ASOIU, PHILOSOPHY COURSE INSTRUCTOR: ZIYA SAMEDLI

Lecture N 14. Philosophical meaning of human

CONTENTS:
1. Introduction to the philosophy of human person
a) Definition of philosophy of human person
b) Philosophy of human person and other disciplines
c) Method of philosophy of human person
d) How objective is philosophy of human person?
e) Importance of philosophy of human person
f) Sum up
2. Philosophical grounds for the contemporary conception of the human being
3. Person, personality, self, and identity: a philosophically informed conceptual analysis.
a) the rediscovery of the self
b) the active and the experiential self
c) conceptions of the self
d) personal identity
e) discussion: self, identity, and personality

1. Introduction to the philosophy of human person

The main objective of this unit is to introduce the course in Philosophy of Human Person, a course in
philosophy that helps us to understand the nature of human being. After defining what Philosophy of Human
Person is, the unit deals with its distinguishing characteristics vis-à-vis other branches of Anthropology and
Psychology.
There are other disciplines that study human beings. Hence an attempt is made to differentiate them from
Philosophy of Human Person.
Different courses in philosophy make use of different methods and Philosophy of Human Person has its own
method. Without going into details of the different philosophical methods, the unit examines the methods that
Philosophy of Human Person employs.
We have also discussed briefly the question of objectivity of this discipline. The question assumes importance
when we consider the fact that any study of human person tends to become subjective. A section on the importance of
this course in the overall plan of philosophy makes the unit complete. All in all, the unit enables the student to take a
plunge into the world of human person from a philosophical perspective. Thus by the end of this Unit the student
should be able:
 to have a basic understanding of what Philosophy of Human Person is;
 to differentiate it from other akin disciplines;
 to understand the method used in Philosophy of Human Person;
 to gauge how objective the discipline is;
 and, to understand the importance of Philosophy of Human Person.
Philosophy begins with a sense of wonder. Human being wonders at God, the world and his/her very being.
Among the ancient Greek thinkers, philosophy was mainly a wonder at the cosmic realities around them. However, in
the medieval times, the focus of philosophy was shifted to God. But with Renaissance and Reformation that ushered in
the next phase of philosophical thinking, and more especially with the philosophy of Descartes, the main object of
philosophy became human being. This does not mean that early philosophers were unaware of the importance of
appreciating the human person. In fact, we find Socrates and few other thinkers attempted at understanding human
person. With the rise of experimental sciences in the modern times, human person has become the primary and
exclusive object of many disciplines like psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, anthropology, political science, etc.
Now-a-days even in theology, there is an anthropological trend. However, the approach and object of Philosophy of
Human Person is quite different from these sciences as we shall discuss them at a later stage.
Philosophy of Human Person could be roughly understood as an attempt to unify disparate ways of
understanding behavior of humans as both creatures of their social environments and creators of their own values.
Although the majority of philosophers throughout the history of philosophy can be said to have a distinctive
‘anthropology’ that undergirds their thought, Philosophy of Human Person itself, as a specific discipline in philosophy,
arose within the later modern period as an outgrowth from developing methods in philosophy, such as
phenomenology and existentialism.
The former, which draws its energy from methodical reflection on human experience (first person perspective)
as from the philosopher's own personal experience, naturally aided the emergence of philosophical explorations of
human nature and the human condition. The latter, with its major concern on interpersonal relationships and the
ontology involved during these relationships, also helped in the growth of Philosophy of Human Person. Among these
relationships, inter-subjectivity is a major theme, which studies how two individuals, subjects, whose experiences and
interpretations of the world are radically different in understanding each other and relate to each other.
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ASOIU, PHILOSOPHY COURSE INSTRUCTOR: ZIYA SAMEDLI
Lecture N 14. Philosophical meaning of human
a) Definition of philosophy of human person
Philosophy of Human Person can be defined as the science of human beings which interprets the data of
experience in the light of metaphysical principles. It has two sources, namely, the data of experience supplied mainly
by everyday experience, which is confirmed by experimental sciences and the metaphysical principles supplied by
ontology or by metaphysics. Thus Philosophy of Human Person is a combination of science and metaphysics.
Again, we can consider Philosophy of Human Person as that branch of philosophy which concerns itself with
trying to respond to those deepest and perennial questions about human beings - questions that have plagued humans
ever since history began. Here, our attempt is to respond to these issues, and not answer them. For, the word ‘answer’
seems to imply more or less complete and thorough rejoinder to the matter, an exhaustive conclusion ‘once-and-for-
all.’ But we must remember that we are dealing with human being who is a mystery to be understood more and more
than a problem to be solved once and for all. We cannot demand a conclusive, authoritative answer but only a
response.
Some of the typical questions that Philosophy of Human Person raises are: What do humans have in common
with the rest of the material world? What are the implications of this common bond between humans and the rest of
the material world? Which are those aspects of human that set him/her apart from the rest of the animal world? How
significant are these differences? Is there some explanation that gets to the root of human’s uniqueness? Is this
explanation defensible in the forum of reason? What is the origin of human life? What is its goal? The bulk of
Philosophy Human Person is basically an exploration into the above mentioned questions and into the ramification of
the answers generated by them. Thus the key issues that this course will tackle are life and evolution, knowledge,
language, will, freedom, life, inter-subjectivity, person, death and immortality and self-transcendence.
Philosophy of Human Person is also known as Philosophical Anthropology. But it is not same as Social
Anthropology (which is often loosely called Anthropology), Biological Anthropology or Cultural Anthropology.
The word ‘Anthropology’ comes from the Greek words anthropos which means ‘human’ and logos which
means ‘science.’
Social Anthropology is a study of human being from an ethnic perspective. It deals with the variations in social
customs and practices from one ethnic group to another. A social anthropologist, therefore, would ask questions such
as: What is the origin of such-and-such a tribal practice? Are there other tribes that exhibit the same customs? Could
there be some explanation to account for these common features?
Biological Anthropology includes the study of human evolution, human evolutionary biology, population
genetics, our nearest biological relatives, classification of ancient hominids, palaeontology of humans, distribution of
human alleles, blood types and the human genome project. Biological Anthropology is used by other fields to shed
light on how a particular folk got to where they are, how frequently they have encountered and married outsiders,
whether a particular group is protein-deprived, and to understand the brain processes involved in the production of
language.
Cultural Anthropology is often based on ethnography, a kind of writing used throughout anthropology to
present data on a particular people or folk often based on participant observation research. Ethnology involves the
systematic comparison of different cultures. Cultural Anthropology is also called Socio-cultural Anthropology or
Social Anthropology. Cultural Anthropology also covers economic and political organization, law and conflict
resolution, patterns of consumption and exchange, material culture, technology, infrastructure, gender relations,
ethnicity, childrearing and socialization, religion, myth, symbols, worldviews, sports, music, nutrition, recreation,
games, food, festivals, and language.
Philosophical Anthropology instead, would ask questions about human being regardless of his/her race or
social background. For instance, when Philosophical Anthropology investigates the question of immortality; it is not
simply intent on finding out whether the Amerindians or the African Bushmen believe in immortality. Rather, it is
intent on finding out whether the survival of the human being after death can, in some way, be established through a
consideration of the intrinsic nature of human beings as such.
The traditional philosophy entitled Philosophy of Human Person as Psychologia Superior, Superior Psychology,
to distinguish it from Psychologia Inferior, Inferior Psychology. This is because the former was concerned with the
study of the superior psyche, or the soul, that is proper to human person. The latter studied the activities of sub-human
life, inferior soul. We abandon such classification because it already presupposes a certain understanding of life in
general and human life in particular, namely, human life is superior for it has a soul.
Philosophy of Human Person has also been called Rational Psychology, to distinguish it from Empirical
Psychology and Experimental Psychology. The word psychology comes from the words psyche which means mind
and logos which means science. Hence, psychology can be understood as the science of mind. The adjectives aptly
bring out the differences in methods in these disciplines. Whereas Empirical Psychology is defined as the science of
the facts and laws of mental life, as acquired by everyday experience and Experimental Psychology tries to understand
the human person in terms of reading, measurement, behaviour pattern etc. obtained from experimental observation,
Rational Psychology delves deeper into the human psyche by rational reflection on the implications of his/her activity.
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Lecture N 14. Philosophical meaning of human
Shakespeare in his play Hamlet suggests one of the possible dissatisfactions with the strict rational approach to
the study of human person, when the Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark tells his friend Horatio: “There are more things in
heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.” The famous saying of Blaise Pascal, “The heart has
its reason which the reason does not know,” also points to a possible defect in this approach. Human, after all, is much
more than pure reason and so an exclusively or even exaggerated rational approach to the human person results in the
encounter with a truncated person or a monster.
In the Indian context, philosophy is holistic in its approach and thought. Hence it did not elaborate an isolated
treatise on human person. However there is an implicit understanding of human being in the Vedas and more
especially in the Upanishads. These sacred books gave a variety of names to the principle that underlie human person.
The word prana means breath or wind. It is the vital breath, which is the principle of human being. Closely related to
it, is the word atman, which means the breathing principle in human, after the trunk of the body, the innermost kernel
of human's existence, the highest being and the Supreme Reality. The word Purusha - the current word for human
being - refers to the soul or atman that dwells in every person. Finally, we have the word Jiva (root - jiv to live), which
stands for soul and the living principle of things.
b) Philosophy of human person and other disciplines
Philosophy of Human Person is concerned with the study of human beings. As mentioned earlier, there are so
many sciences that study human beings like Psychoanalysis, Sociology, Archaeology, Linguistics and Political
science. What makes Philosophy of Human Person different from all of these disciplines? To answer this question, let
us now examine briefly the subject matter of these disciplines.
Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian Physician Sigmund Freud and continued by others. It
is primarily devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behaviour, although it also can be applied to
societies. It is a method of investigation of the mind; a systematized set of theories about human behaviour; and, a
method of treatment of psychological or emotional illness.
Sociology is a branch of social sciences that uses systematic methods of empirical investigation and critical
analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, sometimes with the goal
of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare. Its subject matter ranges from the micro level of face-to-
face interaction to the macro level of societies at large.
Archaeology is the study of human material culture, including both artefacts (older pieces of human culture)
carefully gathered in situ, museum pieces and modern garbage. Archaeologists work closely with biological
anthropologists, art historians, physics laboratories (for dating), and museums. They are charged with preserving the
results of their excavations and are often found in museums. Typically, archaeologists are associated with ‘digs,’ or
excavation of layers of ancient sites. Archaeologists subdivide time into cultural periods based on long-lasting
artefacts: for example the Palaeolithic, the Neolithic and the Bronze Age.
Linguistics is the study of language. Linguistic Anthropology (also called Anthropological Linguistics) seeks to
understand the processes of human communication, verbal and non-verbal, variation in language across time and
space, the social uses of language, and the relationship between language and culture. It is the branch of Anthropology
that brings linguistic methods to bear on anthropological problems, linking the analysis of linguistic forms and
processes to the interpretation of socio-cultural processes.
Political science is a social science concerned with the theory and practice of politics and the description and
analysis of political systems and political behaviour. Politics is a process by which groups of people make decisions.
The term is generally applied to behaviour within civil governments, but politics has been observed in all human group
interactions, including corporate, academic and religious institutions. Political scientists study the allocation and
transfer of power in decision-making, the roles and systems of governance including governments and international
organizations, political behaviour and public policies.
From this brief analysis, we can say that the above mentioned disciplines study certain aspects of human beings
from an empirical perspective. They make use of scientific methods of observation and experiment to study their
subject matter. As against these akin disciplines which also deals with the study of human being, Philosophy of
Human Person studies human being as a whole by asking those questions that pertain specifically to him as a human
being, and by seeking their answers in terms of ultimate explanations. It’s true that Philosophy of Human Person
makes use of empirical methods but it goes deeper into metaphysical realms. It studies human being not merely as an
object in nature. In fact, human being is more than an object; he/she is a subject, an ego, I. Thus, Philosophy of Human
Person is the study of human being in what makes him/her typically a human being.
c) Method of philosophy of human person
For our study of Philosophy of Human Person we need a method. A method is a way of doing something,
especially in a systematic way. In science, method is a series of steps taken to acquire knowledge. Philosophy of
Human Person, being a rational investigation into the nature of human being, needs a method so that it can bring out
its subject matter in a lucid and logical manner.

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ASOIU, PHILOSOPHY COURSE INSTRUCTOR: ZIYA SAMEDLI
Lecture N 14. Philosophical meaning of human
We know that every investigation on natural objects begins with observation. The same is also true of studies
concerning human person. But a mere scientific study of human person is insufficient as it gives only partial view of
human reality (as is the case with all the empirical disciplines dealings with human being) while philosophers attempt
to understand the ultimate causes, a total and complete picture of the human person. Hence we ought to begin the
course in Philosophy of Human Person by enlisting our observations regarding human beings, without yet attempting
to interpret or draw speculative conclusions from our data.
What we first propose to do, in short, is to present a phenomenology of human existence. In this method, all
data related to the being of human person is assembled.
Once that is done, we shall scrutinize our findings to see whether they give us a clue to some deeper truths about
human being. As a methodological tool to this effect, we shall adopt the famous Thomistic principle: Agere sequitur
esse (as a being is, so does it act). In other words, the way a being acts gives us a clue to its intrinsic nature. This
second phase that follows the phenomenology of human existence is referred to as the transcendental phase, where the
ultimate meaning of the data is sought, that profound meaning which confers upon the data a meaning and renders this
same data possible.
Transcendental method searches for a justification and explanation that is final, conclusive and exhaustive for
all human behaviour – activities, manifestations, cultural products, etc. It is also hermeneutical in nature because we
interpret all the significant data phenomenology provides.
We use these two methods – phenomenological and transcendental - because human beings have two aspects,
namely, the physical and the psychic. We need both objective observation and introspection. Thus, our method is
inductive in character – we move from phenomena and study them profoundly with the aim of discussing their origins
and their ultimate causes.
A Phenomenological survey of human existence and the subsequent transcendental reflections upon them brings
some pieces of important information concerning human person, which are elaborated during the course of study of
Philosophy of Human Person. Human being is a living organism who, by virtue of his/her anatomical structure, is
indubitably a part of the animal kingdom. On the other hand, there are certain characteristics unique to humans, that
set them apart from the rest of creation
While animals do possess consciousness, human being alone possesses self-consciousness, or the capacity for
reflection.
While animals possess a high degree of instinct and some even possess a high degree of intelligence, humans
alone possess abstract intelligence or rationality.
While animals do communicate with one another, their communication is very limited. They cannot
communicate ideas or information pertaining to the past or future. Humans alone seem capable of this because of their
capacity for abstraction.
Animals are thoroughly dominated by needs, drives and instincts, and are therefore attentive to those features in
their environment which appeal to these forces. But animals are unable to rise above them and look at them in a
disinterested way. Human being alone seems capable of contemplating nature. He/she is the only aesthetic animal.
Animals cannot objectify. To know an object as an object is to know it somehow as not-I, and this would call
for self-consciousness. Humans, instead, because of self-consciousness, is also capable of objectifying his world.
Human’s ability to objectify enables him/her to name things, to speak about them and to engage in cultural
pursuits. Consequently, he/she is the only creature such that one generation can carry on from where the previous
generation left off. Instead, animals continue to live today as their forbears lived centuries ago.
While animals do make choices, there does not seem to be any deliberate-ness in their acts of choosing. Humans
alone choose self-consciously and wilfully. In short, he/she alone possesses volitional freedom.
While animals are also gregarious, society plays a far bigger role in making a human being be what he/she is.
His/her participation in the world as a human being is one that has been elicited by others. No one could ever possibly
be a ‘self-made’ person. We are all social animals.
Every animal species exhibits more-or-less the same behavioural patterns wherever members of that species are
found. It is not so with human beings. Every human being is a product of a particular era and culture. The way in
which he/she relates to the world around him/her is influenced by historical, cultural, and social factors. Human is, in
short, a hermeneutical animal. Nevertheless, a human’s culture and history do not insulate him/her within a limited
circle. He/she can make himself/herself ‘at home’ with people of all climes, times and places.
Toil and work are inevitable aspects of all animal life. But with humans, work assumes a profound and new
dimension. Work, for a human being, is not simply a pre-requisite for survival. Rather, work humanises human being,
giving him/her a chance to live life more fully. Though all animals must die someday, and though all instinctively
resist it, humans seem to be the only animal whose entire life is moulded by his/her awareness of death. How a human
being lives his/her life depends largely on the way in which he/she views death. Humans seem to be the only creature
that lives in the hope of immortality. Immortality appears to be the one great factor that restores meaning to life in the
face of death. Humans possess a natural openness to transcendence. He/she is the only creature who has a spontaneous
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ASOIU, PHILOSOPHY COURSE INSTRUCTOR: ZIYA SAMEDLI
Lecture N 14. Philosophical meaning of human
urge to ask ultimate questions, to speak of the invisible, to believe in a ‘beyond’. Moreover, whenever human being
addresses himself/herself to these issues, it is always with a sense of reverence, awe and fascination. Thus, human
being seems to have an innate sense of religiosity.
d) How objective is philosophy of human person?
Philosophy of Human Person is a philosophical investigation concerned with questions such as the status of
human beings in the universe and the purpose or meaning of human life. When the empirical sciences are concerned
with the investigation of the physical, chemical and biological phenomena of things, Philosophy of Human Person is
concerned with the fundamental characteristics, the ultimate questions concerning human beings. Although a
phenomenological analysis is made on human person, the primary concern is the rational analysis of the data thus
derived. It aims at arriving at an objective understanding of human person.
But the question arises: how objective can we be in our study of Philosophy of Human Person? This question
stems from the fact that the cultural background of people is very diverse. Often these cultural diversities are not
shared by others or even understood by them. Shouldn’t we therefore refrain from providing answers in the name of
the whole of humankind?
By way of an answer, we must make some clarifications. To be objective does not mean setting aside our social
or cultural background while we ask questions and seek answers. In fact, the science of Hermeneutics has made it
amply clear, that it is impossible to study any aspect of reality from an ‘Archimedean’ standpoint.
Every question we ask is always based on certain presuppositions and on a certain conceptuallinguistic
framework. To waive aside all frameworks in the interest of objectivity is to eliminate the very possibility of asking
any significant question. What requires revision, rather, is our very concept of objectivity. Objectivity is always
contextual. Any theory (whatever concepts it may involve) is said to be objective if it offers a sufficient and cogent
explanation for the observable relevant facts on hand, without implicating the proponent as an individual in the theory
proposed. In a certain sense, it is inevitable that we provide answers in the name of the whole of humankind, even
though we are well aware that our questions stem from a certain background which others may not share.
Consider for instance, the question of immortality. A Christian would most probably pose the question like this:
“Is the human soul immortal? Does it survive after death?” It would be pointless to argue that a materialist does not
acknowledge the existence of the human soul and that our answer therefore applies only to Christians and to those who
believe in the soul. If we did argue that way, we would end up with the absurd idea that Christians have souls but
materialists don’t have souls. The only way to evade this absurd conclusion is to make claims for all human beings
(even though others may disagree with our claims) and then hold them up for debate against alternative claims.
e) Importance of philosophy of human person
Philosophy of Human Person forms an important treatise in the study of Philosophy. After all, human existence
is an inescapable part of philosophic thought. Almost everyone has been puzzled from time to time by such essentially
philosophic questions as “What does life mean?” “Did I have any existence before I was born?” and “Is there life after
death?” Most people also have some kind of philosophy in the sense of a personal outlook on life. Even a person who
claims that considering philosophic questions is a waste of time is expressing what is important, worthwhile, or
valuable. A rejection of all philosophy is in itself philosophy.
By studying Philosophy of Human Person, people can clarify what they believe, and they can be stimulated to
think about ultimate questions. A person can study philosophers of the past to discover why they thought as they did
and what value their thoughts may have in one's own life. Philosophy has had enormous influence on our everyday
lives. The very language we speak uses classifications derived from philosophy. For example, the classifications of
noun and verb involve the philosophic idea that there is a difference between things and actions. If we ask what the
difference is, we are starting a philosophic inquiry.
It was Socrates, the great Greek philosopher, who turned philosophy from the study of great philosophical
questions to the study of human being. He preferred to postulate on ethics rather than the meaning of the world. He
used to go to the ancient Greek market (agora), talk to people and help them realize that they already knew the “truth,”
by examining their selves. The “know thyself” motto is attributed to Socrates. He used to say that “The only thing I
know is that I don't know nothing.” He also believed that the limits of human knowledge were such that prevented us
from searching the ultimate truth for metaphysical problems. That is why he thought that postulating on human matters
is what a true philosopher should do.
We can say that knowing human person from a rational perspective is of utmost importance because human
person is fabulously rich and complex in nature. He/she is a kind prodigy, a combination of apparent antitheses. There
is constant tension in human being. He/she lives in history but wants to go towards a trans-historic existence. He/she
constantly transcends himself/herself in all that he/she thinks, projects, desires, produces, etc. Thus, a better
understanding of the human person is vital in comprehending the various other realities with which he/she is in
constant communion.
f) Sum up

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ASOIU, PHILOSOPHY COURSE INSTRUCTOR: ZIYA SAMEDLI
Lecture N 14. Philosophical meaning of human
In this unit we have briefly introduced the Philosophy of Human Person, by giving certain definitions and
clarifying them in the course of this unit. The unit also highlighted the importance of this treatise in the overall study
of philosophy. A proper understanding of the nature, composition and destiny of human person makes it possible for
anyone to get a good grip of other realities. We also found that we may not find any ready-made answers to the
ultimate questions concerning human being because he/she is a complex mystery. This does not imply that we are
wasting our time in philosophizing. The very probing into the various phenomena concerning human person itself is
praiseworthy. We have also discussed the methodology that this discipline follows in unravelling the various mysteries
that are associated with the human person. The question how objective is the study of Philosophy of Human Person is
also discussed in the context of people writing it off saying that it is merely a subjective analysis of human person.
Finally we conclude the unit with a short consideration of the importance of Philosophy of Human Person.
2. Philosophical grounds for the contemporary conception of the human being
The problem of man is a fundamental philosophical problem, across all eras and for all peoples. But at the same
time it is perpetually (permanent, eternal, everlasting) a fresh problem which reflects the level of self-knowledge of
a culture at every concrete historical variant of philosophical thinking. Because of this, before speaking about various
conceptions of the human being, it is worth (value) lingering (long, tarry, remain) over the philosophical grounds
that underlie an anthropological conception.
According to Helmuth Plessner, every period of history has its own cherished (intimate, hidden, sacred) word.
The terminology of the eighteenth century is expressed in the word ―progress; the terminology of the nineteenth
century can be expressed with the word ―development. The twentieth century found a new symbolic expression—the
notion of life. The founder of philosophical anthropology takes this notion as something incontestable, lying beyond
any ideology, beyond God and State, beyond nature and history. Plessner believes that an era perceives in this word
reverberations of its own strength, dynamism, excitement, demonic enjoyment in an unforeseeable future, but at the
same time its own weakness, flimsiness, inability for self-abnegation and for life. Guided by this magic formula—the
influence of which, according to Nietzsche, increases—the era follows and pursues itself. A well-known philosophy of
life has emerged with the initial aim to capture a new generation.
But when at the beginning of the twenty-first century the necessity emerged to write an article on ―Life‖ for the
Grand Russian Encyclopedia, which now is under way, a number of scientists elaborating on the problem of life
offered their papers, with very diverse interpretations of the term. The way of life represented by previous
philosophies of life no longer work: they have crashed. We once more face the problem of a correlation between
philosophy and science.
In fact, today there is no doubt as to the great significance that new discoveries in the areas of natural sciences
and the humanities hold for the development of philosophy. Anyway, philosophy changes its form with every new
significant discovery in science—if such changes do not take place, philosophy meets serious problems, as described
by Albert Schweitzer when he wrote about the deep crisis of culture at the boundary between the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries.
From his viewpoint, philosophy previously not only considered and treated the values of culture, but carried
them as driving ideas into the public opinion. But in the twentieth century, having ceased to be a laborer toiling
diligently at the formation of a universal vision of culture, philosophy transformed into a retiree rummaging in what is
rescued, far away from the world. Philosophy became alien to reality. The vital problems interesting the people of the
epoch did not influence philosophy: now the path of philosophy lay apart from the highway of universal spiritual life.
Without getting any stimulus from the latter, philosophy itself gave nothing in return. It made Schweitzer pronounce a
severe verdict: philosophy is guilty in the crisis of culture at the boundary of centuries. However, it was not the fault of
philosophy that thought was unable to create an optimistic worldview and to find in it a footing for ideals, which
compose the soul of a culture. Philosophy was guilty before our world because it did not reveal the mentioned fact: it
remained overpowered with illusions.2 All this is evidence of the importance, actuality and creative character of
philosophy for the new orientations in science, culture, and life.
In his paper ―Humans and History‖ (1926), Max Scheler wrote that if there is a philosophical problem which
needs to be solved for our epoch with unprecedented urgency: this problem is the creation of philosophical
anthropology. By this, he meant ―a fundamental science about essence and the essential structure of human being,‖3
which could become the ultimate foundation and at the same time correctly define the research purposes of all human
sciences.
However, this great synthesis of the various anthropologies has not held. During the twentieth century we have
seen the impetuous differentiation and specialization of the sciences of man, and the rise of new areas of scientific
researches of the human being. An interdisciplinarity of anthropological research prevailed over complexity and the
systematic character of research of man as one indivisible, multileveled, nonlinear, physically, psychologically and
spiritually integral subject of cognition.

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Lecture N 14. Philosophical meaning of human
An integral philosophical reflection of the problem of essence and the nature of man in the form of
philosophical anthropology was presented de jure but not de facto. It was represented by the archetypes of analytic,
linear philosophical thought of the outgoing epoch.
As is well-known, ―philosophy‖ means love of wisdom: but what is wisdom? Obviously, it is not only the
ability to reflect on the ultimate principles of being and cognition, and it is usually understood as the main feature of
philosophy. Additionally, it is the ability to value those ultimate principles from the viewpoint of self-awareness of
culture in a concrete historical period. Philosophical knowledge has always had a historical and changeable character.
Remember Hegel’s famous sentence: ―Philosophy is an epoch captured in a thought.‖ When philosophers forget this
historical character of philosophical consciousness, then philosophy breaks away from real life: it is not stimulated by
it and gives nothing in return. This is what Schweitzer was writing of at the boundary between the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries when he put the main responsibility on philosophy for the decline of culture at that time.
Does not some analogy with our time suggest itself? Again, we live in a condition of deep system crisis. Again,
all habitual civilizational trends and codes which have for a long time determined the norms of social development are
crashing. And again, philosophy reacts languidly and inertly to the challenges of the time.
In the long list of the problems evoked by our times, at the fore are the questions that have emerged about the
base of the development of scientific knowledge and, first of all, the knowledge obtained by science of life and man. It
is worth mentioning that as far back as 1978 the first section at the World Congress of Philosophy in Düsseldorf,
Germany, discussed the theme ―Biology and its Challenge to Philosophy.‖ Thirty years have passed since this event,
and the challenges coming from all the sciences of life have increased enormously. Now not only scientific literature
but the mass media is dominated by discussions on cloning and euthanasia, manipulations of the human stem cells, and
other such issues: philosophical knowledge does not have any actual replies to all these challenges. Obviously, the
responses should not be only pragmatic but also profoundly philosophical, indicating how the actual ontological,
cognitive and value philosophical sets can be modified in according to similar challenges. In his book Our Posthuman
Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution (2002), Francis Fukuyama notes that this revolution is not a
simple break or acceleration of a regular course of life. It gives rise to a situation when the future of humankind proves
to be open and non-predestined, depending essentially on our decisions and doings. These decisions and doings cannot
be easily undertaken on the basis of existing archetypes of philosophical knowledge, which traditionally reflect the
way of civilizational development and are not ready for innovative projects.
Therefore, one of the most urgent tasks for the philosophical comprehension of the living world is the creation
of an integral image of humans in all their manifestations. By this, the philosophy of man cannot be presented as a
preliminarily stored set of methodological problems or of methodological means of research. It should be made as a
concrete historical formation dependable on currents both from above (from a level of the contemporary
methodological culture) and from below (from contemporary knowledge of man). A contemporary philosophy
considers its subject matter as not isolated from the concrete forms of cognition but as a result, an outcome of
interaction between the subject and object of nature. Philosophy deals with ―the second reality‖ created by science: in
the case of study of the human being, with a new reality which undergoes changes according to the development of
sciences of man.
Taking into account the multilateral character of the problem, we will outline only the main directions of its
resolution. In my view, the responses of philosophy to challenges of contemporary sciences of life and man should be
reflected in the transformation of the acting ontological, methodological, and axiological propositions.
In the ontological aspect, the special attention should be directed to research of ontological schemes represented
both in the various sciences and in the different schools of a science. Today, natural sciences deal with a multitude of
the pictures of nature and explanative schemes, often alternatives to each other. This leads to misunderstandings, to an
incompatibility of the world pictures offered by the various fields of scientific knowledge. For example, in biology
there is as yet no resolution to the gap between evolutional, organizational and functional approaches to research of the
living.
The task of transforming the ontological direction concerning the responses to challenges of biology is seen in
the discovery of ontological models, which underlie various parts of the contemporary science of life and man. In the
final analysis, this work should lead to a new understanding of nature, liberated from interpretations of nature as
existing outside and independently of man.
The ideas of global evolutionism, co-evolution, and the anthropological character of natural sciences can be
considered as fundamental abstractions consolidating a new conception of the philosophy of nature. The philosophy of
nature as a world scheme typical of natural philosophy is transformed into philosophical reflections of man, who exists
in the natural environment and is involved in complicated correlations with nature. Nature is brought into a system of
human activities and cannot be conceived out of these correlations, which is a historical sphere of culture.
In the methodological aspect, the transformation of philosophical knowledge under the pressure of real facts of
sciences of man must contribute to awareness of how the new methodological constructs can lead to an innovative
outcome beyond the limits of existing standards. As a rule, awareness and the formulation of the new methodological
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Lecture N 14. Philosophical meaning of human
principles have always driven to establish a new picture of reality. It appeared brightly, affirming the new cognitive
sets of integrity, organization, evolution and systemic character in sciences of life. Now we have an agenda affirmation
of the new cognitive construct ―co-evolution,‖ which reflects a mechanism of the conjunction of organization and
evolution of living systems. The idea of co-evolution may become a new paradigmatic set of the twenty-first century
culture. It may establish new perspectives for a synthesis of natural and social sciences, overcome the restricting
character of naturalism, sociologism and historicism, and unite alternative strategies of elementarism and systematics,
evolutionism and structuralism.
In my view, very important changes need to take place in the sphere of axiology. All the civilizational sets of
technogenic society which are oriented to the idea of progress assume a factor of competition, contestation, mutual
fighting, as a leading factor of progress, referring herein to Darwin’s thesis on struggle for existence. However, in
biology an alternative of this position was proved long ago. For instance, the Russian scientists Karl Kessler (1815–
1881), Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) and others were the first ones to who have paid attention to the fact that very
often it is not the physically stronger and more aggressive who turn out to be the most adapted, but those who unite
with each other, who are better at cooperating and helping each other. This understanding gives rise to the conception
of mutual help as a driving factor of evolution and an engine of progress. This position finds a support among such
authors as Boris Astaurov, Vladimir Efroimson, Leonid Krushinsky, and others. The contemporary physiologist of
bacteria, academician Georgy Zavarzin, who criticizes the market conception of competition, asserts that the main
postulate of an anti-market conception is that the fundamental position of an organism in the trophic system
presupposes cooperation, but not competition.
It is difficult to overestimate the significance of these ideas which were transferred from biology to sociology
and fixed by well-reflected philosophical thought. All that has been said above instills the hope that with orientation to
the new philosophical grounds of the conception of man, which is now in the process of formation, the new principles
of the theory of man will be set. New synthetic motives may arise which will contribute, from the contemporary
viewpoint, to an integral, systematic and nonlinear conception of the human being.
3. Person, personality, self, and identity: a philosophically informed conceptual analysis.
There is a paucity of reflection on the nature of personhood in personality theory. Who is the person having a
personality or a personality disorder? How is personality connected with personhood? What does it mean for the
individual person to have a particular personality disorder or personality traits?
These questions are not merely theoretical. For instance, does change of personality structure imply that one has
turned into a different, or an other, person? The question may seem a little exaggerated; however, it is not far from
what clinicians hear and what patients sometimes think and say. Not only may patients have concerns about losing
control or being brainwashed in the course of treatment, they also sometimes affirm that they have changed into other
persons. Reports about these concerns emerged after the introduction of serotonin reuptake inhibitors and were
presented by Peter Kramer in his Listening to Prozac. Interestingly, some of Kramer’s patients reported that once they
began medication therapy they became “who they really were,” implying that while being in their initial state of
personhood they already had some sense of their subsequent and more authentic personhood, at least in such a form
that it could be unpacked and recognized at a later stage. So, are we talking about different persons, about different
states of personhood, or about different personalities? Or could the alterations in personhood perhaps better be
described in terms of a change of self, or core self?
I take the notion of person here to denote the individual human being, both in its singularity and in its quality of
being a human person. Personhood, then, refers to being-a-person, whereas the term self refers to the experiential side
of personhood; that is, to the core self as (among others) a form of basic self-awareness which at the same time reflects
an elementary form of self-relatedness. In my use of the concepts of personality and personality disorder I will not
deviate from what usually is understood by these terms.
The more-than-theoretical dimensions of the conceptual distinction between personhood, personality, and
personality disorder also become apparent in discussions about classification. Definitions of disorder articulate
distinctions between disordered and just improper behavior. Psychiatrists, lawmakers, and the general public may
differ with respect to the question of where to draw the boundary between evil and ill. Psychiatrists sometimes feel
urged to treat persons with behavioral problems who do not conform to the definition of any personality disorder.
Societal pressure may lead to an inclination among psychiatrists to emphasize the objectivity and value neutrality of
the profession, in order to maintain as clear as possible distinctions between personality disorder on the one hand and
personhood and personality on the other hand. These pressures may contribute to a tendency to exclude the concept of
personality disorder from psychiatric classification. For example, these issues play a significant role in British
discussions about the distinction between mental illness and psychopathic disorder.
This dynamic in the classification debate can be understood from a conceptual point of view. Persons can be
evil, disordered personalities cannot; that is, moral behavior can be attributed to persons, not to characters or
personalities. This is the way our language works and most people take this as evidence for a deeply ingrained,
normative intuition about the way (our) reality is structured. If only persons—and not personalities—can be bad, then
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Lecture N 14. Philosophical meaning of human
one can understand why professionals, by focusing on disorder, attempt or hope to avoid moral evaluation of the
patient’s behavior. While, this may sometimes be a successful strategy in individual cases, in the end it is doomed to
fail. First, there are personalities that seem to represent a form of intrinsic badness, such as sadistic personality and
some forms of antisocial personality. Second, excluding all forms of evil behavior from psychiatric classification and
treatment is only a theoretical option and would severely limit the efforts of the profession with respect to many other
people, like those suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and/or addiction.
a) The rediscovery of the self
I now raise two other, slightly more theoretical, issues urging for a clarification of the concepts: the recent
resurgence of interest into the self and its identity (Leary & Tangney, 2003a; Kircher & David, 2003), and the
unsolved and perennial question of whether there is an “I” or self apart from, or behind, the bundle of the schemas and
representations for which the term self is used as a container.
First, the recent emergence of interest into the self and its identity may be seen as an expression of unease with
current conceptions of personality. These conceptions usually focus on distinct dispositions and traits, without offering
an idea of which capacity or agent binds all these dispositions and traits together. Leary and Tangney (2003b, p. 3), for
instance, refer to previous decades as dedicated to the psychology of distinct functions and capacities like learning
(1950s), attitude (1960s), attribution (1970s), and cognition (1980s). They signal a need for unifying constructs and for
a dynamic, process-oriented, and relational conceptualization of personality. What, in particular, seems to be missing
is the notion of a mental capacity for self-reflection and, hence, self-regulation. Leary and Tangney refer to the self as
a “psychological apparatus” serving a “fundamental, essential quality” underlying attention, cognition, and executive
functioning: “the capacity for reflexive thinking.” Mischel and Morf (2003) coin the term psycho-social dynamic
processing system to refer to this self.
The vagueness of this concept of self is both a weakness and a merit. It is obviously a weakness for a concept to
lack clarity and precision; however, this may not be so much of a problem when the notion of self is compared with
successful scientific metaphors like stress, information, and network. The merit of the concept of self is that it helps to
keep selfrelatedness on the agenda of academic psychology and that it suggests wholeness. This may encourage
interdisciplinary research and thinking.
The second topic concerns the question of whether cognitive theories of personality disorder and of personality
disorder therapy can account for a self that adopts a position with respect to self-schemas and self-representations.
This point needs some clarification. Cognitive theories of personality describe the person or personality as a more or
less ordered collection of self-schemas and self-representations. These schemas organize behavior, affect, and
cognition. The representations make us aware of how we perceive ourselves and give content to the attitudes toward
ourselves and others. In cognitive therapy the patient is asked to scrutinize these schemas, attitudes, and
representations by adopting an objective stance to ward them. This is, of course, difficult in itself, because these
schemas, attitudes, and representations belong to what is innermost to us. Behind this looms a much larger, conceptual
problem; that is, how to conceive a self that adopts such an objectifying attitude. On the one hand, such a self cannot
be a different or second self, outside or beyond the schemas and representations it is asked to scrutinize. Such a
conception would lead to infinite regress (i.e., to an endless series of selves behind previous scrutinizing selves). On
the other hand, such an objectifying self cannot be completely identical to the self it has to investigate, for how would
it be possible for a self to gain insight into itself when the investigating self fully coincides with the investigated self?
Some distinction between investigator and the investigated seems to be required in order to make investigation
possible at all.
b) The active and the experiential self
Our last problem is old and has been shaped in numerous forms. William James, for instance, thought of a
distinction within the stream of consciousness, a portion abstracted from the rest (James, 1890, vol. I, p. 297).
Psychologists would later call this self the “core self.” The core self manifests itself in sensations, feelings, images,
and, most notably, in a sense of continuity. It is not a thing in the world, or an inner entity, or mere fiction, but—
reduced to its most elementary form—a collection of sensations and feelings. Therefore, the core self refers, first and
foremost, to a core sense of self.
Two problems emerge with this picture of the self. First, it is unclear how feelings and sensations by themselves
would be able to relate to schemas and representations, let alone to adopt an attitude toward something in the inner
world. How could feelings and sensations ever bring about changes in the inner world of schemas and representations?
Suggesting this is just wrong grammar. The sensations of the core self refer to a sense of constancy and continuity
within the realm of experience. In its most primitive form the subject of these experiences behaves and is described as
a passive recipient. Adopting an attitude, criticizing one’s schemas and self-representations, and trying to mould them
in a suitable direction— these are all activities referring to an agent, or a person, or at least something that does the
job. It is unclear how sensations could do such things, even if one does not endorse the rather passive view of
sensations as presented here. Therefore, the Jamesian picture of a portion of the stream of consciousness perceiving
other parts of the stream precludes the question of agency.
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Lecture N 14. Philosophical meaning of human
The second problem is the other side of this coin. If the self is described as an active agent instead of as a
passive recipient, like in many recent approaches of the self, the uniqueness and individuality of this agent or self
could become jeopardized. For instance, Leary and Tangney (2003b) talk about a “psychological apparatus” and
Mischel and Morf (2003) about a “psycho-social dynamic processing system.” In spite of the emphasis on dynamics,
malleability, and active construing, these approaches are in danger of reifying the self by holding it for an inner entity
(compare, for instance, their use of terms like apparatus and system). This in its turn easily leads to infinite regress.
For, if the selfhood of experiences is deduced to the workings of an inner processing system, then the selfhood of the
processing system itself should be guaranteed. For this guarantee there is no other option than the hypothesis of an
other, higher order processing system, which in its turn induces a sense of self in the first processing system; with this
the infinite regress is a fact.
c) Conceptions of the self
We are now at the heart of the discussion about the self. In the previous section we discovered two selves: a
core self, which is experiential and consists of a set of feelings that are felt as particularly mine; and the self as an
agency that is capable of adopting an attitude toward the inner world of images, phantasy, thoughts, feelings, and their
underlying schemas. The problem is how to combine, or integrate, these two views.
In the search for an answer I will first broaden the scope of the discussion and review possible approaches to the
nature of the self. Then, I discuss the notion of personal identity. After these explorations the issue of agency in the
midst of an experiential flux will be reformulated in terms of a variety of forms of self-relatedness. I will again mainly
concentrate on conceptual issues.
It is my belief that there are basically five approaches to the self: metaphysical, empirical, transcendental,
hermeneutical, and phenomenological (for a similar approach, see Zahavi, 2003; cf. also Strawson, 1999). Within each
of these approaches there may still be other variants.
In the metaphysical approach the self is seen as a substance, as an enduring, active, and immaterial thing or
entity. The self is here identical to personhood, or, to being a person, or the soul. This approach dominated Greek and
Mediaeval philosophy, was rephrased by Descartes in his theory of the mind as res cogitans, and still has its defenders
in Neo-Thomist circles (Moreland & Rae, 2000). More mundane forms of this approach are present in folk theories of
the mind and in current psychological explanations of the self. The metaphysical approach has been criticized for a
number of compelling reasons. It is speculative. It is inclined to reify theoretical constructions. It runs into difficulties
with respect to the body-soul (or body-self) interaction. And it does not have a solution for the question of how to tie
first person pronouns and adjectives to abstract concepts like mind or soul. How could Descartes’ thinking substance
be a self, or myself? The empirical approach has been most radically defended by David Hume. It has many
philosophical and psychological adherents today, especially in Anglosaxon philosophy of mind (Glover, 1988).
Empiricists take a position contrary to that of metaphysicians by denying any independent status to the self. There is
no such thing as a self, just as there is no referent for the term I. Some empiricists reduce the self to a series of
perceptions or to some experiential by-product of one’s states of mind. Others plainly deny the existence of a self and
describe it as linguistic illusion (Dennett, 1991). Still others admit the term I by giving it the status of an indexical or
index word (Ryle, 1949). Indexicals (now, here, I) are contentless terms that provide spatio-temporal anchor points for
one’s propositions. The indexical I refers then to concrete persons in particular situations; yet all empiricists agree that
there is no self apart from, within, or above the person. The empiricist approach has been criticized for its sceptical
consequences. If the self is mere fiction, then we are left with a catalogue of more or less typical features of the
individual. However, is it possible to isolate features that can serve as absolutely certain criterion for personal identity
(see the next paragraph for a short discussion of criteria for personal identity)? Or, if not, would that mean the end of
the notion of personal identity?
The transcendental approach has a predilection for the term ego, or I, instead of self. The transcendental I, or
ego, is the necessary condition of the possibility for experience at all. This ego is not a datum, but a necessary
presupposition for knowing. What does this mean? Immanuel Kant, the main proponent of this approach, observed
that every act of perception and thought is accompanied by a sense of self: it is me who thinks, observes, experiences,
and so on. This me, however, cannot be observed. It is a quality of experience and of acts of thinking and perceiving
which points to a fundamental presupposition: the presupposition of an I as point of reference of my impressions and
sensations. This point of reference is a formal concept; that is, the ego as principle of identity and of continuity. There
is no positive knowledge of this ego possible. Criticisms that have been levelled against the transcendental approach
are that its notion of self is too abstract and that it suggests a contextless and ahistorical view of the I.
The hermeneutical approach has different faces (Phillips, 2003; Ricoeur, 1992). I take it here to refer to a
framework of thinking in which the self is seen as narrative construction. The underlying idea is basically that man is a
self-interpreting being and that self-interpretation is practiced by telling stories and by listening to stories of others.
Human beings have, in other words, no immediate self-knowledge. They know themselves by appropriating what they
express and/or perform. By doing so, they become a whole. The problem with the narrative approach is twofold (cf.
Glas, 2003). First, by putting so much emphasis on wholeness and integrity it cannot account for the fact that there are
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Lecture N 14. Philosophical meaning of human
parts of one’s life that cannot and never will be integrated, for instance, intrusive and painful events and acts for which
one can only feel shame. Second, by concentrating on construction the narrative approach does not solve the
conceptual problem at issue (i.e., how to account for a self that performs all the construction and interpretation). If the
self is the result of a process of construction, who, then, is the self that performs this construction? And if there is no
such self, does this mean that the self is an epiphenomenon of a process that takes place behind the subject’s back?
This brings us to the final approach, which is phenomenological. Phenomenologists, at least phenomenologists
of a certain kind, argue that each of the previous approaches ignores one important fact: the experiential reality of the
sense of self. This sense of self is something that is given. It is not construed. Its underlying structure can be
investigated. And it can be equated with the so-called first-person perspective. The expression first-person perspective
refers to the fact that it is only me who can feel, perceive, and think in the way I am feeling, perceiving, and thinking
(Nagel, 1986). It is the subjective correlate of Kant’s transcendental ego, the accompanying me or mineness of all
one’s feelings, thoughts, and acts.
It is important to see that this me or self does not place itself beyond or over against the stream of
consciousness. It is a first-person awareness of the stream while at the same time being part of it. The phenomenal self
entails, therefore, consciousness of experiences in their “first-personal mode of givenness” (Zahavi, 2003, p. 59). It is
important to see the subtle difference with what has been said before about the core self. The core self was described
as a bundle of perceptions, thoughts, and inclinations. The phenomenal self is not such a bundle, and it cannot be
identified as such a bundle or as one of the elements of it because it only denotes a certain quality of mental contents,
the quality of mineness.
The second step is then to equate this first-person-givenness of experience with an elementary form of selfhood.
The term selfhood does not refer here to a differentiated image of oneself, but to the self-referentiality of human
activities and experiences per se. Human beings can have no other pains than their own; their feelings and inclinations
are theirs, at a fundamental level. This selfhood is also called ipseity (ipse oneself) (Ricoeur, 1990). Ipseity refers
to self-relatedness as a structural feature of human existence and indicates the essential mineness of my experiences.
We can now see why the concept of a phenomenal self could be of importance with respect to the question of
how the two selves—the self as agent and the experiencing self—could be related. The phenomenal self is an
experiencing self; in this experience an elementary form of self-relatedness (selfhood; ipseity) is revealed. This
revelation of self-relatedness is not identical to agency; however, this structure of self-relatedness is so fundamental,
that it could perhaps be used to rephrase the concept of agency and to alleviate the obsession for both self-initiation
and self-observation
Due to space considerations, I cannot pursue the philosophical implications of this suggestion here, however. If
it bears any truth, self-relatedness could be seen as offering the dynamic background of virtually all human
experiences and activities. Instead of being attributed to some internal mechanism (cf. the issue of self-initiation), the
dynamism of self-relatedness could be accounted for in terms of a dependence of self-relatedness on relatedness to
others. Others, like my parents, have begun with me. According to So¨ren Kierkegaard (1849/1983), the self is a
relation, which relates to itself, and, by relating to itself, is related to something, a power, outside itself. Being oneself
is, instead of coinciding to oneself, responding to a difference in oneself—a difference between who I am and who I
was; between who I am and whom I could become; between how others see me and how I perceive myself. Agency is
then expressed as the way this difference, this otherness in oneself, is dealt with.
d) Personal identity
Who is the person that is addressed in psychotherapy of personality disorder? This is the question that led my
investigation. I have followed a path that is both suggested by clinical experience and by the recent burst of literature
on the self in academic psychology; that is, a path leading to what has been called the core self. Some of the
conceptual problems that are associated with this concept have been discussed above, and I have reviewed five
philosophical approaches to the self that broaden the scope. Although none of these approaches offered a full and
clear-cut answer to the question of the relation between the experiencing and acting self, the focus of the discussion
became sharper. Before proceeding, one should briefly investigate another, more usual path—a path that is defined by
the concept of personal identity (for, it is obvious, that the who of the patient is a person that has to be identified).
The concept of personal identity is usually divided into two forms: identity as singularity (numerical identity)
and identity as a series of qualities that make it possible to identify the individual as belonging to a particular type or
kind or class of individuals (qualitative identity). Singularity refers to uniqueness. Uniqueness in its turn is based on
discreteness; that is, on the fact that there is only one who is me (him, her). Numbers are discrete entities and for this
reason this form of identity is usually called numerical identity.
Singularity does not refer, therefore, to something distinctively human. Tables, trees, and dogs are, as individual
entities, also singular. Singularity is of tremendous importance in the identification of individual persons (fingerprints,
DNA); however, it does not provide an answer to the question of what it is that makes a person a person. For this
reason, the philosophical discussion about personal identity has primarily been concentrated on qualitative identity—
on the qualities (features, characteristics) that are necessary and/or sufficient for calling a person a person. These
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Lecture N 14. Philosophical meaning of human
qualities refer to what human beings share. They focus on sameness and similarity. Ricoeur (1992) has coined the term
idem-identity for this type of identity. Idem-identity refers to sameness; ipse-identity to selfhood or self-relatedness.
Numerous attempts have been made to define the qualitative identity of persons. A discussion of these attempts
would lead us far beyond what is relevant for our discussion about personality and personality disorder. Criteria for
personhood that have been proposed are, among others: bodily identity, brain identity, memory, and psychological
connectedness or continuity (Noonan, 1990). Others, like Parfit (1984), have denied the relevance of the whole topic
by stating that “what matters is not personal identity” (p. 217). Parfit and others show a predilection to support their
arguments with thought experiments, from simple fission cases (fission of the two hemispheres and transplanting them
in two other bodies) to highly complicated situations with teletransportation of brains and brain halves to other worlds
(Hofstadter & Dennett, 1981). Other philosophers have criticized this method by pointing to the limitations of thought
experiments (Wilkes, 1988).
The concern about criteria for personhood is typically an Anglosaxon debate, and is generally discussed using
the conceptual tools of analytic philosophy. Participants to this debate are currently inclined to question the possibility
of finding sufficient or necessary criteria for personhood. Continental philosophers, like Ricoeur (1992) and Taylor
(1989), would say that this is no wonder. Asking for criteria for personhood is simply asking the wrong question. Any
set of criteria at best defines what a person is, not who he is. To know what it is to be a person, is an issue that cannot
be separated from the question about whom this question is raised. The search for criteria for personhood by analytic
philosophers is executed from a third person perspective (i.e., from a perspective that describes persons as objects or
as facts in the world); however, personhood is not a quality or feature belonging to a neutral bearer or owner of that
quality or feature. In human beings the relationship between owner and feature is itself a defining feature. It is, for
instance, marked by self-concern (a wisdom of Leibniz). Criteria of personhood bear relevance, because they pertain
to me or him or her. In the search for the who of personhood, the first person perspective cannot be left out. Who I am
is not a fact about me, but should be phrased in terms of from where I come and what I am up to. If this is true, we are
back to the point where we left our discussion about the self. For questions about who the person is who is addressed
in the psychotherapy of personality disorders, one is typically answered by referring to a self with a story and with
core values and with shortcomings and with gaps in that story.
e) Discussion: self, identity, and personality
Let me summarize where we are and try to draw some conclusions. I started with the question of who the
person is in personality disorder and its treatment. This question was both epistemological and existential. Both
aspects could in fact hardly be separated. Background issues, the rediscovery of the self, the problem of how to
conceptually integrate the active and the experiential self, and philosophical approaches to the self and to personal
identity were discussed. I now have to come back to personality and personality disorder. Who is the person in
personality disorder?
What has been said so far is sufficient to question a dominant view of the human person. According to this view
the person is a neutral bearer of functions, roles, attitudes, and inclinations. The person relates to these functions and
roles in an instrumental way (Taylor, 1989). Self-knowledge is gained in a subject-object relationship in which the
person occupies the position of subject, and the functions and roles occupy the position of object. Current theorizing,
for instance, in cognitive-behavioral theory underscores this instrumental view, which itself is part of a much larger,
technical worldview. I realize that this picture is overly schematic and one-sided, but in its one-sidedness it may help
elucidate an important aspect of the current Zeitgeist—the separation between the person and her roles— which in its
turn influences the way our professions are shaped and accounted for. Personality disorder has become a condition that
has to be repaired.
Other conceptions of personhood have been discussed, most notably those that lay emphasis on self-relatedness
and on a core sense of self. In my discussion of the phenomenal self it appears that even the most elementary forms of
self-awareness can be conceptualized as entailing selfrelatedness. I emphasized the dynamic nature of this self-
relatedness and suggest that it is so fundamental that it could perhaps lead to another conception of agency.
The relevance of this conception in this context is that it could contribute to a view in which self-relatedness at
the level of the phenomenal self forms the basis for a whole spectrum of modes of self-relatedness. Further
investigation might then reveal that this spectrum of forms of self-relatedness shows a certain order. One might, for
instance, discern a physical, an emotional, and a cognitive I-self relationship. Some forms of self-relatedness would
then appear to exist in an implicit, others in a more explicit, form. Some would be totally embedded in the stream of
consciousness; others would form islands in the stream. Some forms of self-relatedness would appear to reflect
mature, others immature, stages of development. In the end there would arise a highly differentiated picture of ways of
selfrelatedness in which the dynamics of self-relating would express itself in the opening-up of functions, dispositions,
attitudes, schemas, and so on.
What does this mean for the relation to one’s personality? First, if the separation between the person and his
roles should be seen as a modern fiction, then the separation between person and personality should also be
reconsidered. This would imply, for instance, that it is simplistic to say that one is a person and that one has a
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Lecture N 14. Philosophical meaning of human
personality. The separation between being a person and having a personality—and its concomitant dichotomy between
evil and ill—suggests an instrumental view of the human person: A view in which the person describes his personality
from a third person perspective and in which personality is discussed in terms of a project and of development and
repair. As we have seen, however, the vocabulary of relating to oneself is much richer than this technical language
suggests. Every sensitive clinician would understand what a well informed patient with borderline personality disorder
would mean when she said: “I am Miss Borderline,” instead of “I have borderline personality disorder”.
Second, this reconsideration of the large variety of behaviors that the term personality refers to should be taken
into account more systematically. Some of these behaviors are closer to the core self than others. Feelings of
inferiority and shame, for instance, are closer to the core self than impulsivity or lack of frustration tolerance. Some
criteria for personality disorder refer to habits and dispositions with stability over time, like impulsivity or orderliness;
other criteria refer to moods swings and to fleeting feelings. The DSM-IV criteria for personality disorder are
nonhomogeneous in this respect (APA, 1994). And all these criteria vary with respect to their distance to the core self.
Third, the way persons relate to their core self also varies considerably within the person, between persons, and
depending on the circumstances. This variety of self-relating may in its turn affect the contents of the core self. Some
of the dominant feelings and moods are only sometimes closer to the core self. There are times that the borderline
patient feels he is rejected and abandoned and feels that this is a defining characteristic of his existence; at other times
these negative feelings seem to have completely disappeared. The conceptual solution is then to call the core self itself
unstable and to consider this instability as the defining characteristic. This conceptual meta-position, however, is not
consequently maintained when the moods and feelings that manifest the instability are also included in the list of
defining features, such as is the case in the DSM-IV definition of borderline personality disorder (BPD) (APA, 1994).
Therefore, both the instability and the expression of this instability define what it is to have BPD.
There is an enormous variety of ways of self-relating. Some persons are more inclined than others to adopt an
investigative attitude and to make their relatedness toward their inclinations and behaviors explicit. Some would like
to adopt such an attitude, but are overwhelmed by negative feelings when doing so. Who the person thinks he or she is,
depends on the way he or she positions herself. This positioning is embedded in a societal matrix and is determined by
power relationships, biophysical and socioeconomic factors, and the fate of culture at large. There is, in short, no
fixed, Archimedian point from which the relationship toward oneself is maintained.
This non-Archimedian view brings us, finally, back to the person. The question of who the person with
personality disorder is, has been addressed from different viewpoints. At a fundamental level, basic self-awareness and
self-relatedness are conceptually compatible. Ontologically this coincidence of self-awareness and self-relatedness
remains a mystery. This was, in fact, the background of the emphasis on the givenness of this experience. On the other
end of the spectrum—the perspective of the fully developed person—there emerged a picture of self-relatedness in a
wide variety of complementary ways: with respect to functional modes (biological, emotional, cognitive); with respect
to the distance of one’s behaviors to the core self; with respect to one’s life history; and with respect to the position of
the I as point of reference in the expression of self-relatedness (see Table 1). The most intriguing aspect of this
enormous variety is, perhaps, that it takes shape against a background of unity and integrity which is more intuited and
felt than conceptually grasped. Perhaps, one must say, with Peter Strawson (1959), that the concept of the person is
primitive, that is, irreducible, not in the sense of some ephemeral quality, but as a reality which is undeniable or given.
In the end, I think, personhood cannot be reduced to some basic experience or to self-relatedness as a formal
characteristic; nor to conforming to a certain criterion for personal identity; nor to the complexity and structural
coherence of a list of functions, capacities, and mental states. The mystery about the issue will probably never be
completely solved, and better so, perhaps; however, mystery differs from confusion.
TABLE 1. Overview of Selves and Types of Self-Relatedness
1. Phenomenal self
 Basic self-awareness
 Self relatedness
2. The fully developed person
a) functional differentiation
 biological self-relatedness
 emotional self-relatedness
 cognitive self-relatedness
b) self-relatedness in terms of distance to the core self
 distance of core feelings to core self
 distance of moods to core self
 distance of stable patterns of behavior to core self
 distance of automatic or repetitive behavior to core self
c) temporal differentiation
 present and past
 present and future
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ASOIU, PHILOSOPHY COURSE INSTRUCTOR: ZIYA SAMEDLI
Lecture N 14. Philosophical meaning of human
d) positioning of the “I,” depending on
 local circumstances
 biography
 social context
 intimate relations
 societal influences
 power relationships
 cultural patterns

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