THE SELF AND THE OTHER
tenets o the practice o Christianity with the legitimacy o the Platonic WHO WAS
ramework as he said, [i] (the Platonists) could have had this lie over
again with us . . . they would have become Christians, with the change o TH O M AS
a ew words and statements. In hindsight the connections were simple
the metaphysical world was the transcendental world, with the Form o AQUINAS?
the Good becoming God. (This connection also had a signifcant political
beneft the ideology o Christianity now became comprehendible to the Thomas Aquinas lived
Roman Empire. It was expressed in a Platonic language which was the rom 1 225 to 1 274.
dominant intellectual tradition o the day.) He was an immensely
important philosopher
Augustine is inuential in many debates due to his original writing in the and theologian. who
area o philosophy o language, philosophy o mind, and the philosophy o sought to integrate the
religion. However, or the present purpose his view o the sel needs urther newly discovered work
explanation. Augustine conceived o the sel as part o the metaphysical o Aristotle into the
ramework. The physical body was an inerior element o human existence belies o C hristianity. His
and one that ensnared the soul, or the superior element. He similarly best known work is the
retained Platos tripartite soul although he introduced the idea o the will Summa Theologica, a book
into this conception, redefning the spirit to accommodate this conceptual that seeks to explain the
change. The dominance o Plato remained until the re-emergence o his tenets o the Christian
student, Aristotle, in the works o Thomas Aquinas. In Aquinas writings the aith to moderates. It
ramework o Aristotle was integrated into Platos. Accordingly, a person is has become one o the
composed o a material body inormed by an immaterial soul. In the initial most inuential works
stage o the aterlie, the individual is merely a soul; and at the resurrection, on Christianity and the
when the individual is again reunited with the body, there is once again a western philosophy.
complete person. This conception o the sel remained dominant or over
1 ,500 years and was inuential o the work o the next great philosopher o
the sel, Descartes, who wrote 1 ,220 years later.
The essential self in modernity
The modern debate
As the source o authority changed at the end o the Middle Ages, rom
the Church to the scientist, so did the questions being asked and the way
in which people tried to answer them. For example, humans started to
consider lie not in terms o conorming to a larger order (an ordered,
meaningul cosmos created by God) , but rather they saw themselves in
isolation, almost as biological mechanisms.
In his Discourse on the Method, D escartes provides us with the pivotal
moment in modern thought when the oundation and subsequent
ramework or modern thinking is established rational subj ectivity.
While Western thinking is still prooundly inuenced by Platos legacy,
Descartes oers an opportunity to update Platos conceptual ramework.
They are both rationalists: Descartes believed in the natural light o
reason, alluding to Platos Simile o the Sun and his Allegory o the
Cave and his concept o the tripartite sel o reason, spirit, and passion.
This sel is now reason, passion, and will (the change in the latter rom
spirit indicates the power o Augustines inuential interpretation o
Plato in the early 5th century CE) . Descartes retains the priority o
reason in determining the sel, wary o passions and the will.
In a time o change, Descartes was one o many thinkers who decided to
ocus on how to understand the universe separate rom the authority o
the C hurch. C onsequently, they thought that genuine knowledge needed
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5 BEING HUMAN
to be based on independent, rational inquiry and experimentation.
As part o the investigation, Descartes decided to assess the certainty o
all his knowledge. The outcome o this sceptical methodology was the
certainty o I think, thereore I am the catchphrase o modernity.
There was now a ocus on the individual and his or her relationship to
the world rather than the world and the individuals relationship to it.
The sel now exists in solipsistic isolation. This shit in emphasis had, and
continues to have, a proound impact on the issues that are identifed in
modern society and the solutions that are oered in response.
The modern self and the shift from self-knowledge to
self-consciousness
This aspect o the sel can be ramed by treating Descartes as the
modern ather o philosophy and exploring the reactions to him
through the works o Locke, Hume, and Kant. They can be categorized
as essentialists. They believed that there was something essential that
allowed a human to claim to be a human. This had traditionally been the
soul and it had been debated whether or not animals also had a soul. I
it was believed they did, it was argued as to whether they had the same
type o soul, and so on. This provided the ramework or searching or
the modern sel the equivalence on the soul. In broad terms, the new
soul was consciousness. For more on the concept o consciousness see the
section Consciousness and sel-consciousness in Chapter 3: Personhood.
However, D escartes, and Locke and Kant to varying degrees, inuenced
the existentialist movement in the 2 0th century, through its attempt to
overcome his metaphysics and to redefne the sel. This should help you
to understand the debate in the 20th and 21 st centuries.
The way to approach this question o the sel and our attempts to
understand it is dialectically (in the Socratic sense, or with a ocus
on concepts) . What we are looking or are the specifc points at which
Locke, Hume, and Kant disagree with the Cartesian view o the soul or
sel because o a dierent understanding o the key concepts, based on
dierent methodological approaches and arguments. This leads to dierent
issues and solutions, and these have dierent implications or humanitys
understanding o its place in the universe and the nature o society.
From Plato to Descartes
Plato still dominated the intellectual climate o Europe. Aristotle had re-
emerged as a major thinker in the tradition ater having been orgotten
or almost 1 ,000 years until Arab scholars reintroduced him to Europe
in the Middle Ages. However, Europe had changed considerably since
the time o Plato. D escartes is writing ater the rise o C hristianity,
in a period o colonial expansion, witnessing the rise o science and
rapidly increasing industrialization. The Enlightenment, or secular
humanism, had emerged as a new intellectual system alongside the
once dominant worldview o C hristianity. In act, the Enlightenment
emerged rom schools o thought within the Church dating back to the
1 2 th century. C onsequently, the Enlightenment was not a revolutionary
reaction to the Church, but rather the outcome o a period o personal,
social, political, and thereore philosophical experimentation where
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THE SELF AND THE OTHER
the ocus had become the role o humans in a human world. This TOK link
world was defned and shaped by the decisions o these humans and
where change appeared to be the only constant. Most Enlightenment Do you think if you were
philosophers, such as Michel de Montaigne, John Locke, David Hume, born in a dark room, with
Paul-Henri Thiry dHolbach, D enis D iderot, Voltaire, Gottried Leibniz, no windows and nothing
and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, elt that these decisions must be rational else in the room, so you
and universal. Reasoning had returned as the primary methodology couldnt see anything, and
o knowing, the inherent aculty o all humans, not revelation and you never met anyone else,
authority, and the result was an underlying concept o the sel as that you could understand
being autonomous. This led to an assumption that all issues, whether everything in the world? This
theoretical or practical, could be resolved by the application o reason is an example of extreme
and would be valid or all humans. S ubsequently, this led to a sense o rationalism.
optimism and a ocus on emancipation and thereore a sense o progress.
Plato explains his
Descartes was one such philosopher and he was also trained in understanding of knowledge
mathematics. This methodological approach was the model or his as recollection in Meno.
philosophical thinking, again similar to Plato. He was convinced that In this dialogue, Socrates
knowledge and absolute truths were waiting to be discovered by draws a square in the dirt.
reasoned, disciplined reection. With Plato still defning the intellectual He then asks a slave boy to
ramework o Europe it is no surprise that contemporary philosophers calculate how long a side of
were still trained in Platonic thought. C onsequently, D escartes was a square would be if it had
also a dualist (someone who believes there are two worlds, not just twice the area of the one
one) . However, it is worth understanding the nature o this dualism to he had just drawn. While
determine whether or not it is the same kind o dualism as Platos. As the initial responses from
dualists, both argue that there are two worlds; broadly defned as the the slave boy are incorrect
physical world and the metaphysical world. In terms o a human they Socrates uses a clever
argue that they have something incorporeal, such as the soul or the sequence of questions to
mind, which is related to a body that exists in the corporeal world. enable the boy to determine
They identiy the incorporeal aspect o an individual with the I and the correct calculation. Plato
thereore the sel. They also both believe that the individual or sel will believes that this proves
survive the death o the body and this enables both o them to make his point (in the context of
claims about immortality. This is a transcendental theory o the sel. the dialogue). He believes
Plato believes that the best mind is a mind in harmony and that reason it illustrates that learning
should lead the mind to achieve this harmony. D escartes equally believes does not involve discovering
in the power o reason, although Descartes as a scientist was a little more something new. Rather it
appreciative o the role the senses could play in knowing the world, but is recollecting something
in the end Descartes shares Platos belie that mathematics and thereore the inner self already knew
a priori knowledge is superior. The cultural and thereore intellectual before a person was born
context in which Descartes was working such as reason as a universal but has forgotten.
trait o all humans meant that transcendence was still a mostly
unchallenged assumption in philosophical thought at that time.
Descartes and rational self
Descartes, frmly positioned within a dominant tradition, says that the
sel, and thereore identity, depends on consciousness. This is a variation,
even extension, o an emphasis on sel-knowledge. Sel-knowledge
suggests being conscious o the sel. In other words, consciousness is
simple sel-awareness and is ocused on ones own mental world. It
requires introspection and reason to investigate this sel. It is a personal
experience, a private and thereore unique aspect o an individual
and as such it cannot be experienced. Because o this dependence on
rationalism, the result is an updating o Platos tripartite sel and its own
emphasis on reason.
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5 BEING HUMAN
As a result, the sel is a thinking thing, an immaterial substantial sel, WHAT IS THE
and one distinct rom the body. The consciousness that allows us to
know that we exist composes our soul and is regarded by Descartes as a DIFFERENCE
substance, albeit an immaterial substance; a substance being a thing that
does not depend on anything else or its existence. BETWEEN
The sel, while still being attached to the soul and the theistic belies DESCARTES AND
associated with that, is the source o being human, though not
necessarily an individual persons identity. PLATO?
What was Descartes project? One o the major
dierences between
In his most amous work, Meditations on First Philosophy, D escartes Plato and Descartes was
says that he has two principal aims. Firstly, he seeks to demonstrate the manner in which
the distinctness o the human soul rom the body, and secondly, to they established their
demonstrate that God may be more easily and certainly known than philosophical positions.
the things o the world.22 For Descartes these two are connected. Being While Plato designed his
a sel that is disconnected rom the material world, Descartes argues, I epistemology to suit his
can only know the world through my senses. Only the existence o God metaphysics, Descartes
can enable me to believe there is a material world. designed his metaphysics
to suit his epistemology.
Similar to Plato, Descartes sought certainty but he utilized the sceptical
method to determine what he could be certain o in this world. In other
words, he doubted everything as a philosophical methodology, not
everything as a principle o living.
However, he could not doubt the act that he doubted his own
existence as a conscious, thinking entity. E ven i he was dreaming,
he must be dreaming. Accordingly, his oundation o certainty was
cogito, ergo sum ( or I think, thereore I am ) and this became the frst
principle o D escartes theory o knowledge. Yet, it also inadvertently
became the frst principle o his philosophy o identity, an identity
grounded in sel-consciousness.
As he also puts it in Meditations:
6. Thinking is another attribute o the soul; or reason, terms whose signifcation was
and here I discover what properly belongs to beore unknown to me. I am, however, a real
mysel. This alone is inseparable rom me. thing, and really existent; but what thing?
I am I exist: this is certain; but how oten? The answer was, a thinking thing
As oten as I think; or perhaps it would even 8. But what, then, am I? A thinking thing, it has
happen, i I should wholly cease to think, that been said. But what is a thinking thing?
I should at the same time altogether cease to
be. I now admit nothing that is not necessarily It is a thing that doubts, understands,
true. I am thereore, precisely speaking, only a [conceives] , afrms, denies, wills, reuses;
thinking thing, that is, a mind, understanding, that imagines also, and perceives.23
22 Ren Descartes, Meditations, translated by John Veitch (New York: Cosimo, 2008) , p. 62.
23 Ibid., pp. 8081; also see Ren Descartes, Meditation II: Of the Nature of the Human Mind; And That It Is More
Easily Known than the Body, available at http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/descartes/meditations/
Meditation2.html (accessed 23 October 2014).
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THE SELF AND THE OTHER
The body has disappeared rom Descartes description o the sel mainly
because in his understanding we can conceive o ourselves existing
without a body:
7. The question now arises, am I anything else I suppose to be non-existent, because they
besides? I will stimulate my imagination are unknown to me, are not in truth dierent
with a view to discover whether I am not rom mysel whom I know. This is a point
still something more than a thinking being. I cannot determine, and do not now enter into
Now it is plain I am not the assemblage o any dispute regarding it. I can only judge o
members called the human body; I am not a things that are known to me: I am conscious
thin and penetrating air diused through all that I exist, and I who know that I exist inquire
these members, or wind, or ame, or vapor, or into what I am. It is, however, perectly certain
breath, or any o all the things I can imagine; that the knowledge o my existence, thus
or I supposed that all these were not, and, precisely taken, is not dependent on things, the
without changing the supposition, I fnd that existence o which is as yet unknown to me:
I still eel assured o my existence. But it is and consequently it is not dependent on any o
true, perhaps, that those very things which the things I can eign in imagination.24
With this, Descartes is simply continuing on the tradition o thought he
has inherited rom some o the great philosophical thinkers he had read
in his own education. The sel is an essential sel and a thinking entity
that is very dierent rom the body bound by the physical world. This
sel is a non-material sel, as well as a conscious sel that is independent
o the physical laws that determine the behaviour o the universe:
To commence this examination accordingly, a oot, an arm, or any other part is cut o, I am
I here remark, in the frst place, that there is a vast conscious that nothing has been taken rom my
dierence between mind and body, in respect that mind; nor can the aculties o willing, perceiving,
body, rom its nature, is always divisible, and that conceiving, etc., properly be called its parts, or it
mind is entirely indivisible. For in truth, when is the same mind that is exercised [all entire] in
I consider the mind, that is, when I consider willing, in perceiving, and in conceiving, etc. But
mysel in so ar only as I am a thinking thing, quite the opposite holds in corporeal or extended
I can distinguish in mysel no parts, but I very things; or I cannot imagine any one o them
clearly discern that I am somewhat absolutely [how small soever it may be] , which I cannot
one and entire; and although the whole mind easily sunder in thought, and which, thereore,
seems to be united to the whole body, yet, when I do not know to be divisible.25
The result o Descartes investigations is a human being made o
two dierent substances mind and body. The mind is an immaterial
substance, which is also the soul and the sel the source o the
individual that exists in the metaphysical world. These mental states
are related to the physical states o the body but they are not dependent
on them, as the soul will exist ater the destruction o the body. The
body is a physical substance that exists in the physical world and,
24 Descartes, Meditations, p. 80.
25 Ibid., p. 120; see also Ren Descartes, Meditation VI: Of the Existence of Material Things, And Of the Real
Distinction Between the Mind and Body of Man, available at http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/
descartes/meditations/Meditation6.html (accessed 24 October 2014) .
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5 BEING HUMAN
importantly, is not an essential element o who I am and thereore the What are other
sel. The key to Descartes argument is the role o consciousness. implications o Descartes
concept o the sel?
What did Descartes argue? One issue that is covered
in more depth in
Descartes believed that: Chapter 4: Mind and Body
but is worth mentioning
First, the mind is an immaterial thing or a substance, and its entire here is the question o
purpose is to think. how two utterly dierent
entities as mind and body
Second, the mind is an absolutely perect unity and indivisible; nothing can interact. This is the
can rend it apart or diminish it. issue o interactionalism.
Another issue is covered
Third, the mind never stops thinking, even when the body is asleep or in C hapter 7: Identity,
unconscious or in a coma or suering rom a terrible trauma. namely that we can
never be sure that
Fourth, the mind enj oys a crystal clear transparency with respect to someone is the same
itsel; the mind knows, with the utmost certainty, what it is and what person we saw yesterday
it is up to it is sel-knowing. we can never observe
they have the same
Fifth, the mind is immortal; when the brain and body die, the mind mind. This is the issue o
continues to be and continues to think orever. the enduring self.
Sixth, the mind comes hard-wired with innate ideas about God, being, Assessment tip
its own nature as a substance, and deep mathematical and logical
principles; all o which are imprinted on it at the moment o its To obtain a high mark in
creation by God (long beore it becomes embodied) . Paper 1 it is important
to discuss your chosen
In terms o the consideration o the sel, Descartes sel is an philosophical issue from at
independent, solitary mind and the world is mind-dependent. Sel- least two perspectives.
consciousness is the approach he uses to draw these conclusions.
Summary: What we take from Descartes
Descartes is our reerence point or the modern debate about the sel.
Coupled with an understanding o the role o Plato in establishing
and defning the conceptual ramework that Descartes, to a signifcant
extent, worked within, you are now prepared to explore the modern
concepts o the sel. Even i a philosophical school was rejecting this
conceptual ramework it was still being utilized in relation to these
philosophers. As a consequence it is worth ensuring that the ollowing
concepts are understood. The ollowing concepts are now the building
blocks o the modern sel:
Rationality Thinking
Consciousness Sel-knowing
Immateriality Immortality
Unity Innate ideas
Alternatives to Descartes
Beore we consider a signifcant response to Descartes in the orm o
Lockes criticism o his concept o the sel as soul, it is worth highlighting
a number o other alternatives. These two positions do not share the
same conceptual ramework as Descartes (unlike Locke) .
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THE SELF AND THE OTHER
Hobbes and the materialist self
Hobbes, the radical materialist philosopher (see biography on p. 31 in
Chapter 2: Human Nature) , wrote around the same time as Descartes.
Although Hobbes was English he lived in Paris where he wrote his most
amous work, The Leviathan. During this time Hobbes and Descartes
exchanged a series o letters. As a materialist Hobbes rejected Descartes
concept o the soul and his whole conceptual ramework which was
ounded on a belie. While Hobbes did not develop an explicit concept o
the sel, his radical materialism meant that he conceived the individual and
thereore sel as simply the body, as can be seen in the ollowing quotes:
[t] hus mind will be nothing but the motions in certain parts o an organic
body and an essence without existence is a fction o our mind.26
Rousseau and the moral self
Beore we continue with the development o Descartes concept
o the sel it is worth noting a radical alternative to this tradition.
Rousseau is oten neglected as part o a discussion regarding the sel.
(See biography on p. 295 in Chapter 6: Freedom.) He never developed
his own systematic epistemology or metaphysics, the oundation o a
claim to be a modern philosopher. He is usually included in a political
philosophy course because o his argument or a particular version o a
social contract. However, his writing does contain an argument or the
sel but it is dierent in many ways rom the traditional conception o
the sel. Rousseau rejected the rational, essentialist sel o Plato and then
the non-substantial and subjective sel o Descartes, instead arguing or
a moral sel guided by eeling and a personalized sense o goodness and
sel-worth. The sel-conscious, rational sel o Descartes (and as we will
fnd out, Locke) is a private sel. This is replaced by Rousseau by a sel
that is expressive, unolding within the world through action.
It is still an introspective sel in many ways and is o primary
importance in Rousseaus philosophical considerations, like many other
philosophers in the Western tradition. However, this is not because o
the epistemological and metaphysical frst principles it reects, but rather
because it is important to the individual and his or her moral goodness.
He retains the sense o the individual as an atomistic entity, independent
o others, even i living within the community and under the general
will. In act, his distrust o society led him to believe that this society
was corrupting and devoid o meaningul relationships, stripping an
individual o his or her compassion and, more generally, virtues.
In many ways, Rousseau did not argue or a conception o the sel, but
rather a description o self-hood or the nature o the sel.
Rousseaus philosophy and concept o the sel was very inuential
on Friedrich S chiller, Johann Wilhelm von Goethe, Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel, and Karl Marx, and, more surprisingly, on Immanuel
Kant. C onsequently, it has been very inuential on modern lie in
general, though oten without acknowledgement.
26 Quotes taken from Ren Descartes, Third Set of Objections with Authors Replies, in The Philosophical Works
ofDescartes, vol. 2, translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1934) , pp. 65, 77.
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5 BEING HUMAN
Hegel and the social self Paper 3 link
Hegel (see biography on p. 1 61 in Chapter 4: Mind and Body) was The role o confict
a brilliant philosopher who responded to Kant, in turn provoking
numerous responses. For example, in response Kierkegaard wrote Locke wrote An ssay
his early Christian existential philosophy and Hegel provided Marx Concerning Human
with the intellectual ramework that became his devastating critique Understanding (1690)
o Western industrialized society. I we restrict our treatment o Hegel because he was concerned
to our current consideration o the sel we fnd him reacting to the that not knowing the limits
assumptions built into D escartes philosophy. Aristotle and his critical o understanding would put
rejection o some o the major arguments in Platos philosophy inspired society in moral danger.
Hegel. In a similar way Hegel would reject Descartes reormulation In his day Locke observed
o Platos philosophy. The key aspect that he rej ects is the assumption controversies, scepticism,
that ones sel is determined in pure isolation. Instead Hegel argues that complaints, violent
the sel can only become maniest within a complex network o social expressions o dogma,
interactions and its social unctions. Other selves become essential to even revolution.
the sel and as such each person does not see the other as an essential
being, but in the other sees its own sel.27 This mutual recognition Like Plato and Descartes,
is social and thereore cannot occur i an individual is simply sel- he lived through a period o
consciousness. Consciousness occurs when a sel interacts with others, political unrest but instead
establishing relationships. I am because o how I ft within the world o seeking to resolve this
o human relationships. This approach can be taken urther. As D errick confict through the primacy
B ell argues in Ethical Ambition: Living a Life of Meaning and Worth, we are o a specic authority or
not even defned by our relationships, we are our relationships: institution, he sought to
prioritize the individual and
However sel-sufcient we may ancy ourselves, we exist only in his or her reedom.
relation to our riend, amily, and lie partners; to those we teach
and mentor; to our co-workers, neighbors, strangers; and even to
orces we cannot ully conceive o, let alone defne. In many ways,
we are our relationships.28
Locke and the psychological theory o the sel as an
immaterial, non-substance
Locke presents us with the frst o a number o changes to the
approach to the concept o the sel. While Descartes ollowed Plato
to a large degree, especially in continuing the emphasis on reason,
Locke was an empiricist and a naturalist (see biography on p. 344
in Chapter 7: Identity) . Like Descartes, he was also a scientist.
However, he did not start out as a mathematician, but instead
trained as a physician at O xord University. Accordingly, he was
taught to identiy and record symptoms and then draw a conclusion
about the nature o the disease and its possible cure. This process o
identiying patterns and making inerences was ormally a rational
process, but it also involved experience as an important element
in decision-making. Knowledge was accumulated, based on sense
27 G. W. F. Hegel, B.IV.A. Independence and Dependence o Sel-Consciousness: Lordship and Bondage,
Section 179, in Phenomenology ofSpirit, translated by A. V. Miller, with analysis o the text and oreword by
J. N. Findlay (Oxord: Oxord University Press, 1977) , p. 111.
28 Derrick Bell, Ethical Ambition: Living a Life ofMeaning and Worth (London: Bloomsbury, 2002) , p. 95.
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THE SELF AND THE OTHER
perception and memory. He believed one could give an account o TOK Links
human understanding and our world only by appealing to natural
causes. Rationalists, such as Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, all Experience and sense
appealed to God to account or the reasons why something happened. perception
Nonetheless, Locke still believed in God, but he was a methodological
naturalist, not an ontological naturalist. The dierence being that How can we know if our
methodological naturalism believes that science can explain the world senses are reliable?
while ontological naturalism reers to God or an explanation.
Can we directly perceive
So, as an empiricist, Locke believed that our theories o the world the world as it is or is the
must be built on experience. However, we cannot have experiences act of perception an active
o substances , only o their properties. C onsequently, a concept o process dependent on our
personal identity must be derived rom inner experience to be valid. interpretation?
As a result, introspection remains key to the question o the sel.
What is the role of reason in
What did Locke argue? sense perception?
Lockes theory o personal identity and thereore the sel is one o
the most original and interesting parts o An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding. Read the ollowing passage and complete a detailed
analysis o the argument presented here:
Personal identity. This being premised, to fnd or divers substances. For, since consciousness
wherein personal identity consists, we must always accompanies thinking, and it is that
consider what person stands or; which, I which makes every one to be what he calls sel,
think, is a thinking intelligent being, that has and thereby distinguishes himsel rom all other
reason and reection, and can consider itsel thinking things, in this alone consists personal
as itsel, the same thinking thing, in dierent identity, i.e. the sameness o a rational being:
times and places; which it does only by that and as ar as this consciousness can be extended
consciousness which is inseparable rom backwards to any past action or thought, so ar
thinking, and, as it seems to me, essential to it: it reaches the identity o that person; it is the same
being impossible or any one to perceive without sel now it was then; and it is by the same sel
perceiving that he does perceive. When we see, with this present one that now reects on it, that
hear, smell, taste, eel, meditate, or will anything, that action was done.29
we know that we do so. Thus it is always as to
our present sensations and perceptions: and by [ ]
this every one is to himsel that which he calls
sel: it not being considered, in this case, Consciousness is the perception o what passes in
whether the same sel be continued in the same a Mans own mind.30
29 John Locke, Book II: Of Ideas, in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (New York: Prometheus Books,
1995) , Chapter XXVII, Section 9; see also http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/locke/locke1/Book2c.
html#Chapter XXVII (accessed 24 October 2014) .
30 Locke, Book II . . ., An Essay, Chapter I, Section 19; see also http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/
locke/locke1/Book2a.html#Chapter I (accessed 24 October 2014) .
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5 BEING HUMAN
ANALYSIS ACTIVITY
Break the argument put orward by Locke in this passage into stages
by answering the ollowing guiding questions:
1 . What do you have to do to discover the nature o personal identity?
2. According to Locke, what does a person stand or?
3. What always accompanies thinking?
4. What is Lockes defnition o consciousness?
5. What is Lockes defnition o personal identity and thereore
the sel?
6. What is not considered in this passage?
7. What is the relationship o consciousness and reason?
8. What is the relationship o consciousness and sel?
9. What role do these play in personal identity?
10. What is the role o past actions or thought in determining the
same or enduring sel?
Now fnally map the relationship requested by Locke:
Person = Thinking = Consciousness
The self and a change of substance
Plato and Descartes both argued that the sel was located in the orm
o an immortal, non-material soul (that continues to exist ollowing
the death o the body) . Locke rej ects this belie. He goes urther,
rejecting not only that the sel and the soul are intimately linked, i
not the same thing, but also that the sel exists in any substance. He
explains this using a rather gruesome example:
That this is so, we have some kind o evidence in our very bodies, all
whose particles, whilst vitally united to this same thinking conscious
sel, so that we eel when they are touched, and are aected by,
and conscious o good or harm that happens to them, are a part
o ourselves; i.e. o our thinking conscious sel. Thus, the limbs o
his body are to every one a part o himsel; he sympathizes and is
concerned or them. Cut o a hand, and thereby separate it rom that
consciousness he had o its heat, cold, and other aections, and it
is then no longer a part o that which is himsel, any more than the
remotest part o matter. Thus, we see the substance whereo personal
sel consisted at one time may be varied at another, without the
change o personal identity; there being no question about the same
person, though the limbs which but now were a part o it, be cut o.31
31 Locke, Book II . . ., An Essay, Chapter XXVII, Section 11; see also http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/
locke/locke1/Book2c.html#Chapter XXVII (accessed 24 October 2014) .
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THE SELF AND THE OTHER
One would expect that an empiricist would be avourably disposed
towards a sel as a substance something that could be experienced.
Locke, however, is not a materialist as well as an empiricist. He believes
that properties can also be experienced and this enables him to conclude
that the essence o the sel is its conscious awareness o itsel as a thinking,
reasoning, reecting identity. The sel does not have to be located or
embedded in a single substance such as an immaterial.
The development o the sel:
M a teri a l Immaterial Immaterial,
Substance Non-Substance
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
Locke has been guided by the ramework set up by Descartes to a certain
extent. However, he is using a dierent methodology to Descartes.
1. How does this methodology inuence the conclusions drawn
by Locke?
2. What are the implications o using a dierent methodology to
ormulate an argument?
Locke comes to the conclusion that the sel can reside in any number
o substances or souls. This does seem viable and Locke provides an
example that seems to support this:
Sel is that conscious thinking thing, whatever substance made up o
which is sensible, or conscious o pleasure and pain [etc.] . Thus every
one fnds that, whilst comprehended under that consciousness, the little
fnger is as much a part o himsel as what is most so. Upon separation
o this little fnger, should this consciousness go along with the little
fnger, and leave the rest o the body, it is evident the little fnger would
be the person, the same person 32
But Locke goes one step urther and illustrates the ull implications o
his position with a amous thought experiment called the Prince and
the C obbler.
For should the soul o a prince, carrying with it the consciousness
o the princes past lie, enter and inorm the body o a cobbler,
as soon as deserted by his own soul, every one sees he would be
the same person with the prince, accountable only or the princes
actions: but who would say it was the same man?33
32 Ibid., Section 17.
33 Ibid., Section 15.
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5 BEING HUMAN
ANALYSIS ACTIVITY
Interpret the story o the Prince and the Cobbler according to Lockes
theory o the sel (personal identity) .
Questions
1. Which aspects o the argument seem valid?
For example, how would the prince prove he was the prince even
though he is in the cobblers body? Hint shared memories
2. Which aspects o the argument do not seem valid?
How would the prince behave? Hint mannerisms
Evaluating Lockes argument TOK Links
Another important aspect o Lockes argument is his claim that How did Locke know?
consciousness always accompanies thinking. Are you currently
thinking? Are you conscious o thinking? Can you be conscious o a As an empiricist, Locke is
moment when you werent conscious o thinking? I so, what impact also asking his readers
does this have on Lockes argument? Maybe it is air to suggest that to inspect their own
you are only conscious o thinking when you were asked i you were experiences to assess
conscious o thinking. Have you ever been lost in thought? Immersed whether these conclusions
in an activity? C aught up in the moment? However, you are always are confrmed.
potentially, i not actually, conscious o your sel. Is this enough to
overcome this issue? Do this yoursel. What is
your conclusion?
Locke argues that we are our memories. We have sel-awareness
and we can remember the events that occurred when we have sel-
awareness. Locke assumes, however, that we have access to all our
memories and that when we do remember these memories are correct
or authentic. To do this we must have a sel that is able to do this
remembering and authenticating. Doesnt this presume a sel that
enables us to argue that we have a sel as memories? This is called
circular reasoning.
Assumptions in Lockes argument
Locke believes that experience is either external, which is called
sensation (= external perception) , or internal, which is called
refection (= inner perception).
Thereore, the ideas are either ideas o sensation, which is primary,
or ideas o refection, which derived rom ideas o sensation and are
thereore secondary.
This is a dualistic understanding o the aculties o perception (sensation
and refection) . Locke is still under the infuence o Descartes and his
dualism the dichotomy o material and spiritual substance. But Locke
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THE SELF AND THE OTHER
reverses the priorities defned by Descartes. His ramework believed that
the ideas o reection (inner perception/knowledge) were prior to the
knowledge o the world. Locke reversed this and argued that the ideas
o sensation (experience) were prior to the ideas o reection.
How does this impact on his concept o the sel?
Rejection ofthe essential self
Hume and the bundle theory of the self
Like Locke, Hume was an empiricist, a philosopher who believed
in an empirical appeal to the senses that provided reason with the
knowledge required to understand the world (see biography on
p. 31 in Chapter 2: Human Nature) . While he was an Enlightenment
philosopher, his use o reason eventually resulted in a set o
devastating critiques o the central tenets o Enlightenment: a aith in
reason and experience o the world.
Hume is renowned or his critique o inductive inerence, or reasoning
rom the observed behaviour o a set o objects to their behaviour
when they are unobserved.34 Based on this thinking, he was able to
claim that we could never justiy claims o causation because we only
inductively associate events and thereore only assume there is an
association between them. We cannot prove there is causation.
S imilarly, Hume argued that there is no relation between a descriptive
statement (about what is in the world) and a prescriptive or normative
statement (about what ought to be) . This is a criticism o naturalism,
or deriving an ethics rom an understanding o nature. This is known
as the isought problem, but it is also reerred to as Humes law
and Humes Guillotine. Unlike Descartes however this scepticism was
not used to achieve certainty. Hume sought to demonstrate the lack o
certainty in our understanding o the world.
Hume also challenged the arguments o Descartes and Locke on the
question o the sel. He argued that there was no sel, only a bundle
o perceptions.
REFLECTION ACTIVITY
Sit by yoursel and close your eyes. Look or your sel. Do you use
your body (hands) or your thoughts (mind)?
Assuming you use your sel-consciousness (thoughts) , shit
through your thinking, your experiences, your memories, your
ideas/imagination, your sensations/moods/eelings. Can you fnd
your sel? Can you experience it?
34 Or as Hume expresses it, how they behave when these objects are beyond the present testimony of our
senses, and the records of our memory (Hume, Section II . . ., An Enquiry, p. 22) .
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5 BEING HUMAN
Hume argues that i you are diligent in your application o the empiricist
methodology, you can never experience your sel.
There are some philosophers who imagine we other, that the idea o sel is derived; and
are every moment intimately conscious o what consequently there is no such idea.
we call our SELF;35 that we eel its existence and
its continuance in existence; and are certain, [. . .]
beyond the evidence o a demonstration, both o
its perect identity and simplicity. The strongest Questions
sensation, the most violent passion, say they,
instead o distracting us rom this view, only 1. How convincing does Hume believe the
fx it the more intensely, and make us consider claims made by those who are every
their inuence on self either by their pain or moment intimately conscious o what we
pleasure. To attempt a arther proo o this call our SELF?
were to weaken its evidence; since no proo can
be derived rom any act o which we are so 2. According to Hume what is the relationship
intimately conscious; nor is there any thing, o between these claims and the experience
which we can be certain, i we doubt o this. used to support them?
Unluckily all these positive assertions are 3. Regarding the sel, what does Hume
contrary to that very experience which is conclude about the act that an individual
pleaded or them; nor have we any idea o self, has numerous impressions or ideas in terms
ater the manner it is here explained. For, rom o what is missing?
what impression could this idea be derived?
This question it is impossible to answer without B ut arther, what must become o all our
a maniest contradiction and absurdity; and particular perceptions upon this hypothesis?
yet it is a question which must necessarily be All these are dierent, and distinguishable, and
answered, i we would have the idea o sel pass separable rom each other, and may be separately
or clear and intelligible. It must be some one considered, and may exist separately, and have
impression, that gives rise to every real idea. no Deed o tiny thing to support their existence.
But sel or person is not any one impression, Ater what manner, thereore, do they belong
but that to which our several impressions and to sel; and how are they connected with it?
ideas are supposed to have a reerence. I any For my part, when I enter most intimately into
impression gives rise to the idea o sel, that what I call myself, I always stumble on some
impression must continue invariably the same, particular perception or other, o heat or cold,
through the whole course o our lives; since light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure.
sel is supposed to exist ater that manner. B ut I never can catch mysel at any time without
there is no impression constant and invariable. a perception, and never can observe any thing
Pain and pleasure, grie and j oy, passions and but the perception. When my perceptions are
sensations succeed each other, and never all removed or any time, as by sound sleep; so
exist at the same time. It cannot thereore be long am I insensible o myself, and may truly be
rom any o these impressions, or rom any
35 This is commonly interpreted as a reerence to Descartes and Locke as well as other contemporary philosophers
infuenced by their thought.
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THE SELF AND THE OTHER
said not to exist. And were all my perceptions Questions
removed by death, and could I neither think,
nor eel, nor see, nor love, nor hate ater the 1. Reread Humes observation about his search
dissolution o my body, I should be entirely or his essential sel (when I enter most
annihilated, nor do I conceive what is arther intimately into what I call mysel) . What is
requisite to make me a perect non- entity. I any he looking or in relation to perceptions?
one, upon serious and unprejudiced refection
thinks he has a dierent notion o himself, 2. Can you think o an analogy to help you
I must coness I can reason no longer with him. All understand this point?
I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as
well as I, and that we are essentially dierent in this 3. What does Hume say o people who difer
particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something rom him?
simple and continued, which he calls himself; though
I am certain there is no such principle in me. 4. According to Hume, do we really have any
idea o the sel?
David Hume36
As an empiricist, David Hume believed that our knowledge or
epistemological conclusions ultimately come rom experience. Consequently,
i the claim were made that the sel exists, the expectation should be that
empirical data would be used to substantiate the claim. According to Hume,
i there is to be such a thing as sel it must maniest itsel in the orm o an
impression or idea. However, there is no such idea. As such, the idea o
the sel, as had been argued or in the Western tradition, cannot be tested
against evidence derived rom an empirical study. Hume argues that you
never perceive your sel, or rather the stream o consciousness never actually
reveals a sel. Instead, what is assumed is a unity to our transient mental
experiences and this unity is actually your sel. The only thing that can be
ascertained in our consciousness is that it is composed o various impressions
that are constantly changing. Descartes would have argued that it is logical
or there to be a sel that is experiencing and uniying these perceptions.
C onsequently, we have no reason to believe there is a sel.
CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING
The bundle theory
1. Imagine you are sitting on a hill as a storm approaches over the
horizon. Think about what will happen:
The air temperature will change.
The air pressure will change.
Thunder will be heard in the distance.
The sky will get darker.
36 David Hume, A Treatise ofHuman Nature: Being An Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method ofReasoning
into Moral Subjects, Volume I: Ofthe Understanding (London: John Noon, 1739) , Book I, Part IV, Section VI;
available at http://davidhume.org/texts/thn.html (accessed (24 October 2014) .
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5 BEING HUMAN
The air will become more humid.
Lightning will be seen.
These changes are all perceived. You think, Here comes a storm.
However, will you actually see the storm or j ust the experience o
the storm?
The storm is a collection o experiences that is usually identifed as a
storm. Hume is rejecting the idea that there is an essence o the storm.
To conceptualize this, imagine that as the storm passes over you you
see a massive black orb with the word STORM written on it. This is
the essence o the storm and exactly what Hume argues does not exist.
2. What does it mean when Humes understanding o the sel is
compared to the idea o using a ashlight to fnd darkness?
Understanding Humes concept of the self
Does this mean that there is no sel? Many commentators have argued
that Hume argues or an illusionary theory o the sel. However, this
assumes there is a set idea o the sel and Hume rejects that idea. In
act, Hume is leaving room or a new theory o the sel: the sel is a
bundle o perceptions: They are the successive perceptions only, that
constitute the mind.37
It is, however, valid to ask what ties a particular set o experiences into
the bundle. In his response, Hume reveals that he is still working within
the ramework established by John Locke. In a similar way to Locke
he argues that resemblance and causation are important elements in
understanding the sel. Thoughts and perceptions resemble the original
experience and mutually produce, destroy, inuence, and modiy each
other, demonstrating a causal relationship.38
This leads us to believe there is a sel, although on reection, according
to Hume at least, it is a fction. The sel can be conceived as a set o
relations between experiences only.
In response to this lack o a sel, Hume suggests, we impose a fctional sel
that allows us to order these experiences by reerencing an experiencer.
For when we attribute identity, in an improper sense, to variable or
interrupted objects, our mistake is not confned to the expression, but
is commonly attended with a fction, either o something invariable
and uninterrupted, or o something mysterious and inexplicable, or
at least with a propensity to such fctions. What will sufce to prove
this hypothesis to the satisaction o every air enquirer, is to show
rom daily experience and observation, that the objects, which are
variable or interrupted, and yet are supposed to continue the same,
are such only as consist o a succession o parts, connected together
by resemblance, contiguity, or causation.39
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid.
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THE SELF AND THE OTHER
Evaluating Humes argument A PRAGMATIC
Hume seeks to demonstrate that the sel is a fction, instead arguing or RESPONSE
a bundle o perceptions. However, this is not enough. We have every
right to challenge Hume and ask, why do we have a concept o the sel William James, the
i it does not exist? In order or Hume to complete his philosophical 1 9th-century American
argument he must account or our established belies in the sel and, philosopher, suggested
in particular, their explanatory powers. An argument is oten assessed consciousness, then,
by the quality o its reasoning and evidence. However, it should also be does not appear to itsel
assessed by the philosophers ability to provide an alternative account or chopped up in bits. Such
our established belies and actions. For example, i you believe in Santa words as chain or train
Claus, then the role o Santa Claus at Christmas explains a number o do not describe it ftly
events by providing an explanation or a cause. I you are then told that as it presents itsel in
there is no Santa Claus, then the person who tells you there is no Santa the frst instances. It is
Claus must also provide an explanation or all the events that were nothing jointed; it ows.
previously explained by Santa Claus. Who brings the presents? Who A river or a stream is
plays Santa Claus at the local department store? And so on. the metaphor by which
it is most naturally
Modern theories o the no-sel described. In talking
hereater, let us call it
It is an opportune moment to return to the Western tradition. the stream o thought,
Contemporary psychology and neuroscience have provided some new o consciousness, or o
insights into the human mind and by extension the question o the sel. subjective lie.40
A number o philosophers have used these fndings to re-engage with
the question o the sel. How important is the
right metaphor when
Parft constructing an argument
in philosophy?
One o these, British philosopher Derek Parft (1 942 ) , oers another
bundle theory, or no- sel theory. Parft has also described it as a
reductionist theory o the sel.
In a sense, a Bundle Theorist denies the existence o persons There are
persons or subjects in [a] language-dependent way. I, however, persons
are believed to be more than this to be separately existing things,
distinct rom our brains and bodies, and the various kinds o mental states
and events the Bundle Theorist denies that there are such things.41
Parft is working within the conceptual ramework set up by David
Hume and is aware o the relevance to Buddhism to this position (see
section on B uddhism below) . In Western philosophical terms, he is
arguing against any transcendental subject o consciousness. In the
process he wishes to highlight the unchallenged assumptions he believes
are still evident in the dominant discussions on this subject.
Strawson
E nglish philosopher and proessor S ir Peter F. S trawson ( 1 9 1 9 2 0 0 6 )
rejected both the Cartesian and the no-sel (or no-ownership)
theories o the sel. In his book Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive
40 William James, The Principle ofPsychology, vol. 1 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1890) , p. 239.
41 Derek Parft, Divided Minds and the Nature o Persons, in Colin Blakemore and Susan Greenfeld (eds) ,
Mindwaves: Thoughts on Intelligence, Identity and Consciousness (Oxord: Basil Blackwell, 1987) , pp. 2021.
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5 BEING HUMAN
Metaphysics, he argues that they are prooundly wrong in holding,
as each must, that there are two uses o, in one o which it denotes
something which it does not denote in the other.42 Strawson rejects
the position that states o consciousness do not belong to persons
or, indeed, to anything at all, though it is allowed that perhaps they
may be causally related to a body. When an individual says that I am
hurting they are making a claim that the pain that is causing them to
hurt is their pain. C onsequently, the no- sel or no- ownership doctrine
argues that there is only a causal dependence upon the state o some
specifc body that is producing the sensation o pain. I ownership is
dependent on the capability or ownership to be transerable, then
experiences, such as pain, cannot be transerable.
Kant and the transcendental ego
With the conclusion o the discussion o Plato, Descartes, Locke, and
Hume, and their respective approaches o rationalism and empiricism,
it becomes obvious that there is a divide in the Western intellectual
tradition. The frst school argued that certain a priori truths about the sel
could be deduced through the use o reason. The second school argued
that the sel should accept a non-substantial account o the sel based on
a sequence o impressions derived rom the empirical data available to
us. This divide became the great challenge o the Enlightenment. Which
was the better way o thinking about the issues acing society in the 1 7th
century? Kant oered the best, or at least the most inuential, answer.
Kant believed that neither oered a credible answer to the most
signifcant issues o his time. He defned them as ollows:
Two things fll the mind with ever new and increasing admiration
and awe the starry heavens above and the moral law within.43
He thought that the metaphysical questions (and ontological questions)
on the existence o God or whether humans were ree could not be
answered until the epistemological question as to whether they could
know anything about these issues was answered. I not, a massive
assumption was being ignored. So, similar to Descartes, Kant was
seeking to establish frm oundations or thinking.
The main problem or Kant was that science understood the world as
ordered by deterministic laws while man was ree. Kant was impressed by
science and unwilling to dismiss it out o hand as a source o knowledge.
He had studied the classics, philosophy, and physics at the University o
Knigsberg, and been impressed by the advancements made by science,
and in particular by Isaac Newton. However, he elt they could not account
or the moral law within. The answer was to seek a balance between
42 Peter F. Strawson, Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (London: Routledge, 1959) , p. 98.
43 Immanuel Kant, Critique ofPractical Reason (translated from the German Kritik der praktischen Vernunft,
1788) , Book II, Part 2, Conclusion; quote taken from Paul Gruyer (ed.) , The Cambridge Companion to Kant and
Modern Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) , p. 1.
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THE SELF AND THE OTHER
science and metaphysics, or between empiricism and rationalism. The result
was what Kant himsel described as a Copernican revolution in metaphysics
and epistemology (named ater Copernicus, the Renaissance mathematician
and astronomer who placed the sun at the centre o the universe) .
The question being asked o the sel seemed to have allen into two
schools, based on two dierent approaches. Kant agreed with Hume (and
empiricism) that knowledge starts with experience but disagreed that it
was limited by it. He argued that there was also a priori knowledge and the
question was how much: though our knowledge begins with experience,
it does not ollow that it all arises out o experience.44 This is not the place
or an in-depth study o Kants philosophy. However, this does indicate
the context in which Kant was thinking. His concept o the sel was
immensely complex, working between these two schools, seeking to fnd a
valid compromise between sceptical empiricism and dogmatic rationalism.
Kant was amously awoken rom his dogmatic slumber when he was
46 during his reading o Humes Treatise. He spent 1 1 years ormulating his
initial response, which resulted in his three amous Critiques.
Kant asked the question o Hume that we have already asked: what
makes it possible or us to have a unifed grasp o the world, to coordinate
our bundle o perceptions? Kant argued that we perceive and experience
the world around us as a world o objects, relationships, and ideas,
and these all exist within a relatively stable ramework o two basic
organizers: space and time. He believed that this indicated a unity o the
sel. Without it, we would not be able to make sense o the perceptions
being received, along with imagination, memory, and the capacity or
synthesis. He labelled this the transcendental unity o apperception, or
the sel. This is oten illustrated by using the metaphor o the weaver.
Imagine opening up a box containing a jigsaw puzzle. When it is frst
emptied onto the table the pieces are all jumbled, many o them are not
even acing upwards and recognizable. However, you slowly start to
organize them and eventually place them all where they need to go to
complete the picture. For us it is the construction o meaning.
Hitherto it has been assumed that all our knowledge must conorm
to objects. But all attempts to extend our knowledge o objects by
establishing something in regard to them by means o concepts have,
on this assumption, ended in ailure. We must, thereore, make trial
whether we may not have more success i we suppose that objects
must conorm to our knowledge.
Immanuel Kant45
In the process Kant retains Platos metaphysics, naming the two realities
the Phenomenal Reality the world as we experience it and the
Noumenal Reality the purely intelligible, or non-sensual reality.
44 Kant, Introduction, in Critique ofPure Reason, translated by Norman Kemp Smith (London: Macmillan and Co.,
1929) , p. A1 / B1 (p. 41) .
45 Ibid., p. B 26 (p. 22).
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5 BEING HUMAN
Sensations would be nothing to us, and would not concern us in
the least, i they were not received into our (orderly) consciousness.
Knowledge is impossible in any other way For perceptions could
not be perceptions o anything or me unless they could at least
be connected together into (my) one consciousness. This principle
stands frm a priori, and may be called the transcendental principle
o unity or all the multiplicity o our perceptions and sensations.
Immanuel Kant46
Kant argues that Hume got it wrong. The reason he could not fnd
the sel was because he was looking in the wrong place! Hume ailed
to acknowledge that while he was looking or the sel he was having
intelligent experiences so, Kant asked, where does this intelligence come
rom? The answer or Kant was the sel. The sel was coordinating the
perceptions, making sense o them.
A suitable analogy is an eye. You never see your eye, only what you are
seeing. You do not realize that your eye is seeing because you cannot see
it. That is, until you look in the mirror.
Kant has also developed D escartes I think, thereore I am. Now, the
I is not a simple thinking machine, rather a dynamic entity that is
continually interpreting the world, synthesizing sensations and ideas
into a comprehensible whole, and reliant on concepts such as substance,
cause and eect, unity, plurality, possibility, necessity, and reality. This
constructed, orderly world was deemed by Kant to be an objective one
as the categories that constructed it were transcendental even i it was
the individuals interpretation.
I you reect upon this concept o the sel you will fnd that it is a very
abstract conception o the sel. There is also nothing personal about it,
nothing that defnes the individual. It is a great intellectual answer to
the challenge o Hume but it is not a satisactory answer when reecting
upon being an individual. Kant realized this and introduced another
second sel or ego. This was the empirical ego, an ego that includes
all o those elements that identiy us as an individual, such as bodies,
memories, personalities, ways o thinking, emotional patterns, and so
on. In other words, the empirical ego determines personal identity. This
appears to be a clumsy response to a challenging question and in many
ways it is. It leads to more questions and more answers, increasing the
complexity o the argument that Kant is seeking to put orward. These
questions include:
How do these two selves relate to one another?
Is one sel more primary or undamental than the other?
Which sel is our true sel, our identity, our soul?
Are we condemned to be metaphysical schizophrenics?
46 Ibid.
216
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
Kants sel as a transcendental uniying principle o consciousness TOK link
does not reerence the consciousness o Locke. This transcendental sel
or ego is not located as a separate entity in consciousness. Rather, it is The problem with
the organizing principle that allows consciousness to occur. introspection is that it has
no end.
Kant has now defned a sel that is an activity and one that continues Philip K. Dick
to undermine the traditional concept o the soul ound in Plato and
Descartes. As an activity, Kant argued that the core o the real sel is the You are who you are when
ability to choose or onesel. This conclusion o the sel as activity provided nobodys watching.
later philosophers with a ramework that enabled them to overhaul the Stephen Fry
traditional approach.
There have been a
In conclusion it is worth reecting on an argument made by Wittgenstein, number o reerences to
who suggests that the subject o Western philosophy does not, in act, exist. introspection so ar in this
In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus ( 1 92 1 ) , he tells us: chapter. It is worth refecting
on this methodology. Is it
The thinking, presenting subj ect; there is no such thing in an possible to know yoursel?
important sense there is no subj ect The subj ect does not belong to How do you know your
the world, but is a limit o the world There is [thereore] really a understanding is authentic?
sense in which in philosophy we can talk non-psychologically o the I.
The I occurs in philosophy through the act that the world is my How valid is introspection as
world. The philosophical I is not the man, not the human body, a way o knowing?
or the human soul o which psychology treats, but the metaphysical
subject, the limitnot a part o the world.47
What does Wittgenstein mean by this claim?
REVISION ACTIVITIES Write up a short description o the position
as i you are explaining it to a riend.
1. Flow chart
Break down that position into its various
Starting with Plato sketch out a ow chart components. For example, what are its
outlining the development o the sel assumptions? How is the position justifed?
through to Kant. What are the similarities What are the implications o the position?
and dierences rom Plato to Kant?
Decide to ocus on one aspect o that
2. Dialogue position.
Choose two philosophers and write a debate Write up a dialogue analysing that aspect
between them on the concept o the sel. with someone who agrees with the position.
In what ways do they end up agreeing Then:
with each other?
Phase 2
In what ways do they end up disagreeing
with each other? Extend the analysis and test the
understanding o that aspect and its role in
3 . Dierent approach the position. To do this, introduce someone
into the dialogue who disagrees with the
Phase 1 other person and asks challenging questions.
Select one position on the concept o
the sel.
47 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, reproduction o 1922 edition, translated by C. K. Ogden
(New York: Cosimo, 2007) , Sections 5.6135.641, p. 89.
217
5 BEING HUMAN
Understanding Eastern perspectives of the self
One must fnd the source within ones own Sel, one must possess it.
Everything else was seekinga detour, an error.
Hermann Hesse48
The Western tradition o thought is a core aspect o its cultural traditions TOK link
and thereore its understanding o key issues in society, medicine, law,
and even amilial contexts. The essentialist concept o the sel, initiated It is worth remembering that
by Plato, remains dominant and is airly entrenched in the Western this experience is the same
philosophical understanding and its popular culture. It sees the sel as a in other cultures with their
unique entity that is grounded in the ability to reason, which bestows a own intellectual traditions
dignity and worth onto the individual. when they encounter
Western perspectives.
Given how entrenched this view is throughout literature, theatre, the
visual arts, science, and popular culture, many people in the West fnd Is it possible to understand
it difcult to conceive o a radically dierent concept o the sel. We another cultures
have already seen how David Hume rejects the basic premise o the perspective? What
traditions concept o the sel. However, he solution to the issue o the experience and/or
sel remained within the western traditions conceptual ramework. understanding o that
What about alternative perspective? culture enables a person to
be able to claim they know
Two o the most signifcant traditions or the purpose o our inquiry into that perspective?
the sel are ound in India and China.
Assessment tip
These diferent traditions also provide an excellent opportunity to assess
aspects o the Western tradition and in the process provide compare-and-
contrast opportunities. However, the traditions must be arguing about a
similar concept to enable them to be successully used in a compare-and-
contrast activity.
India
The only one breathed breathless by Itsel;
Other than It there nothing since has been.
From the Hymn o Creation in the Rig Veda49
Hinduism is not a monolithic religion. It has no single ounder o the
type and style o religious aiths such as Christianity and Islam. It has
no single scripture or text such as the Abrahamic O ld Testament or
C hristianitys New Testament. S imilarly there is not an agreed or at least
a amiliar set o teachings. In act, there is still considerable debate about
48 Herman Hesse, Siddhartha (New York: New Directions, 1951) , p. 35.
49 Quote taken rom Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, Ancient India (Delhi: Motilal Banarasidass, 1977) , p. 63.
218
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
the worth o the label Hinduism, a recent word coined by the British
colonial administration and used to describe a amily o religions ound
mainly in India in the 1 9th century.
There are numerous schools or traditions defned under this umbrella term.
Some orthodox traditions such as Vedanta are monistic, others such as Nyaya
and Vaisheshika are pluralistic, while others, such as Sankhya and Yoga, are
dualistic. Heterodox systems such as the Jain and Buddhist traditions, despite
their dierences, both reject the authority o the texts known as the Vedas
and the existence o God, while emphasizing the importance o the discipline
o yoga. The Carvakans are materialists, thereore denying the existence o
God, the soul, and any orm o lie ater death.
Nonetheless, there are some similarities that enable a broad study o the
philosophical arguments and systems that are part o these belies. For
example, most Hindu traditions incorporate a proound respect or the Vedas.
Similarly, most Hindu traditions believe in a common system o values
known as dharma and in a unifed subject or soul. It is this last commonality
that is o interest to the investigation o the sel. The role o the sel is
central to nearly all the philosophies o India. The sel and sel-knowledge
are essential to the end goal o lie and thought, whether it is articulated
as achieving reedom, the highest good (however that is defned) , and/or
ultimate meaning. So despite the variations in orthodox Hindu thought a
common thread is the concept o the sel and the role it plays in personal
enlightenment through the sel-discipline o yoga and the achievement o
the total integration o lie in order to attain lies highest good.
A clear articulation o a concept o the sel can be ound in more
philosophical writings called The Upanishads. The title reers to how they
were delivered they were taught to those who sat down beside their
teachers ( upa = near, ni = down, shad = sit) .
Brahminical or orthodox schools o Indian philosophy argue that the sel
( or atman) is a substantial but non- material entity. The initial expression
o this idea is ound in one o the primary ( mukhya) Upanishads, the
Chandogya Upanishad, and it is believed by scholars to have been written
in the 6th century BCE. In this text our selves are distinguished. The
frst three that are identifed and rejected are:
The bodily sel.
The dream sel.
The sel in a dreamless sleep.
Each o these selves is rejected as the true sel because the relationship
between the body and the sel is seen as internal. I the relationship o
the soul and the body is conceived as a horse attached to a cart then,
in metaphysical terms at least, the cart has been put beore the horse.
According to the Chandogya Upanishad, the correct understanding is
that the relationship between the body and the sel is external. The
true sel is one that becomes detached rom the body. The true sel is
deathless, bodiless, ree rom pleasure and pain, an inward spectator
not identifed with the objects o sense, the ego-identity that uses sense
organs and mind as instruments o perception.50 This initial orthodox
50 Troy Wilson Organ, Philosophy and the Self: East and West (Selinsgrove, PA: Associated University Presses,
1987), p. 137.
219
5 BEING HUMAN
writing defnes the ramework and provides the oundation or urther
speculation about the identity o the sel and its nature in this tradition.
READING ACTIVITY As you read them, can you determine the point
the extract is making about the sel?
The ollowing extracts provide a eel or the
teachings ound in The Upanishads. E ach o these
extracts makes an observation about the sel.
Extract one: Uddalaka ( in the morning) : B ring me the salt
Uddalaka: B ring me a ruit rom the banyan tree. you put in the water last night.
Shvetaketu: Here is one, Father.
Uddalaka: B reak it open. Shvetaketu ( ater looking) : Father, I cannot
Shvetaketu: It is broken, Father. fnd it.
Uddalaka: What do you see there?
Shvetaketu: These tiny seeds. Uddalaka: O course not; it has dissolved. Now
Uddalaka: Now break one o them open. taste the water rom the surace. How does
Shvetaketu: It is broken, Father. it taste?
Uddalaka: What do you see there?
Shvetaketu: Nothing, Father. Shvetaketu: Its salty.
Uddalaka: My son, you know there is a
subtle essence which you do not perceive, Uddalaka: Taste the water rom the middle o
but through that essence the truly immense the bowl. How does it taste?
banyan tree exists. Believe it, my son.
Everything that exists has its sel in that subtle Shvetaketu: Its salty.
essence. It is Truth. It is the atman, and you,
S hvetaketu, are that ( tat tvam asi) . Uddalaka: Now taste the water rom the
Shvetaketu: Please, Father, teach me more. bottom. How does it taste?
Uddalaka: I will, my son.
( Chandogya Upanishad: The C hanters Teaching: Shvetaketu: Its salty.
Book VI, Part II, VI 1 2) Uddalaka: Go, throw it away and come back
to me.
Extract two:
Uddalaka: Place this salt in water, and come He did so, and returned.
back to me in the morning.
The son did as he was told. Shvetaketu: B ut, Father, although I have thrown
it away, the salt remains.
Uddalaka: Likewise, though you cannot hear or
perceive or know the subtle essence, it is here.
Everything that exists has its sel in that subtle
essence. It is Truth. It is the atman, and you,
S hvetaketu, are that ( tat tvam asi) .
Shvetaketu: Please, Father, teach me more.
Uddalaka: I will, my son.
( Chandogya Upanishad: The C hanters Teaching:
Book VI, Part II, VI 1 3) 51
The sel expressed in these extracts suggests that the whole, and b) is the constant that remains
the sel is that which a) connects all parts with when all else has changed.
51 Extracts reproduced from Christopher Bartley, An Introduction to Indian Philosophy (London: Continuum
International, 2011) , p. 12.
220
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
The self in Indian thought
The concept of the self in Indian thought becomes a discussion
about the nature of the self. Again the analogy of the chariot is
used to illustrate the position on the self. This entry point allows
a basic appreciation of some of the key features of this traditions
understanding of the self.
THE CHARIOT
Know the self (Atman) as the lord of the chariot and the body as
the chariot, know the intellect (buddhi) as the charioteer and the
mind (manas) as the reins. The senses (indriya) are the horses;
the obj ects of sense the paths; the self associated with the body,
the senses and the mind is the [experiencer] . He who has no
understanding, whose mind is always unrestrained, his senses are
out of control, as wicked horses are for a charioteer. He, however,
who has understanding, whose mind is always restrained, his
senses are under control, as good horses are for a charioteer.
(Katha Upanishad 1. 3. 3) 52
52 Organ, Philosophy and the Self, p. 137; see also http://www.ocoy.org/dharma-for-christians/upanishads-for-
awakening/the-katha-upanishad/the-chariot/ (accessed 20 November 2013) .
221
5 BEING HUMAN
Reading questions
1. What do the charioteer, chariot, the horses, the reins, and the
paths over which the chariot travels each represent?
2. What does the sentence Know the self (Atman) as the lord of the
chariot mean?
3. Platos chariot analogy is less complicated and can be
summarized in the following way: the charioteer is reason,
the horses are spirit and appetite. The image describes
the self. However, in the Hindu version, what does the
image represent?
Extension
Using a diagrammatic format, compare and contrast both chariot
analogies.
The Upanishads defne the sel in relation to the body, the senses, the
intellect, and the mind. The body, intellect, and mind are all active
in the world. However, the sel is passive, being a mere observer.
The key statement is Know the sel ( Atman) as the lord o the
chariot. The owner o the chariot is the sel, or rather the universal
sel as pure consciousness. This is a characteristic eature o Hindu
p h i l o s o p h y.
The self as controller
Next, Ya j avalkya, in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, conceives o the
sel in terms o consciousness and the minds cognitive capabilities. In
a debate with his teacher, Uddaluka, Ya j avalkya argues that the sel is
an inner controller ( antaryamin) , evident in all sensation, thinking, and
doing. Yet while this sel is part o these experiences it is also distinct,
understood in terms o intuition.
The senses are said to be higher than the sense-objects. The mind is
higher than the senses. The intelligent will is higher than the mind.
What is higher than the intelligent will? The Atman Itsel.
(Bhagavad Gita 3:42) 53
The sel has mastery over the physical sel and the mental sel but
the sel is not made up o these selves. C onsequently, it cannot be
rationalized, nor can it be described in language, as this would
make it an object o this world. As Jonardon Ganeri describes it
in The Concealed Art of the Soul,
53 See http://www.ocoy.org/dharma-for-christians/upanishads-for-awakening/the-katha-upanishad/the-chariot/
(accessed 20 November 2013) .
222
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
[h] ere is a way to reach the selnot by grasping it as an object, but
catching it in its activity o sensing and thinking. Just as it is hopeless
to catch a sound in the air, so it is impossible to catch the sel as i it
were a thing. I we cannot catch the sound once it has been released,
we can catch it at the moment o its productioncatch the producing
o the sound. I we cannot catch the sel as an object among others in
the world, we can catch it in the very act o thinking.54
Each o these concepts o the sel suggests that the sel and the ultimate
reality are the same.
As a mass o salt has no distinctive core and surace; the whole
thing is a single mass o avourso indeed, my dear, this sel has
no distinctive core and surace; the whole thing is a single mass
o cognition. It arises out o and together with these beings and
disappears ater themso I say, ater death there is no awareness.
(Brhadaranyaka Upanisad 4.6.3) 55
Later on in the tradition o Hindu thought, the discussion o the sel took
a subtle but distinct turn. The concept o the sel expressed by Vedanta,
one o the popular orthodox systems o Indian philosophical thought,
now defned the sel as separate rom the ultimate reality. Vedanta is
the label or schools o thought that interpret the three basic texts:
The Upanishads, the Brahman Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita.
A specifc concept o the sel worth reecting upon comes rom the
Advaita Vedanta ( without a second) school and its most inuential
philosopher, S ankara.
The Advaita philosophical position on the sel is monistic. It states
that there is only one reality and that reality is called the Brahman.
Brahman can be described in many dierent terms though all with
an underlying principle. These are ubiquitous, absolute, ormless,
immaterial, immutable, without any attributes, and ineable. According
to S ankara, the true sel, or the Atman ( meaning breath or spirit) , is
identical to this reality or Brahman so the sel is part o this reality and
indistinguishable. The individual sel ( Jiva) is mere appearance ( maya) in
time and space. The reason there is a distinction is because o a ailure to
ully realize the nature o reality or a ailure to discriminate between the
true sel and the non-true sel. This misunderstanding can be overcome
through the development o sel-awareness.56
This conception o the sel, which is representative o a signifcant number
o Hindu traditions, is conceived in terms o the changeless and the inactive.
54 Jonardon Ganeri, The Concealed Art ofthe Soul: Theories ofSelfand Practices ofTruth in Indian Ethics and
Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) , p. 35.
55 Quote reproduced from Patrick Olivelle (trans.) , Upanisads (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) , p. 71.
56 See Bina Gupta, Perceiving in Advaita Vedanta: Epistemological Analysis and Interpretation (London:
Associated University Presses, 1991) , p. 58.
223
5 BEING HUMAN
This is distinct rom the sel defned by Ya javalkya, who conceived o the
sel as active and dynamic. Yet they all tend to share an understanding o
the sel that is phenomenological in nature; it is understood conceptually or
cognitively, rather as a eeling or a presence that is part o an experience.
This leads to the question, what does sel-awareness seek to achieve? In this
tradition, the sel is not an entity requiring defnition. Instead, it is a vehicle
to a specifc goal. Throughout the Hindu tradition there is a common
goal or the sel. The ultimate goal is the dissolution o the sel and the
attainment o reedom through a heightened sel-awareness and thereore
enlightenment. In the Advaita Verdanta, a non-dualism philosophy, or
example, this is known as moksa. The individual is not unconscious. Rather
in this state, consciousness and the other are no longer:
Where verily, everything has become the Sel, then by what and
whom should one smell, then by what and whom should one see,
then by what and whom should one hear, then by what and to
whom should one speak, and then by what and on whom should
one think, then by what and whom should one understand? By what
should one know that by which all this is known. B y what, my dear,
should one know the knower?57
The result is saccida nanda, when defned in reerence to a post-
human state. This labels the three undamental attributes o
B rahman: existence, awareness, and bliss. However, even this
term is inadequate or a condition that cannot be stated in any
empirical sense.
ANALYSIS ACTIVITY
1. Read the ollowing quotations:
Every action is really perormed by the gunas [sensory energies] .
Man, deluded by his egoism, thinks: I am the doer. B ut he who
has the true insight into the operations o the gunas and their
various unctions, knows that when senses attach themselves
to objects, gunas are merely attaching themselves to gunas.
Knowing this, he does not become attached to his actions.
(Bhagavad Gita 3:27, 28) 58
You dream you are the doer
(Bhagavad Gita 5:14) 59
57 Organ, Philosophy and the Self, p. 138.
58 Reproduced from W. J. Johnson (trans.) , Bhagavad Gita (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)
59 Ibid.
224
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
Let the wise man know these gunas alone as the doers o every
action; let him learn to know That Which is beyond them, also.
(Bhagavad Gita 14:19) 60
2 Write an analysis o the concept o the sel that is suggested in
these three quotes. As part o your analysis reect on what the
quotes are suggesting but also what they are not suggesting about
the concept o the sel.
Buddhism and the anatta/anatman (or no self)
Like vanishing dew,
a passing apparition
or the sudden ash
o lightningalready gone
thus should one regard ones sel.
Ikky u , a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk (13941481) 61
To study the way is to study the sel
To study the sel is to orget the sel
To orget the sel is to be enlightened by all things
Zen Master Dogen62
Self as dynamic interaction
Buddhism is regarded as unorthodox Hinduism. By this, it is meant
that it was conceived as a response to certain aspects o the central
tenets o Hinduism. So while it rejected certain aspects, it remained
predominantly within the same system o thought. In many aspects,
Buddhism was a political reaction to the authority that defned then
contemporary society, such as the caste system. O ne o these aspects
is the concept o the sel. Instead it presented the concept o anatta ( or
anatman in S anskrit) , which is the negative orm o atman. Again, in
Buddhist teachings there are a number o controversies and variations.
The interpretation presented here reerences Buddhas Second Sermon,
which appears in Anattalkkhana Sutta and the Mahavagga section o the
Vinaya. B uddha presents anatta as three marks: impermanence ( anicca) ,
suering ( dukkha) , and non- sel ( anatta) . This indicates that change,
disintegration, and non-essentialism are the basic eatures o all things.
Buddhism retains the use o analogies to put orward its ideas and
arguments.
60 Ibid.
61 Reproduced from Sam Hamill (trans.) , Only Companion: Japanese Poems ofLove and Longing (Boston, MA:
Shambala Publications, 2013) , p. 38.
62 Sekkei Harada, The Essence ofZen: The Teachings ofSekkei Harada, edited and translated by Daigaku Rumm
(Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2012) , p. 157.
225
5 BEING HUMAN
EXERCISE: A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
Exploring the concepts o identity and individuality
Think o a candle. You light the candle and then your riend asks
you to light her candle with yours. You do so and then your candle
accidentally blows out. Does the ame still exist? Or is there another
ame in its place? Is it related to the ame? Is it a new ame?
Would you say it was your ame and you wanted it back?
This is a challenging thought experiment and one that highlights the
manner in which we tend to defne identity.
The next step is to think through a similar thought experiment
involving a drop o water.
Imagine you are standing next to a bath. Using a cup, allow a drop o
water to all into the bath. Now use the same cup to retrieve the drop o
water. How would you know you have been successul? People trained
in the Western scientifc tradition would immediately start to think
about atoms. This is how we commonly understand reality and thereore
identity (the defning characteristic o an entity) . Return to the ame.
Does this approach make sense?
Write an analysis o these two thought experiments. Explore the
undamental metaphysical systems in Western thought, Eastern
thought, and even other indigenous traditions o thought.
The B uddhists traditional concept o the sel is defned as anatta or no
sel. In this way, they agree with Hume that the sel is an illusion. This
position rejects the concept o the sel as a permanent sel conceived as a
unifed entity.
What does the sel reer to? According to Buddhist philosophy, the sel is
the collection o fve aggregates or aspects (khandha) . These are the physical
orm (rupa) , sensation (vedana) , conceptualization or perceptions (sanna) ,
dispositions to act or attitudes (sankhara) , and consciousness (vinnana) .
Buddha, discussing the issue o the sel with fve ascetics, asks: And that
which is impermanent, subject to decay, and not-sel, is it possible to regard
that in this way: This is mine, this am I, this is my sel?63 This question is
repeated or each o the aggregates and each ascetic says no, thereore
rejecting the idea o the sel. The point being made by Buddha is not that
there is not a sel, just that a sel is not evident. There is no exercising o
mastery in each o these aggregates that would indicate a sel, unlike in
Hindu thought where a leader, a guide or an inner controller exists.64
However, the goal o B uddhism remains the same: the achievement
o enlightenment or Nirvana. This deconstruction o the sel in Hindu
thought is part o the process. C onsequently, the sel is present, but
must be overcome. The sel implied in Buddhist thought is the continual
63 Mark Siderits, Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2007) , p. 38.
64 Steven Collins, Selfess Persons: Imagery and Thought in Theravada Buddhism (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1982) , p. 97.
226
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
interplay between these fve elements. However, there is no substance or
identity beyond this interaction.
One o the most accessible Buddhist parables on the subject is the chariot
parable. As we saw earlier, Plato and Hinduism also used a chariot to help
illustrate the concept o the sel. The chariot had a very high status in
societies because o its eective use by nobles in warare. This makes it a
potent symbol and well known in ancient intellectual circles. The extract
below is rom a B uddhist text, Milindapaha (Questions of King Milinda) .
READING ACTIVITY 2 nd century B C E, between King Menander,
a Greek ruler o northwestern India, and a
The ollowing is a debate on the concept o the Buddhist monk called Nagasena.
sel and the issue o identity. The two points o
view reected are Western ( ancient Greek)
and Eastern (Buddhism) . It occurred in the
The Chariot Parable ordinations. I your ellow monks call you
Nagasena, what then is Nagasena? Would you
Then King Menander went up to the Venerable say that your hair is Nagasena?
Nagasena, greeted him respectully, and sat
down. Nagasena replied to the greeting, and No, your Maj esty.
the King was pleased at heart. Then King
Menander asked: Or your nails, teeth, skin, or other parts o
your body, or the outward orm, or sensation,
How is your reverence known, and what is or perception, or the psychic constructions, or
your name? consciousness? Are any o these Nagasena?
Im known as Nagasena, your Maj esty, thats No, your Maj esty.
what my ellow monks call me. But though
my parents may have given me such a name Then or all my asking I fnd no Nagasena.
its only a generally understood term, a Nagasena is a mere sound! Surely what your
practical designation. There is no question o a Reverence has said is alse!
permanent individual implied in the use o the
word. Then the Venerable Nagasena addressed the
King.
Listen, you fve hundred Greeks and eighty
thousand monks! said King Menander. This Your Maj esty, how did you come here on
Nagasena has just declared that theres no oot, or in a vehicle?
permanent individuality implied in his name!
In a chariot.
Then, turning to Nagasena,
Then tell me what is the chariot? Is the pole
I, Reverend Nagasena, there is no permanent the chariot?
individuality, who gives you monks your
robes and ood, lodging and medicines? And No, your Reverence.
who makes use o them? Who lives a lie o
righteousness, meditates, and reaches Nirvana? Or the axle, wheels, rame, reins, yoke, spokes
Who destroys living beings, steals, ornicates, or whip?
tells lies, or drinks spirits? I what you say is
true theres neither merit nor demerit, and no None o these things is the chariot.
ruit or result o good or evil deeds. I someone
were to kill you there would be no question Then all these separate parts taken together
or murder. And there would be no masters are the chariot?
or teachers in the [Buddhist] Order and no
No, your Reverence.
Then is the chariot something other than the
separate parts?
227
5 BEING HUMAN
No, your Reverence. the pole, axle, wheels, and so on, that the
vehicle is called a chariot. Its just a generally
Then or all my asking, your Maj esty, I can understood term, a practical designation.
fnd no chariot. The chariot is a mere sound.
What then is the chariot? Surely what your Well said, your Maj esty! You know what
Majesty has said is alse! There is no chariot! the word chariot means! And its just the
same with me. Its on account o the various
When he had spoken the fve hundred Greeks components o my being that Im known by
cried Well done! and said to the King, Now, the generally understood term, the practical
your Majesty, get out o that dilemma i you can! designation Nagasena.65
What I said was not alse, replied the King.
Its on account o all these various components,
Activities 3. Having delineated each argument, evaluate
them, looking or implied assumptions, the
1. Reread the passage. What doesnt it mention quality o their argument (justifcation o
about the chariot? Compare this to Platos and the position, selection o examples) , and the
the Katha Upanishads use o the chariot. What implications o the position.
conclusions can be drawn rom these absences?
2. Map out the dialogue as a ow chart,
expressing each stage in your own words to
reect your own understanding.
Rejecting the self
It is worth noting what Nagasena is not doing when reerring to the chariot.
There is no mention o horses, or reins, or even a charioteer. Nagasena is
rejecting the metaphor o a chariot and thereore the sel. He does not even
want to highlight the presence o an entity, guiding, directing the chariot or
charioteer. Our common sense understanding is teased out when he asks
whether all these separate parts taken together are the chariot. We would
say yes, though only i they were properly assembled and unctioning as
a chariot. Buddhism says no. They are, to use a phrase by the German
philosopher Leibniz, a borrowed reality; the whole has a status less real
than the individual parts. As such, the Buddhist rejects the sel, defning the
fve aggregates. The sel is being indicated but not the sel o the immaterial,
substantial tradition o Hinduism and Descartes. In this sense Buddhism is
not rejecting the sel, just this orm o the sel.
For Buddhists, there is no soul storing Karmic ormations, thereby rejecting
the changeless agent. However, to ully comprehend the implications o
this, think o a hand grasping or something. In the Western concept o the
sel, grasping is something done by the hand, while in the Buddhist concept
o the sel, the sel is something done by grasping. The action comes frst
and then the sel or hand momentarily comes into existence. The sel is in
the moment sel as an event or as a response.66
65 R. K. Pruthi, Buddhism and Indian Civilization (New Delhi: Discovery Publishing House, 2004) , p. 115.
66 See D. K. Nauriyal, M. S. Drummond, and Y. B. Lal (eds) , Buddhist Thought and Applied Psychological Research:
Transcending the Boundaries (London: Routledge, 2006) .
228
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
Exploring comparative approaches FIND OUT MORE
In Western commentary B uddhism is oten compared with the philosophy Compare and contrast
o the sel argued by Hume. This oten results in superfcial treatments o
both positions on the sel. The ollowing activity provides an opportunity Compare and contrast
to urther develop your analytical and evaluative skills. the position o Hume
and the Theravada
A basic approach to compare and contrast is to initially look or Buddhists concept o
shared assumptions, concepts, methodologies, and evidence and the sel.
the dierences. This can involve identiying something that is not
acknowledged or discussed in one o the positions. I there are HUME AND
signifcant dierences between two arguments o positions then BUDDHISM
looking at the nature and context o the philosophical inquiry can also
be important. Did Hume develop his
critique o the Western
A comparison between Hume and the Theravada Buddhists concepts sel rom reading
o the sel provides an excellent opportunity to explore this skill in the Buddhist thought?
context o a ascinating position on the sel. It is worth starting with the It does seem remarkable
understanding that while there are similarities between their positions that Hume developed
there are also signifcant dierences when a much more detailed analysis a position that is very
is undertaken. similar to a tradition o
thinking that was very
Sim ila rities distant rom him.
Alison Gopnik argues
Theravada Buddhists similarly believe that there is no fxed human that Hume did have
nature. In terms o the sel they also believe that there is no sel with a access to materials about
fxed or defnite existence. Instead they believe that there is just a ow Buddhist thought while
o perceptions, impressions, or experiences one ater another. he was staying in France
in the 1 730s.67
Diferences Does this make his
contribution any less
Theravada Buddhists believe that salvation is possible through giving important?
up the craving or sel-identity and the striving or personal success and
sel-ulflment. On the other hand, Hume draws no ethical conclusions
rom his discovery that the sel is an illusion; in act he thinks we wont
be able to really take his conclusion seriously.
Hume treats the problem o the sel as chiey an epistemological problem,
while or B uddhism it is an ethical problem. What is the dierence
between analysing the sel as an epistemological question and as an
ethical question?
China
Conucianism: sel as a potential or selfshness
In general, owing to the inuence o Descartes, the concept o the sel
in the West is dependent on introspection, although this is less so in
contemporary thought as illustrated by existentialism (see below) . When
looking at dierent traditions o thought it is tempting to look or the
amiliar as a starting point. The Conucian tradition o thought oers
another approach to the question o the sel.
67 See Philosophy Bites, Alison Gopnik on Hume and Buddhism, 2013, available at
http://philosophybites.com/2013/09/alison-gopnik-on-hume-and-buddhism.html (accessed
26 November 2013) .
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5 BEING HUMAN
There is a belie by Western scholars that C onucian thought does not
contain a concept o the sel.
I one had no selfsh motives, but only the supreme virtues, there would
be no sel I he serves selessly, he does not know what service is [does
not recognize it as service] . I he knows what service is, he has a sel
[to think] only o parents but not o yoursel is what I call no sel.
Zoku Kyuo dowa68
Service to others or at least the supreme leader requires selessness. As
Hiroshi Minami, a writer on Conucian thought, notes, [the Conucian
concept o no-sel] is identical with the spirit o service-above-sel,
where every spontaneous impulse is rejected as selfshness.69
C onsequently, the concept o the sel does not include discussions using
the concepts o material, substance, spirit, memory, or other arguments
made by Western thinkers. Rather, the ocus is on personality and in
particular personality developed through nurture in the context o the
social or communal.
Here is a discussion on the sel between a Western philosopher and an
Eastern philosopher that occurred in 1 957:
Hisamatsu: The sel is the true Formless Sel only Tillich (later) : Even so, you cant eliminate the
when it awakens to itsel it is always at once my Is it that there is no centered sel, no sel-
ones own and not ones own the Formless related sel, which would be a hindrance?
Sel includes, in so ar as it is Sel, Sel-awareness.
But by this ormless Sel (or Sel-awareness) I DeMartino (Translator or Hisamatsu) : The barrier
mean the Formless-Mysel, which expresses is created by the reectively sel-conscious ego
or presentsItsel in its activities The True or Iwhich discriminates itsel rom not-
Awakeningor Formless Selin Itsel has neither itselor not-I. Muge no hindrance [is] the
a beginning, an ending, a special place, nor a overcoming o this barrier
special time.
Tillich: B y the removal o individuality?
Tillich: Then it cannot happen to a human being.
DeMartino: No, by the ulfllment o individuality.
Hisamatsu: with this Sel-awakening one is
no longer an ordinary human being. Tillich: What is the dierence ?70
The Conucian concept o the sel is related to the notion o potential
and perection or by ulflment. Perection is defned by being moral,
or more specifcally by being virtuous. The sel is always reaching
towards this perection despite it being unobtainable. It is not an
essence nor is it an existence (although it is closer to the latter) . The
sel is not something that is static, rather it is dynamic. For example, a
68 Quote reproduced from Roger T. Ames, Wimal Dissanakaye, and Thomas P. Kasulis (eds) , Selfas Person in Asian
Theory and Practice (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994) , pp. 6465.
69 Ibid., p. 65.
70 Ibid., p. 71.
230
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
Conucian sage is not someone who has reached perection, rather it is
someone whose path towards perection has become part o their sel.
In the dialogue Paul Tillichs rustration is partly caused by the two
dierent approaches. Tillich is being analytical while Hisamatsu is
seeking to defne the sel in terms that could not be expressed within the
conceptual ramework essential to this approach.
EXERCISE: A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
As an editor rom a philosophy publishing However, i we look at the second philosopher,
house you ask two philosophers to write Hakuseki, in his Told Round a Brushwood
their autobiographies. Let us say that the two Fire ( 1 71 6) , he writes in relation to events
examples are eminent Swiss philosopher Jean- important to His Highness Shogun Ienobu
Jacques Rousseau and the respected Japanese and with the intent to educate his sons and
Conucian scholar Aria Hakuseki. grandsons in exemplary conduct. He starts
with a detailed discussion o his ather and
What would they understand as the proper his grandather to illustrate his own guide
content o an autobiography? to loyalty and flial piety. When he turns to
his own lie he recounts major political and
Regardless o whom you asked, the intention administrative events that concerned his service
o an autobiography would appear to be the to Shogun Ienobu.
same: to tell an honest account o a persons past
experiences based on his or her recollections o The frst approach is a conession o the inner
these events. There would also be an underlying and hidden or introspective sel. The second
imperative to justiy the decisions made and approach is a record o a public and honourable
oer the correct interpretation and evaluation o lie. These two autobiographies illustrate the
their consequences. dierent concepts o the sel in the liberal West
and the Conucian inuenced East.
I we look at our frst philosopher, Rousseau, we
fnd in his Confessions ( 1 782 ) a treatise based on In the Conucian inuenced thought, the sel is
what he remembered thinking at the time, the determined by the individuals place in the larger
emotions he was eeling, and his perception in context, such as amily and society.
these terms o those around him. In other words
both their presumed understanding o the event
and their emotional states.
The Confucian self
In simple terms, every person is born with our beginnings. However,
they do not constitute a sel but can be seen as a potential sel. These are:
Heart o compassion leads to Jen
Heart o righteousness leads to Yi
Heart o propriety leads to Li
Heart o wisdom leads to Chih
The development o these towards moral excellence provides the
ramework or the development o the actual sel, the realization o the
potential sel even i this only remains an ideal.
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5 BEING HUMAN
FIND OUT MORE
Daoism emerged around the same time as Conucianism and was
established by Laozi (Lao Tze or Lao Tzu) or Old Master. In Chinese
society it is seen as a counterbalance to the strict social philosophy
o Conucianism. Daoism is a person philosophy and emphasizes
individuality and individual reedom, embracing nature, harmony,
and spontaneity, by placing them at the core o the philosophy.
Research the concept o the sel with a particular ocus on the
ollowing:
The role o the Dao as the way
The role o tranquillity and activity (in contrast to the Buddhist
state o Nirvana)
The role o human attributes (in contrast to the Hindu
metaphysical belie in the dissolution o the sel)
Rejection ofthe essential self
Introduction to the existential self
The argument put orward by Kant is both an end and a beginning.
In many ways Kant had resolved many o the outstanding issues
identifed in Descartes concept o the sel. The impact o Kants
work was immense and became the new reerence point or modern
philosophy. However, Kant was still working within the ramework
established by Plato and then modernized by Descartes. The concept
o the sel in this tradition had been concerned with what I am, not
who I am as an individual. The treatment o being human remained
essentially abstract and ormal.
According to Cartesian (and Platonic) metaphysics, the sel is thought
to be situated in a sel-positing I think whose unction is to produce
representations o things in the world. And because the sel is only
related to its representations, which are separated rom the world, it is
defned as an isolated ego encapsulated in its immanent consciousness.71
As a result the changing nature o the context in which this sel ound
itsel had been rejected and then eventually orgotten. As Heidegger
suggests, [i] n taking over Descartes ontological position Kant made
an essential omission: he ailed to provide an ontology o Dasein.72
This ontology was the manner o being that is a being-in-the-world. In
other words, to understand anything in the world is not simply a pure
71 Peter Ha, Heideggers Concept of solus ipse and the Problem of Intersubjectivity, in Kwok Ying-Lau, Chan-Fai
Cheung, and Tze-Wan Kwan (eds) , Identity and Alterity: Phenomenology and Cultural Traditions (Germany:
Knigshausen & Neumann, 2010) , p. 351.
72 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, with a new foreword by
Taylor Carman (New York: Harper & Row, 2008), p. 46.
232
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
intellectual act. S imilarly, the C artesian sel was merely a thinking thing,
with human ellowship and empathy nowhere in consideration.
Luckily (and ironically) a neurotic, solitary genius, Rousseau, rejected
this sel, positing instead eeling and a sense o moral goodness as
the essence o the sel. The introspective sel o Descartes and Locke
was also rejected, being replaced by an expressive sel that was
extrospective. The sel now had a personality. This counterbalance to
the Cartesian sel was not well received partly because o Rousseaus
own behaviour, but his inuence had a proound impact on Kant. This
inuence on Kants philosophy let an avenue o inquiry that more
radical philosophers sought to exploit.
The analytical and continental tradition
The history o philosophy appears to take two divergent paths
analytical philosophy and continental philosophy. Like all
generalizations these are not perect labels or categories. Nonetheless,
they provide an indication o the nature o Kants inuence. These
two schools were defned by which work o Kant was seen as the
most important. The two most prominent were First Critique or Critique
of Pure Reason ( 1 7 8 1 ) and Third Critique or Critique of the Power of
Judgment ( 1 7 9 0 ) .
The First Critique is ocused on epistemology and thereore the pursuit o
logic and knowledge and becomes the oundational work o the analytic
tradition and its association with scientifc enlightenment. The Third
Critique is ocused on how to understand knowledge through experience.
As Simon Critchley expresses it:
Kant attempts to construct a bridge between the aculties o the
understanding (the domain o epistemology whose concern is
knowledge o nature) and reason (the domain o ethics whose concern
is reedom) , through a critique o the aculty o judgement I one
takes this route, then the burning issue o Kants philosophy becomes
the plausibility o the relation o pure and practical reason, nature and
reedom, or the unity o theory and practice Arguably, it is this route
that Continental philosophy has ollowed ever since.73
The foundation of the existential self
The relationship between existentialism and phenomenology is oten
debated. For our purposes they are closely related, with phenomenology
laying the oundation or existentialism.
Phenomenology as an approach to the self
This approach was exceptionally inuential on philosophical schools
such as phenomenology (which led to a number o other philosophical
schools) . The German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1 8591 938)
73 Simon Critchley, Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) , p. 19.
233
5 BEING HUMAN
established phenomenology in the late 1 9th century with the ambition TOK link
that philosophy take as its primary task the description o the structures
o experience as they present themselves to consciousness.74 By this Existentialists reject
Husserl thought it possible to go back to the things themselves75 essentialism and tend
without a theoretical ramework, assumptions, or terminology. Later, to share an opposition to
this was defned as a return to life-world or a return to experience beore rationalism and empiricism.
obj ectifcation and idealization that could be explored intuitively. Many critics have argued
While some commentators saw this as irrational mysticism, Husserl was existentialists are anti-
inspired by his attempt to understand the nature o mathematical and rational, even claiming they
logical truths and a critique o reason. The ambition was to establish the are irrationalists.
oundation o a rigorous science. This ambition should sound amiliar.
Descartes and Kant sought to accomplish similar projects, lay a new However, this has tended
oundation in response to emerging needs in society. Regardless o to be more or rhetorical
whether this was successul, phenomenology was regarded as a radical, purposes than a serious
anti-traditional style o philosophising76 and as such provided the claim. Regardless, all these
platorm both or new approaches to old issues and the identifcation o criticisms should be seen
new issues that could be treated philosophically. in the context o rejecting
pure rationalism defned
Husserls most amous student, and ellow German, was Martin by Platonism. Instead,
Heidegger (1 8891 976) , who was inspired by Husserls new approach embracing the validity o
to philosophy in the early stages o his career but also highly critical o it emotion as an epistemology.
at the same time. As Mark Wrathall and Hubert Dreyus explain:
Heidegger rejected Husserls ocus on consciousness and, consequently,
much o his basic phenomenological method. For Heidegger, the
purpose o phenomenological description was not to discover the
structures o consciousness, but to make maniest the structure o
our everyday being-in-the-world. Because Heideggers interest was
worldly relations rather than mental contents, he rejected both the
useulness o the phenomenological method as practiced by Husserl
and the need or mental meanings to account or many i not most
orms o intentional directedness.77
Phenomenology ocused on lived human experience in all its richness
and depth, escaping the limitation o strict empiricism and reductive
psychology and exploring the aective, emotional, and imaginative
aspects o lie. The other becomes essential to the study o an
individuals existence. Experience is no longer an abstract, artifcial
reerence point but lived, as a result o engaging with the world o others.
Heidegger rejected the latent presence o D escartes cogito, ergo sum that
defned Husserls project, fnding his teachers attempt to overcome the
subjectobject divide to be inadequate. Heidegger undertook an even
more radical orm o phenomenology ounded on a complete rejection o
the philosophy o the cogito and its inherent subj ectivity.
74 Mark A. Wrathall and Hubert L. Dreyus, A Brie Introduction to Phenomenology and Existentialism, in Hubert L.
Dreyus and Mark A. Wrathall (eds) , A Companion to Phenomenology and Existentialism (Chichester, UK: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2009) , p. 2.
75 Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations, vol. 1, translated by J. N. Findlay (New York: Routledge, 2001) , p. 168.
76 Dermot Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 4.
77 Wrathall and Dreyus, A BrieIntroduction . . ., p. 3.
234
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
Jean-Paul Sartre (1 9051 980) was trained as a phenomenologist
but, having attended Heideggers lectures, he shared his ocus
on relationships in the world. Yet he sought to account or these
relationships in a Husserlian ashion, retaining a ocus on consciousness.
S artre was still a C artesian philosopher, resisting Heideggers attempts
to overcome this aspect o Husserls philosophy. According to S artre,
existentialism was a doctrine which makes human lie possible and,
in addition, declares that every truth and every action implies a human
setting and a human subjectivity.78
However, beore these two philosophers are explored urther there is a
need to consider Kierkegaard and Nietzsche two oundational thinkers
in this tradition o thought.
READING ACTIVITY
Read the ollowing story:
The other one, the one called Borges, is the B esides, I am destined to perish, defnitively,
one things happen to. I walk through the and only some instant o mysel can survive in
streets o Buenos Aires and stop or a moment, him. Little by little, I am giving over everything
perhaps mechanically now, to look at the to him, though I am quite aware o his perverse
arch o an entrance hall and the grillwork on custom o alsiying and magniying things.
the gate; I know o Borges rom the mail and
see his name on a list o proessors or in a Spinoza knew that all things long to persist
biographical dictionary. I like hourglasses, maps, in their being; the stone eternally wants to
eighteenth-century typography, the taste o be a stone and the tiger a tiger. I shall remain
coee and the prose o Stevenson; he shares in Borges, not in mysel (i it is true that I am
these preerences, but in a vain way that turns someone) , but I recognize mysel less in his
them into the attributes o an actor. It would books than in many others or in the laborious
be an exaggeration to say that ours is a hostile strumming o a guitar. Years ago I tried to ree
relationship; I live, let mysel go on living, so mysel rom him and went rom the mythologies
that Borges may contrive his literature, and this o the suburbs to the games with time and
literature justifes me. It is no eort or me to infnity, but those games belong to B orges now
coness that he has achieved some valid pages, and I shall have to imagine other things. Thus
but those pages cannot save me, perhaps because my lie is a ight and I lose everything and
what is good belongs to no one, not even to everything belongs to oblivion, or to him.
him, but rather to the language and to tradition.
I do not know which o us has written this page.79
What is your (philosophical) response to this passage?
78 Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism (Yale: Yale University Press, 2007) , p. 12.
79 Jorge Luis Borges, Borges and I, in The Aleph and Other Stories, translated by Andrew Hurley (London:
Penguin, 2000) , p. 177.
235
5 BEING HUMAN
Introduction to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche
The greatest hazard o all, losing ones sel, can occur very quietly in the
world, as i it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any
other loss an arm, a leg, fve dollars, a wie, etc. is sure to be noticed.
Sren Kierkegaard80
I am body and soul so speaks the child. And why should one not
speak like children. But the awakened, the enlightened man says:
I am body entirely, and nothing beside; and body and soul is only a
word or something in the body You say I and you are proud
o this word. But greater than this although you will not believe
in it is your body and its great intelligence, which does not say I
but perorms I B ehind your thoughts and eelings, my brother,
stands a mighty commander, an unknown sage he is called S el.
He lives in your body, he is your body.
Friedrich Nietzsche81
Since Plato, the dominant tendency in Western thought was to assume
that essence precedes existence. The essentialist tradition had looked
or the sel in a manner appropriate to this belie. However, there was
an intellectual impetus to question some o the prevailing assumptions
evident in the intellectual culture o the 1 9th century.
The ather o existentialism, Sren Kierkegaard (1 81 31 855) , was the
frst philosopher to question these assumptions, insisting that in order
to have an essence an individual must frst exist. Another philosopher
o this period, who wrote a little later than Kierkegaard, Nietzsche (see
biography on p. 39 in Chapter 2: Human Nature) , also believed that
individuals must make choices.
Both emphasized reedom in their thinking and as such expressed concern
about the role o the masses and by extension the nature o society
in general. They both wrote during the latter stages o the Industrial
Revolution when the mood o the Enlightenment had shited and the
eects o the Industrial Revolution were becoming evident through its
impact on the societies o Europe. It was a time o political revolution too
and this mood fltered through to philosophy in a number o ways.
Another philosopher who was heavily inuenced by these events was
Karl Marx (1 81 81 883) . In many ways Kierkegaard and Marx were
responding to the same issues evident in European society at this time,
including the ideology o religion. While each had a dierent response
to the impacts o these issues, both highlighted the increasing alienation
o the individual and were concerned about the loss o individuality with
the emergence o a mass society ( and culture) in the 1 9th century. This
perceived alienation led to a concern or authenticity.
80 Sren Kierkegaard, Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening,
Kierkegaards Writings Series, XIX, edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1983) , pp. 3233.
81 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for None and All, translated by Walter Kaufmann
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974) , p. 135.
236
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
FIND OUT MORE
Research Marxs concept o human nature.
Does Marx argue a concept o the sel? Compare and contrast this
position with the position o Hume. What are the similarities and
dierences?
As such Kierkegaard and Nietzsche introduced into philosophy a concern
or the role o the public along with their concern or reedom. They
urged an end to collective identity and social roles in avour o renewed
respect or the individual. They demanded that an individual must act
authentically. I they dont they will all into the world o others,
becoming simply what others expect or demand o them. C onsequently,
they will lose their identity and thereore their sel.
This is clearly illustrated by Kierkegaard when he claims there are two
dierent kinds o people.
And that is what existing is like i one is to be conscious o it. Eternity
is like that winged steed, innitely quick, temporality is an old nag,
and the existing person is the wagon- driver, that is, unless existing
is taken to be what people usually call existing, because then the
existing person is not a wagon-driver but a drunken peasant who lies
in the wagon and sleeps and lets the horses take care o themselves.
O course, he also drives, he is also a carriage- driver, and likewise
there perhaps are many who also exist.82
The frst is the spectator and the second
is the actor. He argued that the ormer is
passive while the latter, the actor, is
active and thereore authentically
existing. To help explain this
Kierkegaard compared two kinds o
people in a wagon. The frst is holding
the reins while asleep. The other is
holding the reins while ully awake. In
the frst situation, the horse pulls the
wagon down a amiliar road without any
assistance rom the sleeping person. In
the second situation, the driver actually
drives the wagon. Kierkegaard concedes
that both individuals exist, but he makes
the point that existence is a quality in
the individual and consequently a p The Persistence oMemory, by Salvador Dali
person must consciously participate in
an act to ully exist. Thereore, only the conscious driver exists as he is
ree by making active decisions about his lie. In other words, both the
spectator and the actor exist, but only the actor is involved in existence.
82 Sren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientifc Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, Volume I, Kierkegaards
Writings Series, XII, edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1992) , pp. 311312.
237
5 BEING HUMAN
Kierkegaard, authenticity and the issue of introspection
REFLECTION
Kierkegaard encapsulated this concern with authenticity in the story
o the shadow. The shadow o the shadow is the representative o
a person who does not exist as they have lost their identity.
There was once a man who discovered his shadow. Watching its
lithe motion, he assumed that it was alive. Because it ollowed
him so aithully, he decided that he was its master and that it
was his servant. But gradually he began to believe that it was the
shadow that was initiating the action and that the shadow was his
irreplaceable guide and companion. He took increasing account
o its comort and welare. He awkwardly maneuvered himsel in
order that it might sit in a chair or lie in bed. The importance o
the shadow to the man grew to such an extent that fnally the man
became, in eect, the shadow o his shadow.
What do you think Kierkegaard was trying to convey with this story?
Authenticity is a second-order question in relation to the sel. As
it reerences a position on the sel, the concept o the sel must be
determined frst. Authenticity also involves the concepts o sincerity,
autonomy, and sel- realization. There are a number o positions and
issues on the concept o authenticity that are worth noting.
Louis P. Poj man in Philosophy: The Pursuit of Wisdom tells a story that
captures Kierkegaards concerns:
There was once a man who discovered his shadow. Watching its lithe
motion, he assumed that it was alive. Because it ollowed him so
aithully, he decided that he was its master and that it was his servant.
But gradually he began to believe that it was the shadow that was
initiating the action and that the shadow was his irreplaceable guide and
companion. He took increasing account o its comort and welare. He
awkwardly maneuvered himsel in order that it might sit in a chair or lie
in bed. The importance o the shadow to the man grew to such an extent
that fnally the man became, in eect, the shadow o his shadow.83
C harles Taylor, in his work Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of
Recognition, makes the ollowing statement:
There is a certain way o being human that is my way. I am called upon
to live my lie in this way, and not in imitation o anyone elses lie. B ut
this notion gives a new importance to being true to mysel. I I am not,
I miss the point o my lie; I miss what being human is or me.84
83 Louis P. Pojman, Philosophy: The Pursuit ofWisdom, 2nd edition (Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing, 1998) , p. 350.
84 Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics ofRecognition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1994) , p. 30.
238
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
Traditionally, because o a predominantly essential concept o the
sel, authenticity has been defned in terms o getting in touch with
an inner sel. I there is no inner sel the question o authenticity
does not disappear, instead it is reconceptualized. In the existential
tradition ( French existentialism and German existenz) it involves an
assumption that there is a unique frst-person structure o existence
( Heidegger terms this as mineness ( Jemeinigkeit) ) . Kierkegaard
establishes a theme that continues through Heidegger and Sartre.
Oten, being authentic is regarded as being true to onesel, being
honest, not being involved in sel-deception. This approach is
strongest in Kierkegaard owing to the overtly religious intentions o
his philosophy.
However, there are a number o dierent treatments o the issue o
authenticity. Heidegger conceives o authenticity in terms o being-
towards death. I an individual allows themsel to be defned by their
impending death, then they are living an inauthentic lie. I they
can escape this anxiety regarding impending death by living a lie o
possibility, then they can escape this inauthenticity. Heidegger does
not intend his observations on authenticity to be judgmental but it is
oten used in his work as i it is normative, not just descriptive. For
example, Heidegger argues that all human actions are inormed by the
norms o society or at least the masses. He conceives o these masses
as anonymous social norms and practices and uses the nominalized
impersonal pronoun the one (das Man) to describe the sources o these
orces and their depersonalization as a result.
This indicates a number o issues. One o the major ones associated
with authenticity in the existential/ existenz traditions is the problem
o authority. This perspective cannot tell you i you are being
inauthentic as this itsel is inauthentic. Instead an individual must
determine or themselves i they are being inauthentic and then
decide not to be such. But how does an individual come to realize
they are being inauthentic? This problem was evident in Sartres
Existentialism Is a Humanism ( 1 9 46 ) . He wants to warn o the
possibility o inauthenticity and how it can be identifed but on the
other hand he cannot do so because that would appear to provide
an individual with an authority that takes away their reedom and
thereore potential authenticity.
There is also the question o introspection. I it is the individual who
determines when they are being authentic, how do they know? On
the other hand, i it is a third person who determines the issue o
authenticity then how do they know the true sel o the individual in
order to be able to make the judgment?
239
5 BEING HUMAN
Kierkegaard and the self
Each age has its characteristic depravity. O urs is perhaps not pleasure
or indulgence or sensuality, but rather a dissolute pantheistic
contempt or individual man.
Sren Kierkegaard85
For Kierkegaard what is central to an individuals existence is his or
her subjectivity and this condition was characterized by reedom. This
is a rej ection o the ideal o obj ectivity, an illusion that resulted in the
denial o subjectivity and thereore individual reedom. Descartes had
modernized this understanding oering the certainty o the cogito,
ergo sum or I think, thereore I am. However, on reection, some
philosophers eel that this statement does not answer the questions
What is thinking? and What is it that is doing the thinking? This lack
o clarity leads to the question Is the I that is thinking and the I that
exists the same sel? We are aware ( or have the sensation) o thinking.
In The Science of Logic ( 1 81 6) , Hegel believed he had the answer:
By the term I I mean mysel, a single and altogether determinate
person. And yet I really utter nothing particular to mysel, or every
one else is an I or Ego, and when I call mysel I, though I
indubitably mean the single person mysel, I express a thorough
universal. I thereore, is mere being-or-sel, in which everything
peculiar or marked is renounced and buried out o sight; it is as it
were the ultimate and unanalyzable Point o consciousness. We may
say [that] I and thought are the same, or, more defnitely, [that] I
is thought as a thinker.86
Hegel defned the sel as a unity o a dualism o thought and being. This,
along with much o Hegels philosophical system, becomes the departure
point or Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard rejects the rational and the objective
that is the driving orce o Hegels philosophy. As Kierkegaard says:
The systematic Idea [o Hegels] is the identity o subject and object,
the unity o thought and being. Existence, on the other hand, is
their separation. It does not by any means ollow that existence is
thoughtless but it has brought about, and brings about a separation
between subject and object, thought and being.87
85 Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientifc . . . , pp. 317318.
86 Reproduced rom William Wallace (trans.) , Hegels Logic (Oxord: Oxord University Press, 1975) , p. 38.
87 Sren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientifc Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments , in Robert Bretall
(ed.) , A Kierkegaard Anthology, translated by David S. Swenson, Lillian Marvin Swenson, and Walter Lowrie
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1946) , pp. 204205.
240
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
Humans exist as individuals, in the particular and not in the universal.
As such they are ree and defned by their ree choice. It is not the
capacity or potential but the choices that are made by a person that
brings an individual into existence. Becoming who I am is identical with
my existence and by choosing, I exist, and in the process I become a sel,
or a personality as Kierkegaard defnes it in the ollowing passage:
I you will understand me aright. I should like to say that in making
a choice it is not so much a question o choosing the right as o the
energy, the earnestness, the pathos with which one chooses. Thereby
the personality announces its inner infnity, and thereby, in turn, the
personality is consolidated.88
Kierkegaards subjectivity was also inspired by his observations o Paper 3 Link
contemporary religious practice and in particular the Christian church
service known as mass where the masses went through the motion Karl Jaspers commented
o worship. Kierkegaard advocated pure subjectivity or the capacity that when reading Nietzsche
to reely, passionately commit onesel to an authentic way o lie. This there was always a
commitment was not ounded upon a rational decision, requiring instead contradiction evident in his
an irrational, passionate leap. As a committed Christian, Kierkegaard work. Is it fair to ask that
knew that at the heart o his belie system was aith and that there philosophers are consistent
was no rational justifcation or aith. As William Barrett describes it in or argue from a single
Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy: position?
I I know that twice two is our, this knowledge is in the highest
degree impersonal. Once I know it, I know it, and I need not struggle
continuously to make it my own. But the truth o religion is not at all
like that: it is a truth that must penetrate my own personal existence
or it is nothing; and I must struggle to renew it in my lie every day. 89
This was a very dierent approach to philosophical problems. As
a trained philosopher, Kierkegaard was amiliar with the tradition
o Western thought. His own belies became the oundation o his
philosophical understanding and eventually his system o thought.
Understanding Nietzsche
We are unknown, we knowers, ourselves to ourselves; this has good
reason. We have never searched or ourselveshow should it then
come to pass, that we should ever fnd ourselves?
Friedrich Nietzsche90
88 Sren Kierkegaard, ither/Or: A Fragment ofLife, vol. 2, translated by David F. Swenson and Lillian Marvin
Swenson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton, 1949) , p. 141.
89 William Barrett, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (New York: Anchor Books, 1990) , p. 171.
90 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy ofMorals, republished 1913 translation by Horace B. Samuel (New York:
Dover Publications, 2003) , p. 1.
241
5 BEING HUMAN
Nietzsche had a dierent view o the sel. He appeared to be responding
to the anonymous despisers o the body. However, it is very clear
that he had Plato in mind when he made these kinds o statements and
especially Platos emphasis on the intellect and the metaphysical.
READING ACTIVITY In your own words and using your own
examples, analyse what Nietzsche is arguing
Read the ollowing extract and complete a in this passage.
textual analysis.
Break the passage and its argument down into
a series o steps.
I want to speak to the despisers o the body. There is more reason in your body than in your
I would not have them learn and teach best wisdom. And who knows why your body
dierently, but merely say arewell to their own needs precisely your best wisdom?
bodiesand thus become silent.
Your sel laughs at your ego and at its bold
Body am I, and soulthus speaks the child. leaps. What are these leaps and fights o
And why should one not speak like children? thought to me? it says to itsel. A detour to
my end. I am the leading strings o the ego and
But the awakened and knowing say: body am the prompter o its concepts.
I entirely, and nothing else; and soul is only a
word or something about the body. The sel says to the ego, Feel pain here! Then
the ego suers and thinks how it might suer
The body is a great reason, a plurality with one no more and that is why it is made to think.
sense, a war and a peace, a herd and a shepherd.
An instrument o your body is also your little The sel says to the ego, Feel pleasure here!
reason, my brother, which you call spirita Then the ego is pleased and thinks how it might
little instrument and toy o your great reason. oten be pleased againand that is why it is
made to think.
I, you say, and are proud o the word. B ut
greater is that in which you do not wish to have I want to speak to the despisers o the body.
aithyour body and its great reason: that does It is their respect that begets their contempt.
not say I, but does I. What is it that created respect and contempt
and worth and will? The creative sel created
What the sense eels, what the spirit knows, respect and contempt; it created pleasure and
never has its end in itsel. But sense and spirit pain. The creative body created the spirit as a
would persuade you that they are the end o all hand or its will.
things: that is how vain they are. Instruments
and toys are sense and spirit: behind them still Even in your olly and contempt, you despisers
lies the sel. The sel also seeks with the eyes o the body, you serve your sel. I say unto you:
o the senses; it also listens with the ears o your sel itsel wants to die and turns away rom
the spirit. Always the sel listens and seeks: it lie. It is no longer capable o what it would do
compares, overpowers, conquers, destroys. It above all else: to create beyond itsel. That is what
controls, and it is in control o the ego too. it would do above all else, that is its ervent wish.
B ehind your thoughts and eelings, my brother, But now it is too late or it to do this: so your sel
there stands a mighty ruler, an unknown sage wants to go under, O despisers o the body. Your
whose name is sel. In your body he dwells; he sel wants to go under, and that is why you have
is your body. become despisers o the body! For you are no
longer able to create beyond yourselves.
242
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
And that is why you are angry with lie and I shall not go your way, O despisers o the
the earth. An unconscious envy speaks out o body! You are no bridge to the overman.
the squint-eyed glance o your contempt.
Friedrich Nietzsche91
Similar to Kierkegaard, Nietzsche also has Descartes in his sights. In
particular, the C artesian indivisible, immaterial soul, conceived as a
substance, presented a problem or Nietzsche.
B ehind thy thoughts and eelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an
unknown sageit is called Sel; it dwells in your body, it is your body.92
Nietzsche rejects Descartes (and thereore Platos) rejection o the body.
Nietzsche includes the body as well as sel and ego in any discussion
about what is human. He suggests that between the body and the ego is
the sel. He suggests that the sel is in act a pronoun or the ego (pure
consciousness) , its linguistic surrogate.93 But it is also more than that.
In act, Nietzsche believes that sel is closer to the body than the ego.
The sel is better conceived as an expression o the body, a means o
communicating itsel with itsel and with others. One commentator,
Volker Gerhardt, argues that [t] he sel is an expression o the body
understood as a unity.94 The sel allows the body to be meaningul,
to have sense. The ego controls the body while the sel is the bodys
wisdom. Each o these descriptions indicates that Nietzsches concept o
the sel is very subtle and sophisticated.
Nietzsche rejected introspection as a way o knowing the sel,
believing our conscious lie reaches only to the outer skin o our
psyche. Or consciousness is a surace.95 In act, Nietzsche argues that
consciousness involves a vast and thorough corruption, alsifcation,
superfcialization, and generalization.96 Descartes as well as others
had relied on introspection and the assumption that the mind could be
perectly known to the individual. Nietzsche rejected this assumption,
instead claiming, consciousness in general has developed only under
the pressure o the need or communication and that
91 Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, pp. 3435.
92 Ibid., p. 36.
93 Volker Gerhardt, The Body, the Sel and the Ego, in Keith Ansell-Pearson (ed.) , A Companion to Nietzsche
(Oxord: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) , p. 291.
94 Ibid., p. 293.
95 Friedrich Nietzsche, Why I Am So Clever, in Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, translated by Walter Kaumann
(New York: Vintage Books, 1969) , p. 97.
96 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, edited by Bernard Williams, translated by Josene Nauckhof and Adrian
del Caro (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001) , pp. 213214.
243
5 BEING HUMAN
human beings, like every living creature, My thought is, as you see, that consciousness does
are thinking constantly but do not know it. not really belong to the individual existence o
The thinking that becomes conscious is only human beings, but rather to the social and herd
the smallest part o thought, and we say it is nature in them consequently each o us, despite
the most superfcial, the worst part or all this the best will to understand onesel as individually as
conscious thought occurs in words, that is, in possible, to know onesel, will always just bring to
communicative signs, and here the origin o ones consciousness precisely what is not individual
consciousness reveals itsel in one, what is average, that our very thinking
constantly ollows majority rule, so to speak 97
S imilarly, he rej ected the assertion that the soul is not a distinct FIND OUT MORE
entity rom the body. What is seen as a unitary, autonomous, rational
sel is, in act, the eect o a multiplicity o unconscious orces. The Compare and contrast
sel is a socially induced iction. The impetus is not our desire or the works o Freud and
order but societys desire to make human beings reliable, predictable, Nietzsche.
conormist herd animals, depriving them o independence and
individuality. Nietzsches solution to this deliberate misconception Both believed that public
(by whom?) is to advocate the emergence o a new man, the sel is a conditioned
amous bermensch. construct o the inner
psychological sel.
In The Gay Science ( 1 882 ) , Nietzsche said, We, however, want to become
those we are human beings who are new, unique, incomparable, who Does this mean that
give themselves laws, who create themselves.98 their philosophies are
the same? Complete
These unique individuals will be able to transorm themselves by an analysis o their
organizing their drives to become an autonomous individual, able to live arguments to identiy
independently o the ideals o the maj ority. their similarities and
dierences.
To demand o strength that it should not express itsel as strength,
that it should not be a desire to overcome [is absurd] A quantum
o orce is equivalent to a quantum o drive, will eectmore, it
is nothing other than precisely this very driving, willing, eecting
There is no such substratum; there is no being behind doing,
eecting, becoming; the doer is merely a fction added to the deed.99
The sel is just a bundle o drives to which we create an agent and Paper 3 Link
call that the sel (not unlike Hume) . The rejection o the traditional
concept o the sel, the relative unimportance o consciousness and the Should Freud be considered
postulation o psychological causes o action are best accounted or in a philosopher?
terms o the explanatory primacy o such drives. Nietzsche suggests that If so, why? If not, why not?
the sel is simply an expression o the body. 100
97 Ibid.
98 Nietzsche, The Genealogy ofMorals, Book I, Section 13.
99 Ibid.; compare with Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 2003.
100 Gerhardt, The Body, . . ., pp. 292293.
244
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
Infuence on existentialism
The sel is now something that is invented as individuals can consciously
choose themselves.
VIEWING ACTIVITY: PHILOSOPHY AND FILM
In D avid Finchers Fight Club, the flm opens with a monotone
narrative, as dreary as the lie that Jack (the main character) lives.
Watch the opening to the movie. What would an existentialist say
about Jacks existence?
Sartre and the concept of self-hood
You areyour lie, and nothing else.
Jean-Paul Sartre101
Searching or a post-Cartesian sel
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche both had an inuence on those who took
phenomenology as a new start in philosophy. B ut there were other
philosophers who inuenced existential thinking. These included
Descartes, Kant, and Hegel. Sartre is the most accessible existential
philosopher so his work will be used to establish the idea o the
existential sel.
Sel-consciousness is the intersubjective dimension in the
phenomenologico-existential philosophy o Sartre.
Sartre provided an excellent insight into his thinking on the sel in one
o his plays, No Exit ( 1 944) . The intersubj ective dimension reers to how
we need a second sel-consciousness to reect our sel so we can see
it. In this section o the play, E stelle cannot locate a mirror to help her
powder her ace. She asks Garcin, but is ignored. This lack o recognition
produces an interesting response:
ESTELLE: How tiresome!
[ESTELLE shuts her eyes and sways, as i about to aint. INEZ
runs orward and holds her up.]
INEZ: Whats the matter?
E S TE LLE: [O pens her eyes and smiles.] I eel so queer. [She
pats hersel.] Dont you ever eel that way too? When I cant
see mysel I begin to wonder i I really exist. I pat mysel just to
make sure, but it doesnt help.102
Sel-consciousness is only possible when one is compelled to sel-awareness
with the reective activity orced upon one by the look o the other.
101 Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit and Three Other Plays, translated by Stuart Gilbert (London: Vintage, 1989) , p. 43.
102 Ibid., p. 46.
245
5 BEING HUMAN
The self (but not as we know it)
The sel, as the orm o subj ectivity and o the cogito, is encountered
in the world that persons share with one another, i. e. , in an
intersubjective world. This is not the metaphysical spirit o
Hegel that is transcendental in nature, yet it shares some o its
eatures. The sel and consciousness are dierent. The sel is not in
consciousness in the manner o Descartes, Locke, and Husserl (and
thereore an essence) . The sel is in existence. In simple terms, Sartre
is rejecting the traditional concept o the sel, replacing it with the
concept o self-hood.
C onsequently, Sartre is both C artesian and Kantian and yet he rej ects
key aspects o their respective philosophies. Fundamentally, he wishes to
rej ect idealism, or the argument we are a transcendental ego. While he was
a student o Husserl, who it has been argued retained this transcendental
ego, and Heidegger, and was inspired by both, he rejected the ormer and
cannibalized the latters philosophical critique o Husserls philosophy to
construct his own philosophy.
Framework
S artre postulates three modes o being: being-or-itsel, being-in-itsel,
and being-or-others. It is best to understand these using the ollowing
examples:
Being-for-itself defnes human consciousness
Being-in-itself defnes obj ects o the world ( their essence)
Being-for-others defnes the role o others
Sartre rejects both empiricism and idealism that is grounded in
Kant (and those beore him) and thereore the transcendental ego,
replacing it with a transcendent ego. (But how much he rejects Kant
is an ongoing debate among his interpreters.) In other words, Sartre
rejects an ego in the metaphysical world where the mind is seen as
separate rom the external world and where the internal world receives
inormation rom obj ects and only representations o these obj ects
are known by the sel. Instead Sartre argues or an ego that unifes
experiences. (In some ways, Sartre sits somewhere between Hume and
Kants response to Hume.)
Kants understanding
Kant distinguishes appearances
rom
reality in-itself ( the essences)
and
the products of the senses
rom
the concepts of understanding which synthesize these appearances.
246
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