There are various ways of looking at the assigned topic for this paper, "I am not myself today," but I will concentrate on two opposed positions and then unify them into the position which attempts to reconcile them, into the position I hold. The first way of viewing the subject, is to say that at the ontological level there is nothing stable within the human person or self, and that nothing continues from moment to moment. One can take the opposite position and say that change itself is illusory, and that the human self is stable and unchanging and that the changes which one experiences are only in appearance. Or one could take a middle position, the position which I favor, and could thus say that change is real, but that at the same time the self is a continuous and thus a stable existing entity. I will try to show why I think that the first two ideas, though each one expresses a truth about the self, in the end fails to adequately explain the complexity of the situation. I hold that the third position which attempts to reconcile the other two, best explains, albeit in a limited way, the nature of the self, the nature of the existing entity which is called the human person.

          The first view point holds that being, that is being as a stable reality, is an illusion. It is related to the position held by Heraclitus, who held that all of reality is becoming, and that the there is no being. Heraclitus said that all things are in constant flux, that nothing is static and that things are in reality constantly changing. If one applies his ideas to the self, it is clear that it is not an existing thing; instead, it is simply a constantly changing flow of experiences, which we erroneously perceive to be a stable entity. At approximately the same time in ancient India this idea of the impermanent nature of reality was also being taught by the Buddha. Buddhism teaches a doctrine called 'anatta', which means "no self." In the Buddhist ideological system the self is seen as a bundle of experiences, what it calls the five 'skandas'. These 'skandas' are five components of life which are the center of suffering, they are enumerated as, ". . . body, sensations, thoughts, feelings, and consciousness‑‑in short the sum of what we consider life to be" [Smith, 102]. These experiences are in some way the source of suffering, but at the same time they have no actual subject of predication, and suffering is ended by recognizing that there is no real self. So, salvation or enlightenment in Buddhist thought occurs when one comes to understand the fact that the self is an illusion, and by understanding this truth one is able to extinguishing suffering, thus ending 'samsara', the cycle of rebirth, and entering into a state of nirvana.

          Interestingly enough the views of David Hume in the 18th century are similar in many respects to the Buddhist understanding of the self.   In his book "A Treatise of Human Nature," Hume states that the there can be no self, he initially puts forward the assertion of the majority of philosophers, that we ". . . are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our self" [Hume, Sect. 6, Book 1]; Hume points out that this is not possible since we cannot have ". . . any idea of the self, after the manner it is here explained. For from what impression could this idea be derived? This question 'tis impossible to answer without a manifest contradiction and absurdity . . . [For] self or person is not any one impression, but that to which our several impressions and ideas are supposed to have a reference" [Hume, Sect. 6, Book 1]. He goes on to explain that if the self is a constant and unchanging thing, and if it is formed by an impression, then that impression must be ". . . invariably the same, through the whole course of our lives . . . But there is no impression constant and invariable" [Hume, Sect. 6, Book 1]. As a consequence of this fact, the self, cannot in reality exist, because it is nothing more than a ". . . bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and [which] are in a perpetual flux and movement" [Hume, Sect. 6, Part 1]. This sound similar to the Buddhist views described above, but without the element of suffering, which needs to be overcome, added to it.

          The second way of viewing the self is to see change as a mere appearance, in other words, to hold that change is simply an illusion, and that the self simply "is."  This view is related to the philosophical position of Parmenides who held that change or becoming was not real at all and ". . . that being has no coming‑into‑being and no destruction" [Freeman, 43]. From this perspective, what we perceive as changes in the self, are in reality merely changes at the level of appearances, and not at the level of reality. If one takes this view of the self then he must hold that the changes we perceive to occur are not real, because the self is being and thus is unchanging. This position, which is logical at the level of being, becomes difficult to hold in the face of human experience. If one to accepts this position, it ultimately requires that he deny any validity to the changes he perceives to be occurring within himself, it means that he must discount his common sense view of his existence, and substitute in its place a system of thought, which though logically consistent, at least in the sense that it is logical to say, that being is, non‑being is not, becomes nonsensical at the level of human sense experience. Though this idea of being as constant and unchanging helps one to explain the sense of continuity which we all experience in reference to the self, one finds that it is unable to account for the changes which the self undergoes throughout its life.

          Both the first point of view and the second in some way explain different elements within the experience of the self that one is able to discern from his common sense observation; so it is clear that both views are in some way correct, and that our self does experience change over time, and yet simultaneously one has a sense of the continuity of his own existence. If these two ideas can in some way be reconciled it would then be possible to explain the self as a continuous and yet changing conscious reality. My solution to this problem is to try and combine the two elements into a synthesis which will account for both of the positions and thus reconcile them in what can be called a common sense view. The way to do this, as I see it, is to recognize that at the level of being the individual self is a subsisting entity in act, that is a being actually existing in a continuous and stable mode, while at the same time this existing being or self, possesses the possibility of acquiring additional characteristics and perfections. In this way one can hold that the self truly exists as a stable being, while at the same time one can hold that the changes which one experiences throughout life are real and not merely apparent.

          So, as far as the topic of this paper is concerned, I believe that I can say that I am not myself today, but at the same time that I can also say that I am myself today. Both statements say something true about my nature as a person, about my existence as a conscious human self. In my view the resolution to the problem I proposed at the beginning of my paper, is to accept both the opposing positions, being and becoming, as partial expressions of the truth, which once combined into a unified whole provide an acceptable way of seeing the nature of the self.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

David Hume.  A Treatise of Human Nature. (London:  Longmans, Green, and Company, 1874).  2 Volumes.

          Edited by T. H. Green and T. H. Grose.

Kathleen Freeman.  Ancilla to The Pre‑Socratic Philosophers.  (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962).

Huston Smith.  The World's Religions.  (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1991).

I Am Not Myself Today

by Steven Todd Kaster

San Francisco State University

Philosophy 457:  The Nature of the Self

Professor Michael Goldhaber

28 November 2000

Copyright © 2000-2024 Steven Todd Kaster