[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]
This is a collection of original essays by an international set of established scholars, with a full introduction by the editors. It is subdivided into three equal parts: on antiquity, on connections between antiquity and the early modern period, and on the early modern period itself (taken here as including Kant).
The topic of self is a fruitful one for scholarly exploration, but it also contains certain inherent challenges. The notion of self, along with cognates such as person and personality, is used in a wide range of areas, including psychology, ethics, and social relationships. It is associated with a broad set of subjects of debate, including personal identity, relations between parts of oneself, self-awareness and reflexivity. There is the question, especially relevant for this volume), whether self is a distinctively modern concept or one that spans ancient and modern thought. On the one hand, the formulation of the concept is a modern one (there is no obvious Greek or Latin equivalent for ‘self’ or ‘the self’). Also, the philosophical debates most closely associated with this concept, such as the nature of unique personal identity or of subjectivity and self-awareness, are modern. On the other hand, there are at least partial analogues for this concept and these topics of debate in ancient philosophy. Also, arguably, the subject involves ideas and issues which are universal and integral to human self-understanding, and which cannot be absent from a substantial body of philosophical theory such as that of Classical antiquity. These questions – and potential problems – are raised, in different ways, by all three parts of the volume. The questions, especially that concerning the relationship between ancient and modern concepts, are also sometimes explicitly addressed. This is the case, notably, in the incisive and thoughtful introduction and in two of the chapters in Part Two (those by Gretchen Reydams-Schils, and by Deborah J. Brown and Calvin G. Normore).
Diversity of content is evident especially in the first part of the volume. Andrea Nightingale’s subject matter would normally be described as Platonic thought about the immortality of the soul in central dialogues such as Phaedo and Republic. However, she links this subject matter with the main theme of the volume by analysing it in terms of personal identity. Nightingale interprets the soul’s career in terms of two narrative structures, one focused on the individual’s human life (the “quest narrative”) and the other on the soul’s immortality (the “nostos narrative”). Attila Németh’s topic is that of authorial personae, notably that of Lucretius as pupil of Epicurus and speaker/narrator to the reader. He interprets these two, seemingly distinct, personae as different aspects of the process of assimilation to an ideal (Epicurean) model of the self. Stefan Röttig discusses mind-body relations in Seneca’s presentation of emotions in Letter 92. He highlights the (previously unremarked) fact that pre-rational, involuntary emotions are characterised in this letter as distinctively bodily states. This gives physicality a special emphasis in Seneca’s treatment, though one that is consistent with his retention of the principle of Stoic psychophysical monism. Anne Sheppard discusses in connection with the Neoplatonists the idea of katharsis and the contrast between the ideals of metriopatheia and apatheia (moderation or absence of passions). These themes are seen as illustrating the Neoplatonic view that our real self is the rational (disembodied) one but is also conceived as part of our existence as (embodied) persons or human beings. Each of these four, rather different, topics is, in other scholarly contexts, discussed without reference to the notion of self. However, they are presented here, with some plausibility, as bearing on the ancient philosophical understanding of (what we call) “the self” in one or another sense of this term.
The question whether the concept of self is modern or universal is raised especially by the four chapters in the second part (on “Connections”), which respond to this question in different ways. Two of the chapters focus on cross-cultural relationships (ancient and early modern) with reference to topics that have implications for selfhood but without addressing directly the question of the historical status of the idea of self. David Konstan discusses Descartes’s treatment of the problem of whether other people have minds, a topic unknown in ancient thought. Konstan finds in Descartes the expression of a contrast between the view of the self as a single, thinking monad (an idea linked with early modern cultural practices such as solitary reading) and the ancient idea of the self as fundamentally social. Will D. Desmond explores the analogy between the elusive, ironically presented, figures of Lucian’s Cynic dialogues and the narrator (‘Moi’) and nephew (‘Lui’) in Rameau’s Nephew, both of whom claim the title of “Diogenes,” the archetypal Cynic. Whereas, as I have said, the implications for the conceptualization of selfhood and the historical status of this idea are only lightly touched on in these chapters, they are tackled explicitly in the other two chapters. Gretchen Reydams-Schils argues that the Stoics and Locke have a similar position in that neither theory posits a reified self over and above the psychological functions ascribed to the person or human being. This shared feature is compatible with the fact that they have different conceptions of selfhood in mind: for the Stoics, it is that of a psychophysical rational and social animal (and an integral part of the natural world), and for Locke, it is that of a thinking, intelligent being who possesses self-awareness. Deborah J. Brown and Calvin G. Normore, on the other hand, maintain that the concept of self, by contrast with that of person, has a distinct, and largely post-ancient, history. Although “person” in ancient and modern thought is often defined in terms of the capacity for thought and action, and as the bearer of roles, they see a different feature as crucial for selfhood, namely the ability to ask ourselves who we are. This self-reflective dimension emerges, as they see it, in Augustine, and extends through Peter John Olivi in the fourteenth century to the early modern period. Although these two chapters adopt different approaches, their positions on the historicity of the concept of self are not actually in conflict since they have different criteria in mind.
Background for the third section, on the early modern period, is provided helpfully by the introduction to the volume. The key feature of this period, as is generally supposed, is an intensified focus on self-awareness and subjectivity and a decreased emphasis on – or rejection of – the idea of the self as substance. Descartes initiated this focus on self-awareness and subjectivity, which is adopted by Locke and combined with a marked devaluation of the notion of substance. Hume goes further still in rejecting the idea of substance, describing the self as a collection or “bundle” of fluctuating perceptions. The four chapters in this section treat thinkers other than those just mentioned; these thinkers presuppose, in varying degrees, ancient philosophy and are also, in three cases, strongly influenced by Christianity.
According to Tamás Pavlovits, Pascal’s conception of the self gives a central role to the affective dimension, specifically love, which can lead us in two sharply competing directions. We can direct our love towards ourselves (the “Moi”) as the centre of our desires and aspirations, in a way that may lead to personal ambition and to an unjust social hierarchy based on egoism. But we can also, with God’s help, direct our love towards God and aim at a system of authentic and positive relationships with those who view themselves as the body of Christ. Andreas Blank traces a partly similar line of thought in Pierre Gassendi, an early scholar of Epicureanism, and in Jacques Abbadie, a Protestant pastor. Both thinkers underline the danger of (evil forms of) self-love that can be disguised, to oneself, as legitimate self-esteem and even as self-denial. On the positive side, Gassendi finds in Epicurean thinking about pleasure a realistic and well-grounded basis for (proper) self-love and social relationships. Abbadie, by contrast, stresses the idea that genuine love of God can offer a valid framework for self-esteem based on virtue and authentic social relationships. Dániel Schmal considers another priest, Fénelon, whose views on friendship express an ambivalent or two-sided attitude. On the one hand, Fénelon evokes the Classical ideal of friendship based on virtue as a counterweight to Louis XIV’s ideal of a society based on subordination to the monarch and his ambitions. On the other hand, Fénelon, like the other thinkers just mentioned, shares the Augustinian suspicion of relationships based on self-love, that is, of a self-understanding not grounded on love of God. In the final chapter, Ursula Renz discusses the nature and limits of moral self-awareness according to Kant. Kant thinks we have direct knowledge of the maxims underlying our actions, including maxims that express the moral centrality of duty. However, Kant also maintains, insistently, that we cannot know, in any given case, whether it is those maxims that are decisively motivating our actions. Hence, Kant’s view of self-knowledge has a sceptical dimension, leaving scope for self-deception or ignorance of our own motives. This final section is highly informative regarding several early modern thinkers whose ideas on the self are less well-known than those of Descartes, Locke and Hume; in particular, it highlights the Christian, post-Augustinian strand in early modern thought. However, the section might have been better balanced if there had been a chapter on one of the more mainstream thinkers on self in this period.
There have been substantial monographs on the ancient self (for instance by Richard Sorabji and by myself) and on the modern self (for example, by Charles Taylor) and, no doubt, many articles on specific aspects of this complex topic. However, I am not aware of any collective volume covering both ancient and early modern ideas on this subject, though there are volumes on other aspects of ancient and early modern thought (such as the Aristotelian and Stoic traditions). Thus, this volume offers something substantively new in this respect. It offers a series of suggestive and thoughtful essays by expert scholars; it is also very ably edited and has a very helpful and interesting introduction. The second part, on connections between the two areas, strikes me as the most innovative part of the volume; but there are some new insights in all three sections. The volume, like most such collections, does not have a single overall academic case to make. For instance, it is not designed to show that the conception of self is primarily modern or that it belongs equally to both periods (ancient and early modern), though it provides evidence that could point to either conclusion. As indicated, the absence of a chapter on those who are generally regarded as the main early modern thinkers on the self strikes me as a possible limitation; and there is perhaps rather too much on the post-Augustinian, Christian side. This may limit the scope for the volume to provide the materials for determining what is distinctively ancient or (early) modern in the conception of self. However, overall, this is an engaging, informative and well-presented volume.
Authors and titles:
Introduction Attila Németh and Dániel Schmal
Part One: Antiquity
- ‘Who Are We, Where Are We?’: Plato’s Narratives of the Mortal Philosopher and the Immortal Soul Andrea Nightingale
- Lucretius and the Epicurean Self Attila Németh
- The Senecan Embodied Self as the Source of Affections and Emotions Stefan Röttig
- Neoplatonists on Katharsis, Emotions and the Self Anne Sheppard
Part Two: Connections
- From Socrates to Descartes: Talking, Reading and the Problem of Other Minds David Konstan
- The Stoics and Locke on Self Gretchen Reydams-Schils
- Cynic Selves in Lucian and Diderot Will D. Desmond
- Persons Who Are Selves Deborah J. Brown and Calvin G. Normore
Part Three: Early Modern
- Know Thyself! Pascal on Self-Knowledge Tamás Pavlovits
- Jacques Abbadie on Social Selves and Spiritual Selves Andreas Blank
- Fénelon on Friendship Dániel Schmal
- Kant’s Scepticism Regarding Self-Knowledge of Our Moral Motives: Locally Restricted but Unmitigated Ursula Renz