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Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology What Is a Person? What Is the Self? Formulations for a Science of Psychology Raymond M. Bergner Online First Publication, February 9, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/teo0000057

CITATION Bergner, R. M. (2017, February 9). What Is a Person? What Is the Self? Formulations for a Science of Psychology. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/teo0000057

What Is a Person? What Is the Self? Formulations for a Science of Psychology

Raymond M. Bergner Illinois State University

This article offers solutions to two historically unresolved subject matter problems in psychology: (a) What is a “person”? And, (b) what is the “self”? Part 1 of the article presents Peter Ossorio’s (2006) Descriptive Psychologically based answer to the first of these questions, an answer that comprises a paradigm case formulation of the concept “person” itself, as well as a parametric analysis for describing individual persons. Part 2 of the article presents a new solution to the second question. The solution is a disarmingly simple one in which “self” or “I,” consistent with actual usage, means simply and essentially “this person”—this holistically considered, embodied, con- scious, deliberate actor that I intend when I use the terms “I” or “me” or “myself”—as opposed to “that person,” the specific individual I intend when I say “he” or “she” or “herself.” The ways in which this formulation (a) uniquely possesses an empirical grounding, (b) avoids many historical problems that have arisen in trying to delineate the nature of the self, and (c) integrates the field of self psychology, are all demon- strated. The article provides logical and empirical arguments in support of both of its formulations, as well as for the importance of the science of psychology possessing such formulations of its core subject matter.

Keywords: person, self, Descriptive Psychology, conceptual formulation, philosophy of behavioral science

For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word “meaning” it can be de- fined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1953, #43

Imagine a biology instructor, on the opening day of class, addressing her students as follows:

Welcome to vertebrate biology. In this class, we will be discussing the biology of vertebrate organisms. Un- fortunately, however, our field has so far come to no consensus in the matter of how to define the term “vertebrate.” So, in essence, we cannot articulate pre- cisely and definitively the nature of our subject matter. In other words, we cannot state the conceptual criteria for correctly identifying one organism as a vertebrate and another as an invertebrate. So, procedurally, as we study the findings of different authorities in this area, we will in each case just go along with the concep- tion that each has explicitly or implicitly adopted, even though these may differ one from another, and even though the result could be that they are actually

investigating different subject matter. A few people in our field seem bothered by this problem, but most of us are not.

The situation described in this vignette, one in which an individual with presumed expertise in a scientific domain cannot even articulate the nature of the subject matter of that domain, is sadly one that characterizes the field of psychol- ogy where many of its core concepts such as ‘behavior,’ ‘person,’ ‘self,’ ‘personality,’ and ‘mental disorder’ are concerned (Bergner, 2006, 2011, 2016; Harri & Tissaw, 2005; Martin, Sug- arman, & Hickinbottom, 2010; Ossorio, 2006). It is a situation of scientific imprecision and confusion, as well as indifference to the prob- lem of conceptualizing our subject matter itself, a situation in which our field is in effect repeat- edly saying to its practitioners, “We scientifi- cally study the set of phenomena X; unfortu- nately we cannot tell you the criteria for membership in that set.”

The purpose of this article is to present solu- tions to two of these historically unresolved subject matter problems in psychology: (a) What is a “person”? And, (b) what is the “self”?

Correspondence concerning this article should be ad- dressed to Raymond M. Bergner, Department of Psychol- ogy, Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790-4620. E- mail: [email protected]

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Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology © 2017 American Psychological Association 2017, Vol. 37, No. 1, 000 1068-8471/17/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/teo0000057

1

To address the first of these, I will present Peter Ossorio’s formulation of the concept “person” within the broader conceptual schema of De- scriptive Psychology (Ossorio, 1966/1995, 2006). To address the second, building upon Ossorio’s formulation, I will propose a new solution. Logical and empirical arguments in support of both formulations, as well as for the importance of a science of psychology possess- ing such formulations of its core subject matter, will also be presented.

The Concept of a “Person”

As just noted, psychology has to date arrived at no consensus definition or other conceptual formulation (e.g., Roschian prototype analysis) of the concept “person” (Bergner, 2016; Martin et al., 2010; Ossorio, 2006). Although the pri- mary focus of the entire field is that of describ- ing and explaining persons: their behavior, de- velopment, neural processes, psychopathology, personalities, and more, scientific psychologists have largely ignored the question of just what sort of being it is that is the subject of all their theoretical and empirical attention. When dis- cussing persons, the usual approach is not to define it at all. For example, the term does not even appear in the APA Dictionary of Psychol- ogy (VandenBos, 2007), the Oxford Dictionary of Psychology (Colman, 2006), or the glossaries (as well as indexes) of every 1 of 7 current personality texts that I examined (e.g., Engler, 2009; Feist, Feist, & Roberts, 2013; Hergen- hahn & Olson, 2007).

The Proposed Formulation

Ossorio has proposed a conceptual formula- tion of a “person” as “. . . an individual whose history is paradigmatically a history of deliber- ate action” (Ossorio, 2006, p. 69). A person is an individual, in other words, that (paradigmati- cally) has a history of, and thus an ability to, behave deliberately; that is, to engage in some behavior B, knowing that he or she is doing B rather than other behaviors that he or she dis- tinguishes, and having chosen B as being the thing to do from among a set of distinguished behavioral alternatives. In the vernacular, such behavior may be characterized as “knowing what you’re doing and doing it on purpose.” Behaviors such as making a carefully consid-

ered move in a board game, ordering from a restaurant menu, or phrasing a verbal reply so as not to offend another represent clear, everyday examples of deliberate actions. This formula- tion is consistent with those of Baumeister (2008, 2010); Chisholm (1982); Martin et al. (2010), and Taylor (1985, 1989), all of whom view agency—the ability to genuinely choose one’s actions—as essential to personhood.

A Paradigm Case, Not a Definition

This formulation of “person” is not a defini- tion. It is instead a paradigm case formulation (“PCF”; Ossorio, 2006). Paradigm case meth- odology, like its first cousin, prototype analysis (Fehr, 2006; Mervis & Rosch, 1981; Rosch, 1973), represents an alternative to definition as a way to demarcate an empirical domain (or set). PCF methodology involves a two-pronged strategy. The first prong is that of selecting a certain case to represent the paradigm case. This is usually an archetypal, indubitable one that captures central or core features of the concept. For example, the selected paradigm case of the concept “family” might be a grouping of per- sons living together composed of a mother, a father, and their biological children. Because, in many instances, we have strong reason to in- clude other than the paradigm cases as instances of a concept under investigation, the second step in PCF methodology involves specifying nonparadigm cases that represent transforma- tions of the paradigm case. Thus, in the case of “family,” single parent families (transforma- tion: change number of parents), step-families (transformation: one parent not a biological par- ent), and blended families (transformation: at least one parent has children from a previous relationship), would all be regarded as instances of the concept “family” by virtue of their re- semblance to the paradigmatic one (Ossorio, 2006; cf. Fehr, 2006; Mervis & Rosch, 1981; Rosch, 1973).

Used in the present context, our paradigm case formulation of “person” gets at the point that, while deliberate action is central to the concept of a paradigm case person, we custom- arily extend the concept to transformations of this paradigm case in which individuals, for example, (a) will only acquire the ability to behave deliberately at a later time (e.g., infants); (b) have suffered damage to this ability through

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such misfortunes as autism, brain damage, or dementia; or (c) are in comas or vegetative states. Further, while currently our only entirely clear example of a paradigm case person is homo sapiens embodied human beings, PCF methodology allows for the possibility that with future developments, other nonparadigm cases may emerge such as silicon-embodied extrater- restrials, highly developed computers, chimpan- zees, or dolphins. (NB: Procedurally, using PCF methodology here permits us to avoid the po- litically and humanely questionable alternatives of characterizing certain individuals as “lesser persons” or as possessing “lesser degrees of personhood.”)

No Consciousness, No Persons

That deliberate action is a central requirement for an individual to qualify as a (paradigm case) person implies further that the presence of con- sciousness is also necessary. The explication of the concept of deliberate action above stated that a person is an individual that has the ability to “engage in some behavior B, knowing that he or she is doing B rather than other behaviors that he or she distinguishes. . . .” It stated further that such behavior can be characterized as “knowing what you’re doing and doing it on purpose.” Deliberate action implies conscious- ness—implies awareness or comprehension of what one is doing and of the distinction between it and other behavioral options. If some entity, in a situation permitting logically possible al- ternatives, cannot ever do other than automati- cally and nonconsciously enact one of them, we do not count this as deliberate action—as a case of choosing—and we do not count this entity a person. A computer, for example, is pro- grammed to do X (e.g., purchase a stock) if state of affairs Y obtains (the stock hits a certain price point); or, as in the case of IBMs trivia quiz “contestant” “Watson,” to sort through a myriad of key words and phrases to find statis- tically associated ones, generate the highest probability confluence of them using hundreds of algorithms, and generate this as a product (Thompson, 2010). In such cases, there is noth- ing we could call “awareness” or “comprehen- sion” or “consciousness” of alternatives; or of genuinely “choosing” or “selecting” one of them from among the others; thus, no deliberate action, and thus, no person.

Persons Not Always Behaving Deliberately

A computer may be defined functionally as a device for accomplishing various computational tasks, and an airplane one for transporting peo- ple and/or goods above the ground from one place to another. They are defined by their func- tions in human affairs, by what they do, but not necessarily by what they are doing one hundred percent of the time. To define them as we do, for example, we do not need to believe that the airplane is always in the air flying from one place to another or that the computer is always in operation. In the same way, to conceptualize a person as an individual capable of deliberate action does not imply that persons are always so engaged. We recognize trivially that they are sometimes asleep, sometimes seriously ill, and sometimes engaged in activities (e.g., brushing hair away from their eyes or typing the next letter on the keyboard) with no conscious awareness (Baumeister, 2008). As in the case of the computer and airplane, it is the central func- tion or capability that is at issue in conceptually capturing what a person is.

Implication

The proposed formulation of “person,” if (as I will argue below) it captures the core condi- tion for correct application of this term, carries the implication that wherever and whenever we encounter a being that exemplifies it, whether it be a homo sapiens embodied human being, a member of a now extinct species of the genus homo, a silicon extraterrestrial, a future com- puter, a chimpanzee, or a dolphin, this being should be counted a person.

Kinds of Persons

A familiar and very simple conceptual sys- tem comprising three parameters, hue, satura- tion, and brightness, is able to capture and to distinguish every actual and possible instance of the phenomenon color (Munsell, 1946). In the same way, a (vastly more complex) conceptual system for the science of psychology must be able to provide conceptual resources for articu- lating every fact and possible fact about persons (qua persons, vs., e.g., as biological organisms). If it is to do so, it must not merely capture the concept of “person” in general, but must also

3PERSON AND SELF

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provide resources for capturing and distinguish- ing what kinds of persons there are. Whether we are psychologists, historians, biographers, nov- elists, or just individuals leading our everyday social lives, we do and we must distinguish persons, not merely on the basis of identity (“that’s John Smith”), but on basis of the kinds of persons they are. The following parametric analysis, adapted from Ossorio (2006), provides the conceptual resources for doing so:

�PC� � �Ds, P, Dr�, Where . . .

PC � Person Characteristics

Ds � Dispositions, the various personal tendencies or inclinations, ordinarily observable in a person by virtue of a pattern of frequency in his or her behavior. These include Traits (dispositions to engage in a certain kind of behavior such as shy, aggressive, or generous be- havior); Styles (dispositions having to do, not with what a person does, but with how he or she does it [e.g., in a sophisticated, graceful, or awkward fash- ion]); Attitudes (dispositions to regard and treat differ- ent objects [e.g., a religious text or a political candi- date] or certain classes of object [e.g., liberals or conservatives] in certain characteristic ways [e.g., con- temptuously or reverently]); Interests (dispositions to find certain topics [e.g., world affairs, sports, or music] absorbing or captivating).

P � Powers, concepts having to do with what is possible and not possible for a given person. These include the person’s Abilities (i.e., capabilities with reference to some kind of achievement such as speak- ing a language, playing the piano, or shooting a bas- ketball); Knowledge (the set of facts the person has the ability to act on, such as the multiplication times tables, the rules of baseball, or the information necessary to repair an automobile engine); and Values (the set of motivational priorities that the person is routinely able to act on, such as a value for honesty, for accumulating wealth, or for an adventurous way of life).

Dr � Derivatives, concepts that, unlike the two previ- ous categories, do not have a direct connection to behavior but are defined instead by their reference to Dispositions and Powers. These include States (states of affairs in which there is a systematic difference in the ordinary powers or dispositions of a person, such as being sick, exhausted, or drunk); Capacities (the po- tential to acquire personal characteristics, such as ones to acquire musical skills, learn languages, or play soc- cer); and Embodiment (the physical characteristics of a person, such as being six feet tall, weighing 170 pounds, or having blue eyes; adapted from Ossorio, 2006, pp. 70 –71).

In essence, we describe what kind of person John is by giving values to these parameters. As a psychotherapist, organizational person- nel selector, psychological researcher, and more, I might have reason to do this in a

highly formalized and rigorous fashion. As a prospective life partner, business associate, friend, or voter, I might do so less formally but, depending on the particulars, no less carefully. In either case, what I am doing is making commitments to some number of these parameters pertaining to the kind of person John is. When I describe him as “ex- traverted,” I commit to (one value of) the Trait parameter; when “flamboyant” to the Style parameter; when “obsessed with making money” to the Values parameter; when “very good with numbers” to the Ability parameter (of course, all of these parameters will have multiple values and will exist in some de- gree— extraversion will not be John’s only trait and he may be somewhat or very outgo- ing). And I am saying in essence that, relative to what can be termed a “standard normal person” (Ossorio, 1983) in his culture, this is the kind of behavior, style, motivational pri- ority, ability, and so forth, that you can expect to find in greater frequency and/or degree when you observe John; this is the kind of person John is.

Lest there be confusion, it should be noted that this analysis is not about personality. It is about persons. As such, it extends consider- ably beyond what, if we are faithful to con- sensual English usage, we understand by an individual’s “personality.” Of the above list- ing of 10 person characteristics, only two (traits and styles) clearly pertain to an indi- vidual’s personality (it may be noted, e.g., that every one of the currently popular “big five” personality characteristics [Goldberg, 1993; McAdams & Pals, 2006] is a trait). Two other characteristics, interests and val- ues, could (more arguably) be seen as pertain- ing to personality. However, facts about an individual’s embodiment (“John is six feet tall”), capacities (“Mary has a capacity for learning languages”), states (“Jack has been depressed lately”), abilities (“Jill is capable of writing computer programs”), attitudes (“Scott has a negative attitude toward immi- grants”), and knowledge (“Suzie knows the capitol of every state”) are not personality facts. While personality facts are important ones about persons, they are far from being the only facts, much less the only important facts, about what kind of person a person is.

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Empirical Foundation: Conceptions Capture Meaning in Actual Usage

The formulations of “person” and the para- metric analysis of persons were created for the purpose of demarcating the domain of persons for a science of psychology (Ossorio, 1966/ 1995, 2006); that is, for articulating both what a person is and all of the ways in which one person can be the same as, or different from, another person (cf. hue, saturation, and bright- ness for color). In this section, I will attempt to show that these conceptions, though formulated for such usage, have the advantage of success- fully capturing what amounts to a refined and disambiguated meaning in use of these concepts in ordinary lay usage. In capturing this usage, I will argue further that, per Wittgenstein’s fa- mous dictum that “. . . the meaning of a word is its use in the language” (Wittgenstein, 1953, #43), they in effect become strong candidates for what should be considered the meaning of these person concepts in a science of psychol- ogy. This is based on the contention that, if shown to be coherent, the concept in actual use by people, the distinction they are actually drawing and acting upon, serves better than any other as the premier “expert concept” and should not be disregarded or violated with im- punity in favor of one’s own invented private meaning (Austin, 1956; Hegi & Bergner, 2010; Kelley, 1983; Wittgenstein, 1953). Further, as the concepts in actual use, they enjoy the unique advantage of having an actual empirical basis upon which to ground claims about their mean- ing.

Beverley Fehr has observed that, when called upon to define or otherwise explicate the mean- ings of concepts, “. . . people may not necessar- ily produce the full range of important features when asked (a recall task), but ‘know them when they see them’ (. . . a recognition task)” (Fehr, 2006, p. 242). It is an observational com- monplace that people use concepts that embody criteria they are unable to articulate. Asked what time it is, they correctly respond by telling us the time. Asked to describe their mother’s personality, they inform us that she is outgoing, generous, and considerate of others. Asked to give an example of humor, they tell us a joke. However, asked to define or otherwise expli- cate the concepts of “time,” “personality,” or “humor,” they are for the most part at a loss.

They possess the correct distinctions, they use the terms correctly, but they cannot articulate well the conceptual criteria they are using in doing so.

With this in mind, the question can be raised regarding whether or not the person formula- tions above do in fact capture, not what people can verbally articulate if asked, but how people actually use these conceptions; that is, what distinctions they actually draw and act upon. First, with respect to the definition of “person” stated, many everyday, commonplace observa- tions reveal that people regard and treat persons, both themselves and others, as deliberate actors. That is, they regard and treat them as individu- als who can and do consider behavioral alterna- tives that they understand, choose from among these the one that they enact, and genuinely possess the power to do otherwise. A few rep- resentative examples: (a) Both as individuals and as representatives of institutions (e.g., the legal system), they hold themselves and others responsible for their behavior, implying that these individuals had a choice and could have done otherwise (e.g., they blame others when they are negligent, laud them when they engage in altruistic behavior, or render a guilty verdict as jurors in a court of law). (b) They react differently to unfortunate bodily movements of others (e.g., someone bumping into them) seen as “accidents” than to ones seen as done “de- liberately” or “on purpose.” (c) They routinely enjoin others to entertain certain considerations (e.g., to think about the consequences of a cer- tain action) to influence the choices of these others. (NB: It should perhaps be underscored that this point, as well as the following one, pertain to the meaning in use of a concept, and not to the perennially unsettled issue of the ontological merits of free will vs. deterministic positions.)

Further, when entities are known or believed not to possess the ability to engage in deliberate action, even those entities most likely to pass the Turing test and, thus, to be seen as most person-like, we characteristically do not regard them as persons. For example, in a media search of articles on contemporary chess playing and trivia identifying computer programs, I have been unable to find a single claim to the effect that either of them qualified as persons. “If not deliberate action, then not person” seems to be the criterion in use here: if there is no perceived

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reason to believe that an entity is capable of considering understood behavioral options and genuinely choosing from among them, then that individual is not seen as an instance of the concept “person.”

Describing Persons

With regard to the second matter, that of how people describe what kinds of persons they and others are, it is again a matter of everyday observation that, in the face of requests for what kind of person a given individual is, describers invariably respond by making commitments to one or more of the PC parameters listed above. Whether with single labels (e.g., “shy” “consci- entious”) or more protracted descriptions (“He’s the kind of person who, when confronted with difficult situations, enjoys rising to the challenge”), they offer information about the individual’s traits, attitudes, interests, styles, values, capacities, embodiment and so forth (and often descriptions of the degree to which these are the case). Ana is “somewhat shy, very unassuming, places great value on her integrity, wants very much to have children, is interested in and possesses extensive knowledge of pre- Colombian art, has a talent for music, is five feet, six inches tall,” and so forth.

Some Relations to Other Formulations

As noted above, few explicit formulations of the concept “person” have arisen within psy- chology. The present conceptualization, how- ever, is consistent with a small number of pre- vious ones that have given a central role to choice or agency as the core criterion for per- sonhood. For example, Martin et al. (2010) state that “. . . the ability to make choices and act on these choices to impact one’s own life and the lives of others is the most distinctive feature of personhood . . .” (p. v). Other psychologists who have viewed choice as central to person- hood include Baumeister (2008, 2010), Frankl (1969/2014); Rychlak (1981), and Yalom (1980). Within philosophy, authors whose for- mulations are consistent with the present one in this regard include Chisholm (1982), Hacker (2007), Kierkegaard (1834/1992), and Sartre and Mairet (1948). Also consistent are a number of views approaching the question of person- hood from moral (e.g., Anderson, 2000; Kant,

1797/1996; Taylor, 1989) and from legal (e.g., Taylor, 1985) perspectives, all of which em- body views of persons as choice-making indi- viduals who are responsible for their morally and legally relevant behaviors.

In its contention that choice or agency is a core characteristic of what the concept “person” means to people, the present account is incon- sistent with many others that, while not explic- itly addressing the question conceptually, pres- ent us with views of persons at distinct odds with it. The authors of these accounts come both from psychology (e.g., Freud, 1949; Skinner, 1971; Wegner, 2002) and from philosophy (e.g., Honderich, 2002; Smilanski, 2000; G. Strawson, 1994). In one form or another, these authors all view persons as a kind of organism whose behavior is entirely determined by bio- logical, environmental, psychological, and/or social determinants. On the present view, given its conceptual requirement of genuine choice or agency, such “persons” would be regarded pre- cisely as nonpersons. (NB: In a position known as “compatibilism,” which asserts a compatibil- ity between free will and determinism, authors [e.g., Dennett, 2003; Nahmias, 2011] maintain both (a) that persons do in fact engage in activ- ities such as mulling over behavioral alterna- tives, arriving at decisions, and acting in accord with those decisions, implying free will; and (b) that these activities are themselves the inevita- ble products of antecedent causal forces, imply- ing determinism. However, it is very difficult, all behavior remaining in the end the ineluctable outcome of deterministic forces, to see this po- sition as other than a deterministic one [com- pare Honderich, 2002; Hood, 2012].)

One other relevant focus in the literature per- tains to the classical distinction between mind and body. In the present context, this becomes the issue of whether a person is essentially a mind (Berkeley, 1710/1970), a body (or even a brain; Churchland, 2013), or a combination of the two that somehow interact (Descartes, 1649/ 1998). With respect to this issue, the present position is essentially identical to that of P. F. Strawson when he famously stated that,

What I mean by the concept of a person is the concept of a type of entity such that both predicates ascribing states of consciousness and predicates ascribing corpo- real characteristics, a physical situation, and so forth, are equally applicable to a single individual of that

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single type. (Strawson, 1959, p. 102; cf. Hacker, 2007; Harré, 1998)

Why Should We Care About the Concept of “Person”?

So what? Why should we care about having an optimally formulated concept of “person”? What differences would it make (a) for psychol- ogy as a science, and (b) for individual mem- bers of society, as well as for society at large?

Consequences for Psychology as a Science

The term “person,” it might be argued, is the central concept in psychology (Bergner, 2010, 2013; Martin et al., 2010; Ossorio, 2006). Why central? The primary focus of the entire field of psychology is persons: their behavior, develop- ment, neural functioning, personality, emotion, intelligence, and more. What integrates the en- tire field, what integrates, all of these apparently so disparate topics, is that they all have refer- ence to the single complex being that is a per- son. They are all about various aspects of per- sons. Thus, having a formulation of what a person is, as well as a system for describing and distinguishing kinds of persons, are, in Natalie Angier’s phrase, “at the heart of the discipline” (Angier, 2009, p. D1).

Despite this, we seem little better off than 50 plus years ago when Sigmund Koch “described psychology as singular among scholarly and scientific pursuits in having decided on a set of methods before it defined its proper subject matter” (Robinson, 2001, p. 421). At the outset of this article, I presented a sketch of a hypo- thetical biology teacher who relates to her class on the first day that she cannot define or other- wise formulate the nature of the subject matter of her course. She states that she cannot even tell them what that subject matter is—that is, what the criteria are for inclusion in the set of phenomena under study and thus cannot, strictly speaking, tell them how to identify from the outset what is even to count as a case of that subject matter! This polemic illustrates a num- ber of problems with psychology’s historical failure to settle upon consensus formulations of seminal concepts such as “person”: its failure to articulate the nature of its subject matter, its allowance of differing and inconsistent formu- lations of this (as well as other) core concepts,

and its creation thereby of an untenable situa- tion in which researchers claiming to be inves- tigating the same thing might not in fact be doing so. As stated previously, it is a situation of scientific imprecision and confusion, as well as indifference to the problem itself.

Social Consequences

Martin et al. (2010) have argued that, while psychology has failed by and large to formulate the concept “person,” it has settled on an im- plicit default view of persons that is biologically reductionistic and deterministic in nature, and that this view has very significant social conse- quences (cf. Bergner, 2004). The field and the broader society is being presented with a view that persons are organisms whose behavior is biologically determined; in effect, that a person is, in E.O. Wilson’s phrase, a “marvelous robot . . . wired (neuronally) with awesome precision” (Wilson, 1999, p. 53). The social impact of such a view of persons being presented to society is a matter of considerable importance (Baumeis- ter, 2008; Bergner, 2004; Martin et al., 2010). As Martin et al. express the matter,

By reducing persons to their physical or biological constituents in an attempt to meet the demands of a naturalist paradigm, psychologists strip humans of what matters to them most and render explanations of human action and experience that are distorted and malformed, if not wholly alien. (p. 8)

Among the features so reduced and distorted, these authors contend, are moral accountability, human rights and responsibilities, and any no- tions of praise- or blameworthiness.

Further, a growing empirical literature on the effects of belief in free will versus determinism attests that the disbelief in free will inherent in viewing persons as nonagents is associated with a wide variety of antisocial outcomes. These include (a) an increased likelihood that people will act in socially irresponsible ways such as cheating and refusing to help others (Baumeis- ter, Masicampo, & DeWall, 2009); (b) lower moral standards, disbelief in the legitimacy of moral rules, and decreased levels of both mean- ing and satisfaction in life (Bergner & Ramon, 2013); (c) greater levels of aggressive behavior and a reduced willingness to help others (Baumeister, 2008); and (d) higher rates of cheating and of overpaying oneself for perfor- mance on a task (Vohs & Schooler, 2008).

7PERSON AND SELF

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Thus, the presentation to the public of a con- ception of persons as choice-making deliberate actors is to the advantage both of individual persons and of society in general.

Finally, both Bergner (2004) and Martin et al. (2010) have argued that biologically reduction- istic and deterministic views of persons under- mine critical social institutions and academic disciplines (including psychology). The former author expresses this as follows:

With the disappearance of the concept of a person (as a choice-making agent) must come a corresponding disappearance of the conceptual apparatuses of our current seminal social institutions (e.g., the family, the judicial system, religion, and the educational system) and many other disciplines aside from psychology (e.g., ethics, law, sociology, economics, history, and political science). . . . If we dismiss the categories of ‘choosing,’ ‘intending,’ ‘acting for a reason,’ ‘acting deliberately,’ and so forth, as designating legitimate, scientifically acceptable states of affairs, then consider the following statements. From law: ‘Murder in the first degree, implying the planned, premeditated act of killing another, ought to be punished more severely than manslaughter.’ From ethics and religion: ‘The concepts of moral ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ (as well as the latter’s religious counterpart, ‘sin’), conceptually im- ply the ability of an individual to choose from among understood behavioral options; a completely deter- mined movement on the part of a person . . . is ineli- gible for such attributions.’ . . . If we accept the reduc- tive views, the concept of a (choice-making) person and its logical sequelae become inherently defective attempts to account for what can only legitimately be accounted for biologically (2004, p. 7).

The Concept of “Self”

When philosophers use a word—“knowledge,” “be- ing,” “object,” “I,” “proposition,” and “name”—and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language game which is its original home? What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1953, #116

. . . it is, rather, of the essence of our investigation that

. . . we want to understand something that is already in plain view. For this is what we seem in some sense not to understand.—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1953, # 89

A second longstanding and thus far unre- solved problem in both psychology and philos- ophy concerns the nature of the self (Baumeis- ter, 2008, 2010; Guenther & Alicke, 2013; Harré, 1998; Martin et al., 2010; McGinn, 2004; VandenBos, 2007). In its entry on this term, VandenBos (2007) states that “. . . the term’s use in psychology is extremely wide ranging

and lacks uniformity” (p. 827), while Harré (1998) asserts that, “The study of no aspect of humanity is so marked by muddled thinking and confusion of thought as this one” (p. 2). In the same vein, Martin et al. (2010) attest that,

With all of this publishing on the topic (of self), it might be supposed that psychologists have come to an agreed understanding of what the self is or, at the very least, have given considerable attention to conceptual issues of this kind. Unfortunately, for the most part, nothing could be further from the truth. (p. 7)

When they take up matters pertaining to the self, theorists and researchers approach it from a myriad of directions. Thus, we have literatures on the self-concept, self-esteem, self-regulation, self-presentation, self-actualization, self- knowledge, self-deception, the socially con- structed self, and much more (Baumeister, 2010; Guenther & Alicke, 2013). Given this diversity, and given the “muddle” just alluded to, it becomes difficult to see what might be at the heart of all of these topics by virtue of which each calls itself a topic “about the self.”

So just what if anything at all is this entity that we call the “self” or the “I”? Historically, on most accounts, authors have been inclined to see this term as designating an “inner” entity, one that is deep, mysterious, ineffable, and per- haps ineluctably hidden from view. This has been so whether the author wished to endorse the existence of such an entity or to deny it (e.g., Harré, 1998). So, to take up some of the histor- ically most prominent answers given, is the self an immaterial Cartesian thinking substance akin to the traditional notion of the “soul” (Des- cartes, 1649/1998)? Is it an inferable but itself not directly observable entity, perhaps transcen- dental in nature (Kant, 1781–1787/1999), that is the inner source of consciousness, thought, memory, feeling, and instigation of action (e.g., James’ [1890] “I” or “pure ego”)? On negative, “no such entity” accounts, is the so-called self merely a Humean “bundle” of associated mem- ories, thoughts, and experiences that, given our inability to observe some inner “I” at their source, must collectively be considered the to- tality of what constitutes the self (Hume, 1739 – 1740/2003); compare Dennett, 1986; Hood, 2012, on self as a convenient fiction)? Is it essentially a social construction; that is, an “in- ventory of self-attributes or conceptions” ac- quired “through social observation, interaction,

8 BERGNER

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and language acquisition” (Gergen, 1977, p. 143; Gergen, 2011; McAdams, 2013; Mead, 1934)? Is it the individual’s body, or perhaps just his or her brain (Churchland, 2013; Hood, 2012; Olson, 1997)? The consensus at the pres- ent time seems to be that this is one of those perennially intractable problems, or even mys- teries (McGinn, 1993, 2004), on which we have not been able to come to any broadly accepted agreement (Baumeister, 2010; Guenther & Al- icke, 2013; Harré, 1998; Martin et al., 2010; VandenBos, 2007).

If we turn to the Wittgensteinian “original home” of the words “self” and “I,” however, we find that their use in everyday affairs is entirely clear and unproblematic. In such use, no one seems to have a problem understanding what is meant by these terms. With respect to “I,” or- dinary people and geniuses alike exhibit this understanding when they say such things as “I think that X,” “I am intending to do Y,” “I see myself as Z,” and so forth. The very young child proclaims, “I want candy,” while Albert Ein- stein asserts, “As I have said so many times, God doesn’t play dice with the world” (Her- manns, 1983, p. 58). With respect to “self,” much the same is true. When used in common usage, it is usually as a prefix (as in “self- taught” or “self-effacing”) or in conjunction with another syllable (as in “myself” or “her- self”). Again, such use (e.g., if I say, “I did it myself”) is generally clear and unproblematic, and raises few questions regarding what is meant.

If our conception be granted that a person is, paradigmatically, an embodied, conscious indi- vidual whose history is a history of deliberate action; and if what can be said about the char- acteristics of persons can be captured by artic- ulating any given person’s dispositions (traits, attitudes, interests, and styles), powers (abili- ties, knowledge, and values), and derivatives (states, capacities, and embodiments), a certain formulation of what “I” (or “self”) means is suggested. “I” means simply and essentially “this person”; that is, the holistically consid- ered, flesh and blood individual I intend when I use the terms “I” or “me” or “myself,” as op- posed to “that person,” the specific person I intend when I say “he” or “you” or “herself.” When I say “I” or “me”—when I refer to my self—I am merely designating a certain person, a certain embodied, conscious, deliberate actor

of whom both mental (“I think”) and physical (“I walk”) actions are aptly predicated (cf. P. Strawson, 1959), and I am distinguishing this person from other persons. In particular, I (or any person making this utterance) am designat- ing the person who is the author of the utter- ance. What I am not designating is an immate- rial substance, a certain body, a certain brain, a certain social construction, a certain bundle of associated memories, thoughts, and experi- ences, or some alleged but never observed inner entity at their source. Just me, the guy who is writing this sentence, the one with this embodi- ment, this history of deliberate action, this per- sonal world, this consciousness, these beliefs, these values, and so forth. And when I say “him” or “her”—let us say, “Abraham Lin- coln”—I simply intend that person, the one with that embodiment, that history of deliberate action, that world, those beliefs, and so forth.

The proposed formulations of “person” and “person characteristics” here allow for a star- tlingly simple answer to a question that has long perplexed, and continues to perplex, psycholo- gists, philosophers, and thinking persons gener- ally. This answer, it must be said, often comes as a disappointing one to those with whom I have shared it. Given the nature of much his- torical thought on the concept, something deeper, more profound, and more arcane seems called for. However, my primary task here is that of determining what, if we respect the meaning in use of this concept in the “language game which is its original home” (Wittgenstein, 1953, #116), the term actually means. (NB: the term’s etymology is “old English self, seolf, sylf ‘one’s own person’” [www.etymonline.com/ index.php?term�self]). My second task is that of demonstrating how, if we simply adopt this meaning in use, so many historical problems are avoided and so much falls into place in the study of the self. Let me explain.

Problems Avoided

The formulation of self as “this person” not only provides a positive answer to the question of the meaning of this term, but in doing so does not get us into the kinds of problems in the first place that previous formulations have encoun- tered. (a) Unlike the immaterial soul/transcen- dental ego accounts, it does not require belief in an unobservable immaterial entity, nor does it

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generate the attendant mystery of how such an entity could interact with a physical body. (b) Unlike the inner experiential and agentic self, the present account does not send one on an introspective search for some underlying entity which is the source of these experiences and actions, which search, as many have attested (e.g., Harré, 1998; Hood, 2012; Hume, 1739 – 1740/2003), has always proven futile. (c) Un- like Hume’s (1739 –1740/2003) notion that the so-called “self” is a fictional entity consisting of nothing over and above a bundle of asso- ciated memories, thoughts, feelings, and other experiences, or Dennett’s (1986) assertion that the self, like the notion of “center of gravity,” is merely a convenient fiction, the present account does not posit the seemingly absurd notions that there are free floating thoughts and experiences that have no actual author or owner (Reid, 1785/1986; P. Straw- son, 1959), or that there is no such thing as the self. Instead, it simply identifies this owner and this self with this person (“I”), this quite observable, embodied individual with this history of deliberate action (both mental and physical) and this collectivity of person characteristics. (d) Unlike the self as a social construction, the present formulation does not confuse one’s conception of oneself, which admittedly consists of socially acquired lin- guistic descriptors, with the self itself; in- stead, it identifies the latter, a flesh and blood person, with the subject or the “haver” of these descriptors, thereby avoiding a problem curiously similar to the no-ownership one en- countered by Hume.

Further, (e) unlike the self-as-brain or self- as-body solutions, the present one does not do radical violence to the meaning of the concept “I” in actual usage (e.g., when I say, “I went to the store,” I do not mean that my brain went to the store; or when I say, “I’m im- pressed with the work of my graduate assis- tant,” I do not mean that my body is im- pressed with his work). (f) The present account passes many of the bizarre, yet tell- ing, thought experiments that philosophers are so fond of posing. For example, McGinn (2004) proposes one in which, in the future, brain reprogramming becomes a possibility. One day I am seized, my brain is stripped of its current contents, and new content pro- grammed in from the brain of Adolf Hitler.

Upon awakening from the operation, I (or somebody?) find that I now have all the mem- ories, knowledge, personality traits, and sense of identity of Adolf Hitler. Is it still me? On the self-as-brain account, where same brain is equivalent to same person, the answer would have to be “yes.” However, both intuitively and on the present account, where self is equated with this person with this history of deliberate action and these person character- istics (traits, attitudes, interests, values, knowledge, etc.), the answer would clearly be “no.” (g) Finally, the present formulation ac- commodates the observation of William James (1890) and many others since (e.g., Guenther & Alicke, 2013; McAdams, 2013) that self can be regarded both as subject (as in “I memorized the poem.”) and as object (as in “I like how I look in my new suit.”); however, no special distinction is required on the pres- ent account to capture the simple fact that I sometimes describe the person who is me as an actor, thinker, or experiencer, and other times as the object of my own thoughts and observations.

The concept of “I” or “self” is almost ev- erywhere conflated with the matter of per- sonal identity (Olson, 2016). The notion of “I” as this person, however, permits a discon- nection of the two notions. For example, to cite a famous fictional invention from the TV series Star Trek, a man named “Kirk” enters a device known as a “transporter” that demate- rializes him and subsequently rematerializes him (or somebody?) in a distant location. On the present account, when either of these (one or two) individuals utters the word “I” to refer to himself (e.g., “I am expecting an attack from the Klingons”), in each case he means “this person”—the specific person who is the author of the utterance. Whether the two are or are not the same person is a separate ques- tion. While the issue of identity is an impor- tant one in its own right, the present concep- tion of “I” or “self” separates the matter of what these terms mean from the matter of what it means to say that A and B are the same person. (NB: The present formulation, however, may also be useful, as in the brain reprogramming thought experiment above, in discussions of the latter topic.)

10 BERGNER

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Integrates the Field of Self Psychology

Finally, the formulation of self as “this person,” aside from representing a clearer, simpler, and more empirically grounded for- mulation of this concept, easily and common- sensically integrates the many phenomena that have been investigated historically in connection with the notion of self. It does so by identifying and conceptualizing the central entity around which this entire area is orga- nized. For example, my “self-concept” as commonly understood can be formulated as my conception of this person—my culturally, socially, and linguistically constructed formu- lation of who I am in the social scheme of things (“male,” “Caucasian,” “married,” “fa- ther,” “college professor,” “clinical psychol- ogist,” “politically progressive,” etc.). My “sense of self” can be conceptualized as my phenomenological experiencing of this per- son as a conscious being in matters such as my feelings of agency, my sense of personal identity through time, my ongoing awareness of my own inner states, my experiencing and acting upon the world from a certain location vis-à-vis other persons and physical entities, and much more (Baumeister, 2010; Harré, 1998; Heron, 1992; McAdams, 2013; Taylor, 1989). My “self-esteem” can be formulated as the overall worth or value that I appraise this person as having (cf. Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003). Finding my “real self” or “authentic self,” and actualizing this self can be formulated as this person discov- ering and pursuing a set of possibilities in life (vocations, relationships, interests, activities, and ways of life) to which I discover that I have strong intrinsic positive relationships (e.g., that I love certain persons, that I find pursuing certain intellectual questions highly meaningful, and that I find coaching youth soccer enormously engrossing; cf. Rogers [1964] on “organismic valuing process”; Campbell [2004] on “finding one’s bliss”). Without further multiplying examples, it is easy to see how the “this person” conception of self coordinates readily with, and serves to integrate, other prominent research topics such as self-regulation, self-presentation, self-enhancement, self-awareness, self- deception, and more. And it is easy to see how almost nothing is lost in doing so. Strong

research programs on all of the topics just listed remain important and viable enter- prises. The only things lost are the conceptual muddle in which many of these things (espe- cially self-concept and sense of self) are con- fused with the self itself and our historically futile search for some unobservable, mysteri- ous, inner entity that we have always seemed to feel must somehow be there.

Conclusion

In this article, I have attempted to provide sound, rigorous Descriptive Psychologically based solutions to two conceptual problems in psychology and philosophy. Building upon Ossorio’s (1966/1995, 2006) solution to the first of these, that of formulating the concept of a “person,” I have proceeded to provide a new formulation of the second, that of “self.” The first purpose in doing so has been to offer some hopefully useful contributions to re- dressing the much larger critical problem in psychology that, unlike other mature sci- ences, it has still after many years largely failed to arrive at consensus formulations of its core subject matter. The second purpose has been to articulate some important benefits that are gained by having adequate formula- tions of “person” and “self.”

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Received May 25, 2016 Revision received December 12, 2016

Accepted December 15, 2016 �

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