Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
About Me
- dsm
- Biostatistician, Biology and Philosophy Faculty, Lacrosse Addict
Posts
10 comments:
Position Paper #7 “Self”
In order that the prior question in this assignment be explored, the former question; “What is self?”, should be put into context. The philosophical definition of “self” has been argued through the ages. Aristotle did not conceptualize the idea of identity being a matter of self-consciousness as Descartes or Locke would have argued. Instead, for Aristotle, “self-identity was essentially bodily identity with no reference to self-consciousness.”1
Descartes stated, regarding ”self”; “My self identity is in my mind, in my thinking, doubting, feeling, perceiving, imagining, and desiring. I am essentially ‘a thing that thinks’”.2 John Locke argued “that our identity is to be found in continuity of our consciousness rather than in the continuity of our bodies.”3 “Even Humes used his own consciousness as the basis of his denial that there is any such thing as self!”4
The concept of “self”, for many philosophers varies, but with some there is a shared foundation of “consciousness”. Kant expands on Humes concept of experiences, formulating self as the “transcendental ego”. “That “self” is the thread that ties together our various experiences.”5
The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, a strong advocate for existentialism argues “that what we are – and what it means to be a human being – are always matters of decision.” He saw God as the Creator,…an artist,…. and “that when God creates, He knows precisely what He is creating.” “Thus each individual man is the realization of a certain conception which dwells in the divine understanding.”6
After reviewing the many arguments for the concepts of “self”, it is apparent that there is not any one agreed upon definition of “self” among philosophers. The author of our textbook gives the broad concept of self-identity as “the way you characterize your self as an individual.” 7 Based on the context in which the parameters for “self” are established, the continuity of “self”, (remaining the same “self”), would develop from that premise of “self”. “Many philosophers have argued that not only is self consciousness crucial to having a concept of one’s own individuality, but it is also crucial for establishing that one is an enduring self, that is the same person over time.” 8
Humes explores identity through succession and diversity. Kant develops the concept of “self” as being “transcendental”. “The self of “I” for Kant, then is the necessary logical subject of any thought, perception, feeling and so on. It is not an object of experience but transcends and is presupposed by all experience.” 9 It is my opinion, that this transcendental “thread”, is what allows people to be the “same” person throughout their lifetime of experiences and that the continuity of consciousness transcends even this spatiotemporal existence.
Sources:
Introducing Philosophy, A Text with Integrated Readings, Ninth Edition. Oxford University Press, New York. Robert C. Solomon
1. Ibid., pg 293
2. Ibid., pg 288
3. Ibid., pg 292
4. Ibid., pg 286
5. Ibid., pg 298
6. Ibid., pg 306
7. Ibid., pg 287
8. Ibid., pg 287
9. Ibid., pg 297
To remain the “same” person while changes accumulate throughout time is about remaining genuine to who you are as an individual. If this sameness is to be obtained, one must possess a terrific understanding of their own person, or self. This also means honesty with your self must be essential.
Self is your sense of yourself as a person, of everything that makes up you as a person. This includes your personality, your interests, your relationships, your desires, your dislikes, your curiosity, your feelings, your intellect, your sense of humor, your experiences in life. Understanding who you are, and knowing who you are relative to everyone, and everything around you. Self defines you as an individual.
When change occurs, one needs to stay on course and focused. It is important not to panic when the change occurs. It is important to ride out the change. To experience the change and embrace it for what it teaches you. Influence, by way of change (be it a new experience or a new idea or concept introduced to you) on any aspect of your life is good if it enhances your life experience. However, influence that in some way keeps you “behind the curve” is the kind to be avoided. Negative influence steers your life in a direction that veers off from a productive course. This is why it is important to examine all options before making vital choices in life. To reach full potential in life is ideal. This is hardly attainable if change affects you often in an adverse fashion.
Of course, one’s goal should not be to “remain the same”. Some routine and repetition is good in life as it helps you to appreciate the exciting happenings. The goal should be to learn as you go. Life is like a piece of clay that has no shape yet. It is that which you learn and apply to the process of contouring this clay that determines the outcome of your experiences and existence. I believe death begins once a person decides that they’ve come as far as they can come or that they know everything they will ever need to know. Life is an active process.
What is Self?
Descartes believed that the self was a “thing which thinks”. He stated that we must be conscious to have a self identity, and that self identity was distinct from the body and could continue to exist without a body. Therefore, since the two are distinct from one another, the body did not have to remain unchanged to maintain a self identity.
John Locke also believed that to have a self identity, one must be conscious, because the self identity comes from memories of a person’s past experiences.
Hume, however, thought the idea of the self was a fiction, because our thoughts, emotions, and feelings are too briefly noticed, that we are only vaguely aware of them, or at least most of them. Thus, we cannot say that we are the same person from one moment to the next.
Kant disagrees with Descartes and Locke. He believed that we do not always have to be conscious, that we need only be able to become self conscious. The difference between the two is this; Descartes states that to be a human is to exist self consciously, while Kant states that to be human, one must be able to be self conscious. Kant believed that the ‘self’ comes from the act of having experiences, not the experiences themselves. This self he defines as the ‘transcendental ego’, and believed it to be necessary for humans to have experiences. Kant also identifies another ego, the ‘empirical ego’, which he defines as those physical, as well as our personalities and memories, that make each of different from all others.
French philosopher Sartre believed that self identity is a personal choice. This is called existentialism, and the basis for it is the belief that what we often call human nature does not exist. Our ‘selves’ are what we choose, and there is no right or wrong choice.
In order to be the ‘same’ person while we experience little changes during our lives, we must develop a ‘self consciousness’. We must be able to tie our experiences together, in some kind of sequence, so we can see the continuity that is in our life.
What is “self” and who is this person I call my “self”? That is a question I think philosophers have been trying to answer since people became self-conscious or aware that they had a distinct, separate self. I think it takes a lot of different parts to make a whole person or “self”. Consciousness is a huge part of self as is the soul, body is a lesser part of “self”. Our bodies are only really important to the concept of self because they let us experience the world around us through our senses. Experience lets our conscious self learn and grow. Memory and self-identity or self-conception are probably the most important parts of our consciousness when it comes to understanding who and what we are. Likewise, personality and intuition are probably the most important parts of soul. Some people may not believe in the concept of a soul, if that is you, consider this: consciousness is all about reasoning and learning through experience, where as personality and intuition are innate (at least I believe they are). I used to believe that personality was learned and started at about six months of age until my second child was born. From the beginning, my daughter had a very strong will and a very distinct personality. A nurse in the hospital even made a comment about her observation that my daughter got angry if she did not get her way. After I got her home, my daughter changed my mind and made me believe that personality is something you are born with.
My conclusion about what makes a unique “self” is that it takes a soul that includes a distinct personality, a body that allows self-consciousness to grow, and a memory that keeps track of personal experiences and the emotions and thoughts that those experiences generate. While memory may be imperfect, it is what lets us remain the “same” person even though we grow and change over time. I think that a person is still the “same” person if part of their memory is missing or inaccurate, but if they lose all their memories they can be like an entirely different person. I once watched a program on public broadcasting about brain damage. It was amazing how some of the people that lost their memories had completely different likes and dislikes than before they lost their memories. In some cases their tastes were so different that they couldn’t stand people or colors that they liked before. So even though we don’t remember every day or even every year, we remember the way different things made us think or feel and that is a big part of our self-concept.
People change throughout their life. Hopefully, they stay true to themselves along the way. The values, ethics, and morals that a person is raised with usually sticks with them even as experiences create different knowledge. Yet, even then sometimes our views and opinions change the more we learn in life. I think our mind is constantly growing and changing, but for the most of us we stick by certain principles. For instance, being good to one another, and having honorable character, are important principles I try to maintain no matter if my views change. That is how I would describe my “self;” by describing my character and beliefs.
I don’t think people can ever stay the same. If we stayed the same person all the time and never learned from life it would be a shame. No problems could ever be resolved, and we wouldn’t be able to develop better understandings in the things we do believe in.
I dont think there is a set definition for "self." Self is the characteristic that identifies each one of us. There is no way of learning it, we are just born with it. It varies from the way we act, to our religious beliefs and the way we feel about ourselves. It makes a person unique because that is what seperates one from the other. Throughout the years you learn more about yourself. There cant be to people alike in everything.
I have read that the eastern conceptions of self are described by Buddhist as a binding of all the choices that we make in our lives. In this manner the Buddhist say that we are destined to fate and that we become attached to this world. Which misleads us to believe that we are individuals. This is mentioned in the literature of "Oedipus The King" by Sophocles. I have an undecided veiw of this. At first I agreed with this notion then I thought about it and started to think that if we all practiced this that we would become drones.
I think that in order to remain the same person we must have a clear and strong understanding of who we are. Without truly knowing we are, any little change or opposing view will causes us to question ourselves. If we do have a clear understanding of who we are and what we stand for, those we are able to deal with those changes, strengthening or person or self.
Descartes states “…it is not my body that provides me with an identity or with the self from which I begin my philosophy. My self-identity is in my mind, in my thinking, doubting, feeling, perceiving, imagining, and desiring. I am essentially, ‘a thing which thinks.’” Self is our way of thinking, our way of perceiving the world we live in. I do not think that we easily change our “self,” (1) we may change our looks or taste in music but our person remains the same, our morals or values will most likely not change.
To conclude, self is “the way you think of yourself and the standards by which you judge yourself in every moment of reflection and self evaluation. It is the self-image you follow in every action, when you decide that one thing is “worth doing” more than another or when you decide how to act in a given circumstance.”(1) I think that the key to remaining the “same person” is how sure you are about yourself. If you do not have any idea of what you believe or what you consider to be right or wrong, you will be in constant internal conflicts as to whether or not you should do something; this would cause someone to change under any small change.
“
1.Robert C. Solomon, Introducing Philosophy: a text with integrated readings/
Oxford University Press Inc. New York. P. 288, 305
It would take the idea of accepting that over time you can change and I mean that in a spiritual since. Even though the mechanics of our body like our appearance and our way of thinking may vary as time passes. That is the beauty of being able to adapt to the world. I happen to disagree with David Hume who thinks that we are all the same as the way we thought we where as a child. I think as we grow we use our experiences and what we see others experience to our advantage and are able to grow individually. Also variables which can impact a person to change is the economics, moral, and dangers of society as a whole. If you take all these key variables and examine them you will see that people change to adapt and self is what we choose to be not where we started from.
Position Paper #7
Self
As far as self is concerned, I believe that you remain the same person throughout your life. Sure, your personality may change due to gained knowledge and experience throughout the years but the person as a whole doesn't change, instead it grows. The person you become is always going be based off of the naive person you started off as when you were a child. However, the lessons learned throughout life may change your behavior, thinking process, and also physical appearances, but the mind and body are still connected in the same union. Thus a person can have cosmetic surgery, for example, and his/her confidence level can increase, causing uncharacteristic behavior. He/she will look different but still have the same memories and feelings from before proving that the mind is connected to the physical body. Also, reverse example, a person may have amnesia and not have any memories to speak of but that brain is still encompassed in the body that lived through the experiences the mind is unable to remember. The mind and body are one in the same and remain the “same” from the time of birth until the time of death! Just because your personality and views change, and/or your body changes shape, or your mind starts to slip, it’s still you deep down in your core, you are still the same person you have always been….yourself!
Post a Comment