The Long ConversationA timeline of world philosophy

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Is there a self?

7 stops

Is there a lasting “I” behind our thoughts and feelings? Buddhist, Hindu, European and Japanese philosophers gave strikingly different answers.

We talk about ourselves all the time, yet philosophers have long disagreed about what, if anything, the word “I” picks out. Some found a soul or a pure consciousness at our core; others found only a stream of changing perceptions, or a self made by our relationships with other people.

This path takes the question from ancient India to modern Europe and Japan.

The path

  1. The self

    Theme

    Start with the theme, which sets out the question and the main answers: a soul, a self identical with all reality, or no lasting self at all.

  2. The Buddha

    fl. 465–435 BCE · Indian

    The Buddha argued that a self would have to be permanent, but every one of the five kinds of physical and mental element that make up a person is impermanent. The “I” is a useful fiction, and clinging to it brings suffering.

  3. Śaṅkara

    fl. 700–800 CE · Indian

    Śaṅkara, the great teacher of Advaita Vedānta, answered the other way: the core of the self (ātman) is pure consciousness, identical with brahman, the one reality. Mistaking body and mind for the self is the root of suffering.

  4. René Descartes

    1596–1650 · Western

    Descartes, doubting everything he could, found that he could not doubt his own existence while he doubted. He concluded that the mind is a thinking substance, distinct from the body.

  5. David Hume

    1711–1776 · Western

    Hume looked inwards for that self and found only perceptions, one after another. The self, he proposed, is a bundle of perceptions, though he later voiced doubts about the theory.

  6. Watsuji Tetsurō

    1889–1960 · Japanese

    Watsuji Tetsurō noted that the Japanese word for a human being, ningen, joins “person” and “between”. We exist in the betweenness of our relationships, as members of groups as well as individuals.

  7. Nishida Kitarō

    1870–1945 · Japanese

    Nishida Kitarō held that experience comes before any split into subject and object, and that the individual self is a point where the world comes into focus, not a thing standing apart from it.

For discussion

  1. The Buddha and Hume both deny a lasting self. Do they reach that conclusion in the same way?
  2. Descartes says he cannot doubt that he exists. What exactly is the "I" he is certain of?
  3. Śaṅkara and Watsuji both tie the self to something larger. What is that larger thing for each, and how do their views differ?
  4. Would it change how you live if there were no lasting self?

Terms on this page

ātman
The self. Advaita Vedānta reads the Vedānta texts as identifying the individual self with brahman; Madhva read them as teaching a fundamental difference between the two.
brahman
The ultimate reality taught in the Vedānta. Advaita identifies it with the self (ātman); Madhva held that the self and brahman are fundamentally and permanently different.
ningen
The Japanese word for a human being, made of characters meaning “person” and “between”. Watsuji took it to show that a human being is both an individual and a member of social groups.

All terms in the glossary

Sources

  1. Eric T. Olson, Personal Identity, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  2. Christian Coseru, Mind in Indian Buddhist Philosophy, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  3. Mark Siderits, Buddha, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  4. Neil Dalal, Śaṅkara, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  5. Gary Hatfield, René Descartes, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  6. Hsueh Qu and Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, David Hume, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  7. Robert Carter and Erin McCarthy, Watsuji Tetsurō, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  8. John C. Maraldo, Nishida Kitarō, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy