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Definition of self in philosophy
Definition of self in philosophy
Concept of allegory of the cave
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This quote by Albert Einstein is in relation with my paper due to the fact he is talking about that our task in the world is to embrace everything around us instead of only knowing what we are used to which he calls our “prison.” What makes us human beings? Or what is the difference between self and being a human being? In philosophy the human being and the self are completely different from one another without involving science. The self and the human being are two completely different concepts: the self is who we are as a person whereas the human being is more of a physical manifestation of the concept of being human.
Many philosophers have different views on how one identifies as a self. A popular view is the social penetration theory or
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Authenticity is living out one’s life to their full capacity for moral thought and development. While being inauthentic means not living a full human capacity because you are selfish, lazy, irresponsible, scared, or ignorant. An example of being authentic versus inauthentic is the Allegory Cave written by Plato. In the story a group of people live in a dark cave with no light and one of the individuals becomes curious to a bright shining thing, which was the light outside of the cave. No one from the group has ever been outside of the cave yet this one individual was curious to what was the light and where it was coming from. The individual then went outside the cave and saw colors, animals, and nature. After experiencing the world outside of the cave he then went back to the cave to explain to the rest of the group that they do not have to live in a dark cave but can venture beyond the cave and explore more of the world. Scared and ignorant the rest of the group ignored him and did not believe him or they were too scared to believe him. This example of the group being inauthentic because they were afraid what was beyond the cave they were so used to and wanted to stay in their safe bubble where they know nothing will happen to them. While the individual who was authentic questioned what was beyond did venture out and reflected something different he never thought he would
The first unit on our textbook Interactions by Ann Moseley and Jeanette Harris talks about the self-concept. It is hard to find a definition for the self-concept because it is certain beliefs about ethnicity, religion, and personalities combined. This unit has a number of readings by various authors where it shows struggles with the self. Self-identity, ethnic backgrounds, and self-esteem are the major aspects of those readings. After reading their writings I found that I could relate to their experiences. The three readings that got my attention were “Zero” By Paul Logan, “I’m Just Me” by Lylah Alphonse, and “The Jacket” by Gary Soto.
What the texts suggest about the relationship between how an individual sees themselves vs how the individual is seen by others, is through the concept of identity. An individual’s identity is shaped by many factors: life experiences, memories, personality, talents, relationships and many more.
In the real life, it is hard to judge our personal identity: we are aware of who we are every second and minute, we also are able to check our appearance that we have known since we were born from looking at mirror. We know “I am myself” all the time.
What does it mean to be human? To most people it means being high on the food chain; or having the ability to make our own choices. People everywhere have a few things in common: We all must obey Natural laws, and we have preconceived ideas, stereotypes, and double standards. Being human is simply conveyed as human nature in “The Cold Equations”, by Tom Godwin, where the author shows the common ground that makes each and every one of us human.
The social identity theory is a person’s sense of who they are based on their social
Personal identity, in the context of philosophy, does not attempt to address clichéd, qualitative questions of what makes us us. Instead, personal identity refers to numerical identity or sameness over time. For example, identical twins appear to be exactly alike, but their qualitative likeness in appearance does not make them the same person; each twin, instead, has one and only one identity – a numerical identity. As such, philosophers studying personal identity focus on questions of what has to persist for an individual to keep his or her numerical identity over time and of what the pronoun “I” refers to when an individual uses it. Over the years, theories of personal identity have been established to answer these very questions, but the
However, despite all of the analysis and vast literature on the topic of selfhood there are still no completely agreed upon definitions of the self. Several scholars argue that it can never be given one simple, consistent description. The majority of authors are inclined to avoid the ‘unanswerable’ question of what self is and their constructions are based more on implicit understandings than clear-cut descriptions. As with the idea of consciousness, the self is catalogued amid those notions that are
You are as others see you, yet others do not always see you as you are. With the importance others play on the sense of identity, it's no wonder that peers influence the minds of individuals early on in life. As young toddlers, children do not recognize biological
What is personal identity? This question has been asked and debated by philosophers for centuries. The problem of personal identity is determining what conditions and qualities are necessary and sufficient for a person to exist as the same being at one time as another. Some think personal identity is physical, taking a materialistic perspective believing that bodily continuity or physicality is what makes a person a person with the view that even mental things are caused by some kind of physical occurrence. Others take a more idealist approach with the belief that mental continuity is the sole factor in establishing personal identity holding that physical things are just reflections of the mind. One more perspective on personal identity and the one I will attempt to explain and defend in this paper is that personal identity requires both physical and psychological continuity; my argument is as follows:
“Self” is the identity bestowed upon humans that allows us to distinguish ourselves from one another. A persons unique psyche is what entitles them to be considered an individual and mindfully independent. This distinct self identity follows a person through out every facet of their lives. It remains the same “self” from the time a person is born to the day they die, and possibly after. Despite many opinions, the true “self” does not come from our physical body, it comes from the mind and the soul. It is not what a person specifically thinks and feels, but the distinctive unparalleled way they do so. “Self” is embodied by our continued existence in every moment we experience. Our “self” is created to be stable and is best exemplified through consciousness. Consciousness, as defined by Miller in John Perry’s First Night, is “the non-physical and non-material aspects of you”. Some non-physical features of consciousness are demonstrated through our actions, memories, and how we perceive information. As new born babies, our consciousness is already established. Newborns have the ability to recognize their individual needs. They have a full understand of their idea of pain and pleasure, happiness and sadness. As we grow older, we better establish an awareness of our
A person can have more than one identity to be recognized as but when identity are thought of, people will mostly focus on the external markers of identity; what we can see on our self, physically.
What does it mean to be human? Sure, one must have the usual physical features such as fingers, eyes, arms, hands, feet, etc., but what does it really mean? Must the human be able to speak? To take upon the actions of themselves? Whatever it means, it can be interpreted in any way from anyone. The physical attributes of any human can be compared to those of our evolutionary ancestors. However, it is possible to believe that there are many characteristics that make a human, but only six define the true, ideal human.
In affirmative culture and authenticity. the individual learns to love his isolation; factual isolation is sublimated into metaphysical isolation and inner abundance substitutes for physical hardship.45 Affirmative culture prides itself by inner fulfilment in the place of outer limitations, the soul becomes the last area of refuge from attack.46 Since authenticity requires a facticity in which an entirely free self is contrasted with an entirely dynamic world, it encapsulates this inner freedom perfectly.47 Authenticity perfectly demonstrates the value of individualistic withdrawal against the reifying forces of civilization; it does not matter what occurs externally, as long as one's internal choices are "authentic". Every authentic individual exists without material or spiritual limitations; this is exactly what affirmative culture demands.48 Through it's withdrawal, authenticity encapsulates affirmative
John F. Crosby in his work, The Selfhood of the Human Person, attempts to provide an advancement in the understanding of the human person. Persons are conscious beings who think and know they are thinking. He claims persons are not merely replaceable objects, but characters who cannot be substituted or owned. Crosby describes personhood as standing in yourself, being an end to yourself, and being anchored in yourself. A feature of personhood is that persons can be conscious of everything in the universe while the universe acts on them. Additionally, personhood means persons exist for their own sake and not for the sake of others. However, persons who are centered in themselves often give of themselves. Persons are incommunicable unlike any other piece of creation. A quality of the incommunicability of persons is action. Aquinas explains person are not acted on but act through themselves.
If you were to look at what makes us human from a purely physical perspective you would be looking at everything that was empirical about a human being. This category could be divided into two sections: the first would be the actual appearance of human beings and the second would be the genetic make-up. Basically it would be made up of what you can see at first glance and what you could see at an even closer glance. The physical perspective can be summarised as the things one can see about human beings. Some appearance traits that make us human are quite obvious; nimble hands, soft skin and bipedal. Others are not quite so obvious from first glance such as a large brain (Cartmill & Brown, 2012). If we were to list every single thing that made us look human it would take quite some time. This is the most obvious thing that makes us human, the way we look.