‘I’m not myself today, you see,’ Alice said

to the caterpillar.
‘I don’t see,’ said the caterpillar.

Sources:
http://www.hinduwebsite.com/buddhism/
anatta.asp
https://www.slideshare.net/t0nywilliams/
self-2125740
Do you truly know yourself?

1. How would you

characterize yourself?
2. What makes you stand
out or special from the rest?
3. How has yourself
transformed itself?
4. How is yourself
connected to your body?
5. How is yourself related to
other selves?
6. What will happen to your
self after you die?
Socrates and Plato

 Socrates
 KNOW THYSELF
-Every man is composed of Body & Soul
(Dualism)
This means that all individuals have imperfect
and impermanent (Body)
Perpect and Permanent (Soul)
Plato

 Supported his teacher

 Three components of the SOUL
 The Rational Soul

 Forged by reason and intellect which

and govern the affairs of the human
person
 The Apirited Soul

 In charge of Emotions
 The Appetitive Soul
 in charge of basic deires like eating, drinking and sex
St. Augustine and Thomas
Aquinas
St. Augustine
-Man is divided with between the world and divinity
-Through the spread of Christianity, Man can still find
his perfections after death with our GOD
Thomas Aquinas was inspired by Aristotle
-Man is composed of matter and form (Morphe) our
Essence
Soul makes us HUMAN
 ‘every man is in some
ways like all other men, in
some ways like some other
men, and in some ways
like no other men.’
 Philosophers attempting
to answer the question of
self identity attempt to
figure out how and why
this might be so.
 Lets compare the
traditional theories of
Descartes, Locke, and
Hume.
 Method of doubt
 Skeptical
arguments (illusion,
dreams) —> doubt
of senses
 Descartes argues
self
-consciousness is crucial to
having a concept of one’s
own individuality and an
enduring self that is the
same person over time.
 ‘But what then am I? A
thing which thinks. What is
a thing that thinks? It is a
thing which doubts,
understands, affirms,
denies, wills, refuses, which
also imagines and feels.’
 Descartes is saying
that self identity  What is the connection
depends on between self
 consciousness. consciousness and self
Our identity does not identity? Do you think
depend in any way (some) animals are self
on our body conscious? If so do you
remaining the same think that they might have
and so human identity a self identity?
is different from the  What does Descartes
identity of anything identify as the ‘self’? Is this
else in the world. anything unique to
individuals? In what sense
(if any) does it individuate
you from someone else?
 Self is unified by
consciousness
 Consciousness is
unified by
connections
between mental
states
 Memory
 What makes me the
same person I was
yesterday, last
week, last year?
 What makes me
me?
 

 ‘Self is that conscious
thinking thing...which is
sensibl or conscious of

pleasure and pain, capable
of happiness or misery, and
so is concerned for itself, as
far as that consciousness
extends’.
 Personal self identity is based
upon self-consciousness, in
particular upon memories
about one former experiences.
 He argues man is different from
animals, whose identity is
based on the continuity of the
body, just as you would say you
have had ‘the same car’ over
the last 10 years.
 The identity of a ‘person’ that
is, ‘personal identity’ depends
on self-consciousness.
 Memory constitutes self-
identity and a persons
relationship to their own
thoughts is unique.
 We cannot think each others
thoughts they are inherently
private in nature.
 Since memory is situated in
thought it follows that people
cannot remember your
experiences and you cannot
remember theirs.
 If you are remembering your first
day at school, you are self identical
to the person who earlier had had
that experience.
 According to Locke therefore,
memory provides a definite link
between what we might call
different ‘stages’ of a person.
 Memory seems to guarantee the
identity of the person who is now
remembering with the person who
was then having the experience.
 Watch Memento – (6:50-10 and
15-24)
 How does the role of consciousness differ in
the accounts of self-identity of Locke and
Descartes?
 Can you think of a time when you were
‘unaware’ of your self e.g. Contrary to Locke
you were not aware of your awareness and
you did not perceive that you were
perceiving? Describe this situation.
 For Locke what constitutes personal identity?
 Self is but a bundle of
impressions


Categories:
 Impression and Ideas

Our views and perception of

what's happening to us


 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2OyiAJVcG0&feature=Pl
 ayList&p=A
Anatta represented the objective or
perceptual aspect of the existential
reality. It also represented the
outward approach or the
perceptual, mindful approach to
achieve liberation, in contrast to the
inward, witness approach or the
withdrawal approach to experience
the subjective Self (Atma or Atman).
Gilbert Ryle

 He solves the mind-body dichotomy

 To him what matters is the behavior that a person
manifest in a day-to-day basis

 Example:
 Visiting a friend in a University
 While in the intention is visiting a friend you will also
look around and observe the physical and social
attributes of the university
Immanuel Kant

 Our mind organizes what we see in the world

 Our acquisition of knowledge makes our
personality
 He said that SElf is convenient name used to
define the behavior people make.
 It is the activity of bringing our various
experiences together.
The difference between Hume and Kant is
 sometimes illustrated in this way –
Hume looks for the ‘self’ among our
 experiences and doesn’t find it; Kant agrees
with Hume but argues that he looked in the
 wrong place.
The self says Kant is the thread that ties
 together our various experiences.

Accordingly, the self is not the bundle of our

experiences; it is rather the ‘transcendental’
thread that holds them all together and is as
real as any experience.
 Jones has an emergency brain
operation. His own brain is
removed and replaced by the brain
of Brown (who is recently
deceased). ‘Jones’ still looks like
Jones, still carries the same driving
licence and lives in the same
house, but all of his memories and
personality traits are those of
Brown, could you claim to be still
alive in Jones’ body?
Merleau-Ponty

 He said that our mind and body are intertwined

and cannot be separated from each other.
 The living body, his thoughts and emotions and
esperience are all one