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My Three Selves

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2020

Philip Pettit
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Abstract

Having a self means being able think of myself under a certain profile that that is me: that is who I am, that is how I am. But if I raise the question as to who or how I am, there are three salient profiles in which I can cast myself, three selves with which we can identify. I can see myself just as an agent identified over time by the linkages between my experiences, my attitudes and my actions. I can see myself as the persona that I invite others to rely on and that, if sincere, I internalize. And I can see myself as the figure I cut in other people's eyes, whether or not I welcome that image. Such ambiguities help explain the complexity in philosophical discussion of the self as well as the conflict in everyday exhortations to be ourselves and know ourselves, yet also to forget ourselves and lose ourselves.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 95 , Issue 3 , July 2020 , pp. 363 - 389
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2020

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Footnotes

This paper is based on the text of the Royal Institute of Philosophy Annual Lecture, London, Oct 2019.

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