A STUDY OF THE SELF IN CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY BY » MABEL GIDDINGS WILKIN, B. A. (HOLLINS) A STUDY OF THE SELF IN CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE RICE INSTITUTE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS JUNE 1931 BY MABEL GIDDINGS WILKIN, B. A. (HOLLINS) CONTESTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I THE SELF OF BERNARD BOSANQUET 1. The problem of the self in absolute idealism and spiritual pluralism 8-9 2. Bosanquet's metaphysics: The Absolute 9-13 Nature 13-15 3. The self in evolution: The ’material1 or bodily basis of selfhood 15-17 The relation between body and mind .... 17-18 4. The self as finite and as 'primary': Feeling 18-19 Mind 20- TTill 20-22 5. The self as infinite or the self-conscious self: Definition 23-24 'Hazards and hardships' explained as necessarily involved in the double nature of the self 24-27 The destiny of the self 27-30 6. Is the self adjectival or substantive? 30-35 7. Hoernle's self 38-37 8. Hooking's self 37-39 9. Summary of the self in idealism as a center or system of values 39-41 CHAPTER II THE SELF OF JOHN LAIRD 1. The problem of the self in realism 42-44 2. Laird’s analysis of substance and a pre¬ liminary application of this con¬ cept to selves 44-48 3. Laird's metaphysics: Perception 49-50 Memory, Imagination, universals, etc. .... 50-51 Nature 51-52 4. The topic of mind or the self: The nature of 'experiences* 52*54 Feeling experiences 55-59 Endeavor experiences 60-63 Cognitive experiences 63-67 5. The unity and continuity of the self 67-71 6. The self as substance 71-74 7. Summary of the self in realism as an ex¬ istent but infinitesimally small fragment of the world 74-77 CHAPTER III THE SELF OF G. H. MEAD 1. The problem of the self in pragmatism . 78-80 2. Mead's general philosophic position: Opposition to traditional epistem¬ ological problems 80-81 Treatment of 'experience1 as object¬ ively relative to organisms; and 'awareness' as conduct 82-88 3» Mead's genetic account of the development of self-consciousness in the race: The physiological differentiation of invertebrate societies 89- The nervous system of vertebrates as the mechanism which has made for more complex social conduct in their societies 90-91 Development of language symbols 91- 4. Mead's genetic account of the development of self-consciousness in the human baby: Social objects or selves 91-94 Vocal gestures and symbols 94-96 Two stages in the formation of the 'idea' of self 96-97 5. The self of introspection 98-99 6. Summary of the primary and the self-conscious self in Mead 100-103 7» Dewey's social-ethical self 103-105 8. Summary of the self in pragmatism as the 'body-mind' combination 106-108 Hotes 109- r INTRODUCTION There are two ohapters in F. H. Bradley's Appearance and Reality that may be said to have thrust upon contemporary philosophy a new sense of the difficulties involved in the oonoept of the self. In these ohapters Mr. Bradley undermines not only the plain man’s normal attitude toward himself but all orthodox philosophical formu¬ lations of the term, from the Cartesian statement to its opposite extreme in the writings of David Hume. By way of introduction, he writes: "A man commonly thinks that he knows what he means by his self....And of course the faot of one's own existence, in some sense, is quite beyond doubt. But as to the sense in whioh this existence is so certain, there the case is far otherwise...And so far is the self from being clearer than things outside us that, to speak general- 1 ly, we never know what we mean when we talk of it”. Mr. Bradley's thesis that the self is ultimately 'appearance' does not enter into the ensuing empirical analysis of the nature of the self. Here the question is, to what precisely does the 'meaning* and 'sense' of the self refer? ïïhioh of its empirical elements furnish material for the most exact definition of selfhood? And in this form the problem of the self may be said to be fully launched upon its modern journey¬ ing s. -2- A cursory glanoe into contemporary philosophy might sug¬ gest that there are as many answers to the question as there are philosophers writing. Selfhood, it would seem, is a sort of cham¬ eleon "Idea” that changes with each shade of philosophic background and expresses, in the last analysis, not much more than an attitude or a tendency on the part of the definer. Furthermore, the plane of definition——the philosophic atmosphere in which the argument is conducted—varies so radically between individual writers or groups of writers that a very continuity of subject matter appears to be lacking. It is not difficult to point’ out a few of the reasons why this is so. The term self, intentionally neutral in tone and psy- Mw chologioal^implication, is lineal descendant of the more illustrious word Soul and, as such, heir to century upon century of acorued mean¬ ings. These meanings assist tenaciously in begging the question to¬ day, the more so since it is a qiostion of perennial interest to phil¬ osophers and one that is more than a little liable to exert a potent influence on their thinking. Again, the problem of the self, in what¬ ever system of philosophy, is intimately related to other important questions such as the nature of experience, reality, mindj and -until the ’extremes' have exhibited more of convergence on these topics it is not surprising that they do not meet on the problem of selfhood. And again, the very ’immediacy' of selfhood is apt to stand in the way of a formulation of it in universally significant sooial terms. At any rate, the problem of the self is still highly con¬ troversial subject-matter. And no attempt can be made in this essay -3- to exhaust the range of its ramifications in contemporary philosophy. It is rather proposed to select several outstanding figures in eaoh of the schools of Idealism, realism,and pragmatism, who have expend¬ ed unusual time and energy on this problem or who may be said to rep¬ resent the views of other writers in their group. It is not meant, of course, that this division into schools is absolute. In certain oases a writer belongs in a specific group only in virtue of his epis¬ temological theories, while definitely allied in spirit with other ten¬ dencies. And, in view of the fact that distinctions between epistem¬ ological schools are slowly breaking down, it sometimes appears that the schools themselves are ’’traditional battle- ries and watch-words rather than names of precision". For the purposes of this essay, however, it is assumed that idealism, realism,and pragmatism may still be broadly characterized as groups. And it is believed that a careful rather than a cursory survey of contemporary philosophy brings to light oertain affinities in approach to the problem of the self and oertain concurrent trends of opinion. On one point at least, it may be said that many writers in all schools agree. The self is no longer definable, after the schol¬ astic tradition, as a simple, unchanging substance, 'an indisoerptible unity’, numerically one and identical with itself. Nor is it often handled along the lines of the traditional metaphysical doctrine of substance as a substratum of experience, a 'bond' holding experiences together, 'owning* them or explaining them as their 'rational essence*. There are still to be heard in various philosophic quarters today, a few echoes of older theological or rationalistic doctrines. Ur. Mo- -4- Dougall’s dualistic view in Body and Mind, in which he argues from the unity of consoiousness to the unity of soul, is reminiscent of the fies Cogitans of Descartes, although his description of the soul not as a thinking being but "as a being capable of being stimulated 2 to conscious activities through the agency of the body or brain" iden¬ tifies him also with a Vitalistio interpretation, in the opinion of John Laird. Dr. James Ward's position, Laird thinks, is a contem¬ porary instance of Cartesianism with an added Kantian flavor. Ward's "whole ’duality of experience'", Laird says, "swings between the meta¬ physical subject and the metaphysical object. We do not perceive things in themselves....and we oannot * intuit’...either our ’subjective' attention or feeling or the metaphysical subject whioh controls and ex- 3 plains them". Moreover, in addition to these dualistio, substantialist in¬ terpretations, several forms of personalistic pluralism retreat into the past, e.g. Dr. McTaggart's cosmos of eternal selves-in-relation; Borden P. Bowne's identical, organic individual self whioh is "the 4 personal beginning of all speculation", "the datum for all thought"; and Wilson’s transcendent self presupposed by the fact of experience. Dr. McTaggart's self is a numerically identical, unique soul-substance underlying and distinct from its manifestations. And the arguments of Bowne and Wilson are of an essentially Berkeleyan type, i.e. every experienced item belongs to a self, therefore selves are creators of, or at least organizers of, the experienced world. For Wilson this implies transcendence or some form of 'pure' ego. Blit the movement in contemporary philosophy is, on the -5- whole, away from theories of this type. in general it may be said that idealism, avoiding subjectivist premises, takes its start from 'experience* in the wide sense of the term, which it interprets as a revelation of a spiritually significant objective world order.