The Self

William James (author)

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Title	The Self
Contributor	William James (author)
DOI	https://doi.org/10.32376/3f8575cb.8ccffaec
Landing page	https://www.mediastudies.press/pub/james-self/
License	https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
Publisher	mediastudies.press
Published on	2021-07-15
Short abstract	The Me and the I.—Whatever I may be thinking of, I am always at the same time more or less aware of myself, of my personal existence.
Long abstract	The Me and the I.—Whatever I may be thinking of, I am always at the same time more or less aware of myself, of my personal existence. At the same time it is I who am aware; so that the total self of me, being as it were duplex, partly known and partly knower, partly object and partly subject, must have two aspects discriminated in it, of which for shortness we may call one the Me and the other the I. I call these “discriminated aspects,” and not separate things, because the identity of I with me, even in the very act of their discrimination, is perhaps the most ineradicable dictum of common-sense, and must not be undermined by our terminology here at the outset, whatever we may come to think of its validity at our inquiry’s end. I shall therefore treat successively of (A) the self as known, or the me, the ‘empirical ego’ as it is sometimes called; and of (B) the self as knower, or the I, the ‘pure ego’ of certain authors.

The Me and the I.—Whatever I may be thinking of, I am always at the same time more or less aware of myself, of my personal existence. At the same time it is I who am aware; so that the total self of me, being as it were duplex, partly known and partly knower, partly object and partly subject, must have two aspects discriminated in it, of which for shortness we may call one the Me and the other the I. I call these “discriminated aspects,” and not separate things, because the identity of I with me, even in the very act of their discrimination, is perhaps the most ineradicable dictum of common-sense, and must not be undermined by our terminology here at the outset, whatever we may come to think of its validity at our inquiry’s end.

I shall therefore treat successively of (A) the self as known, or the me, the ‘empirical ego’ as it is sometimes called; and of (B) the self as knower, or the I, the ‘pure ego’ of certain authors.