Understanding Your Self

Study Notes

 Personal identity is the concept you develop about yourself that evolves over the course
of your life.
 The philosophy of personal identity aims to address these matters of existence and how we
even know we exist through time.
 metaphysics can be summed up as the branch of philosophy that deals with being,
substance, and identity


The Philosophy of Personal Identity

 Persistence means our existence across time and how we can prove it
 The philosophers Plato and René Descartes, as well as many religions, have proposed
that we persist because we have a soul, a timeless essence that continues in some form
even after the death of our living, breathing human body. (Body Theory)
 Descartes, in particular, aimed to provide a scientifically-oriented argument for this enduring
inner self. He used rational arguments and examples to demonstrate that the mind and body
are distinct. He promoted the view that the mind can exist and persist without the body.
This distinction between a person's mind and body is known as mind-body dualism and
has been an influential and powerful theory in our society.
 According to the philosopher David Hume, living life as a human being leaves only
impressions, rather than one stable identity or sense of self. These impressions are the
changing, shifting elements of our existence. Think of the various ways you have looked at
the world throughout your life. You've had a set of experiences and have changed because
of them. Hume argued that due to the unstable nature of impressions, personal identity
cannot be said to persist through time. We perceive a sense of self because of the way our
mind put impressions together and makes sense of them as 'me.' (Mind Theory)
 Hume challenged earlier ideas about persistence and the psychological and physical
continuity theories that had come before him. Physical continuity theory had looked at
how we have the same human body we have had during our life and that this helps us know
we are ourselves. Psychological continuity theory had focused on how the mind and
memories seem to tie a person's identity together. Hume questioned these theories that
talked of an enduring personal identity. Instead, he pointed to the fleeting nature of our
experiences and how we are ever-changing.

Dualism vs. Materialism

 Dualism is the concept that reality or existence is divided into two parts. When speaking
philosophically about humans, these two parts are often identified as the mind and the
physical body. According to dualism, the mind is somehow separate from the physical
attributes of the body.
 According to Dualism, mind is a part of an unseen world and is a separate entity
  Descartes asserted the mind is the seat of our consciousness. This mind is where we find
our emotions, our will, our intellect, and our passions. For this reason, our identity comes
from the mind. Summing this up, Descartes would say, 'I think, therefore I am!'
 Materialism is the belief that nothing but matter exists, if you can't experience it with your
senses, it's not part of reality.
 For many who espouse materialism, what we call the mind is really just a collection of
physical processes. For instance, materialism would argue that when a person is depressed,
it has nothing to do with what's going on in some mystical mind. It's just brain chemicals
misfiring.
 Gilbert Ryle. He actually thought the idea of a mind controlling the physical body to be as
absurd as ghosts operating machines.
 Paul Churchland, another philosopher who espouses materialism, uses traumatic brain
injury to argue against the mind as the seat of identity. Summing up his arguments, he asks,
'If the mind is the seat of identity, why does brain injury alter a person's personality?'
 According to materialism, there is no such thing as the mind.

Kant

 Metaphysics can be summed up as the branch of philosophy that deals with being,
substance, and identity
 empiricismasserts that knowledge is only attained through the senses
 Rationalism is the theory that reason, rather than experience, is the foundation of all
knowledge.
 According to him, we humans have both an inner and an outer self which unify to give us
consciousness. The inner self is comprised of our psychological state and our rational
intellect. The outer self includes our sense and the physical world.
 Kant argued that apperception occurs in the inner self. In a nutshell, apperception is how
we mentally assimilate new ideas into old ones. Occurring through rational reasoning


Self in Sociology
 George Herbert Mead, a sociologist from the late 1800s, is well known for his theory of the
social self, which includes the concepts of 'self,' 'me,' and 'I.
 Mead's theory of the social self is based on the perspective that the self emerges from
social interactions, such as observing and interacting with others, responding to others'
opinions about oneself, and internalizing external opinions and internal feelings about
oneself
 According to Mead, the self is not there from birth, but it is developed over time from social
experiences and activities.
 According to Mead, three activities develop the self: language, play, and games.
 Language develops self by allowing individuals to respond to each other through symbols,
gestures, words, and sounds. Language conveys others' attitudes and opinions toward a
subject or the person. Emotions, such as anger, happiness, and confusion, are conveyed
through language.
 Play develops self by allowing individuals to take on different roles, pretend, and express
expectation of others. Play develops one's self-consciousness through role-playing. During
role-play, a person is able to internalize the perspective of others and develop an
understanding of how others feel about themselves and others in a variety of social
situations.
 Games develop self by allowing individuals to understand and adhere to the rules of the
activity. Self is developed by understanding that there are rules in which one must abide by
in order to win the game or be successful at an activity.
 According to Mead's theory, the self has two sides or phases: 'me' and 'I.'
 The 'me' is considered the socialized aspect of the individual. The 'me' represents learned
behaviors, attitudes, and expectations of others and of society. This is sometimes referred to
as the generalized other. The 'me' is considered a phase of the self that is in the past. The
'me' has been developed by the knowledge of society and social interactions that the
individual has gained

 The 'I', therefore, can be considered the present and future phase of the self. The 'I'
represents the individual's identity based on response to the 'me.' The 'I' says, 'Okay. Society
says I should behave and socially interact one way, and I think I should act the same (or
perhaps different),' and that notion becomes self.
 The 'me' and the 'I' have a didactic relationship, like a system of checks and balances. The
'me' exercises societal control over one's self. The 'me' is what prevents someone from
breaking the rules or boundaries of societal expectations. The 'I' allows the individual to still
express creativity and individualism and understand when to possibly bend and stretch the
rules that govern social interactions. The 'I' and the 'me' make up the self.

 Sociologist Charles Cooley built on the work of Mead with his concept of the looking-glass
self.
 According to Cooley, one's self takes time to develop. Self begins to develop after birth and
continues throughout a person's life through the following stages: imagining, interpreting,
and developing self-concept.
 Imagining occurs when an individual judges the way they act and appear through the
views of family and friends. For example, my mom sees me this way. My friends see me this
way. My teachers see me this way. Initially, these views make up a person's self-concept.
This can be seen as the 'this is how I must appear to others' stage.

 Interpreting is the second stage of the looking-glass self and is a learned ability.
Interpreting occurs as the individual draws conclusions from past experiences and from what
others think and then reacts to the judgment of those other views.
 The final stage, developing self-concept, occurs as the individual synthesizes all the
information they have based on past experiences and others up to that point and develops a
sense of self-image. This can be seen as the 'this is who I am' stage.