Ebook: Ancient philosophy of the self

Pauliina Remes and Juha Sihvola In the course of history, philosophers have given an impressive variety of answers to the question, “What is self?” Some of them have even argued that there is no such thing at all. This volume explores the various ways in which selfhood was approached and conceptualised in antiquity. How did the ancients understand what it is that I am, fundamentally, as an acting and affected subject, interpreting the world around me, being distinct from others like and unlike me? The authors hi- light the attempts in ancient philosophical sources to grasp the evasive character of the specifically human presence in the world. They also describe how the ancient philosophers understood human agents as capable of causing changes and being affected in and by the world. Attention will be paid to the various ways in which the ancients conceived of human beings as subjects of reasoning and action, as well as responsible individuals in the moral sphere and in their relations to other people. The themes of persistence, identity, self-examination and self-improvement recur in many of these essays. The articles of the collection combine systematic and historical approaches to ancient sources that range from Socrates to Plotinus and Augustine.

This collection studies the various ways and conceptual frameworks with which the ancients approached selfhood. What am I, fundamentally, as a reasoning, acting and affected subject, interpreting the world around me, being distinct from others like and unlike me? The volume starts from the question whether and with which qualifications something like the concept ‘self’ may be attributed to ancient philosophers. Another methodological challenge is whether there is one single question of the self, and if not, what the questions into which it breaks are, and how they might be connected. The contributions combine systematic and historical approaches to ancient sources, and range from Socrates to Plotinus and to the Christian thinkers Paul and Augustine. The volume also explores the influence of ancient philosophy on Western and Islamic philosophy of the medieval era.

In antiquity, selfhood may be traced in the junctures of metaphysics, philosophical psychology and ethics. Self is primarily understood as constituent part of an objective world rather than its outside spectator. Discussions on selfhood are located within the overall teleological framework typical of ancient philosophy. This gives rise to the prominence of the idea of ideal selfhood. Another background assumption is the natural sociability of human beings. Some of the authors of the collection emphasise ethical underpinnings, other study themes that are, rather, ontological, epistemological or psychological in nature.