Be your self

WHAT IS THE SELF?

“Everyone’s always trying to distinguish themselves as unique but it ends up sounding and looking the same… Just be yourself.” old grump

What is the issue here? If people belong to a cultural community – and who doesn’t? – what content can there be to the concept of “the self?” If “the self” is seen as a unique individual how is such uniqueness possible when one, of necessity, belongs to that cultural community? Is radical individualism, for that is what the concept of the unique self embodies, an illusion fostered paradoxically by that cultural community itself? Conversely, can such a cultural community, one which celebrates radical individualism, exist in any meaningful sense at all?

“Everyone’s unique,” we are all told. But what does that mean? Does it mean anything? Some might claim that such uniqueness is based on our genetic code, our DNA and all that, but does this establish our uniqueness in any sense beyond the merely biological? Is “the self” therefore no more than a subjective delusion, a misplaced belief in our own uniqueness? Would anyone be able to demonstrate just how he was unique? How would he do that?

“No man is an island,” we are all told. But what does that mean? Does it mean anything? Some claim that we are all social beings, that we have no separate identity apart from our membership in the group. That was why, for example, ostracism was such a big deal for the ancient Greeks. To be ostracized from his “polis”, from his city-state, just didn’t mean he was an outsider and had to live elsewhere. It meant he just didn’t exist.

A middle ground beckons, one between anarchy and totalitarianism. Anarchy consists of the absence of the rule of law, every man for himself famously described by Thomas Hobbes where he spoke of a “Bellum omnia contra omnes” (“A war of all against all”). On the other hand totalitarianism consists of the complete submergence of “the self” in the group to the point where it – whatever it is – no longer exists. “Mussolini ha sempre ragione!” (“Mussolini is always right!”) was the cry of fascist Italy.

The concept of “the self” then has no meaning apart from “the culture” in which it is located and “the culture” in its turn, has no meaning apart from that of “the self” which it subsumes. Neither is static. The one may be temporarily in the ascendant at the expense of the other but will, it its turn, give rise to the other. History can be seen as a continual re-balancing of the equation.

How did I do?

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

WHAT IS THE SELF? (2): THE DEEP-DIVER vs THE FREE-CHOOSER

“Everyone’s always trying to distinguish themselves as unique but it ends up sounding and looking the same… Just be yourself.” old grump

We saw in “What is the Self?” (06/28, 12:29PM) that there existed an insoluble tension between the “unique individual” on the one hand and the existence of an enveloping “cultural” community” on the other. The two concepts appeared to be irreconcilable. The one flourished at the expense of the other. But can the issue be approached at the individual rather than the social level? Can it be resolved by examining what goes on in the mind of the individual himself?

As Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, we are “bewitched by language.” Note that the question, “What is the Self” begins with the word “What” and so appears to indicate that “the self” consists of an object, some sort of substance. But does this make sense? The story of the “Deep-Diver” may be illuminating.

The Deep-Diver maintains that “the self” may be revealed by plunging into the depths of one’s consciousness by means of introspecting the contents of his own mind. As he descends downward he believes that, lying at the bottom so to speak, will be revealed a smiling, ghost-like homunculus, a pale little man who will be revealed as his true “self”, the object of his heart’s desire. But, of course, this has never happened and the reason that it has never happened is the the story of the Deep-Diver is a fable. There is no such little homunculus lying at the bottom of consciousness who will be revealed as his “true self”. To put into ten-dollar terms, the “self” so conceived is little more than hypostatized subjectivity. We “feel” that there is the “real self” down there but it is illusory. So much for the Deep-Diver. What about the Free-Chooser?

While the quest of the Deep-Diver was ontological, seeking the identity of the Self in terms of an aspect of reality, the Free-Chooser takes the view of the Self as agent, as the “actor” behind the “act”. The Free-Chooser comes at the problem from an epistemological rather than an ontological angle. In other words, the Self of the Free-Chooser is grounded on the view that his thoughts are his own. But, and here’s the nub, for the thoughts of the Free-Chooser to be coherent his choosing of those thoughts must be, um, free.

But here we seem to rub up against the enveloping cultural dilemma again for how can the Free-Chooser’s thoughts be free – where by “free” we mean totally unconditioned by his culture – since he is culturally conditioned even down to the level of language as Wittgenstein pointed out? Forget the choice between chocolate and vanilla. Like the rest of us, the Free-Chooser swims in the sea of language, that in terms of which the dilemma of choice is itself articulated and in terms of which the Self can acquire meaning. In other words, the question, “What is the Self?” is an inescapable linguistic construct. As with the Deep-Diver’s pristine homunculus, the Free-Chooser cannot win through to some equally pristine state, sometimes called “the other side of language”.

So there we are. How did I do?

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

ARGUING WITH A LINK & ITS LINKER

RSVP

: Basil Fawlty (07/1, 11:03AM)

Basil writes, “Glasonbury anyone?” and posts a link on the Online Mail which lists the symptoms of mid-life crisis. The obvious inference is that my philosophical arguments – most recently I argued with myself since no other worthy opponents presented themselves – were little more than a symptom of mid-life crisis. But is this true? Basil appears to believe so, but is he right? A little background might be in order.

A while ago I had lunch and a walk-around in Glastonbury. I had just given a paper at a conference of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain at Cambridge University and was driving down to Cornwall to visit relatives. Glastonbury might be seen as Woodstock with balls. Rather than just an empty field, it is the famous site of the spectacular ruins of a mediaeval abbey but, and here Basil’s analogy kicks in, it is also the spiritual headquarters of the New Agers, those who bliss out in the rain while communing with the spirits of times long gone. Lots of pony tails, flowered mumus and all that but – and this is important – I am not one of these. I’m not into New Age. Rather than blissing out in the rain, my game is hard-nosed philosophical analysis and debate. So Basil’s Glastonbury analogy is misfires. The second question, of course, is whether or not philosophical speculation and debate is age-specific, merely a symptom of mid-life crisis.

I find Basil’s linking chronology and thought – one’s age and intellectual activity – to be overly mechanistic, even deterministic. Counter-examples, of course, proliferate. Think of those on this site many of whom are, no doubt, of middle age yet have never had a philosophical thought in their lives to say nothing of engaging in intellectual debate. Their number is legion. They are without reflection of any structured and sustained quality. They may, as the link maintains, long for a simple life, may even have thought of opening a B&B
(gasp, I thought at one time of opening The Whippet Inn on our 3 1/2 ocean-front acres at Little Liscomb on the Eastern Shore) but still the connection between philosophical engagement and age needs to be demonstrated rather than simply asserted.

I leave this to Basil to mull over and, who knows, engage with me now in the philosophical dialectic, that by means of which we become clearer about how things are and what ought to be done.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

Well, a guy’s got to do something for pocket money!