Ever since Hume, denial of the existence of a “self” has become common among philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition. This article reviews the main arguments relevant to this topic found in Descartes, Hume, Kant, and others. It ends up questioning the validity of Hume’s argument and reformulates a theory of the self that avoids Hume’s objections.
Rene Descartes.
Explicit theorizing about the self entered modern philosophy proper in the thought of Rene Descartes (1596-1650). It entered his thought in the context of his search for a perfectly secure foundation, secure from all skeptical doubts, on which to build a philosophical system.
It is Descartes’s search for some undoubtable first principle to found philosophy on, which led him to his famous dictum “I think, therefore I am.” He thought that, while it is possible to doubt everything else that I might seem to know about reality, the very fact that I am doubting shows that I exist. I could not doubt unless I exist as a subject-who-doubts.
In the following excerpt, Descartes extends this point to all mental activities and all perceptions in general–not only thinking, but perceiving, imagining, dreaming, doubting, affirming, denying, etc.
Am I not that very being who now doubts of almost everything; who, for all that, understands and conceives certain things; who affirms one alone as true, and denies the others; who desires to know more of them, and does not wish to be deceived; who imagines many things, sometimes even despite his will; and is likewise percipient of many, as if through the medium of the senses.
Is there nothing of all this as true as that I am, even although I should be always dreaming…. For it is of itself so evident that it is I who doubt, I who understand, and I who desire, that it is here unnecessary to add anything by way of rendering it more clear. And I am as certainly the same being who imagines; for although it may be…. that nothing I imagine is true, still the power of imagination does not cease really to exist in me and to form part of my thought.
In fine, I am the same being who perceives, that is, who apprehends certain objects as by the organs of sense, since, in truth, I see light, hear a noise, and feel heat. But it will be said that these presentations are false, and that I am dreaming. Let it be so. At all events it is certain that I seem to see light, hear a noise, and feel heat; this cannot be false, and this is what in me is properly called perceiving (sentire), which is nothing else than thinking. (Delphi Collected works of Descartes. Meditation II #9; Kindle 4588).
I think that there is certainly an important kernel of truth to Descartes’s argument here. For reasons that will become clear as we proceed, I want to rephrase his argument in an empiricist mode.
For example, Descartes argues that “thinking,” when said of human beings implies a human subject-who-thinks. But how do we know this? I think we know this because this is the kind of thing that we perceive “thinking” to be. Suppose we had to imagine a world in which thinking would be going on in human beings, but that this thinking would have some kind of independent and autonomous existence of its own, completely unconnected to any human subject doing the thinking. This would be a world quite different from the world we perceive ourselves to be living in. It would be a strange world in which the activity of “thinking” is quite different from what we normally perceive it to be.
I call this argument “empiricist” because it appeals to actual perceptions, to “what we perceive thinking to be.” But note also how it is that a human thinking subject enters into this argument. I do argue that it is of the essence of thinking as we perceive it, that there is a human subject doing the thinking. But I am not arguing that we actually perceive two separate phenomena here, one phenomena being the thinking, and another phenomena being a human thinking-subject, perceived as something existing alongside of and in addition to the thinking. We perceive only one phenomena, “thinking.” It is just that if we reflect on this phenomena, we will realize that our perception includes the idea of a subject-who-thinks.
This latter point is what I think is valid about Descartes’ argument. But his conclusion went beyond the empirical evidence, when he mistakenly drew from this evidence his thesis that the self-who-thinks is a separately existing thing-like entity, a thinking thing or res cogitans. As Immanuel Kant will later point out (see p. 000 below), we have no perception of Descartes’s “thinking subject” as an entity separate from the act of thinking; so, as I would put it, we have no “empirical evidence” for the existence of such an independently existing entity.
David Hume’s Critique.
David Hume (1711-1776) is famous for his arguments against the existence of a self. And his comments make it clear that by “self” he has in mind what I call an “enduring human subject.” The following statement states very succinctly his basic argument against the existence of such a human self-as-subject
It must be some one impression, that gives rise to every real idea. … [But] self or person is not any one impression, but that to which our several impressions and ideas are supposed to have a reference. (Treatise Section VI; Kindle 3903)
In the context of Hume’s thought, “impression” stands for single perceptions. A key principle of Hume’s empiricism is that every “real idea” must be able to be traced back to a single perception. The fact that we have no single perception which can be said to be a perception of a self as enduring human subject means that no idea we might have of such a subject can count as a “real idea.” I will comment below on what Hume might mean by speaking of a real idea.
Further comments that Hume makes, make it more clear what kind of “self” he is talking about here. To state this in first person terms: I have many perceptions succeeding each other in time. What appears to unite these perceptions is the fact that they are all “my” perceptions. In Hume’s thought, if I exist, “I” would be the single perceiving subject who has all these different perceptions.
Hume also makes clear (Treatise, Section VI) the assumption that, if I exist, I would be an enduring human subject, a single subject enduring through time, remaining the same single subject while having many different impressions succeeding each other in time.
If any impression gives rise to the idea of self, that impression must continue invariably the same, through the whole course of our lives; since self is supposed to exist after that manner (ibid.)
But
…. there is no impression [of a self] constant and invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other, and never all exist at the same time. It cannot, therefore, be from any of these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is derived.
All these [perceptions] are different, and distinguishable, and separable from each other, and may be separately considered, and may exist separately… After what manner, therefore, do they belong to self; and how are they connected with it?…
For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.
If any one, upon serious and unprejudiced reflection thinks he has a different notion of himself… He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continued, which he calls himself; though I am certain there is no such principle in me.
His conclusion: Human beings are nothing but bundles of transitory perceptions succeeding each other through time. No enduring human subject exists whose perceptions these are:
…. setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement. (Ibid. Kindle 3908-3918)
I have a number of comments on the passages from Hume cited above.
1. The main point I want to make is that Hume’s argument is based on a very particular, atomistic and direct-perception version of empiricism.
“Atomistic” here refers to his assumption that, for purposes of critical thinking, human experience of the world has to be broken down into a collection of single perceptions, each perception then considered separate from, and independent of, other perceptions.
I call this also “direct-perception” empiricism, because Hume also assumes that only individual phenomena directly perceived count as empirical evidence.
I point out these particular features of Hume’s empiricism to distinguish it from a different version of empiricism, described above, and that I want to argue in this essay That is, I claimed earlier that my argument affirming the existence of an enduring human subject is also “empiricist” in nature. It is only that this is a more “holistic” empiricism, taking the world-experienced as an interrelated whole, the way we actually experience it, rather than breaking down this world-experienced into a collection of separate perceptions, each independent of the others.
The empiricism that I espouse also makes room for phenomena of whose presence we are only indirectly aware. As for example my empiricist analysis of Descartes’s argument recognizes Hume’s observation that we are never directly aware of any “I-that-thinks.” It is only that our perception of what “thinking” is, includes the concept of an I-that-thinks. One could say then that, although we have no single, direct perception of this I-that-thinks, our perception of what thinking is makes us indirectly aware of the presence of an I-that-thinks.
An Argument from Neuroscience against Hume’s Atomistic Empiricism.
I also argue that Hume’s atomistic empiricism is based on what modern neuroscience has shown to be an erroneous account of human perception. That is, Hume’s atomistic empiricism depends on the assumption that, in the processes by which we acquire knowledge of the world, there exists a basic level at which what we are aware of are single atomistic sense-perceptions, each separate from the others. All valid knowledge of the world must be able to be traced back to such single perceptions. But this account of human perception underpinning Hume’s atomistic empiricism, does not itself have any empirical basis. That is, it is not itself based on empirical evidence. And in fact, empirically based modern neuroscience shows that this is an erroneous account.
That is, modern neuroscience shows that no one ever perceives anything like Hume’s single atomistic perceptions. In visual perception, for example, no one is ever aware of single visual elements existing on the retina of the eye, or making their way from the retina to the brain or to some inner space where “the mind” sees them. Light bouncing off physical objects deform receptors on the retina, which sets off billions of complex electrical interactions between nerve synapses. No human mind or human perceiver perceives anything until this whole process is complete, a process which has integrated visual stimuli with a whole host of other factors. What a human perceiver perceives is then an always already complex and interrelated whole, constituting what we think of as “the world out there.” So I will argue that modern neuroscience supports the kind of “holistic empiricism” that I described above.
Hume and Radical Skepticism.
Next I want to bring up an important issue affecting Hume’s philosophy that is not directly touched on in the excerpts cited above. That is, Hume counts single impressions or perceptions as the sole source of every “real idea.” But what does “real idea” mean here? It might at first seem that to call something a “real” idea, is to claim that this particular idea is an accurate representation of some part of reality as it objectively exists apart from our perceptions. But here the problem is that Hume traces human ideas back only as far as human perceptions. What reason to we have to assume that our perceptions give us knowledge of reality as it is apart from our perceptions?
At the very beginning of his very informative study of Hume, George Dicker (p. 7-8) points out that Hume himself was very aware of the possibility of radical skepticism in this regard–a radical skepticism holding that all we have knowledge of is our perceptions; we have no way of knowing whether these perceptions are a reliable source of knowledge of the world as it exists apart from these perceptions. Dicker points out (p. 8) that not only was Hume very well aware of this problem. He actually confesses that he knows no rational way of overcoming this kind of radical skepticism.
In the light of all this, Dicker suggests (p. 12-14) that Hume’s thought could be made more consistent if we understand Hume’s concept of a “real idea” in a particular way, in relation to meaning rather than in relation to objective existence. That is, Hume does mean to draw a distinction between two different kinds of ideas human beings might entertain. (1) Every “real idea” can be traced back to some single perception or impression. (2) Other ideas exist (like the idea of a “self”) which are not “real ideas” because they cannot be traced back to any single perceptions. But to make Hume’s thought consistent, Dicker suggests that we should not understand this as a division between some (“real”) ideas that accurately represent objective reality, and other ideas that do not. We should instead understand this as a division between those (“real”) ideas that have clear and definite meaning, and some other ideas which lack clear and definite meaning.
So here Dicker (14) proposes using the phrase “meaning-empiricism” to refer to this understanding of Hume’s empiricism. Meaning-empiricism thus avoids any claim that “empirical evidence,” if it consists in human perceptions, is a reliable source of knowledge of reality as it exists apart from our perceptions. Meaning-empiricism is thus compatible with radical scepticism regarding our knowledge of the world existing apart from our perceptions.
One added comment I would make here concerns a distinction I want to make in between philosophical empiricism, on the one hand, and scientific empiricism on the other. Scientific empiricism, relying on laboratory experiments using specialized scientific measuring devices, is able to give us some knowledge of the material world as it exists independently of our perceptions of the world. But this is not true of philosophical empiricism of the kind espoused by Hume, which is an armchair discipline in which “empirical evidence” consists in the philosopher’s own human perceptions of the world. This gives us knowledge of what is sometimes called by philosophers today the “phenomenal” world.
Hume’s Change from First-Person to Third Person Discourse
Another issue deserving some comment has to do with Hume’s switch from first-person to third-person discourse, observable in the final section of the excerpt quoted above. Before this final section, Hume has been speaking in the first person, saying for example that “when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception…” But when he announces his conclusion, he switches. He does not conclude by saying that “I venture to affirm… that I am nothing but a bundle of different perceptions…” Instead, he switches to talking here about “the rest of mankind,” saying that “they are nothing but a bundle of perceptions,” with the implication that no human subjects exist among this other mass of mankind existing out there.
Why does he speak here only of “the rest of mankind”? Obviously, if his argument and conclusion are correct, this conclusion ought to apply to Hume’s own being. It should warrant saying that “I am nothing but a bundle of different perceptions.” But stating this from a more concrete, first person point of view, invites further reflection on the fact we are human readers reading what seems to be an attempt at communication by Hume as another human being. Hume’s conclusion would then cause a radical revision of what we generally assume human communication to be. On this revised understanding, we would have to understand Hume to be saying something like:
I who am writing this am not a human subject writing this down; the words you are reading was done by a bundle of different perceptions making up the whole of my being. You as a reader are not a human subject trying to understand this writing. You are nothing but a bundle of perceptions, perceiving this writing; you are not a subject perceiving these perceptions and trying to understand them.
Here my analysis of Descartes’s argument would become relevant: “Writing,” when spoken of a human being, necessarily implies the presence of an I-that-writes. “Reading” when said of human beings, necessarily implies the presence of an “I”-that-reads. “Writing” and “reading,” when spoken of human beings, would not be what we perceive them to be, if there were no human subjects capable of writing and reading.
These comments support a more general point I want to make, which applies to many accounts of Buddhist thought as well: Many interpretations of Buddhist teaching (including especially the ontological -no-self teaching) which might seem plausible if understood as abstract statements applying to the mass of other people out there, would obviously lack plausibility when considered from a very concrete first-person point of view.
Theory vs. Everyday Life.
My final point concerns some further comments Hume makes, showing his recognition of the great contradiction between the conclusion his arguments lead him to, and the way he actually leads his life. Shortly after the passages quoted above, he writes:
I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.
Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hours’ amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther. (Treatise Sect. VII; Kindle 4154).
I commented above on how important it is to consider this whole problem from a concrete first-person point of view. The above quotes show that Hume, to his credit, does exactly this. And this causes him to quite honestly confess to the contradiction that exists between the conclusion drawn from his abstract theorizing, and the way he (as a human subject) actually lives his life.
Georges Dicker makes this point, and the function of “nature” in Hume’s thought, more clear and explicit when he says:
Hume finds there is no [separate] impression of the self from which can be derived any idea of a continuing self persisting through time…. this leads him to the conclusion that the self possesses no real identity through time.
But… Hume is not content to stop with this negative conclusion; instead he goes on to offer an explanation in terms of psychological principles, explaining why we nevertheless ascribe to ourselves identity through time and change…. First he argues that [various beliefs including belief in personal identity through time] embody various errors and have no rational foundation; then he gives a psychological explanation of them. (Dicker, p. 161-62)
In other words, Hume’s full theory consists in two elements: (1) A philosophical theory denying the existence of an enduring human subject (or denying that the concept of such a subject has any meaning), and (2) a psychological explanation explaining why we seem forced to live our lives in a way that conflicts with this theory: “Nature” forces us to perceive the world as populated by enduring human subjects, and to live our lives on the assumption that such enduring human subjects do exist.
This is also significant for the study of early Buddhism because, as is evident in the early Buddhist Questions of King Milinda, when Buddhists first began to clearly and explicitly espouse a doctrine denying the existence of an enduring human subject, they immediately recognized that they did not want to advocate carrying out the logical consequences of this denial applied to everyday life. Instead, they began developing devices separating this radical theory from any too-radical practical consequences that might seem to follow.
In this context I want to introduce a concept and terminology I will sometimes use for convenience in discussions to follow. This is the concept of a philosophical doctrine that is “revisionist” with respect to some very basic assumptions that are unavoidably taken for granted in the way all normal people perceive the world and lead their everyday lives. It is in this sense that I will describe any doctrine denying the existence of an enduring human subject as “radically revisionist.” (This concept is based on Peter Strawson’s contrast between of “revisionary metaphysics” and “descriptive metaphysics, well described in Hans-Joachim Glock’s article “Strawson’s Descriptive Metaphysics.” in Leila Haaparanta and J. Koskinen. Categories of Being: Essays on Metaphysics and Logic. Oxford University Press, 2012. pp. 319–419.)
I will also use the term “impractically revisionist” to describe a doctrine or belief that is so radically at odds with the way all normal people unavoidably perceive the world and live their everyday lives, that it is virtually impossible to put this doctrine into practice. The impractically revisionist character of Hume’s denial that a self exists, is something he himself implicitly recognized when he went on to remark that he himself does not, and would not want to, carry out in practice all the logical conclusions that would follow from this doctrine.
This issue is of special interest again in the study of early Buddhism, addressed as they are to an audience interested in transformative and liberating practice. Modern philosophers engaged in impersonal search for abstract truths can ignore issues concerning the practical implications of their theories for everyday life. A Buddhist interested in transformative practice cannot.
Immanuel Kant.
Hume was addressing issues raised by Descartes’s “I think therefore I am.” A next phase in modern philosophical thought about the self is well represented in some aspects of the thought of Immanuel Kant, responding to Hume. Idiosyncrasies in Kant’s language makes him difficult to explain without considerable explanation, so here I will rely on descriptions of his thought given by two other more recent authors that are easier to understand.
The first author is Georges Dicker, whose descriptions of Hume’s thought have already been cited several times above. In the final section of his chapter on Hume’s thought about the self, Dicker presents a critique of Hume’s “bundle” theory of the self (p. 32), connecting this critique to some elements of Kant’s thought.
Dicker begins by describing the case in which someone is aware of three strokes of a church bell.
We… hear the first stroke, then hear the second stroke coming after the first, and then the third stroke coming after the first two…. This… is just a simple example of a basic fact about human awareness or consciousness: it is always successive or durational, and not a momentary affair, like a spark…
Is Hume’s theory compatible with awareness of succession? According to the bundle theory, a mind or self is nothing but a series of perceptions… But there is no enduring mind or self, distinct from these perceptions…
… Hume holds that there cannot be any impression of a conscious subject, [so] there can be no idea of it either; so the notion should be rejected as meaningless… but if there is no conscious subject, who or what is aware of each stroke of the bell? The answer, it would seem, is “no one.” But then there is no awareness of the strokes [of the church bell], even singly; for awareness of X is a two-term relation which requires not just X, but also a conscious subject who is aware of X (Dicker p. 32-33).
I want to emphasize this last statement: “…awareness of X is a two-term relation, which requires not just X, but also a conscious subject who is aware of X.” I want to cast this again as an “empiricist” argument. That is, to suppose that “awareness of X” could occur without any subject who is aware of this X, is to suppose that “awareness of X” is something radically different from what we perceive it to be.
This argument so far is an argument against Hume’s conclusion. that human beings are nothing but “a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement nothing but a bundle of different perceptions.” Dicker argues instead that the idea of a “perception” includes the idea of a subject-who-perceives.” But then Dicker concedes that this could still mean that what exists is not a single subject enduring through time, but a “bundle-of-[aware] subjects,” unconnected with each other, each aware of a series of individual objects-of-awareness, also unconnected with each other.
This is where Dicker returns to issue of what he calls the “successive or durational” aspect of human awareness, illustrated in the example of a person hearing three strokes of a church bell. The bundle-of-subjects theory, he says (p. 33),
…. allows for awareness of each stroke singly. But does it allow for awareness of them as successive? It does not. For if the strokes are to be heard as successive, then all of them must be heard by the same conscious subject, who must continue to exist at least from the beginning to the end of the succession.
This basic argument, Dicker says (p. 34) is derived from Kant. But then he goes on to cite Kant’s caution regarding conclusions that might be drawn from this argument.
Kant cautions against drawing illegitimate conclusions from the argument. He points out for example that it does not follow that the conscious subject is an immaterial substance, or that it is indestructible, immortal, or anything of the sort…
[He] points out that from this argument alone we cannot tell anything about the nature of this conscious subject. We can only know that there must be such a subject, since that is a necessary condition for any awareness of succession through time. But our notion of this subject (to which Kant gives the imposing name “the transcendental unity of apperception”) is devoid of any specific content. It is simply that which is successively aware of various items.
Proceeding further, Dicker also wants to insist, as I do, that all this can be construed as an “empiricist” argument, a modified form in fact of Hume’s “meaning-empiricism.” An empiricist in the Humean tradition, he says
could broaden the [Humean] view to allow also that any term designating something which is a logically necessary condition of the sorts of experience that we have, is also meaningful. This would allow the term “conscious subject” and its cognates to be meaningful… it would preserve the linkage of meaning to experience upon which meaning-empiricism insists.
I think it will be helpful here to cite another modern author making some of the same basic points that Dicker makes about Kant, but making these points in somewhat different way. The excerpt I want to cite here is from T. E. Wilkerson’s commentary on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.
There cannot be unowned experiences… every experience must belong to someone… Experiences… are not capable of existing independently of a perceiver… I cannot literally have your pains, and you cannot have mine…(Wilkerson, p. 49)
Suppose I have a pain. There are many questions I can sensibly ask. But, Kant would say, there is one thing I can never doubt: I can never wonder who is having the sensation. I can try to work out whether I am having a toothache or an earache, but I cannot try to work out who is suffering. If I am in pain, I know who is in pain.” (Ibid. p. 50)
This is easily recognized as a version of Descartes’s argument, that “suffering” for example, when said of a human being, implies the existence of a subject-who-suffers. If we had to imagine a world in which “suffering” was a free-floating phenomenon, existing somewhere independent of any subject who suffers, this would be a world radically different from the world we perceive ourselves to be living in. It is also significant I think that this argument is best made speaking from a concrete first-person point of view: “If I am in pain, I know who is in pain.”
But, just like Dicker, Wilkerson goes on to say that Kant is opposed to concluding from this argument that the human subject must be a separately existing thing-like entity. As Wilkerson puts it, Kant fully accepts David Hume’s argument that there can be no separate “impressions or perceptions of a continuing substantial self.”(ibid. p. 51). And because Kant’s “empiricism” holds that only empirical observations (Kant calls them “intuitions”) give us knowledge of actually and separately existing entities, he concludes that Hume’s argument does indeed prevent us from positing the existence of a self as a separately existing entity. In Wilkerson’s words: “It is… not true, that all my experiences belong to, or inhere in, some kind of Cartesian soul-substance.” (Ibid.) Instead, Kant “insisted that there was no self in self-consciousness, no persisting substance in which all the experiences inhere.” (Ibid. 57)
Mait Edey on “Subject and Object.”
The final author I want to treat is a little known thinker, Mait Edey, referred to with qualified approval in Miri Albari’s Analytical Buddhism. (p. 6-7). Edey’s essay “Subject and Object” is valuable precisely because he does not pose the question of a self-as-subject as a question about the ontological makeup of the being of human beings–the question whether a “self” exists as one component among many components making up the being of human beings. Throughout his essay, Edey protests against posing questions about the self in the context of making a philosophical inventory of kinds of entities that populate the world, “self” then necessarily assumed to be one kind of entity among other entities. Instead, he insists that questions of the self-as-subject should be considered in the context of an analysis of the subject-object character of human awareness, involving an aware-subject aware of some object-of-awareness.
Edey thus begins by describing his use of the term “object” in this context. “Object” here does not refer to particular things in the world. To be an “object” in his sense, is to be something perceived by some perceiving subject:
I use the term “object” broadly. Let it refer to anything anyone might be aware of or pay attention to. It refers, then, not only to “physical” objects, but also to such “mental” entities or processes as pains, sensations, memories, images, dreams and daydreams, emotions, thoughts, concepts, desires and so on. That is, any of these may be objects of attention or pass in and out of awareness. (In Gallagher and Shear p. 442).
Then he defines what he means by “subject,” staying again within this same context. He defines the concept of what a “subject” is, in the context of an analysis of the phenomenon of “awareness-of-an-object.”
Let the term “subject” refer to I-who-am-aware, whatever opinion we may hold of what that “I” may be. To be a subject, in this sense, is to be aware or conscious. I, subject, can be aware of some object; I can focus awareness in attention paid to that object; and I can distinguish myself from the object that I attend to. (Ibid.).
Edey claims to be merely making explicit what every individual would find obvious simply by reflecting on her own experience. We know what it means to be aware, and to be an aware-subject who is aware of objects-of-awareness, because each of us is such an aware subject. He invites us to verify his analysis of human awareness into two components, “aware-subject” and “object-of-awareness,” by reflecting on our own experience of being an aware subject aware of objects-of-awareness. That is, it is important here that this reflection proceed on the basis of a concrete first-person point of view, the point of view of a theorizer who is the kind of subject being theorized about.
But then Edey goes on to make a point similar to points made by different authors quoted above: Although he thinks there can be no doubt about the existence of a human subject, he admits that it is hard to know anything further about the nature of this subject. We may have to leave its nature “a baffling mystery.”
This distinction between subject and object, and our capacity to make it, are prior to… any particular opinion or theory about what either the subject or the object may be…
Any time you are aware of some object, or attend to some object, you won’t normally have any trouble distinguishing it from yourself as subject, regardless of what you may believe about the nature of the self or of consciousness and their relation to the world. That is, you are likely to know, immediately, without having to stop and think it over, or having to collect any evidence, which is you and which is the object appearing to you. You can distinguish yourself as subject from any object whatsoever (“physical” or “mental”) any time you direct your attention to that object and realize that it is not that object which is aware and paying attention, but you. The real nature of the object, and the real nature of the subject may be baffling mysteries , but these mysteries are no barrier whatever to knowing which is obviously which. (Ibid.)
What Edey says here basically accepts Descartes’s argument “I think therefore I am.” If I am aware, this shows that “I” exist as an aware human subject. As I would put it, Descartes was right when he points out that the phenomenon of “thinking” would not be what we perceive it to be, if we asserted that thinking could take place in the absence of any I-who-thinks.
Descartes’s basic mistake, Edey thinks, is in locating the “I” here in the context of a division of the universe into two kinds of substances, “mental” substances and “material” material substances. He then located the I-that-thinks on the “mental” side of this division.
As Edey puts it:
No end of confusion is generated by the confusion of two different distinctions, the distinction between subject and object, and the distinction between mind and matter (ibid. 444)
The unfortunate result of this is that
“I” became “it”: subject was mistaken for a kind of non-spatial object, and all the familiar difficulties of the mind-body problem arose (ibid. 445)
As I would put Edey’s argument: When talking about the human subject, we should start with the phenomenon of human “awareness.” Human awareness is a single phenomenon which can be analyzed into two elements, an aware-subject who is aware of objects-of-awareness. Descartes departed from this context when he considered the human subject outside this context, and tried to imagine it as one more thing-like entity existing alongside other thing-like entities which populate the universe, and make up the being of human beings.
Finally, in the following quote, Edey draws out one further implication of his insistence on defining the human “subject” as one side of a division between aware-subject and objects-of-awareness, rather than in the context of a division between “mind” and “matter.”
In the traditional conception, the subject is thought to be an aspect of mind, even while mind is thought to consist of such things as thoughts, feelings, sensations, pains, and emotions. But these are objects of awareness, not the subject aware of them. Simply in being aware of such mental objects, I can distinguish them from myself as subject.” (Found on internet 2/19/2021 at https://antimatters2.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/3-1-maitedeych8.pdf; as “Subject and Object,” Chapter 8 of Nature and Self: Reframing the Human Predicament (a work in progress) Copyright @ 2009 by Mait Edey. P. 150).
In other words, every X that I might perceive as existing in my mind (“thoughts, feelings, etc.”) is an object-perceived by me, necessarily different from I-as-subject who perceive this X. This means, first, that Hume was simply mistaken in his expectation that, if a human subject exists, it should be something that might sometimes appear as one more entity or phenomenon among other entities or phenomenon that we might become aware of through introspection, existing in our own mental/emotional life. This is what mistakenly led him to think that, if I can never be introspectively aware of myself-as-subject, this is evidence that no such subject exists.
I want to argue, secondly, that if Edey is right in defining the human subject as one pole of a relation between subject and object, then it is in the nature of a human subject, that this subject, as subject, could never appear as one more object-perceived by this subject. That is, no object-perceived could ever be at the same time and in the same experience, also a perceiving-subject who perceives this object-perceived.
Conclusions.
The most important contribution that the above philosophical discussions have to make to discussions of the self, is that they offer a set of concepts bringing more clarity to the way we frame questions concerning the existence/non-existence of an enduring human subject.
So now to spell some of the conceptual issues involved in more detail, I will describe them under four general headings.
1. First, the question about the existence/non-existence of a self is often framed in a way that conceptualizes this self as an entity having its own independent existence. But the philosophical theory of the self argued for above, offers an alternative and more defensible way of conceptualizing this self. This theory is based on an analysis of human awareness as a single phenomenon necessarily involving an aware subject aware of some object-of-awareness, implying then that the self-as-perceiving-subject involved here has a relational existence, existing in relation to objects-perceived by his subject.
Thus the thesis I will argue is compatible with the views of those who deny the existence of an independently existing self-entity, provided this is not understood as also a denial of the existence of any kind of self-as-subject.
2. Secondly, sometimes issues are conceptualized in a way that overlooks the difference between (a) being a human subject, and (b) being consciously aware that I am a human subject. This distinction is especially pertinent in the case of discussions which frame the question about the existence/non-existence of a self by conceptualizing this as a question about having a “sense of self,” being “self-aware,” being “self-conscious” and so on.
I argue instead, first, that being a human subject is something that I am, and cannot not be without becoming a non-person like a stone or a washing machine which lack human subjectivity.
But being self-aware, having a “sense of self,” is a completely different matter. Here it is important to keep in mind something easily overlooked. When we use terms like “being self aware” and having “a sense of self,” applied to a human being, we implicitly assume the existence of an aware human subject, who has such a “sense of self.” (Stones and sledgehammers, whose being does not include any aware subject, are incapable of having a “sense of self.”) Whatever a “sense of self” might include, it is something that, according to Edey’s definition, belongs to the world of objects-of-awareness which a human subject is aware of. In this sense it is perfectly possible to be a human subject without having any awareness of being a human subject, or having any particular “sense of self.” It might indeed be part of the Buddhist ideal to exist as a human subject who has no “sense of self,” especially if this means not being Attached to any particular self-image.
And here I want to elaborate a little further on the argument that being a human subject is something we all assume about all normal human beings. For example, when I say something to another person, everyone assumes that I am a human subject trying to communicate something to another human subject. Human communication would not be what we all perceive it to be, if we had to assume that some bundle of ever changing impersonal factors making up my being, is uttering sounds picked up by another bundle of impersonal factors making up the being of a person I am talking to.
This means that there is some implicit contradiction in saying to this other person, “I deny that any human subjects exist.” Such a statement denies something on an explicit level, that is implicitly taken for granted in the background. Human communicative discourse would not be what we perceive it to be unless it is communication between two human subjects.
But there is another important point illustrated here: Being a human subject is usually so taken for granted in the background of our explicit awareness, and so seldom rises to the level of conscious awareness, that the implicit contradiction involved in this example can easily pass unnoticed.
3- This difference between being a human subject, and being consciously aware of being a human subject, is also closely related to another difference. This is the difference between, (a) giving a positive answer to the question, “Does a human subject exist?” in the context of an occasional purely theoretical philosophical discussion of this topic, and (b) feeling an “egotistic” need to constantly assert my existence as an important presence in the world.
4. Again to bring up an issue relevant to the study of early Buddhism:
Having an awareness of my existence as a human subject (e.g. having a “sense of self”) as opposed to merely being a human subject, opens the door to being Attached to a particular “identity” or self-image. That is, “awareness that I am a human subject,” assumes a two-sided relationship, between “me” as a perceiving human subject, and some particular concept of who-I-am that functions as part of the world of objects-perceived by me. Having this explicit concept of myself as subject, makes it possible to associate with this concept some particular attributes, such as “being a calm person,” that then can become a self-image or “identity” that I am Attached to, and suffer deep Distress when I cannot on some occasions remain calm.
One thing important that is implied here is a distinction between (1) a bare human subject, an enduring subject, conceived of as existing without attributes other than being an enduring subject, and (2) further attributes or characteristics that might at some particular time be part of a self-concept which this subject regards as essential-to-my-identity, but which are in principle separable from this subject.
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