What is a self? What does it mean to have selfhood? What is the relationship between selfhood and identity? These are puzzling questions that philosophers, psychologists, social scientists, and many other researchers often grapple with. -/- Self and Identity is a book that explores and brings together relevant ideas on selfhood and identity, while also helping to clarify some important and long standing scientific and philosophical debates. It will enable readers to understand the difference between selves in humans (...) and other animals, and the different selves that we come to possess from when we are born to when we become old. It also explains how and why the self might break down due to mental illness, thereby providing insight into how we might treat illnesses such as dementia and depression, both of which are conditions that fundamentally affect our selfhood. -/- Taking an important step towards clarifying our understanding of human selfhood and applying it to mental illness, this book will be of great interest to researchers and postgraduate students exploring philosophical questions of selfhood, as well as those examining the connection to clinical disorders. (shrink)

The personal identity literature is fragmented. There is a literature on the normative topic of 'what matters in survival'. And there is a separate literature on the metaphysics of persons. But in Self and Identity, Trenton Merricks shows that some important claims about personal identity cannot even be articulated, much less evaluated, unless these topics are brought together. Merricks says that what matters in survival is constituted by its being appropriate for a present person to first-personally anticipate, and have (...) self-interested concern with regard to, a future person's experiences. So what matters in survival is not constituted by identity with a future person. So identity is not what matters in survival. But Merricks argues that--given a metaphysics of 'enduring' persons--identity with a future person explains why it is appropriate to first-personally anticipate, and have self-interested concern with regard to, that person's experiences. So identity delivers what matters in survival. Some claim that what matters in survival is delivered not by identity, but instead by psychological continuity. Or by having the 'same self'. Or by narrative connectedness. Or by unity of agency. Merricks argues that these claims--unlike the claim that identity delivers what matters in survival--cannot accommodate all the ways in which personal transformations can be good, or bad, for someone. At the end of Self and Identity, Merricks puts his conclusions about what matters in survival through their paces by applying them to a new topic: personal immortality. (shrink)

This anthology gathers the most philosophically interesting contemporary writing on core issues about the self, identity, and the nature of mind.

This study of self is a growing concern within psychology, and related disciplines, particularly in social and clinical psychology, psychiatry and personality studies.

This first volume in the Rutgers Series on Self and Social Identity presents a sophisticated and detailed analysis of some of the most fundamental issues facing scholars interested in studying self and identity. Chapters written by a world-class set of social scientists, from the fields of psychology, sociology, and anthropology, represent the diverse issues, perspectives, and controversies inherent in the recent wave of interest in the self, and suggest productive avenues of analysis and empirical research.

Identity negotiation refers to the processes through which perceivers and targets come to agreements regarding the identities that targets are to assume in the interaction. Whereas past work has focused on the contribution of perceivers to the identity negotiation process, I emphasize the contribution of targets to this process. Specifically, I examine the tendency for targets to work to bring perceivers to verify their self-views. For example, people prefer and seek self-verifying evaluations from others, including their spouses and (...) employers — even when this means attaining evaluations that validate negative self-views. Moreover, receiving self-verification has adaptive consequences, even improving the performance of workers in diverse groups. Some boundary conditions of self-verification strivings as well as implications for making of minds are discussed. (shrink)

The proposed study aims to explore the concepts of self and identity in the philosophy of Śamkarāchārya, the Vedantic philosopher. This critical study seeks to foreground Śamkara, the account of the self that overcomes the limitations of the physicalist and the mentalist accounts of the human self. It focuses on the questions of the ownership of the self, the stability of identity despite the change, the consciousness and its relation to the self. It explains the (...) notion of self by equating the self with the body or with the mind, which does not explain our sense of owning or possessing a body or a mind. The idea of self can be philosophically analyzed at two different conceptual levels: 1) one can deal with the notion of self at a metaphysical level attempting to understand the meaning and significance of this notion in general; 2) one could also deal with the notion of self along with its contextualities and particularities where one would want to understand particular conceptualization that the individual self undergoes depending upon its contexts and particularities of its situation. I would try to analyze the notion of self and Identity in Śamkara in both these senses. Other questions that arise with regard to self and identity are as follows: what kind of relationship the self bears with its identity, pre-given or constructed? Is there anything essential about the identity of the individual self? If we take up these questions, then the question of caste and gender also surface in this debate significantly. Conceptually, the self, in Śamkara’s thought, is explained concerning the ‘not self’. He argues that neither the body, nor the senses, nor even the mind can be equated with the self. That is why Brahman has been described negatively as “neti neti-not this not this”. What is the natural self and identity that one is experiencing here and now? How do we identify one self? What does it consist of? These are some of the questions that I will explicate in this paper. (shrink)

The proposed study endeavors to delve into the philosophical concepts of self and identity as elucidated by the eminent Indian philosopher Rāmānujachārya. This critical examination aims to underscore Rāmānuja’s perspective on the self, surpassing the limitations inherent in both physical and mentalist accounts of human existence. The study specifically directs attention to queries surrounding self-ownership, the constancy of identity amidst change, consciousness, and its interconnection with the self. Unlike explanations that reduce the notion of self (...) to either the body or the mind, this study seeks to explicate Rāmānuja's accounts of self and identity by recognizing that merely equating the self with the body or mind fails to address the profound sense of ownership or possession we experience. In the vast landscape of Indian philosophical thought, the self is traditionally viewed as inherently eternal, temporarily associated with the body for the purpose of navigating accumulated karma across multiple lifetimes. However, this study diverges from moralistic and eschatological discussions, concentrating instead on the metaphysical aspects articulated by Rāmānuja. Central to Rāmānuja's philosophy is the juxtaposition of Brahman, the ultimate reality, with ātman, the individual self present in all living beings. Distinctions among beings are attributed to the nature of the bodies they inhabit. The crux of the matter lies in understanding the relationship between the individual self and Brahman, conceptualized as a part–whole relationship. Consequently, the inquiry emerges: How does the part relate to the whole? What is the nature of the self in the context of Brahman? This paper undertakes a dual-level philosophical analysis of the notion self. It explores the metaphysical level, seeking to comprehend the general meaning and significance of the self. Simultaneously, it delves into the contextual and particular dimensions, unraveling the specific conceptualizations that the individual self undergoes contingent upon its situations. Further questions pertaining to self and identity come to the forefront. How does the self relate to its identity—is it pre-given or constructed? Is there an intrinsic essence to the identity of the self? Addressing these questions inevitably draws attention to the intertwined issues of caste and gender within this philosophical discourse. (shrink)

Negative self-views have proved to be a consistent marker of vulnerability for depression. However, recent research has shown that a particular kind of cognitive conflict, implicative dilemma, is highly prevalent in depression. In this study the relevance of these conflicts is assessed as compared to the cognitive model of depression of a negative view of the self. In so doing, 161 patients with major depression and 110 controls were assessed to explore negative self-construing (self-ideal discrepancy) and (...) conflicts (implicative dilemmas), as well as severity of symptoms. Results showed specificity for the clinical group indicating a pattern of mixed positive and negative self-descriptions with a high rate of conflict. Regression analysis lent support to the conflict hypothesis in relation to clinically relevant indicators such as symptom severity, global functioning. However, self-ideal discrepancy was a stronger predictor of group membership. The findings showed the relevance of cognitive conflicts to compliment the well-consolidated theory of negative self-views. Clinical implications for designing interventions are discussed. (shrink)

This state-of-the-science volume brings together an array of leading authorities to comprehensively review theory and research in this burgeoning area.

This essay explores philosophical questions about practical identity that emerge in David Cronenberg's films, "A History of Violence" and "Eastern Promises." I distinguish the metaphysical problems of personal identity from the practical problems and contend that the latter are of central importance to the topic of authenticity. Central scenes from both films are examined with an eye to their engagement with the issues of authenticity and self-creation.

A volume in International Advances in Self Research Series Editors Rhonda G. Craven, University of Western Sydney; Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney; and Dennis M. McInerney, Hong Kong Institute of Education The concept of the Self has a long history that dates back from the ancient Greeks such as Aristotle to more contemporary thinkers such as Wundt, James, Mead, Cooley, Freud, Rogers, and Erikson (Tesser & Felson, 2000). Research on the Self relates to a range of (...) phenomena including self-esteem, self-concept, self-protection, self-verification, self-awareness, identity, self-efficacy, self-determination etc. that could be sharply different or very similar. Despite this long tradition of thinkers and the numerous studies conducted on the Self, this concept is still not very well defined. More precisely, it is not a precise object of study, but rather a collection of loosely related subtopics (Baumesiter, 1998). Also, in the philosophical literature, the legitimacy of the concept of "self" has been brought into question. Some authors have argued that the self is not a psychological entity per se, but rather an illusion created by the complex interplay between cognitive and neurological subsystems (Zahavi, 2005). Although no definitive consensus has been reached regarding the Self, we emphasis in this volume that the Self and its related phenomena including self-concept, motivation, and identity are crucial for understanding consciousness and therefore important to understand human behavior. Self-concept, motivation and identity: Underpinning success with research and practice provides thus a unique insight into self-concept and its relationship to motivation and identity from varied theoretical and empirical perspectives. This volume is intended to develop both theoretical and methodological ideas and to present empirical evidence demonstrating the importance of theory and research to effective practice. (shrink)

Abstract In contrast to the metaphysical, epistemological and psychological understandings of the self traditionally held and today still extensively considered in the West, the self in Confucianism is essentially an ethical concept, representing a holistic view of humanhood and a continuingly constructive process driven by self?cultivation and moral orientations. This paper first examines what is literally and philosophically meant by the self in these two traditions, then examines the contrasts or comparisons between the Confucian conception of (...) the self and the self as perceived in some strands of Western philosophy; and finally, interprets and analyses the constructively organic theory of the Confucian self, which is clearly differentiated from the self perceived in mainstream philosophy in traditional Europe and yet is being echoed in the more recent developments of Western philosophy and in the strong current of postmodernism. [1]. (shrink)

The topic of this dissertation is one that has been in the forefront of contemporary metaphysics in the Anglo-American philosophical tradition, namely, the problem of personal identity through time. Although we generally believe that we remain the same persons throughout our lives, the answers to questions concerning just what it is that remains the same about us prove to be elusive. Contemporary debate on the subject has its roots in the challenges posed by Locke and Hume to theories which assert (...) that persisting and substantial selves, or souls, constitute the ground for personal identity, and their efforts to suggest alternative theories based on such concepts as memory and causality. It is remarkable that a similar debate, aroused by the "non-self" doctrine of the Buddha, occupied a central position in Indian philosophical discourse during the last centuries B.C.E. and the first millennium C.E. While much historical and philological research has been devoted to Buddhist approaches to this problem, the task of interpreting these materials in the light of recent refinements of philosophical method has not yet been undertaken. It is this task to which the present thesis is devoted, drawing on the works of such Buddhist philosophers as Vasubandhu and Santaraksita, and their Brahmanical opponents such as Uddyotakara, as well as recent contributions to the debate on personal identity by Chisholm, Parfit and others. The dissertation is divided into three main sections: Part One, in six chapters, traces out the history of the problem of personal identity in Indian philosophy, and is especially concerned with the role played by refinements of Indian philosophical method in the developments discussed; Part Two presents a selection of the most important Buddhist and Brahmanical contributions to the problem, newly translated from the Sanskrit for the present dissertation; and Part Three includes three supplementary essays on personal identity in the work of Derek Parfit and Steven Colline, Buddhist idealism, and Buddhist hermeneutics. (shrink)

We live in the digital age where our sense of self and identity has moved beyond the body to encompass hardware and software. Cyborgs, online representations in social media, avatars, and virtual reality extend our notion of what it means to be human. This approachable book looks at the progression of self from the biological to the technological using a multidisciplinary approach. It examines the notion of personhood from philosophical, psychological, neuroscience, robotics, and artificial intelligence perspectives, showing how (...) the interface between bodies, brains, and technology can give rise to new forms of human identity. Jay Friedenberg presents the content in an organized and easy-to-understand fashion to facilitate learning. A gifted researcher, author, and classroom teacher, he is one of the most influential voices in the field of artificial psychology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Hume on the Self and Personal Identity ed. by Dan O’BrienBridger EhliDan O’Brien, ed. Hume on the Self and Personal Identity. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. Pp. xxiv + 321. Softcover. ISBN: 9783031042751. $129.99This is an engaging collection of essays on a central topic in Hume’s philosophy. Perhaps Hume’s best-known contribution to the philosophy of the self is his denial, in section 1.4.6 of the Treatise, (...) “Of personal identity,” of the existence of a simple, enduring self that is accessible by reflection. But as his distinction between personal identity “as it regards our thought or imagination” and personal identity “as it regards our passions or the concern we take for ourselves” suggests, he has more to say about the self and personal identity than the skeptical doctrines presented in T 1.4.6 (T 1.4.6.5). One virtue of the collection is that it strives to capture the breadth and complexity of Hume’s thinking about the self.The collection, which focuses primarily on the Treatise, is divided into three parts. The essays in Part 1 consider Book 1 and the Appendix. Andrew Ward’s “How Sceptical is Hume’s Theory of Personal Identity?” argues for the provocative thesis that Hume’s intention in the Appendix is not to express dissatisfaction with either his metaphysics of the self or his psychological explanation of ascriptions of identity and simplicity to the self. According to Ward, Hume’s aim is rather to “clarify and strengthen his sceptical position” by reinforcing his rejection of realist accounts of personal identity (13). To my mind, Ward does not adequately address the textual evidence that has led other commentators to believe that the Appendix identifies a defect in T 1.4.6’s discussion of the self, such as Hume’s complaint that he does not “know how to correct [his] former opinions, nor how to render them consistent” (T App 10).Donald Ainslie’s “Hume’s Bundle” is also chiefly concerned with the interpretation of the Appendix. Ainslie has defended an influential reading according to which Hume’s problem in the Appendix concerns his psychological explanation of ascriptions of unity to the self. Here, he argues against interpretations according to which Hume’s problem concerns his metaphysical account of the self as a bundle of perceptions. According to Ainslie, Hume did not worry about how one’s perceptions come to be bundled together, because he treated the fact that perceptions come in distinct bundles as brute. This argument against the bundling interpretation seems less than decisive. At least some versions of that interpretation can be understood to hold that Hume’s problem in the Appendix arises from his being unable to answer a causal question: what is the cause of one’s perceptions’ being bundled together? In the “Letter from a Gentleman,” Hume suggests that the maxim according to which everything has a cause enjoys moral, albeit neither intuitive nor demonstrative, certainty [End Page 377] (LG 26). Insofar as he accepts this maxim, he would hold that the question of the cause of the bundling of one’s perceptions has an answer and, accordingly, that the bundling of one’s perceptions is not brute.The themes of Galen Strawson’s “What I Call Myself ” will be familiar to readers of his The Evident Connexion. Strawson argues against a traditional reading of Hume according to which he both holds that the self is nothing more than a bundle of perceptions and denies the existence of subjects of experience. Central to Straw-son’s case is what he calls the “Experience/Experiencer Thesis,” which says that the existence of an experience requires the existence of a subject of experience. Strawson takes Hume to endorse this “necessary truth” and, hence, to hold that no perception can exist without its being experienced by a subject (48). But there is a text that tells against Hume’s endorsing the Experience/Experiencer Thesis. In section 1.4.2, “Of scepticism with regard to the senses,” Hume argues that “the continu’d existence of... perceptions involves no contradiction” (T 1.4.2.40). Because what it is for perceptions... (shrink)

This book purports to devise a pattern of the self that accounts for the role that change and identity play in self-shaping. It focuses on the process through which we discover, know and shape ourselves and wonder whether there is a core of our individuality and how we should account for it. The core is described along with its range of possible variations and its constraints. This volume provides arguments on how individual essence – far from being something (...) monolithic – is inherently dynamic. The text delves into the link between change and identity in self-shaping, arguably the fundamental issue of personal individuality. Different theories and standpoints are addressed and scrutinized. Descriptive phenomenology will enter along with Max Scheler’s stance on axiology, as well as the keystones that account for self-shaping. This book appeals to students and researchers working on the implications of phenomenology for self identification and personal individuality. (shrink)

Going beyond the present controversy surrounding personhood in various non-philosophical contexts, this book seeks to defend the renewed philosophical interest in issues connected with this topic and the need for a more credible philosophical conception of the person. Taking the theory of John Locke as a starting point and in dialogue with contemporary philosophers such as Derek Parfit and P.F. Strawson, the authors develop an original philosophical anthropology based on the writings of Charles Hartshorne and A.N. Whitehead. The authors then (...) show the implications for ethics of this conception of the person and the self. (shrink)

'Most of us are still groping for answers about what makes life worth living, or what confers meaning on individual lives', writes Charles Taylor in Sources of the Self. 'This is an essentially modern predicament.' Charles Taylor's latest book sets out to define the modern identity by tracing its genesis, analysing the writings of such thinkers as Augustine, Descartes, Montaigne, Luther, and many others. This then serves as a starting point for a renewed understanding of modernity. Taylor argues that (...) modern subjectivity has its roots in ideas of human good, and is in fact the result of our long efforts to define and attain the good. The modern turn inwards is far from being a disastrous rejection of rationality, as its critics contend, but has at its heart what Taylor calls the affirmation of ordinary life. He concludes that the modern identity, and its attendant rejection of an objective order of reason, is far richer in moral sources that its detractors allow. Sources of the Self provides a decisive defence of the modern order and a sharp rebuff to its critics. (shrink)

_Naturalization of the Soul_ charts the development of the concepts of soul and self in Western thought, from Plato to the present. It fills an important gap in intellectual history by being the first book to emphasize the enormous intellectual transformation in the eighteenth century, when the religious 'soul' was replaced first by a philosophical 'self' and then by a scientific 'mind'. The authors show that many supposedly contemporary theories of the self were actually discussed in the (...) eighteenth century, and recognize the status of William Hazlitt as one of the most important Personal Identity theorists of the British Enlightenment, for his direct relevance to contemporary thinking. Now available in paperback, _Naturaliazation of the Soul_ is essential reading for anyone interested in the issues at the core of the Western philosophical tradition. (shrink)

This paper considers the importance of play as a conventional space for hypothetical self-expression and self-trial, its importance for determination of identity, and for development of self-possibilities. Expanding such possibilities in play enables challenging of socially entrenched assumptions concerning possible and appropriate identities. Discussion is extended to the contexts of gender performance (drag) and sport-play. It is argued that play proceeds on the basis of a fundamental pretence of reality that must be taken seriously by its participants; (...) this discussion includes considerations of serious and ironical play, “playing-at”, and travesty. (shrink)

Myths of the Self is a departure from the standard fare of postmodern thought. In a unique and brilliant turn, Smith argues that the best way of dealing with the topic of the self is a synthesis of a narrative theory of identity, using Ricoeur as a source, along with the constructive "postmodern" metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead. The resulting synthesis is a new and potentially invigorating spin on the genesis of postmodern thought.

In a statement too strong even to summarize his own views, Jean-Paul Sartre famously declares in “Existentialism is a Humanism” that “man is nothing other than what he makes of himself.” It is bad faith, according to him, to attribute what I am to my family, culture, condition, etc., because through awareness of what I am and have been, I can determine whether what I am will continue into the future. Human being, as a result, is nothing but what he (...) or she has chosen or decided. In “On the Necessity and Impossibility of Being a Jew,” Jean Améry rejects that view.He explicitly rejects the idea that “I am what I am for myself and in myself, and nothing else.” In doing so, he is one of a group of Jewish thinkers, including Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida, who reject Sartre’s ideas about Jewish identity and identi ty more generally, ideas expressed particularly in Reflections on the Jewish Question but amplified by views expressed in “Existentialism is a Humanism” and Being and Nothingness.Those in the group go out of their way to express their gratitude to Sartre f or writing on “the Jewish question” after the war --Sartre who wrote because he saw no mention of the 77,000 Jews in France who were deported and murdered by the Nazis. (shrink)

In this paper we try, by drawing on some insights from practical knowledge, to bridge a gap between common conceptions of teaching on the one hand, and of learning on the other. In Western traditions of educational thought and discourse, practical knowledge—i.e. the dynamics of thinking, speaking, acting, and personal writing—is frequently separated from disciplinary knowledge: i.e. the knowledge of academic disciplines. But this separation often fails to recognize an inherent dialectic in teaching and learning. Through fresh explorations of human (...) capacities to act and think, to speak and write, we try to illuminate different aspects of a teacher’s identity, including the teacher’s individuality and the teacher as an agent of an educational institution. The teacher has to present and represent knowledge in education, both as an agent of an institution and as a person. By examining the disclosure and transformation of the self in light of understandings of identity as sameness (i.e. that which doesn’t change with time), or as selfhood (i.e. that which is confronted by successive challenges), we hope to draw some productive conclusions about the teacher’s self-understanding as the source for personal learning in education. We aim to explore the importance of transformation of the teachers’ self for the quality of learning relationships between the teacher and the always Other student. (shrink)

This article analyzes narratives about encounters between police officers and domestic violence victim/survivors in the context of domestic violence calls. Narratives are sites in which individuals create relationships between themselves and others, oriented around a set of unfolding events. Narrative is a motivated, engaged retelling of prior or anticipated events produced in interaction with others, in a particular context stocked with constraints and affordances. In the process of telling stories, identities emerge. In order to understand the relationship between narrative and (...) identity, I analyze stories told about police interactions with domestic violence victim/survivors from the perspectives of both the police and the victim/survivors. Working empirically with a data set of 48 interviews, I use critical discourse analysis and discourse analysis to analyze the ways both groups narrate domestic violence and confrontations with police officers, the ways they create story worlds stocked with characters, the ways story characters are formed and deployed, and the ways those characters are positioned against/with/by the storyteller, allowing the storyteller’s identity to emerge. This article is an analysis of the relationship between the storyteller and the story world and the storyteller’s process of constructing an/other in order to position in relation to that other. Ultimately, I argue that identity emerges for the storyteller in the way she or he constructs characters in a story and then positions in relation to those characters. (shrink)

This paper explores what happens to the identity of self when entering a place of protest, and what happens to it on leaving. In short, it explores the relations between identities of self and place. Acknowledging the presence of a multiplicity of identities in relation to both notions, it examines the ways in which aspects of the self influence place, and conversely, how aspects of place influence the self. By using empirical examples from Environmental Direct Action, (...) the paper follows Casey in arguing for the co-constitution of self- and place-identities. It offers two notions: the spatial division of self-identity, and the rhizomatic self, to further understanding of how the where effects whom we are. (shrink)