Exam 5: Self

Existentialism is the philosophical school of thought dedicated to the idea that self-identity, in every case, is a matter of individual choice.

In Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, __________ was the bare, logical fact of one's own self-consciousness: Descartes's "I think"; the self "behind" all of our experiences; the mental activity that unifies our various thoughts and sensations.

Heiddeger offers us this analogy about identity, "Man is an onion made up of a hundred integuments, a texture made up of many threads."

Hume thought that we could be justified in claiming that the same tree we saw five minutes ago was the same tree we see now.

Who distinguished between the "transcendental ego" (or the activity of bringing our various experiences together in accordance with the basic rules of our experience) and the "empirical ego" (or all those particular things about us that make us different people)?

Kant agreed with Hume: Identity was not found in self-consciousness. The enduring self was not an object of __________.

For Kant, the __________ included all of those particular things that made us different people.

__________ believed that there were no set standards for self-identity, either for individuals or for people in general.

In a brain transplant operation, would you rather be the donor or the recipient? In other words, where would you be (in the body with a new brain or in the brain with a new body)? Would your personal identity be located in a physical organ at all? Discuss.

Locke differed from Descartes in distinguishing between the soul (which for Descartes was a substance) and consciousness.

Female subordination can attributed to woman being seen as intermediate between nature and culture

__________ believed that we knew that the self existed because of memory and consciousness.

Herman Hesse, in his novel __________, presented a character whose "self" was a multiple or pluralistic self.

Sherri Ortner claimed that "we find women subordinated to men in every known society." The criteria she used to constitute evidence that a given society considered women inferior are as follows: explicit devaluation, implicit devaluation, and social-structural arrangements barring women from the highest powers within a society. Is it possible that this subordination is as pan-cultural and pan-temporal as she claims? Search the anthropological literature to try to find a society anywhere in the world at any point in time that breaks this pattern. If a female-dominant or co-dominant society cannot be found, ponder Ortner's analysis. On the other hand, speculate on the possibility that the historical record might have been erased. Is it conceivable that the patriarchy might go that far to maintain the status quo of male superiority?

Luce Irigaray claimed that the concept of an "essential" self was liberating and expressive, particularly when applied to women.

Hermann Hesse suggests that since each of us has but one body, it is assumed that each of us has a single __________ too.

Some _____________ claim that the only way that society can repair itself and allow people to have individual identities is to establish a society without clear social and sexual roles.

The few challenges to the notion of a unified self have all come out of Buddhism.

Descartes knew that he existed and would continue to exist as long as he was a "thing that thinks."

_____________ argued that African Americans' self-identities were largely defined for them by American society, in which whites are the majority. Social roles also have been binding to other groups, such as women.