In this chapter, I discuss various approaches to defining self and contrast them with the view that a virtual self is constructed in a dialogue between persons. It is worth noting that all analyses of person and self draw upon an intuitive grasp of what a person is and what it means to express a self. These are everyday, not theoretical, notions. However, the taken-for-granted meaning of what it is to be a person with a sense-of-self is not transparent, and these phenomena show considerable variation across history and culture. Philosophers and psychologists who explore and clarify concepts of person and self aim for generality, but they also have to recognise the idiosyncratic local form these concepts take. I also confront this difficulty and offer a general conceptual framework in Chapter 3. My present focus, however, is on approaching the problem of definition within different theoretical orientations.

From a familiar starting point and a customary grammar of self-reference, analysis branches out in different directions. Philosophical analysis distinguishes between the ontology and epistemology of self. Ontology is concerned with the mode of existence of persons and selves; for instance, do persons exist independently of the ideas that people have about them, and, if so, what is that mode of existence? What do we have to presuppose about persons and selves for them to have the properties and capacities that they are seen, actually, to possess?