The self is an
individual
An individual is that which exists as a distinct entity. Individuality (or self-hood) is the state or quality of being an individual; particularly (in the case of humans) of being a person unique from other people and possessing one's own Maslow ...
as the object of that individual’s own reflective
consciousness. Since the ''self'' is a reference by a subject to the same subject, this reference is necessarily
subjective
Subjective may refer to:
* Subjectivity, a subject's personal perspective, feelings, beliefs, desires or discovery, as opposed to those made from an independent, objective, point of view
** Subjective experience, the subjective quality of conscio ...
. The sense of having a self—or ''selfhood''—should, however, not be confused with
subjectivity
Subjectivity in a philosophical context has to do with a lack of objective reality. Subjectivity has been given various and ambiguous definitions by differing sources as it is not often the focal point of philosophical discourse.Bykova, Marina F ...
itself. Ostensibly, this sense is directed outward from the subject to refer inward, back to its "self" (or itself). Examples of psychiatric conditions where such "sameness" may become broken include
depersonalization, which sometimes occurs in
schizophrenia: the self appears different from the subject.
The first-person perspective distinguishes selfhood from
personal identity. Whereas "identity" is (literally) sameness and may involve
categorization
Categorization is the ability and activity of recognizing shared features or similarities between the elements of the experience of the world (such as Object (philosophy), objects, events, or ideas), organizing and classifying experience by a ...
and
labeling,
selfhood implies a first-person perspective and suggests potential uniqueness. Conversely, we use "person" as a third-person reference. Personal identity can be impaired in late-stage
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...
and in other
neurodegenerative diseases. Finally, the self is distinguishable from "others". Including the distinction between sameness and
otherness, the self versus other is a research topic in contemporary
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
and contemporary
phenomenology
Phenomenology may refer to:
Art
* Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties
Philosophy
* Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...
(see also
psychological phenomenology),
psychology,
psychiatry,
neurology, and
neuroscience.
Although
subjective experience
In philosophy of mind, qualia ( or ; singular form: quale) are defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term ''qualia'' derives from the Latin neuter plural form (''qualia'') of the Latin adjective '' quālis'' () ...
is central to selfhood, the privacy of this experience is only one of many problems in the
Philosophy of self and
scientific study of
consciousness.
Psychology
The psychology of self is the study of either the
cognitive
Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
and
affective representation of one's identity or the subject of experience. The earliest formulation of the self in
modern psychology
Psychology is defined as "the scientific study of behavior and mental processes". Philosophical interest in the human mind and behavior dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Persia, Greece, China, and India.
Psychology as a field of ...
forms the distinction between the self as ''I'', the subjective knower, and the self as ''Me'', the subject that is known. Current views of the self in psychology position the self as playing an integral part in human motivation, cognition, affect, and
social identity
Identity is the qualities, beliefs, personality traits, appearance, and/or expressions that characterize a person or group.Compare ''Collins Dictionary of Sociology'', quoted in
In sociology, emphasis is placed on collective identity, in which ...
. Self following from
John Locke
John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism ...
has been seen as a product of
episodic memory but research upon those with
amnesia
Amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage or disease,Gazzaniga, M., Ivry, R., & Mangun, G. (2009) Cognitive Neuroscience: The biology of the mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. but it can also be caused temporarily by the use ...
find they have a coherent sense of self based upon preserved conceptual autobiographical knowledge.
It is increasingly possible to correlate cognitive and affective experience of self with neural processes. A goal of this ongoing research is to provide grounding and insight into the elements of which the complex multiple situated selves of human identity are composed.
What the Freudian tradition has subjectively called, "sense of self" is for Jungian analytic psychology, where one's identity is lodged in the persona or ego and is subject to change in maturation.
Carl Jung distinguished, "The self is not only the center but also the whole circumference which embraces both conscious and unconscious; it is the center of this totality...". The
Self in Jungian psychology is "the archetype of wholeness and the regulating center of the psyche ... a transpersonal power that transcends the ego." As a
Jungian archetype, it cannot be seen directly, but by ongoing individuating maturation and analytic observation, can be experienced objectively by its cohesive wholeness-making factor.
Meanwhile,
self psychology is a set of psychotherapeutic principles and techniques established by the Austrian-born American psychoanalyst
Heinz Kohut upon the foundation of the psychoanalytic method developed by Freud, and is specifically focused on the subjectivity of experience, which, according to self psychology, is mediated by a psychological structure called the self.
Psychiatry
The 'Disorders of the Self' have also been extensively studied by psychiatrists.
For example, facial and
pattern recognition take large amounts of brain processing capacity but
pareidolia cannot explain many constructs of self for cases of disorder, such as schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.
One's sense of self can also be changed upon becoming part of a stigmatized group. According to Cox,
Abramson,
Devine
Devine is an Irish surname derived from Ní Dhaimhín / Ó Daimhín. Notable people with the surname include:
* Adam DeVine (born 1983), American actor, comedian, singer, writer and producer
* Alan Devine, Irish actor
* Alexander Devine, British ...
, and Hollon (2012), if an individual has prejudice against a certain group, like the elderly and then later becomes part of this group this prejudice can be turned inward causing depression (i.e. deprejudice).
The philosophy of a disordered self, such as in
schizophrenia, is described in terms of what the psychiatrist understands are actual events in terms of neuron excitation but are delusions nonetheless, and the schizo-affective or a schizophrenic person also believes are actual events in terms of essential being. PET scans have shown that auditory stimulation is processed in certain areas of the brain, and imagined similar events are processed in adjacent areas, but hallucinations are processed in the same areas as actual stimulation. In such cases, external influences may be the source of consciousness and the person may or may not be responsible for "sharing" in the mind's process, or the events which occur, such as visions and auditory stimuli, may persist and be repeated often over hours, days, months or years—and the afflicted person may believe themselves to be in a state of rapture or possession.
Neuroscience
Two areas of the
brain
The brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head ( cephalization), usually near organs for special ...
that are important in retrieving
self-knowledge are the
medial prefrontal cortex and the medial posterior parietal cortex.
[Pfeifer, J. H., Lieberman, M. D., & Dapretto, M. (2007). "I know you are but what am I?!": Neural bases of self and social knowledge retrieval in children and adults. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19(8), 1323-1337.]
The
posterior cingulate cortex, the
anterior cingulate cortex, and
medial prefrontal cortex are thought to combine to provide humans with the ability to self-reflect. The
insular cortex is also thought to be involved in the process of
self-reference
Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence, idea or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding. In philoso ...
.
[Modinos G, Renken R, Ormel J, Aleman A. Self-reflection and the psychosis-prone brain: an fMRI study. Neuropsychology erial online May 2011;25(3):295-305. Available from: MEDLINE with Full Text, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 7, 2011.]
Sociology
Culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these grou ...
consists of explicit and implicit patterns of historically derived and selected ideas and their embodiment in institutions, cognitive and social practices, and artifacts. Cultural systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, and on the other, as conditioning elements of further action. The way individuals construct themselves may be different due to their culture.
Markus and Kitayama's early 1990s theory hypothesized that representations of the self in human cultures would fall on a continuum from ''independent'' to ''interdependent''. The independent self is supposed to be egoistic, unique, separated from the various contexts, critical in judgment, and prone to self-expression. The interdependent self is supposed to be altruistic, similar with the others, flexible according to contexts, conformist, and unlikely to express opinions that would disturb the harmony of his or her group of belonging. This theory enjoyed huge popularity despite its many problems such as being based on popular stereotypes and myths about different cultures rather than on rigorous scientific research as well as postulating a series of causal links between culture and self-construals without presenting any evidence supporting them.
A large study from 2016 involving a total of 10,203 participants from 55 cultural groups found that there is no independent versus interdependent dimension of self-construal because traits supposed by Markus & Kitayama to form a coherent construct do not actually correlate, or if they correlate, they have correlations opposite to those postulated by Markus & Kitayama.
There are seven separate dimensions of self-construal which can be found at both the cultural level of analysis and the individual level of analysis. These dimensions are ''difference versus similarity'' (if the individual considers himself or herself to be a unique person or to be the same as everybody else), ''self-containment versus connection to others'' (feeling oneself as being separated from others versus feeling oneself as being together with the others), ''self-direction versus receptiveness to influence'' (independent thinking versus conformity).
[ Westerners, Latin Americans, and the Japanese are relatively likely to represent their individual self as unique and different from that of others while Arabs, South-East Asians, and Africans are relatively likely to represent themselves as being similar to that of others. Individuals from Uganda, Japan, Colombia, Namibia, Ghana, and Belgium were most likely to represent their selves as being emotionally separated from the community while individuals from Oman, Malaysia, Thailand, and central Brazil were most likely to consider themselves as emotionally connected to their communities. Japanese, Belgians, British, and Americans from Colorado were most likely to value independent thinking and consider themselves as making their own decisions in life independently from others. On the other hand, respondents from rural Peru, Malaysia, Ghana, Oman, and Hungary were most likely to place more value on following others rather than thinking for themselves as well as to describe themselves as being often influenced by others in their decisions. Middle Easterners from Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, and Oman were most likely to value self-reliance and consider themselves as working on their own and being economically independent of others. On the other hand, respondents from Uganda, Japan, and Namibia were most likely to consider cooperation between different individuals in economical activities as being important. Chileans, Ethiopians from the highlands, Turks, and people from Lebanon placed a relatively high degree of importance on maintaining a stable pattern of behavior regardless of situation or context. Individuals from Japan, Cameroon, the United Kingdom, and Sweden were most likely to describe themselves as being adaptable to various contexts and to place value on this ability. Colombians, Chileans, US Hispanics, Belgians, and Germans were most likely to consider self-expression as being more important than maintaining harmony within a group. Respondents from Oman, Cameroon, and Malaysia were most likely to say that they prefer keeping harmony within a group to engaging in self-expression. Sub-Saharan Africans from Namibia, Ghana, and Uganda considered that they would follow their own interests even if this means harming the interests of those close to them. Europeans from Belgium, Italy, and Sweden had the opposite preference, considering self-sacrifice for other members of the community as being more important than accomplishing selfish goals.][
Contrary to the theory of Markus & Kitayama, egoism correlates negatively with individual uniqueness, independent thinking, and self-expression. Self-reliance correlates strongly and negatively with emotional self-containment, which is also unexpected given Markus & Kitayama's theory. The binary classification of cultural self-construals into independent versus interdependent is deeply flawed because in reality, the traits do not correlate according to Markus & Kitayama's self-construal theory, and this theory fails to take into consideration the extremely diverse and complex variety of self-construals present in various cultures across the world.
]
Philosophy
The philosophy of self seeks to describe essential qualities that constitute a person's uniqueness or essential being. There have been various approaches to defining these qualities. The self can be considered that being which is the source of consciousness, the agent responsible for an individual's thoughts and actions, or the substantial nature of a person which endures and unifies consciousness over time.
In addition to Emmanuel Levinas writings on "otherness", the distinction between "you" and "me" has been further elaborated in Martin Buber's philosophical work: Ich und Du.
Religion
Religious views on the Self vary widely. The Self is a complex and core subject in many forms of spirituality
The meaning of ''spirituality'' has developed and expanded over time, and various meanings can be found alongside each other. Traditionally, spirituality referred to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape o ...
. Two types of Self are commonly considered—the Self that is the ego
Ego or EGO may refer to:
Social sciences
* Ego (Freudian), one of the three constructs in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche
* Egoism, an ethical theory that treats self-interest as the foundation of morality
* Egotism, the drive to ...
, also called the learned, superficial Self of mind and body, egoic creation, and the Self which is sometimes called the "True Self", the "Observing Self", or the "Witness". In Hinduism, the Ātman (Self), despite being experienced as an individual, is actually a representation of the unified transcendent reality, Brahman. Our experience of reality doesn't match the nature of Brahman due to māyā
''Maya'' (; Devanagari: , IAST: ), literally "illusion" or "magic", has multiple meanings in Indian philosophies depending on the context. In later Vedic texts, connotes a "magic show, an illusion where things appear to be present but are not ...
.
One description of spirituality is the Self's search for "ultimate meaning" through an independent comprehension of the sacred. Another definition of spiritual identity is: "A persistent sense of Self that addresses ultimate questions about the nature, purpose, and meaning of life, resulting in behaviors that are consonant with the individual’s core values. Spiritual identity appears when the symbolic religious and spiritual value of a culture is found by individuals in the setting of their own life. There can be different types of spiritual Self because it is determined by one's life and experiences."
Human beings have a Self—that is, they are able to look back on themselves as both subjects and objects in the universe. Ultimately, this brings questions about who we are and the nature of our own importance. Traditions such as Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
see the attachment
Attachment may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Attachments'' (novel), a 2011 novel by Rainbow Rowell
* ''Attachments'' (TV series), a BBC comedy-drama that ran from 2000 to 2002
Law
* Attachment (law), a means of collecting a legal judgment by lev ...
to Self is an illusion that serves as the main cause of suffering
Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, may be an experience of unpleasantness or aversion, possibly associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual. Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of a ...
and unhappiness. Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesu ...
makes a distinction between the true self and the false self, and sees the false self negatively, distorted through sin: 'The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?' ( Jeremiah 17:9)
According to Marcia Cavell
Marcia may refer to:
People
* Marcia (given name)
*James Marcia, Canadian psychologist
*Stefano Marcia (born 1993), South African Olympic sailor
Other uses
* ''Marcia'' (Beccafumi), a c. 1519 painting by Domenico Beccafumi
* ''Marcia'' (bivalve ...
, identity comes from both political and religious views. She also identified exploration and commitment as interactive parts of identity formation, which includes religious identity. Erik Erikson
Erik Homburger Erikson (born Erik Salomonsen; 15 June 1902 – 12 May 1994) was a German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychological development of human beings. He coined the phrase identity cr ...
compared faith with doubt and found that healthy adults take heed to their spiritual side.[Kiesling, Chris; Montgomery, Marylin; Sorell, Gwendolyn; Colwell, Ronald. "Identity and Spirituality: A Psychosocial Exploration of the Sense of Spiritual Self"]
See also
* Anatta— "not-self", there is no unchanging, permanent self, soul or essence in living beings
* Ātman (Buddhism), Buddhist concept of self
* Ātman (Hinduism), inner self or soul in Hindu philosophy
* Attention
Attention is the behavioral and cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, whether considered subjective or objective, while ignoring other perceivable information. William James (1890) wrote that "Atte ...
* Consciousness
* Ego (disambiguation)
Ego or EGO may refer to:
Social sciences
* Ego (Freudian), one of the three constructs in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche
* Egoism, an ethical theory that treats self-interest as the foundation of morality
* Egotism, the drive to ...
*
* I (pronoun)
In Modern English, ''I'' is the singular, first-person pronoun.
Morphology
In Standard Modern English, ''I'' has five distinct word forms:
* ''I'': the nominative (subjective) form
**''I'' is the only pronoun form that is always capitalize ...
* Individual
An individual is that which exists as a distinct entity. Individuality (or self-hood) is the state or quality of being an individual; particularly (in the case of humans) of being a person unique from other people and possessing one's own Maslow ...
* Individuation
* Jīva (Jainism), or Atman, used within Jainism to identify the soul
* Me (pronoun), the first-person singular pronoun, referring to the speaker
* Meditation
* Moral psychology
Moral psychology is a field of study in both philosophy and psychology. Historically, the term "moral psychology" was used relatively narrowly to refer to the study of moral development. Moral psychology eventually came to refer more broadly to var ...
* Outline of self
* Person (disambiguation)
A person is a being, such as a human, that has certain capacities or attributes constituting personhood.
Person or Persons may also refer to:
* Dramatis personae, the characters in a play or other written work
* Persona, a social role, or a char ...
* Self remembering
Pyotr Demianovich Ouspenskii (known in English as Peter D. Ouspensky; rus, Пётр Демья́нович Успе́нский, Pyotr Demyánovich Uspénskiy; 5 March 1878 – 2 October 1947) was a Russian esotericist known for his expositions ...
* Self-awareness
In philosophy of self, self-awareness is the experience of one's own personality or individuality. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. While consciousness is being aware of one's environment and body and lifesty ...
* Self-knowledge (psychology)
* Social projection
* Soul
* ''Sources of the Self
''Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity'' is a work of philosophy by Charles Taylor, published in 1989 by Harvard University Press. It is an attempt to articulate and to write a history of the "modern identity".
Summary
The bo ...
''
* True self and false self
* Will (philosophy)
References
Further reading
* Anthony Elliott, ''Concepts of the Self''
* Anthony Giddens
Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens (born 18 January 1938) is an English sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern sociologists and is t ...
, ''Modernity and self-identity: self and society in the late modern age''
* Ben Morgan (2013). ''On Becoming God: Late Medieval Mysticism and the Modern Western Self.'' New York: Fordham UP
* Bernadette Roberts
''What is Self? A Research Paper''
* Charalambos Tsekeris
''Contextualising the self in contemporary social science''
* Charles Taylor, ''Sources of the self: the making of the modern identity''
* Clark Moustakas, ''The self: explorations in personal growth''
* Fernando Andacht Fernando Torres Andacht is a Uruguayan-born semiotician.
Andacht studied Letters at the University of the Republic, graduating in 1978. Afterwards he obtained an MA in General Linguistics at Ohio University (1981), a Doctorate in Latin American Stu ...
, Mariela Michel,
A Semiotic Reflection on Selfinterpretation and Identity
'
* Jean Dalby Clift, ''Core Images of the Self: A Symbolic Approach to Healing and Wholeness''
* Richard Sorabji, ''Self: ancient and modern insights about individuality, life, and death''
* Robert Kegan, ''The evolving self: problem and process in human development''
* Thomas M. Brinthaupt, Richard P. Lipka, ''The Self: definitional and methodological issues''
* 1910-1999., Eknath, Easwaran, (2019). The Bhagavad Gita. Nilgiri Press. ISBN 1-58638-130-X. OCLC 1043425057
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Concepts in metaphysics