Philosophy of the Person and Self Concept - Essay Example

Philosophy of the Person and Self Concept The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe have faced a widespread situation of chaos, challenge to authority and royalty and conditions of civil war specially in Britain, France and Italy. These circumstances – to a great extent – alongwith corruption in Church and political tussle between apparent Papal supremacy, Royal authority and democratic revolutionaries like Oliver Cromwell led better minds of Europe towards a quest for social and political order. Several related questions started emerging amongst noted scientists and academics like Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau and others such as Jacques Rohault and Pierre-Sylvain Régis. The mental and scriptural dialogues and writings of these live intellectuals at that time maybe regarded as a natural and logical corollary of the larger search for order and peace. The central theme of these thinkers, philosophers and scientists has mainly been providing a scientific basis for the need of order in society. A scientific foundation is being constructed in their writings through a concept of self and causal reasons behind existence of a person. This quest, in effect, finally led to the emergence of very strong strands of individualism and basic rights of the individual, namely, right to life, liberty and property. Main tool of their, especially, Rene Descartes’ pursuit of ‘self’ and ‘a person’s existence’ is reason linking human nature, natural law and natural rights. This human reason as a faculty of human mind formulates a scientific and epistemological paraphernalia for ‘self concept’ and Godly human ‘being’. Locke in his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Jacques Rohault in his Ultimate Questions: Thinking About Philosophy use primarily ‘reason’ as their major tool for scientific research and methodological strength. Descartes in the first book of his Meditations leads the reader first to skepticism and then attempts to offer a solution. He initially expresses doubt for ‘being’ and goes further to prove the reality of ‘being’. For him, when we doubt a thing or being, we then ipso facto, by virtue of the existence of ‘doubt’, must know that what we doubt exist as a reality. Doubt we must for Descartes. Otherwise, all apparent reality is a dream or an illusion. This is not an instance of contradiction in Descartes. Here, it is the order and tool of argument is important than any other thing. Descartes’ critics such as Johannes Caterus, Friar Marin Mersenne, Thomas Hobbes, Antoine Arnauld, Pierre Gassendi and Jesuit Pierre Bourdin point out quite a few criticisms. For them: 1. If we think of a perfect being – God or God like – as suggested by Descartes, it does not mean that such a being really exists. 2. How can we be sure that what we think is a clear and distinct perception really is clear and distinct? 3. Contrary to what Descartes argues, we are certain that bodies exist/that perception coincides with reality. 4. We don’t know that we know everything about the mind. These criticisms do not appear to hold ground for they must first grasp what Descartes, Jacques Rohault and Locke generally try to present as their method and epistemology. What further they say and go ahead with is not so important as their epistemology providing a scientific materialist foundation for larger discussions. There are so many relatively technical terms involved in this quest for human and individual’s self and existence and identity of a human person. Theirs’ is also a humanistic perspective of self concept focusing on ‘I’, ‘You’, ‘Your’ and our experiences. As such they are highly philosophical and empirical. The philosophy of empiricism necessitates its stress on human experiences. Human emotions and sensations are also experiences though they by themselves do not form the human body and mind. Locke is a bit away from this Cartesian logic. He uses his tools of ‘intuition’, ‘demonstration’ and ‘sensation’ for explaining the need for ‘understanding’ in human affairs. Jacques Rohault goes for Cartesian logic through the instrumentality of a humanistic materialist scientific analysis and revival of ‘reason’ to expatiate upon the concept of ‘self’. For him, like Locke, one is free to choose one’s own behavior through calculated power of mental faculties. As such, for Rohault, self-esteem, self-fulfillment and needs are of ‘paramount, importance. Here, the major focus is to facilitate personal development or the development of the ‘self’. Accordingly, three main strands emerge very clearly in Descartes, Rohault, and Locke: 1. Self concept is one’s perception of oneself who am I? 2. Ideal Self is the self I would like to be. 3. Real Self is the way I really am. Indeed, natural philosophy is very much the central theme of the above mentioned three thinkers. Reason is the essence of their scientific materialism in their quest for order in the society of their time. Natural philosophy lay at the core of Descartes philosophical enterprise, and he instituted the most comprehensive reform of philosophy that has ever been attempted. His achievement was wide-ranging: he completely reformulated metaphysics by exploring its epistemological credentials in a wholly novel and indeed unprecedented fashion; he led the way in seventeenth-century cosmology up until Newton; he was one of the founders of modern geometrical optics; his contribution to mathematics was second to none in the seventeenth century; and he not only discovered reflex action, but developed a mechanistic approach to physiology not always immediately evident, however. This is partly because — unlike philosophers of similar standing such as Plato, Aristotle, and Kant — not always immediately evident, however. This is partly because — unlike philosophers of similar standing such as Plato, Aristotle, and Kant — Descartes is usually approached through a single concern, namely the foundationalist metaphysics that is set out in similar ways in La Discours de la Méthode, the Meditationes, and the Principia Philosophiæ. It is also partly because we can discern a plausible systematic connection between many of the parts of the Platonic or Aristotelian or Kantian corpus, which we cannot do in the case of Descartes. These two points are connected: Descartes foundationalist metaphysics is so notoriously problematic that it is difficult to get beyond it to what it is supposed to provide the foundation for, and, in any case, if the foundations are not viable, there would seem to be little to be gained in asking what plausible systematic connection there could be between them and what is built upon them. The problem here derives in large part from a widespread but manifestly mistaken conception of the relation between the foundations and the rest of the system in Descartes. Descartes system of natural philosophy is not generated by inference from first principles, but has been established quite independently of these first principles (Gaukroger 1). Therefore, logic, reason, human body, human mind, intuition and human sensation are the bases of this natural philosophy and concept of ‘self’. The importance and ubiquitous nature and presence of this self concept are very much evident in other disciplines. This may as well be put in the form of the following diagram adapted from J. D. Smith: Ubiquity of Self Concept Philosophy Psychology Self Concept Sociology Politics Adapted from (Smith Web PDF presentation, see Works Cited) This self concept is now being used in varied types of studies related to ethnicity, identity, women’s studies, conflict resolution, existentialism, post-post-modernism and psychological testing and theory building. Self concept is thus becoming a practical tool of dealing with a number of present day challenges to modern political and social systems within the ambit of an interdisciplinary perspective. The credit goes to Rene Descartes as the first modern philosopher. Works Cited J. D. Smith. The self-regulated nature of self-concept and the Life World – investigating the process of personal change and transition. Web PDF presentation, n.d. Online available. http://www.educatejournal.org/index.php?journal=educate&page=article&op=viewFile&path[]=38&path[]=34 Stephen Gaukroger. Descartes System of Natural Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Select Bibliography Clarke, S. Rohaults System of Natural Philosophy. London: Taylor & Francis, 1988. Stephen Gaukroger. Descartes System of Natural Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Walmsley, C. J. “John Locke’s Natural Philosophy”, Ph.D. Thesis, King’s College: London, 1998. Read More