Thinking about the self as social means understanding ourselves from the descriptions and perceptions of other people. When we approach the self this way, we miss other crucial aspects of the self which include the spiritual self, the material self and the pure ego. Thinking about the self as social can give a wrong impression of ourselves and in some cases; it may make us fail to understand our ourselves correctly.The social self is just one aspect of the self and it is therefore wrong to conceptualize the self just as social because such a conceptualization would imply that the other aspects of the self are not important, which is very wrong. This paper discusses the four aspects of the self named above and how they relate to each other as discussed in the reading materials provided.
The concept of self has been defined differently by different scholars of philosophy and psychology. One of the scholars who have attempted to define the concept is the renowned Philosopher William James. He published many books on various topics like psychology of religious experience, educational psychology and the philosophy of pragmatism (James 23).
According to him, the self comprises of four components namely the material self, the social self, the spiritual self and the pure ego. The material, the social and the spiritual selves largely reflect what is referred to as ‘me’ while the pure ego reflects the ‘I’. He argued that the material, the social and the spiritual selves can be studied and verified empirically through research but considered pure ego as abstract and therefore difficult to study empirically (James 28).
James argued that the material self constitutes our bodies, family members, our possessions and our wealth. material self thus constitutes what can be seen physically but excludes those family members who are deceased because once people die; they are no longer physically present to be experienced by their living family members.
The spiritual self comprises basically our belief system. It has to do with our spiritual convictions and what motivates us to believe in one belief system and not in another. Spiritual self is intertwined with the material self because it affects our self esteem through nourishment of our souls. Having strong spiritual beliefs enables people to lead happy and fulfilling lives. (Hermans and Harry 23).
James put emphasis on the power of the will and faith. He argued that faith plays a very important role in shaping and influencing our beliefs in something or on someone. His main thesis was that it was in order for our passion to shape and influence the actions of others. Even though passion may be subjective, it plays a big role in determining how strongly we believe in something or someone. James put the argument that some emotions such as pity, empathy, or disgust are very important ingredients for our passion, which he argued could determine our actions especially when the issue at hand cannot be decided using intellectual criteria alone(James 45).
On religion, he argued that religion is only useful if it provides some form of utility to human beings and therefore people should disregard all those beliefs which promise them good life after death because no one has an evidence of the nature of life after death.
The social self refers to ourselves based on other people’s expectations of us. The way others describe us matters a lot and also shapes our understanding about who we are.
The pure ego refers to our actual feelings, thoughts or perceptions about the world. With the pure ego, the concept of ourselves is based on our own feelings and biases. James argued that we keep on perceiving different things using our senses. These perceptions are distinct and actually form separate identities. But since we keep on perceiving, the collection of the perceptions which succeed each other can be used to define the “self”.
To put it another way, when we do not perceive, we are either asleep or dead and the self is not present. Although the perceptions are different, they are united by their qualities which give us our identity. According to James, the pure ego is what makes us ascribe our identity to those perceptions simply because we always perceive and when we do not, we cease to exist and the self is therefore lost. He also argued that the mind is like a theater, in which various perceptions “successfully make their appearance, pass, re-pass, glide away and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations”, which according to him, gives us our identity
The pure ego and the social self are always in conflict. When the pure ego overpowers the social self, we tend to have unrealistic expectations from others. For example, we may want everybody to think the way we do. We may also want everybody to respect our opinions on all issues. This is the tendency to control and dominate everybody irrespective of the differences in culture, education and traditions. On the other hand, when the social self overpowers the pure ego, we are able to respect the concept of others about ourselves. We are also able to rationalize our feelings to be in line with what others expect of us.
Works cited
Hermans, Hurbet, and Harry, Kempen. The Dialogical Self: Meaning as Movement, New York: Academic Press, Inc., 1993. Print.
James, William. Psychology. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1892. Print.