自己

Self — Grokipedia Fact-checked by Grok 3 months ago Self Ara Eve Leo Sal 1x The self denotes the subjective, unified experience of personal identity , encompassing an individual's consciousness , agency, reflective awareness , and sense of continuity across time, often partitioned into empirical aspects (such as body, possessions, and social roles) and a judging, appropriative "I" that owns and narrates these elements. [1] [2] In philosophy , the self has been analyzed as a substantial thinking entity underlying rational action or, contrariwise, as a mere aggregation of transient perceptions without intrinsic unity, prompting ongoing debate over its ontological reality versus illusory status derived from causal chains of experience. [3] Psychological models, exemplified by William James ' framework, delineate the self into material (bodily and proprietary extensions), social (interpersonal recognitions), and spiritual (psychic capacities) dimensions, all unified by memory and emotional appropriation rather than a metaphysical core. [1] Empirical investigations in neuroscience reveal no singular locus for the self but distributed correlates in the brain's default mode network —particularly medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices—facilitating self-referential processing, predictive modeling of internal states, and integration of interoceptive signals with external agency, underscoring its emergence from adaptive neural mechanisms rather than an independent substance. [4] [5] These findings challenge intuitive notions of a persistent homunculus , highlighting instead a dynamic, context-sensitive construct vulnerable to disruption in conditions like amnesia or dissociation, yet essential for causal accountability and adaptive behavior in causal realism. [1] [2] Etymology and Core Concepts Linguistic Origins The English word self , denoting one's own person or an identical entity, originates from Old English self (West Saxon form sylf ), seolf (Anglian variant), attested as early as the 9th century in texts like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle . [6] This term functioned primarily as a reflexive pronoun or intensifier, as in constructions emphasizing personal agency or identity, such as ic sylf ("I myself"). [6] Linguistically, Old English self derives from Proto-Germanic *selbaz , a reflexive form reconstructed from comparative evidence across Germanic languages , including Old High German selb and Gothic silba , both carrying connotations of "same" or "one's own." [6] This Proto-Germanic root traces further to Proto-Indo-European *sél-bʰo- , an ablaut variant of *sel- , which conveyed notions of division, separation, or reflexiveness, as evidenced by cognates like Latin sē ( reflexive pronoun "himself/herself/itself") and Sanskrit sva- ("one's own," as in svayam "self"). [6] These connections highlight a deep Indo-European heritage where "self" markers often denoted autonomy or mirroring, distinct from third-person references. By Middle English (circa 1100–1500 CE), following the Norman Conquest, self evolved into compounds like himself and herself , with the prefix self- gaining productivity around the mid-16th century for neologisms such as self-love (1570s) and self-esteem (1620s), reflecting expanding philosophical and introspective uses. [7] Dialectal variants persisted, such as East Midlands sen (from Middle English seluen ), occasionally substituting for self in reflexive pronouns into the 19th century. [8] In modern English, self retains its core reflexive and emphatic roles, as standardized in dictionaries like the Oxford English Dictionary (first edition 1884–1928), while its abstract sense—personal identity—emerged prominently in philosophical discourse from the 17th century onward, influenced by but not altering its lexical roots. [9] Definitional Frameworks The concept of the self has been framed in philosophy primarily through criteria of persistence and unity, addressing what constitutes an individual's identity over time and distinguishes it as a coherent entity. One foundational framework posits the self as a substantial entity, an enduring immaterial substance such as a soul or indivisible thinking thing, independent of bodily changes. This view, articulated by René Descartes in his 1641 Meditations on First Philosophy through the cogito ("I think, therefore I am"), conceives the self as a non-extended, rational essence capable of doubt and certainty, separate from the physical body. [10] Plato similarly viewed the self as an immortal soul , a simple form ruling over the body, as outlined in works like the Phaedo (c. 360 BCE), emphasizing its rational governance over appetites. [10] Critics argue this framework lacks empirical grounding, conflicting with evidence from neuroscience showing consciousness tied to brain processes, and struggles with scenarios like amnesia where substance continuity does not preserve apparent identity. [10] A contrasting psychological framework defines the self via continuity of mental states, particularly memory and consciousness , rather than an underlying substance. John Locke , in his 1689 Essay Concerning Human Understanding , proposed that personal identity —the basis of the self—consists in the sameness of consciousness , where one remembers one's past actions and thoughts, forging a unified chain across time. [10] Sydney Shoemaker refined this in 1970, emphasizing quasi-memory (memories not necessarily from direct experience) and non-branching psychological connections to avoid fission problems, such as in hypothetical brain divisions yielding two psychologically continuous beings. [10] This approach aligns with introspective experience but faces challenges from thought experiments like teletransportation, where psychological continuity might obtain without biological persistence, and from empirical cases of dissociative identity disorder , questioning strict unity. [10] Derek Parfit's 1984 reductionist variant further dilutes the self to overlapping psychological relations, suggesting identity is not "what matters" for survival but rather survival itself. [10] David Hume's 1739 bundle theory offers a non-substantial framework, portraying the self as a fleeting collection or "bundle" of perceptions—sensations, emotions, and ideas—lacking any persistent core or owner. [10] In A Treatise of Human Nature , Hume argued that introspection reveals only discrete impressions in flux , with the illusion of unity arising from relations of resemblance and causation among them, not an enduring self. [11] This empiricist view anticipates modern eliminativist or illusionist accounts but is critiqued for failing to explain the first-person perspective's coherence or why bundles cohere into distinct agents rather than disperse. [10] [11] Animalist frameworks ground the self in biological continuity, identifying humans as animals whose identity persists through the organism's physical and functional integrity, akin to other biological kinds. Eric Olson, in his 1997 The Human Animal , contends that psychological criteria overemphasize mental features at the expense of the organism's spatiotemporal continuity, resolving transplant puzzles by prioritizing the body's dominance over detached brains. [10] This physicalist approach draws support from evolutionary biology , where self-like traits emerge from organismal survival mechanisms, but it contends with intuitions favoring psychological survival in body-swap scenarios. [10] Additional refinements distinguish self-reference modes, such as Immanuel Kant's (1781) transcendental framework in Critique of Pure Reason , where the self-as-subject (the "I" of apperception ) unifies experience without being an empirical object, versus the self-as-object known through inner sense. [11] These frameworks collectively highlight tensions between intuitive unity, empirical observability, and metaphysical simplicity, with no consensus due to unresolved puzzles like fission and the "too-many-thinkers" problem, where multiple candidate selves (e.g., organism and person ) overlap in one body. [10] Empirical data from split-brain studies and anesthesia further test these definitions, often favoring relational or processual over isolated substantial selves. [10] Philosophical Investigations Ancient and Medieval Perspectives In ancient Greek philosophy , the concept of the self emerged prominently through the Socratic emphasis on self-knowledge as the pathway to virtue and ethical living. Socrates , active in Athens around 469–399 BCE, interpreted the Delphic maxim " know thyself " as a call for rigorous self-examination to uncover one's true nature and moral shortcomings, arguing that unexamined lives lack genuine wisdom. [12] This introspective approach positioned the self not merely as a biological entity but as a rational agent capable of aligning actions with universal good through dialectical inquiry. [13] Plato, Socrates' student (c. 428–348 BCE), developed this into a metaphysical theory of the soul as the immortal essence of the self, distinct from the body. In dialogues like the Phaedo and Republic , he described the soul as tripartite—comprising rational, spirited, and appetitive parts—with the rational soul ruling the others to achieve harmony and justice within the individual. [14] Plato contended that the soul preexists the body, engages in recollection of eternal Forms, and survives death, moving self-motionally as the principle of life and cognition. [15] This view prioritized the immaterial, eternal self over transient physicality, influencing subsequent dualistic conceptions. [16] Aristotle (384–322 BCE), critiquing Plato's separation of soul and body, defined the soul as the "form" or actuality ( entelechy ) of a living body, inseparable from its material substrate in humans. In De Anima , he outlined the soul's functions—nutritive, sensitive, and rational—as capacities enabling organic life, with the human intellective soul