The Aquinas Lecture in Philosophy
1 total work
Kenny's book covers the philosophical concept of the self.
He concentrates here on two of the roots of "self" - the epistemological root and the psychological root. Saying: "The myth of the self takes different forms in accordance with the root from which it takes its growth."
In his introduction Kenny notes:
"It is not poets and dramatists, but philosophers who are most given to talking about the self. The Oxford English Dictionary lists a special philosophical sense of the word ""self"" which it defines as follows:
That which in a person is really and intrinsically he (in contradistinction to what is adventitious); the ego (often identified with the soul or mind as opposed to the body); a permanent subject of successive and varying states of consciousness.
It is the purpose of this lecture to claim that the self of the philosophers is a mythical entity, and so likewise is the self of the poets and dramatists to the extent to which it is modelled on the philosophers' myth."
He concentrates here on two of the roots of "self" - the epistemological root and the psychological root. Saying: "The myth of the self takes different forms in accordance with the root from which it takes its growth."
In his introduction Kenny notes:
"It is not poets and dramatists, but philosophers who are most given to talking about the self. The Oxford English Dictionary lists a special philosophical sense of the word ""self"" which it defines as follows:
That which in a person is really and intrinsically he (in contradistinction to what is adventitious); the ego (often identified with the soul or mind as opposed to the body); a permanent subject of successive and varying states of consciousness.
It is the purpose of this lecture to claim that the self of the philosophers is a mythical entity, and so likewise is the self of the poets and dramatists to the extent to which it is modelled on the philosophers' myth."