Self and Others: What am I? What are you? Who are we?

What is the self?

Does it exist at all? Or is it simply an illusion of static thing-hood projected by our organism in order to facilitate survival, whilst the “reality” might well be swirling chaos, as Nietzsche was prone to mischievously suggest?

Or is it almost atomic, a point-like and simple thinking thing (res cogitans), as Descartes concluded?

Or is it constituted through relationship as Hegel suggested in his account of mutual recognition? Or as Freud and his followers implied with their various accounts of child-development?

Why does it matter, if it does matter? (I would contend that it does matter because accounts of self can and do become [partial] determinants of modes of life and ways of being human for both individuals and communities.)

Perhaps we had better start by clarifying what we mean by self. Definition is likely to elude us, but that does not mean we can’t picture or characterise “the self” thereby enabling discussion.

There are at least two ways to go here as far as I can see. Firstly, (following Wittgenstein), we can look closely at the use of the term and its cognates. Probably the most useful strategy here is to consider “I”, “you” and “we”.

Secondly, we can attempt to see what we are by a kind of introspection.

This might take the form of the koan meditation, “Who am I?” or a phenomenological bracketing of mental static. There are probably other ways too, but I don’t know what they are. (What I would want to notice here is both our normal sense of continuity which is signified when we say “myself” and an observable [and ordinary] discontinuity in our sense of being an entity which is less emphasised in our culture, but foregrounded by some meditative practices. The question thrown up here is: “Is the self an entity or a process, if it is at all?)

We can of course try to synthesise these two approaches if we want a hard life!!!!

At this point, we are bound to be faced with a question of whether the self is “atomic”, i.e. without a history of formation, or whether it is the result of a process of development and continual maintenance. If we decide on the latter we will perforce need to consider the context and conditions of the development of self which will of necessity include a consideration of the role of others in that development. Thinking about self then becomes a matter of thinking about culture, and probably about ideology.

(What interests me here is the question of how far, if at all, the organising presuppositions underpining particular natural languages impact on both our philosphical (self-conscious!!!???) conceptualisations of self and our ordinary self-concept. For example, because as a matter of grammar we expect a doer for every deed, a bearer of every quality, a subject of every perception, a thinker of every thought, don't we then almost automatically think of the self as a thing?)

More on Flux...

Can the issues around the doctrine of eternal flux be expressed more simply?

Let’s try.

1) If everything changes then there are no things and no thing-like selves. (Buddha, Heraclitus)

2) Everything change is a change from something into something else. Anyway, permanence is more prevalent than change. (Aristotle)

3) Nothing changes – the change we encounter in our lived experience is illusion. (Parmenides, some articulations of Vedanta)

4) The nature of these various utterances is important. Buddha, for instance, would claim that he is not doing metaphysics (in the sense of asserting propositions about being as a whole). Instead, the utterance is a part of a complex strategy, a skilful means, to help his disciples to experience a certain rapture which in turn alters their comportment towards life and determines their mode of life. Heraclitus is probably working along the same lines. His paradoxical poetry is more the report of a rapturous experience than an attempt at metaphysics.

5) The metaphysical project, as characterised above, is probably incoherent anyway; there is no God’s eye view or Olympian perspective. Eternal flux, when seen operating in the realm of discourse, actually underscores this point.

6) The statement that everything changes all the time can’t be a propositional statement, i.e. it cannot assert anything, particularly about being as a whole.

7) It can however be a skilful means that acts as the root of a particular comportment towards life and a mode of life. It can stimulate looking at our finding ourselves alive in a fresh way.

8) The various positions on change are all incoherent as metaphysics. The proponents of eternal flux know this but still employ the doctrine in the full knowledge that it can inform the way we live life. It must therefore be considered in terms of what its existential impact is and the work that it does or can do in discourse.

9) The proponents of stasis and its poor relation, substance, may think that they are doing metaphysics but that project is incoherent because there is no God’s eye view. But it still can and does inform the way we live. Historically it has done this to a great degree.

10) Since there are no metaphysical guarantees for any position regarding the nature of being as a whole as to its unchanging or ever-changing character, all such positions are wide open to evaluation. But how? This means taking into account the fact that ceaseless change is very much a part of our lived experience and asking why we should deny this when we cannot avoid it whatever metaphysical beliefs we entertain.

Tried to simplify – didn’t succeed!

Eternal Flux

CONCERNING HERACLITUS' DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL FLUX

Everything flows, observed Heraclitus some 6 centuries before the Common Era. Is this 'doctrine of flux' right?

And if so, how should it affect the way life is to be lived?

These questions open up in a great many directions which however remain related.

1) The proposition that everything flows, if true, possibly undermines the notion of "substance", understood as that which persists and about which propositional statements make assertions and denials. Aristotle (See Metaphysics, Book IV) attempted to debunk the doctrine of flux which he saw as a hinderance to the development of logic which in turn, he supposed, would help us to arrive at some reassuring certainties. Philosophers as diverse as Russell and Nietzsche have noted that the cultural ramifications of this move have been vast and long-lasting.

2) You should smell a rat or two here! First of all, we encounter the problem of self-reference: if the proposition that everything flows is true, and that it does indeed undermine the possibility of making propositional statements and demonstrating and refuting them, then that everything flows simply cannot be asserted. This does not mean that the statement 'everything flow' is false. It simply means that the statement is not propositional at all: that it can be neither true nor false since it negates the possibility of asserting or denying any propositions whatsoever, including itself.

3) It's tempting at this point to throw the doctrine of universal flux into the trash, as indeed most philosophers do with any (quasi) proposition that falls foul of self-reference. This is too hasty, however. For a start, our lived experience rubs our noses in endless change and impermanence whilst we continue nevertheless to rely on logical inference and the notion of substance in all sorts of practical ways. The non-propositional nature of the statement that everything flows is surely no excuse to regard our everyday experience of change as somehow illusory or inferior to some imagined realm of the unchanging?

4) So what kind of thing is it - this quasi proposition that everything flows? Could it be the poetic initiation of a discursivity which can be used to organise a mode of life?

5) Aristotle's pessimism with regard to the incompatability between the doctrine of flux and the possibility of developing logic and a "first philosophy" which could "ground" the special sciences was, incidentally, not shared by the Buddhist logicians Dharmakirti and Dignaga. These thinkers actually derived a logic from Buddha's version of the doctrine of flux - the doctrine of impermanence.

6) What might motivate a denial of that aspect of our lived experience which tells us that everything flows? Besides the oxymoronic nature of a metaphysics of becoming? Why has an unchanging realm been posited so universally and often vaued more highly than the world we find ourselves in? And why has humanity more often than not lived through values which derive from the notion of an unchanging?

7) If everything flows, we must include in that, discourse itself. This is in fact what we find. Cultural relativity and historical change in the narratives and ideas that people live by have long caused us to question our presuppositions. We attempt to salve the resultant metaphysical insecurity by seeking the last word, the Truth capital 'T'. Aristotle was thus motivated. This is understandable in so far as it enables technology which helps (at its best) to secure and enhance life. But there is another itch here, is there not? Isn't there a need to be certain about the big questions? And isn't this a need which eternal flux makes it impossible to meet, as todays certainties are eroded by time as yesterday's were? Won't that need then drive us to posit the unchanging and value it above our lives as we perforce experience them?

8) If eternal flux obtains, then what are we? What is the self, indeed is there a self at all if everything, incuding us, is constantly shifting and unstable?