Philippine E-Journals

Homo Religiosus Spinning a Web of Narrative Self

Richard Curtis

Discipline: Philosophy

 

Abstract:

The work argues that the self is composed of words and deeds that are founded on an emotional appreciation of reality, which includes notions of what reality is really like; an existential sense of what it means to be human, either abstractly or as part of one’s specific culture/religion; and a sense of how human beings relate to one another, as part of a social system that includes morality. The author compares conclusions from social scientists and historians of religion with insights from the Philosophy of Mind to argue that each self has a tripartite foundation that is emotional, existential, and social.

When I turn my reflexion on myself, I never can perceive this self without some one or more perceptions; nor can I ever perceive any thing but the perceptions. 'Tis the composition of these, therefore, which forms the self.

—David Hume (1921, 260)