Philosophy Now Forum

by Rick Lewis

http://philosophynow.org/issues/97/Self_Self_Self

new moment, new self...

-Imp

As I see it, to know thyself requires both a reacting self (our normal lives) and that which can consciously know it (experience it). This is hard to describe but the Gospel of Thomas provides a good description.

(3) Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

To "know thyself" invites a vertical psychological relationship like a ladder connecting this conscious attribute of our being which consciously knows thyself and that which in turn experiences this attribute that knows thyself

Got to say that I liked the criticism of Jayne Jaures (or however its spelt) by the Rational Optimist, I wish to God that someone would do something similar for the whole "self is an illusion" idea because it aggrivates me to no end.

It reflects the feeble relativism which seems to have infested everything and all thought what so ever.

Because the self is difficult to grasp and many people are superficial and lack character or consistency is no indication at all that the self is illusionary, there's too many things which are considered illusionary because proofs are elusive or difficult, its a sign of ideology triumphing over rigour in thinking and research and the ideology of the moment seems to be philosophical buddhism.

There are plenty of illusions, there are a lot of things about the self which are illusionary, Erich Fromm was able to provide a lot of good insights into the extent to which individual unconscious and collective or social unconscious reciprocated and resulted in the growth of social characters which were phony and divergent from human nature, Karen Horney, ego psychologists, other schools of thought all developed the conflict between the true self and phony self or idealised self to a great extent too.

What bothers me more too is that this is a totally and utterly impractical philosophy too, that the self, choice, free will are all illusions, what can that insight possibly garner for anyone? Its come along in waves, behaviourism, cognitivism, other schools of thought, including most recently the neo-athiests like Dennett and it all seems born of a morose despairing depressive state of mind.

In the U.S. I think that the self is discussed more so than in other countries, that practice Buddhism. There the self is an illusion. It is not real to them, but it seems to be a reality to us in this country. We are brought up to be individualists here, and with that comes the ability to make our own choices and decisions. This I think, is part of what makes up the self. There is opposition to that idea, however. If one is a determinist, then the topic of choice is not something you believe.
The self is a difficult thing to wrap the mind around. It is something that is an interesting area of discussion.