Here are some examples of quotations about self, and the self in relationship.
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I know that I exist; the question is, what is this ‘I’
that I know? (Descartes 1641)
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The soul, so far as we can conceive it, is nothing but a
system or train of different perceptions. (Hume 1739)
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What was I before I came to self-consciousness? . . . I
did not exist at all, for I was not an I. The I exists only insofar as it
is conscious of itself. . . . The self posits itself, and by virtue of this
mere self-assertion it exists. (Fichte 1794–5)
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The ‘Self’ . . . , when carefully examined,
is found to consist mainly of . . . peculiar motions in the head or between
the head and throat. (James 1890)
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The ego continuously constitutes itself as existing. (Husserl
1929)
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Any fixed categorization of the Self is a big goof. (Ginsberg
1963)
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The self which is reflexively referred to is synthesized
in that very act of reflexive self-reference. (Nozick 1981)
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The self . . . is a mythical entity. . . . It is a philosophical
muddle to allow the space which differentiates ‘my self’ from
‘myself’ to generate the illusion of a mysterious entity distinct
from . . . the human being. (Kenny 1988)
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A self . . . is . . . an abstraction . . . , [a] Center
of Narrative Gravity. (Dennett 1991)
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My body is an object all right, but my self jolly well is
not! (Farrell 1996) - from Galen Strawson
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"Not long ago, after a trying railway journey by night,
when I was very tired, I got into an omnibus, just as another man appeared
at the other end. 'What a shabby pedagogue that is, that has just entered,'
thought I. It was myself: opposite me hung a large mirror. The physiognomy
of my class, accordingly, was better known to me than my own." - Mach
1895
