Deck 5: Self

Question 1

The philosophical problem of self-identity is concerned in part with what the characterizing qualities are of an identity.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Descartes knew that he existed and would continue to exist as long as he was a "thing that thinks."

Answer 2

True

Question 3

A problem that has most concerned philosophers about identity, is how to identify an individual as the same individual when they change location.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The self, for Kant, was also the activity of applying the rules by which we organize our experience.

Question 5

By transcendental Kant meant what was a sufficient condition for the possibility of particular experiences.

Question 6

Luce Irigaray claimed that the concept of an "essential" self was liberating and expressive, particularly when applied to women.

Question 7

Hume concluded that the idea of a self was simply a fiction.

Question 8

Malcolm X wrote, "One of the best ways to safeguard yourself from being deceived is always to form the habit of looking at things for yourself, listening to things for yourself, thinking for yourself, before you try and come to any judgment."

Question 9

Kierkegaard believed that social identity was the only relevant identity.

Question 10

Bad faith is when you refuse to acknowledge yourself as you are.

Question 11

Jean-Paul Sartre argued that the self was determined by facts and future projections.

Question 12

Kant's empirical ego is the self that is basic and necessary for all human experience.

Question 13

Locke differed from Descartes in distinguishing between the soul (which for Descartes was a substance) and consciousness.

Question 14

Hume thought that we could be justified in claiming that the same tree we saw five minutes ago was the same tree we see now.

Question 15

Existentialism is the philosophical school of thought dedicated to the idea that self-identity, in every case, is a matter of individual choice.

Question 16

Jean-Paul Sartre was unique among the existentialists in thinking that existence came before essence.

Question 17

Female subordination can attributed to woman being seen as intermediate between nature and culture

Question 18

In the Dao De Jing, Laozi warned us that failure was our own worst enemy and that we ought to protect our selves as if we were our own best friends by becoming successful in all that we do.

Question 19

The few challenges to the notion of a unified self have all come out of Buddhism.

Question 20

Heiddeger offers us this analogy about identity, "Man is an onion made up of a hundred integuments, a texture made up of many threads."

Question 21

__________ argued that we obtained the sense that our real selves were known only to ourselves, but at the same time we do not really exist except with other people.

A) Descartes
B) R. D. Laing
C) Sartre
D) Kant

Question 22

__________ labeled the tension between individuality and social self-identity (or the split between your awareness of yourself and the awareness that is imposed on you as an object of other people's attention) "ontological insecurity."

A) R. D. Laing
B) Descartes
C) Sartre
D) Kant

Question 23

__________ thought that anyone who "follows the crowd" and didn't live passionately as an individual could not even be said to exist.

A) Descartes
B) Kierkegaard
C) Sartre
D) Kant

Question 24

__________ believes that inorder for us to interact with each other as entirely free individuals we must all embrace an "androgynous" sexuality.

A) R.D. Laing
B) Locke
C) Beauvoir
D) Ferguson

Question 25

Hermann Hesse suggests that since each of us has but one body, it is assumed that each of us has a single __________ too.

A) meaning
B) soul
C) purpose
D) telos

Question 26

Kierkegaard deplores what he sarcastically calls "the public" and urges an end to collective identity and social roles in favor of renewed respect for the __________.

A) religious path
B) metaphysical
C) fear of society
D) individual

Question 27

__________ believed that we could not rely on spatiotemporal continuity to account for the self.

A) Descartes
B) Locke
C) Hume
D) Kant

Question 28

__________ believed that we knew that the self existed because of memory and consciousness.

A) Descartes
B) Locke
C) Hume
D) Kant

Question 29

Which of the following is the main thesis of Locke's argument?

A) Personal identity is based on the continuity of the body, that is, bodily identity.
B) Personal identity is based on substance.
C) Personal identity is based on self-consciousness.
D) Personal identity is based on feedback from one's society.

Question 30

Who distinguished between the "transcendental ego" (or the activity of bringing our various experiences together in accordance with the basic rules of our experience) and the "empirical ego" (or all those particular things about us that make us different people)?

A) Hume
B) Descartes
C) Leibniz
D) Kant

Question 31

What did Sartre call a person's "projections into the future," that is, his or her ambitions, plans, intentions, hopes, and fantasies?

A) Essence
B) Facticity
C) Transcendence
D) Bad faith

Question 32

In __________ a truer perspective recognizes the non-existence of the self, though existence of the non-self is an ideal understanding, which can be fully achieved only with enlightenment.

A) modern philosophy
B) buddhism
C) existentialism
D) catholicism

Question 33

Which philosophical tradition embodies the idea of ambition, striving to "make something of yourself," and planning for the future?

A) Existentialism
B) Western Judeo-Christian conceptions
C) Eastern mysticism
D) Deconstruction

Question 34

__________ idea that memory was what constituted a self-identity was inspired by the Cartesian notion that a person's relationship to his or her own thoughts is unique.

A) Kant's
B) Locke's
C) Berkeley's
D) Hume's

Question 35

__________ believed that there were no set standards for self-identity, either for individuals or for people in general.

A) Kant
B) Kierkegaard
C) Sartre
D) Hume

Question 36

Kant agreed with Hume: Identity was not found in self-consciousness. The enduring self was not an object of __________.

A) experience
B) thought
C) transcendental identity
D) apperception

Question 37

In Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, __________ was the bare, logical fact of one's own self-consciousness: Descartes's "I think"; the self "behind" all of our experiences; the mental activity that unifies our various thoughts and sensations.

A) self
B) ego
C) empirical ego
D) transcendental ego

Question 38

__________ was Sartre's characterization of a person's refusal to accept him or herself.

A) Poor faith
B) Bad faith
C) Inauthentic faith
D) False selfhood

Question 39

Meredith Michaels presents several cases discussing __________ theory.

A) dualism
B) mind
C) body
D) Transcendental

Question 40

__________ is Sartre's term (borrowed from Heidegger) for the totality of facts that is true of a person at any given time.

A) Facticity
B) Authenticity
C) Empirical ego
D) Transcendental ego

Question 41

__________ argues that spatiotemporal continuity is essential to being a particular person.

A) Sartre
B) Laozi
C) Hesse
D) Parfit

Question 42

In her groundbreaking work The Second Sex, __________ sets out to determine the causes of the cross-cultural tendency to treat women as second-class members of society by comparison to men.

A) Michaels
B) Beauvoir
C) Ferguson
D) Hesse

Question 43

Some _____________ claim that the only way that society can repair itself and allow people to have individual identities is to establish a society without clear social and sexual roles.

A) existentialists
B) transcendental idealists
C) deconstructionists
D) feminists

Question 44

_____________, in his novel Steppenwolf, presented a character whose "self" was a multiple or pluralistic self. Harry Haller lives with the myth of "two selves": one human, rational, and well behaved; the other beastly, wild, and wolf like. Harry's unhappiness stems from his oversimplified notion of self.

A) Sartre
B) Derrida
C) Laozi
D) Hesse

Question 45

_____________ argued that African Americans' self-identities were largely defined for them by American society, in which whites are the majority. Social roles also have been binding to other groups, such as women.

A) Martin Luther King, Jr.
B) Jesse Jackson
C) Cornell West
D) Malcolm X

Question 46

For the ancient philosopher, _____________, self-identity was essentially bodily identity, without any particular reference to self-consciousness..

A) Aristotle
B) Thales
C) Plato
D) Socrates

Question 47

Like Nietzsche, _____________ deplored "the public" and urged an end to collective identity and social roles in favor of renewed respect for the individual.

A) Sartre
B) Derrida
C) Heidegger
D) Kierkegaard

Question 48

_____________ argued that there were no set standards for self-identity, either for individuals or for people in general. There was no such thing as "human nature," and what we are-and what it means to be a human being-was always a matter of decision. There is no correct choice; there are only choices.

A) Sartre
B) Derrida
C) Heidegger
D) Kierkegaard

Question 49

_____________ believed that self-identity depended on our having the same self-consciousness and memories over time. He differed from Descartes because he distinguished between a substance (the soul) and consciousness.

A) Hume
B) Berkeley
C) Locke
D) Kant

Question 50

_____________ idea that memory was what constituted a self-identity was inspired by the Cartesian notion that a person's relationship to her own thoughts is unique. You cannot think my thoughts, and I cannot think yours.

A) Hume's
B) Berkeley's
C) Locke's
D) Kant's

Question 51

Describe Kant's view of the self. Explain the difference between the transcendental ego and the empirical ego. Why did he need both notions?

Question 52

Does Sartre's conception of the self complicate the idea of an individual self? How did he explain the paradox that he created between the self not existing and the self existing? Why did he come to this conclusion?

Question 53

Nietzsche and Kierkegaard both believed that the enemy of selfhood was social identity. Explain why. Are there any negative consequences that can arise from too much individuality? Explain.

Question 54

Write your account of a debate among Hume, Kant, and Kierkegaard on the nature of the self. Do Hume and Kierkegaard wind up agreeing with one another?

Question 55

Western and Eastern philosophers discuss the concept of self-identity as a mask we wear everyday. How does this metaphor reflect many philosophical concerns about the problem of identity?

Question 56

Discuss the two biggest difficulties for Locke's theory that personal identity is based on memories of one's former experiences. If it is memory that unites different "person stages" of the past with the person existing in the present stage into a single entity, then how does forgetting, or even remembering inaccurately, affect the self? If you no longer remember falling off your bike at eight (or falsely remember that it was someone else falling), does that mean that stage of your history is no longer part of who you are today?

Question 57

In trying to distinguish genuine memories from apparent memories, we must discover if the person having the memories is the same person as the one who had the experience. To do that, we have to presuppose the existence of a persistent self-identical person. But we cannot use the concept of memory to explain self-identity and then use the concept of self-identity to explain memory because then Memory Theory would be circular. Is there any way to use memory as a criterion of personal identity without getting into the circularity trap?

Question 58

Discuss the existential notion "you are your life, and nothing else." If we, rather than our circumstances, define ourselves and are ultimately responsible for creating the life we live, then to whom can we complain if life isn't exactly the way we'd like it to be? Is it possible to die too soon? If your ambition was to be a doctor, and you put yourself through the requisite schooling but die before the end of your internship, do you think that your life was "summed up" and complete? Do you agree with the existentialist that you are the total of all you have done and hoped to be?

Question 59

Sherri Ortner claimed that "we find women subordinated to men in every known society." The criteria she used to constitute evidence that a given society considered women inferior are as follows: explicit devaluation, implicit devaluation, and social-structural arrangements barring women from the highest powers within a society. Is it possible that this subordination is as pan-cultural and pan-temporal as she claims? Search the anthropological literature to try to find a society anywhere in the world at any point in time that breaks this pattern. If a female-dominant or co-dominant society cannot be found, ponder Ortner's analysis. On the other hand, speculate on the possibility that the historical record might have been erased. Is it conceivable that the patriarchy might go that far to maintain the status quo of male superiority?

Question 60

In a brain transplant operation, would you rather be the donor or the recipient? In other words, where would you be (in the body with a new brain or in the brain with a new body)? Would your personal identity be located in a physical organ at all? Discuss.

Question 61

Kant objected to __________ on three grounds. (1) Our concern with self-consciousness is given impetus because we are not often self-conscious. (2) Kant did not believe that the thinking self was a thinking thing because the self was not in our experience but rather responsible for it. The self is an activity, which undermines the traditional concept of the soul. Finally, (3) Kant believed that we needed two very different conceptions of self.

Question 62

__________ argued that self-identity, in every case, was a matter of choice.

Question 63

In contemporary times, the question of how individuals are defined by or in society is a deeply __________ issue.

Question 64

__________ argued the extent to which African Americans' self-identities were defined for them by American society in which whites are a majority.

Question 65

Herman Hesse, in his novel __________, presented a character whose "self" was a multiple or pluralistic self.

Question 66

Some feminists claim that the only way that society can repair itself and allow people to have individual identities is to establish a society without __________.

Question 67

In her memoir Crossing, American economist __________ describes the kind of transformation she experienced in the process of having her gender reassigned.

Question 68

Like Kierkegaard __________ argued that we should develop ourselves as unique individuals.

Question 69

For Kant, the __________ included all of those particular things that made us different people.

Question 70

Sartre points out that individuals can confuse themselves about their own identity, and that we often willfully confuse ourselves in what he calls __________.