The 'Self' as Subject and Object: How Important is This In Understanding Identity and 'Reality'?

Jack Cummins

I came across the following quote recently, by the sociologist, Stuart Hall (1932- 2014):
'experiencing oneself as both subject and object, of encountering oneself from the outside, as another - or an other - sort of person, next door is uncanny'.

It struck me as important for understanding the nature of the 'self' as a construct and as a basis for considering the nature of 'reality'. Both self and reality may be interconnected because human beings construct meaning and knowledge in social contexts. This is recognised in the sociology of knowledge, especially in the thinking of Berger and Luckmann in 'The Social Construction of Reality'. This looked at the way in which human thinking and knowledge is formed in the contexts of social roles, with persons having a sense of identity in social groups. This is relevant for the consideration of subjective and objective knowledge, as well as the intersubjective.

The idea of 'self' in psychology and philosophy exists alongside 'mind', although both are seen in varying ways, with a certain amount of fluidity. Also, human identity is complex because each person exists as a separate being but as a part of larger systems or subsystems too. We participate in social groups but also encounter the self alone in introspection and reflection. The experience of subjective self is also an interface between mind and body, with emotions, as a phenomenological aspect of experience and understanding. So, I am asking, how do you see the 'self' as coexisting as subject and object?

Tom Storm

So, I am asking, how do you see the 'self' as coexisting as subject and object? — Jack Cummins

I'm not sure I understand the nuances of your construction, but I'll have a go. I do think about myself in third person or as a kind of protagonist in a drama. It might be me at an event recently experienced, or the banal drive in to work that morning. I am certainly accustomed to seeing my contributions or behaviours in a sort of panoptic overview, as a nominally detached observer of my behaviours. When doing this I am sometimes surprised by what I see.

What I notice when I do this is a gap between how I justified a particular behaviour to myself in the experience and how it must look to others. When I think about myself 30 years ago I view this person as a quite different being, whose behaviour and actions are sometimes as puzzling as those of a stranger. I wonder if this is a common thing for people as they age.

What we tend to forget when we look back at behaviour are the invisible pressures, social expectations, peer pressure, mores that contribute to the behaviour and often leave no trace.

It's important to note that this understanding of myself as an object is a contrivance and is probably fraught with contradictions and problems and I can't vouch for its accuracy.

unenlightened

I'll just leave this here for reference:

https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/social-studies/social-institutions/construction-of-social-reality/

Pantagruel

The Social Construction of Reality is a truly excellent book.

Here's Cassirer's take on the subject and object:

The opposition between "subject" and "object," the differentiation of the I from all tangible givenness and determinacy, is not the only form in which progress is made from a general, still-undifferentiated life-feeling to the concept and consciousness of the "self"....The I is not immediately oriented here toward the outside world; rather, it refers originally to a personal existence and life similar to it. Subjectivity has as its correlate not some outward thing but rather a "you" or a "he"....[which] forms the true opposite pole that the I requires in order to find and determine itself."
(PSF2, II.1 The community of the Living, p 214)

I think subject-object is one of the fundamental dyadic antinomies; which, as Cassirer says, begins as the self-other dyad. Social reality is in a sense more fundamental than empirical reality to a social entity.

180 Proof

So, I am asking, how do you see the 'self' as coexisting as subject and object? — Jack Cummins

"Self" is a confabulated, continuously sensory-updated, virtual model of this-body-moving-within-its-world.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_model

As an index of 'emotional identity' (subject?), "self" supervenes on 'physical continuity (object?)'; and that we cannot directly perceive the subpersonal processes which generate "self" seemingly renders it ghostly, disembodied, or free-floating aka "soul" (i.e. spectre of libertarian metaphysics, or idealism).

"Self" is to symphony as embodiment is to orchestra; disband the orchestra (death), silence the symphony (oblivion). :fire:

Mww

how do you see the 'self' as coexisting as subject and object? — Jack Cummins

I see that such coexistence is not the case, under a certain set of preconditions. Consciousness of self as subject is very far from a cognition of self as object.

wonderer1

↪180 Proof

:up:

Mikie

So, I am asking, how do you see the 'self' as coexisting as subject and object? — Jack Cummins

Both are constructs of a thinking mind— and not the ordinary kind of thinking. Dates back to Descartes and is adopted and further developed by Kant and others.

No need to take the distinction too seriously. It’s not how we see ourselves most of the time anyway.

Pantagruel

No need to take the distinction too seriously. It’s not how we see ourselves most of the time anyway. — Mikie

How so?

Joshs

↪Mww

I see that such coexistence is not the case, under a certain set of preconditions. Consciousness of self as subject is very far from a cognition of self as object. — Mww

Would any notion of self be possible without the ability to experience self as object? That is to say, to recognize that there are other selves, of which the ‘I’ is just one more?

Pantagruel

Would any notion of self be possible without the ability to experience self as object? That is to say, to recognize that there are other selves, of which the ‘I’ is just one more? — Joshs

Yes, the way in which you understand objectivity reflects upon and determines the way in which you experience and exercise subjectivity. The self is a subject-object.

Mww

Would any notion of self be possible without the ability to experience self as object? — Joshs

To experience self as object requires a whole different set of preconditions then those that affirm that experiencing the self as object, is absurd. Subjective, or non-empirical, experience has a different name.

The notion of the possibility of self makes no sense, insofar as the even the inception of it presupposes what is asked about.

At best, the human intellect can think the self as object in propositional logic, in which case the subject that thinks the proposition treats itself as a content of them. Nevertheless, that which thinks must antecede the representations which manifest as thoughts, from which follows the thought of self as object, is contemporaneous, re: in relation to, rather than coexistent with, that from which the proposition, the synthesis of conceptions to each other, arises.

Under the assumption the question pertains to my self and the treatment of it by me, recognition of other selves is irrelevant.

Pure metaphysics: both the bane and the blessing of the human condition.

Joshs

↪Mww

The notion of the possibility of self makes no sense, insofar as the even the inception of it presupposes what is asked about — Mww

What changes would be required in your thinking about what the self is in order for the possibility of self to make sense? What if we imagined the self not as a metaphysical a priori but as a construction, just as the concept of a spatial object is a construction?

Mww

What changes would be required in your thinking about what the self is in order for the possibility of self to make sense? — Joshs

That’s just it: that I think presupposes the means for it, which makes explicit its possibility is already established. That self is its representation is merely a conceptual device given from the type of intelligence which contains it a priori.

The changes required, then, reduce to the fact that I do not actually think in the way that seems to me to be the case. Hence…..psychology on the one hand and cognitive neuroscience on the other.

0 thru 9

We would be remiss in a discussion of self and consciousness not to consider the ‘idea(s)’ of
pure consciousness (Shiva / Sakshi).
In many significant ways, we are still trying even today to understand the depths of the knowledge of the mind present in India’s traditions.
(Maybe someone or many people out there understand these theories, but it isn’t me lol.)
Pure awareness is also known as the witness.

(from the Wikipedia link above):

In Hindu philosophy, Sakshi (Sanskrit: साक्षी), also Sākṣī, "witness," refers to the 'pure awareness' that witnesses the world but does not get affected or involved.

Sakshi is beyond time, space and the triad of experiencer, experiencing and experienced; sakshi witnesses all thoughts, words and deeds without interfering with them or being affected by them.

Sakshi or Shiva, along with Shakti (will/energy/motion), represents the Brahman, the totality itself in its most fundamental state, the concept of all mighty, revealed in ancient philosophical texts of Hinduism.

The Sakshi (pure awareness) forms a dynamic dualism (ala Yin and Yang) with Shakti (energy).
Shakti ideas are expressed in kundalini yoga.
This is ‘outside’ in the Cosmos, and within us as energy and consciousness.

Are light, awareness, and energy actually the same ‘thing’, just at different levels?

What if ‘Self as subject’ and ‘Self as object’ were already merged into one with awareness / the Witness?

What if our ‘own awareness’ was somehow not separated from ‘the entire sum of awareness’ everywhere?

What implications would this have?

The search goes on, in science and in meditative thought.

Joshs

↪Mww

The changes required, then, reduce to the fact that I do not actually think in the way that seems to me to be the case. Hence…..psychology on the one hand and cognitive neuroscience on the other. — Mww

Are you saying that cognitive neuroscience is misguided?
Today’s psychologists certainly seem to be sympathetic to Nietzsche’s views on the subject:

When I dissect the process expressed in the proposition ‘I think,' I get a whole set of bold claims that are difficult, perhaps impossible, to establish, – for instance, that I am the one who is thinking, that there must be something that is thinking in the first place, that thinking is an activity and the effect of a being who is considered the cause, that there is an ‘I,' and finally, that it has already been determined what is meant by thinking, – that I know what thinking is.”

Srap Tasmaner

↪Joshs

That's along the lines I was thinking. In particular:

↪Mww

How is the statement "This thinking belongs to me" like or unlike the statement "This breathing belongs to me"?

We only know of thinking as something organisms do. I understand that the intent here is to set such particulars aside, to consider only what is essential to the concept of thinking per se. I can see the value in that, but how do you know you have excluded all and only the right sorts of things? Why is the body excluded? Why is life?

Starting from nothing, with no preconceptions, how would you even come up with the category of 'thinking' as something to investigate, without the examples of living organisms that think before you, without yourself being one? Would a disembodied mind 'living' on a lifeless rocky planet compose treatises about breathing and metabolism and reproduction? How?

Mww

Are you saying that cognitive neuroscience is misguided? — Joshs

No. I’m saying cognitive neuroscience is irrelevant to my self, insofar as even if it proves its point, the fact remains the self does not operate in terms of the physical laws by which science necessarily operates. It may in fact be the case that 47 phosphorous ions traversing a set of 7nm clefts at 12pv activation potential manifests as my perception of a civil injustice, but it remains that the civil injustice in and of itself, is what presents to my self.

Nietzsche’s view is correct, in that thought, and talking about thought, are very different, while thought and thinking about thought, are exactly the same.

Darkneos

↪unenlightened

I’d have to disagree with that link. Reality isn’t socially constructed IMO. It is very much an entity apart from us. It’s why you have some philosophies that claim to cut through all that to see reality as it truly is, behind what we paint over it, though if you believe such things.

Also how they’re staying you act differently depending on where you are, but this isn’t really the case for everyone. Me for example I act the same no matter where I’m at, same with others, so how do they explain that.

That’s why sociology is considered a soft science.

Mww

We only know of thinking as something organisms do. — Srap Tasmaner

That’s a logical inference, the negation of which is possible, but nonetheless vanishingly improbable.

I only know of thinking as something of which I do, the negation of which is impossible.

unenlightened

I act the same no matter where I’m at, same with others, so how do they explain that. — Darkneos

I don't know how they would explain it, I put it down to either a complete lack of insight, or an inability to modify responses according to the environment. People who cannot shut up during the two minutes silence, or show some consideration for others in social situations generally are not likely to do well socially. If you cannot or will not modify your behaviour between a party and a funeral, then I pity you, but not very much, I'm afraid.

Darkneos

↪unenlightened

I think you’re mistaken. I said I behave same no matter where I go, that “same” being who I am which is considerate.

I’m not a different person in different spaces, I’m the same person.

That’s why I said they’re just wrong that we all portray different selves to people across spaces. If anything that a psychological issue because it means you can’t be authentic and you’re just masking.

unenlightened

I think you’re mistaken. I said I behave same no matter where I go, that “same” being who I am which is considerate. — Darkneos

Well if you are always considerate, again that is unresponsive to the situation; sometimes it is appropriate to be inconsiderate - to scammers and thieves for example.

Darkneos

↪unenlightened

Not necessarily. It’s also weird you’re calling it unresponsive to the situation like there is some objectively correct way to respond to situations.

Also you’re more reinforcing the notion that Buddhism talks about there being no self. So all these different “selves” really just prove there is no self just behavior.

Not something I believe in but for your case the more you argue the more you undermine your point.

unenlightened

It’s also weird you’re calling it unresponsive to the situation like there is some objectively correct way to respond to situations. — Darkneos

Not objectively correct, nor subjectively correct, but socially correct. But you're right, I am weird. But I'm not alone.

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. — Shakespeare

Darkneos

↪unenlightened

No that’s not socially correct either, again you’re just making stuff up to prop up your argument.

Also it doesn’t really matter what Shakespeare said.

180 Proof

... the 'self' as coexisting as subject and object? — Jack Cummins

A parallax (or strange loop) e.g. mine or my corresponds to "self as subject" and yours or his/her corresponds to "self as object", no?

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/819465

Srap Tasmaner

I only know of thinking as something of which I do, the negation of which is impossible — Mww

Heh. My poster disagrees with you:

Sometimes I sits and thinks. Sometimes I just sits.

At any rate, you don't really mean it's inconceivable that you are not thinking; you mean it's impossible for you to think, "I am not thinking" -- well, you can think it, but it's necessarily false and a performative contradiction.

Now it's curious that there's one sort of event that licenses contradiction: the death of a person. People will speak of the body of the dead person as they did when he was alive, "He looks so peaceful," that sort of thing. I'm not saying that's a contradiction. But the same person might say, if there had been a long illness, that the man she married was gone long ago. People don't mind switching between identifying the personality and the body as the person. They might even say "He's in a better place now" suggesting his real self is his soul -- and say that right after saying he looks peaceful!

What's the point of all this? That we have confused intuitions about the self? Indeed. But they all have to do with life. Our confusion arises because of the transition from living to nonliving; that which was never living poses no challenge at all to our intuitions -- there's just no self where there's never been life.

Mww

you don't really mean it's inconceivable that you are not thinking…… — Srap Tasmaner

Right.

….you mean it's impossible for you to think, "I am not thinking" — Srap Tasmaner

Wrong.

Pantagruel

I and me in the work of George Herbert Mead

Objective self-awareness is a fundamental stage of personality development and is integral to the functioning of a socially integrated psyche. The nuances of what it means might be a matter of some speculation, but its factuality isn't.

Jack Cummins

↪Pantagruel

Cassirer's perspective seems useful. Sometimes, in philosophy it seems as if the relationship between self is almost seen as an isolated cell of conscious experience whereas in actual experience it is at the centre. I remember reading GH Mead when studying sociology. I have always seen sociology as well as social psychology as essential to understanding life.

The 'Self' as Subject and Object: How Important is This In Understanding Identity and 'Reality'?

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