Self: Ancient and Medieval Insights about Individuality, Life, and Death (review)

Once again, Richard Sorabji takes us on a fascinating tour of the historic boulevards and back alleys of philosophy. His discussion covers a broad range of topics including personal identity through time (and after death), self-knowledge, and socially constructed personae. I will focus on two issues: Sorabji's view of the self and his contribution to recent discussions of the self in Hellenistic philosophy.

Sorabji defines the self as the "I" who owns its psychological states, actions, and body (21). This sense of self is universal and irreducible since "I"-thoughts play an essential role in activities ranging from perception to ethical decision-making (22–30). Criticism of the self is often due to two mistakes: (a) thinking that 'I' refers to anything other than "the embodied human with its various aspects," and (b) thinking that the speaker's meaning on any given occasion can be reduced to the strict meaning of 'I'. In most decisions and emotional reactions, for example, the "I" involves a kind of autobiographical picture:

For decisions and emotional reactions may depend on one's being aware of oneself as a person with a certain social standing, past history, culture, and aspirations. We thus build up a particular persona or identity and this identity is often considered part of the self.

(21–22)

In discussing the self, therefore, we should keep these three notions distinct: the strict meaning of 'I', its referent (the embodied human), and the social persona.

Sorabji's position would seem to conflict with those who view the self as a late development in antiquity. Sorabji brushes aside this conflict as more apparent than real, however, claiming that it often turns on ambiguities in the meaning of 'self' (48–50). He adopts the moderate course of assigning "different starting points for different aspects of the subject" (50–52). This procedure seems correct. But I want to question the particular starting point he discusses in chapter eight. Does the new emphasis on individuality by Panaetius in the late-second century B.C.E. mark a shift towards what Christopher Gill calls the "subjective-individual conception of the self" as opposed to the objective-participant conception that we find in Plato, Aristotle, and the early Stoics?

The key texts are Cicero's On Duties 1.107–21 and Epictetus's Discourses 1.2.8–24 and 3.23.4–5. What is new is the emphasis placed on individual nature and choice as opposed to universal reason in determining appropriate action. Although universal reason sets the basic parameters for appropriate action, within these parameters our individual natures specify the particular actions that are appropriate for us. Thus, the same action in the same circumstances might be appropriate for one person and inappropriate for another. Such is the case with Cato's suicide. Although it would have been wrong for Cato's comrades to kill themselves rather than accept Caesar's clemency, Cicero says that this action was appropriate for Cato "since nature had assigned [him] an extraordinary seriousness, which he himself had consolidated by his unfailing constancy" (Off., 1.112; trans. Atkins). Sorabji adds:

I presume that Cicero or Panaetius would agree that if there were anyone exactly like Cato . . . it would be right for that person in those circumstances to commit suicide. But that is not the interesting point about people. The interesting point is that there was no one else like Cato. He had always stood for a kind of austerity that no one else began to match. One could say that he is presented as an example of authenticity.

(158–59, original emphasis)

In the subsequent discussion, Sorabji often refers to "the particular need to be true to your self" especially "in cases where that self is unique" (165).

Does this constitute a shift towards the subjective-individualist view of the self? Is there something irreducibly unique about Cato? And does the appropriateness of his action consist, at least in...