The philosophy of self defines, among other things, the conditions of identity that

make one subject of experience distinct from all others. Contemporary discussions
on the nature of the self are not thereby discussions on the nature of personhood,
or personal identity. The self is sometimes understood as a unified being
essentially connected to consciousness, awareness, and agency (or, at least, with
the faculty of rational choice). Various theories on the metaphysical nature of the
self have been proposed. Among them, the metaphysical nature of the self has been
proposed to be that of an immaterial substance.

Definitions of the self Edit

Most philosophical definitions of self—per Descartes, Locke, Hume, and William

James—are expressed in the first person.[1] A third person definition does not
refer to specific mental qualia but instead strives for objectivity and
operationalism.

To another person, the self of one individual is exhibited in the conduct and
discourse of that individual. Therefore, the intentions of another individual can
only be inferred from something that emanates from that individual. The particular
characteristics of the self determine its identity.

Concepts of self Edit

Self in Eastern traditions Edit

In spirituality, and especially nondual, mystical and eastern meditative
traditions, the human being is often conceived as being in the illusion of
individual existence, and separateness from other aspects of creation. This "sense
of doership" or sense of individual existence is that part which believes it is the
human being, and believes it must fight for itself in the world, is ultimately
unaware and unconscious of its own true nature. The ego is often associated with
mind and the sense of time, which compulsively thinks in order to be assured of its
future existence, rather than simply knowing its own self and the present.

The spiritual goal of many traditions involves the dissolving of the ego, allowing
self-knowledge of one's own true nature to become experienced and enacted in the
world. This is variously known as enlightenment, nirvana, presence, and the "here
and now".

Self-knowledge Edit
For Socrates, the goal of philosophy was to "Know thyself". Lao Tzu, in his Tao Te
Ching, says "Knowing others is wisdom. Knowing the self is enlightenment. Mastering
others requires force. Mastering the self requires strength."[2] Adi
Shankaracharya, in his commentary on Bhagavad Gita says "Self-knowledge alone
eradicates misery".[3] "Self-knowledge alone is the means to the highest bliss.".
[4]"Absolute perfection is the consummation of Self-knowledge."[5]

Self as an activity Edit

Aristotle, following Plato, defined the soul as the core essence of a living being,
but argued against its having a separate existence. For instance, if a knife had a
soul, the act of cutting would be that soul, because 'cutting' is the essence of
what it is to be a knife. Unlike Plato and the religious traditions, Aristotle did
not consider the soul as some kind of separate, ghostly occupant of the body (just
as we cannot separate the activity of cutting from the knife). As the soul, in
Aristotle's view, is an activity of the body, it cannot be immortal (when a knife
is destroyed, the cutting stops). More precisely, the soul is the "first activity"
of a living body. This is a state, or a potential for actual, or 'second',
activity. "The axe has an edge for cutting" was, for Aristotle, analogous to
"humans have bodies for rational activity," and the potential for rational activity
thus constituted the essence of a human soul. Aristotle used his concept of the
soul in many of his works; the De Anima (On the Soul) provides a good place to
start to gain more understanding of his views.

Aristotle also believed that there were four sections of the soul: the calculative
and scientific parts on the rational side used for making decisions, and the
desiderative and vegetative parts on the irrational side responsible for
identifying our needs.

Self independent of the senses Edit

Main article: Avicennism
While he was imprisoned in a castle, Avicenna wrote his famous "Floating Man"
thought experiment to demonstrate human self-awareness and the substantiality of
the soul. His "Floating Man" thought experiment tells its readers to imagine
themselves suspended in the air, isolated from all sensations, which includes no
sensory contact with even their own bodies. He argues that, in this scenario, one
would still have self-consciousness. He thus concludes that the idea of the self is
not logically dependent on any physical thing, and that the soul should not be seen
in relative terms, but as a primary given, a substance. This argument was later
refined and simplified by René Descartes in epistemic terms when he stated: "I can
abstract from the supposition of all external things, but not from the supposition
of my own consciousness."[6]

Bundle theory of self Edit

David Hume pointed out that we tend to think that we are the same person we were
five years ago. Though we have changed in many respects, the same person appears
present as was present then. We might start thinking about which features can be
changed without changing the underlying self. Hume, however, denies that there is a
distinction between the various features of a person and the mysterious self that
supposedly bears those features. When we start introspecting, "we are never
intimately conscious of anything but a particular perception; man is a bundle or
collection of different perceptions which succeed one another with an inconceivable
rapidity and are in perpetual flux and movement".[7]

It is plain, that in the course of our thinking, and in the constant revolution of
our ideas, our imagination runs easily from one idea to any other that resembles
it, and that this quality alone is to the fancy a sufficient bond and association.
It is likewise evident that as the senses, in changing their objects, are
necessitated to change them regularly, and take them as they lie contiguous to each
other, the imagination must by long custom acquire the same method of thinking, and
run along the parts of space and time in conceiving its objects."[8]

On Hume's view, these perceptions do not belong to anything. Rather, Hume compares
the soul to a commonwealth, which retains its identity not by virtue of some
enduring core substance, but by being composed of many different, related, and yet
constantly changing elements. The question of personal identity then becomes a
matter of characterizing the loose cohesion of one's personal experience. (Note
that in the Appendix to the Treatise, Hume said mysteriously that he was
dissatisfied with his account of the self, yet he never returned to the issue.)
Hume’s position is very similar to Indian Buddhists’ conception of the self.

The paradox of the Ship of Theseus can be used as an analogy of the self as a
bundle of parts in flux.

Self as a narrative center of gravity Edit

Daniel Dennett has a deflationary theory of the "self". Selves are not physically
detectable. Instead, they are a kind of convenient fiction, like a center of
gravity, which is convenient as a way of solving physics problems, although they
need not correspond to anything tangible — the center of gravity of a hoop is a
point in thin air. People constantly tell themselves stories to make sense of their
world, and they feature in the stories as a character, and that convenient but
fictional character is the self.[9][10]

The Buddha Edit

Main article: Anatta
The Buddha in particular attacked all attempts to conceive of a fixed self, while
stating that holding the view "I have no self" is also mistaken. This is an example
of the middle way charted by the Buddha and the Madhyamaka school of Buddhism.