/ the essential self

The self that doesn’t change from one context to the next as in a job application, a romantic date, etc.

Essential self

Set of characteristics that defines a particular person

Self identity

How one characterizes one’s essential self

Self as consciousness

Theory that the essential self of self-identity is in the mind — or consciousness of self, dates back to ancient times; Descartes best known defender of this theory

John Locke

Self resides in the memory; collected memories throughout life starting with a tabula rasa at birth (clean slate)

Alternative conceptions of self as consciousness

Memory, desire, whim, will, passion, rationality, and thinking

Kierkegaard

Passions

Nietzsche

Cultivate aesthetic sensibilities

William James

Emotions are feelings caused by changes in the body

David Hume

Reason is and ought to be the slave of emotions

Intentionality

Aspect of emotions by which they are directed at the world, towards whom or what

Intelligence of emotions

Without emotions we would be incapable of any rational decision making; gives us insight and knowledge; plays important role in shaping our identity

The egocentric predicament

Begins with claim that the individual self is at the center of all of our experience and the predicament is because it is an intolerable idea that we cannot ever get behind our own self to know the existence of others

J.S. Mill

We can know what is going on in other people’s minds only by analogy or inference such as facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, etc.

The mind-body problem

The identification of the self in consciousness as opposed to the ID of the self with one’s physical body

Behaviorism

Sophisticated denial that there are any mental events and insists that there are only various patterns of behavior; what we call mental is simply a predisposition to behave in certain ways

Identity theory

Mental events (pain) and brain processes are the same thing though they have different properties and deserve different descriptions

Functionalism

Cannot understand human consciousness apart from the whole human being

J.P. Satre

Self is in the future, always working towards it, as we try to make ourselves into something/someone

Transcendence

Self isn’t defined by facts about us but by what we make of those facts

R.W. Emerson

Transcendentalist

Authentic self

At best our image of what we want to be, to which we Struve with more or less success and persistence

Bad faith

Denial of responsibility for one’s self and includes trying to excuse oneself from responsibility for what you are and what you will become by pretending that your life has been irrevocably defined by certain facts instead of recognizing that one can try to make of those facts what one wishes

No self, many selves

Assumption that every one has 1 and 1 self only

Hume

Skepticism; found no self in consciousness like Descartes or memory like Locke but only complicated clusters of experiences and ideas but not a single self per Se

Satre

Rejected the self in the traditional sense, self always lies ahead of us in the near and farther future

Buddhism

Rejects the notion of the self as an illusion that separates us, distances us from the rest of humanity and creation

Hinduism

Real self is a transpersonal self, a self that is the same in all individuals; the individual is an illusion but the self is not

G.W.F. Hegel

Rejection of the individual self in favor of an all-embracing cosmic sense of self, as universal spirit and our true identity is a universal self identity

Herman Hesse

Man as an onion, with many layers

Individual identity

Basic premises for our culture

Achievement

Relatively recent concept, enlightenment

Martin Heidegger

We are originally part of a community from birth, ever widening circles of relationships as we grow

Us/Me v Them

Presumes basic differences, antagonistic, competition

We

Presupposes a shared identity, cooperation, differences are secondary, shared mutual identity — (teammates, love partners, etc.)