Steph asked:

Who is "me"?

I've been puzzling over how to define myself. I understand what separates humans from animals, but
is there a way to separate myself from other humans other than my likes/ dislikes and talents? Or are
these things a few of the things that actually make up my mental "self"?

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Self-knowledge. On the entrance of the temple of the Delphian Oracle there was written: "know
yourself". That question of self-cognition was the basic point of Socrates' philosophical dialogue in the
Athenian market place. It is a serious philosophical theme. I consider this theme as one of the most
laboured for philosophical consciousness. Not only because of the difficulty of self-cognition, but
because there is not just one way of self-cognition for all people. Everyone should accomplish this
knowledge self-sufficiently.

What can we learn from our life experience? What can one know about one's self? Selfhood seems to
be the most clear matter. Everyone knows oneself best of all things. Also, only wo/man it seems can
know her/his self. One really knows oneself before all other knowledge. A newborn infant knows
nothing, but is first noticed to recognize her/ himself at the age of three or four. A lot of children of that
age use time and again the word "I". I am, I can, I want, and I do and so on. Self-consciousness
appears at that age and it becomes a wo/man's first and deepest knowledge. Before that age, a child
does not separate her/ himself from the world around her/ him. Therefore, we can not affirm the
existence of consciousness before self-consciousness. The first phenomenon and first manifestation
of one's consciousness becomes one's self-consciousness.

But what do we really know about ourselves? Semen Frank begins his book Reality and Manwith the
same question. We can know only the fact that we exist, but we cannot know the manner of our
existence. Trying to define oneself, one always comes to a full stop, because all knowledge about
one's personality, which one receives, belongs to the same person. So, self-knowledge is like jumping
over one's own head: everything we know is not enough, because the subject of cognition coincides
with the object. Therefore cognition is impossible. So, we can not cognize ourselves completely. But
that does not mean that we should not try. We should, but we should not make this cognition the
purpose of life.

St Augustine wrote that no-one knows one's real nature. "There is something in a man, which is
man's spirit, which lives inside, and does not know. You, God, who created him, know all about him."
Tu enim, domine, diiudicas me, quia etsi nemo scit hominum, quae sunt hominis, nisi spiritus hominis,
qui in ipso est, tamen est aliquid hominis, quod nec ipse scit spiritus hominis, qui in ipso est, tu
autem, domine, scis eius omnia, qui fecisti eum(Augustine ConfessionsBook X, Chapter V).

There is a deep basis of our personality. It is assurance and belief in our existence. That is everything
that we can know. I do not mean belief in God. To believe in God's existence one should first believe
in one's own existence.

Of course, this answer is my own answer and not the ultimate truth. As I said, everyone should
answer this question and only one's individual answer should be the basis of living. As well as
believing in our existence, to live one should be-lieve.

Dmitry Olshansky

Urals State University

Yekaterinburg City

Russian Federation