DESCARTE’S MODERN PERSPECTIVE ON THE SELF

RENE DESCARTES
Although Socrates is often described as the “father of Western philosophy,” the French
philosopher René Descartes* is widely considered the “founder of modern philosophy.” As profoundly
insightful as such thinkers as Socrates and Plato were regarding the nature of the self, their understanding
was also influenced and constrained by the consciousness of their time periods. Descartes brought an
entirely new—and thoroughly modern—perspective to philosophy in general and the self in particular.
Earlier philosophers had focused on exploring the fundamental questions of human existence, such as:
- What is the nature of reality?
- What is the “good life” and how we ought to behave?
- Does God exist? If so, what is God’s nature and relation to humankind?
- What is the nature of the soul?
- What is the ideal society?
Although Descartes recognized these as significant questions, he was more concerned with
understanding the thinking process we use to answer questions such as these. He agreed with the great
thinkers before him that the human ability to reason constitutes the extraordinary instrument we have to
achieve truth and knowledge. But instead of simply using reason to try to answer questions, Descartes
wanted to penetrate the nature of our reasoning process and understand its relation to the human self.
He was convinced that to develop the most informed and well-grounded beliefs about human existence,
we need to be clear about the thinking instrument we are employing. For if our thinking instrument is
flawed, then it is likely that our conclusions will be flawed as well. Descartes is convinced that committing
yourself to a wholesale and systematic doubting of all things you have been taught to simply accept
without question is the only way to achieve clear and well-reasoned conclusions. More important, it is the
only way for you to develop beliefs that are truly yours and not someone else’s. He explains, “If you
would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as
possible, all things.” This sort of thoroughgoing doubting of all that you have been taught requires great
personal courage, for calling into question things like your religious beliefs, cultural values, and even beliefs
about your self can be, in the short term, a very disruptive enterprise. It may mean shaking up your world,
questioning the beliefs of important people in your life, perhaps challenging your image of yourself. Yet
there is a compelling logic to Descartes’s pronouncement: For, if you are not willing to question all that
you have been asked to accept “on faith,” then you will never have the opportunity to construct a rock-
solid foundation for your beliefs about the world and your personal philosophy of life. What’s more, you
will never have the experience to develop the intellectual abilities and personal courage required to
achieve your full potential in the future.
This, then, is the beginning of Descartes’s quest for true knowledge that leads to his famous first
principle: Cogito, ergo sum—“I think, therefore I am.” Cogito, ergo sum is the first principle of
Descartes’s theory of knowledge because he is confident that no rational person will doubt his or her
own existence as a conscious, thinking entity—while we are aware of thinking about our self. Even if we
are dreaming or hallucinating, even if our consciousness is being manipulated by some external entity, it is
still my self-aware self that is dreaming, hallucinating, or being manipulated. Thus, in addition to being the
first principle of his epistemology, cogito ergo, sum is also the keystone of Descartes’s concept of self.
The essence of existing as a human identity is the possibility of being aware of our selves: Being self-
conscious in this way is integral to having a personal identity. Conversely, it would be impossible to be
self-conscious if we didn’t have a personal identity of which to be conscious. In other words, having a self-
identity and being self-conscious are mutually dependent on one another.
Descartes declares that the essential self—the self as thinking entity—is radically different than
the self as physical body. The thinking self—or soul—is a nonmaterial, immortal, conscious being,
independent of the physical laws of the universe. The physical body is a material, mortal, nonthinking
entity, fully governed by the physical laws of nature. What’s more, your soul and your body are

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 independent of one another, and each can exist and function without the other. How is that possible? For
example, in the case of physical death, Descartes believes (as did Plato) that your soul continues to exist,
seeking union with the spiritual realm and God’s infinite and eternal mind. On the other hand, in cases in
which people are sleeping or comatose, their bodies continue to function even though their minds are not
thinking, much like the mechanisms of a clock.
Thus Descartes ends up with Plato’s metaphysic, a dualistic view of reality, bifurcated into
- a spiritual, nonmaterial, immortal realm that includes conscious, thinking beings, and
- a physical, material, finite realm that includes human bodies and the rest of the physical universe.
In the case of the human self, the soul (or mind) and the physical body could not be more different. For
example, you can easily imagine the body being divided into various parts, whereas it is impossible to
imagine your soul as anything other than an indivisible unity (precisely the point that Socrates makes when
he’s arguing for the immortality of the soul):

➢ Founder of Modern Philosophy

➢ Concerned with understanding the thinking process we use to answer questions
➢ Agreed with the great thinkers before him that the human ability to reason constitutes the extraordinary
instrument we must achieve truth and knowledge.
➢ Descartes wanted to penetrate the nature of our reasoning process and understand its relation to human
self.
➢ If our thinking instrument is flawed, then it is likely that our conclusions will be flawed as well.
“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as
possible, all things.” -René Descartes

“Cogito, ergo sum -“I think, therefore I am.”

➢ The essence of existing as a human identity is the possibility of being aware of our selves.
“But what, then, am I? A thinking thing, it has been said. But what is a thinking thing? It is a thing that doubts,
understands (conceives), affirms, denies, wills, refuses, that imagines also, and perceives.”
--René Descartes
➢ Your self-identity is dependent on the fact that you are capable of being aware you are engaging in these
mental operations while you are engaged in them.
➢ Descartes believes that your body is secondary to your personal identity.
o The thinking self – or soul – is a nonmaterial, immortal, conscious being, independent of the
physical laws of the universe.
o The physical body is a material, mortal, non-thinking entity, fully governed by the physical laws of
nature.

THE SELF IS CONSCIOUSNESS

JOHN LOCKE

John Locke(1963-1704) What worries you, masters you. (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,
1689)

John Lock was a philosopher and physician and was one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers.
The Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated
the ideas on Europe during the 18th century.

If Descartes described the “self” as a thinking thing, Locke expanded this definition of “self” to include the
memories of that thinking thing. Locke believed that the “self” is identified with consciousness and this, “self”
consists of sameness of consciousness. This is usually interpreted to mean that the “self” consists of memory; that

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the person existing now is the same person yesterday because he/she remembers the thoughts, experiences, or
actions of the earlier self (Natsoulas, 1994; Fuchs, 2017).

For Locke, a person’s memories provide a continuity of experience that allows him/her to identify
himself/herself as the same person over time. This theory of personal identity allows Locke to justify a defence of
accountability (Winkler, 1991). According to Locke since the person is the same “self” in the passing of time,
he/she can be held accountable for past behaviours. However, Locke insisted that a person could only be held
behaviours he/she can remember. Locke believed that punishing someone for behaviours he/she has no
recollection of doing is equivalent to punishing him/her for actions that was never performed. He asserted that the
state of the person who cannot remember his/her behaviour is the same as the state of the person who never
committed the act, which meant the person was ignorant.

➢ Denies that the individual self necessarily exists in a single soul/substance.

➢ Essence of the self is its conscious awareness of itself as a thinking, reasoning, reflecting identity
➢ Conscious awareness and memory of previous experiences are keys to understanding the self.
➢ Personal identity and the soul, substance, or physical identity in which the personal identity is situated are
two diff. things
➢ Your personal identity has remained the same despite these changes in physical substance in your body.
Personal identity is distinct from whatever substance it finds itself associated with.

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