Self and Individuality in Europe
Self and Individuality
A
sense of self and individuality upon human beings is a concept that has posed a
lot of questions among beings over several generations more particularly the
scholars of different eras. The meaning of these two concepts rage depending on
the angle at which they are perceived. From a psychological perspective, for
instance, the sense of self denotes how someone thinks about and views his or
her character, what they believe in and the purpose for their existence in this
world[1]. In addition to this,
psychologists perceive it as a complicated concept since it encompasses the
inner and the outer being of someone. From a philosophical perspective, a sense
of self refers to a unified being essentially connected to consciousness,
awareness and agency[2]. In the religious
dimension, the sense of self is perceived as a spiritual key dimension to self-realization
and is part of relationships, social engagement, consciousness on meaning and
purpose of life and a general sense of happiness and joy. Individuality on the other
hand is a concept that seeks to indicate the uniqueness among human beings.
These two concepts have been embraced across all the eras of human existence in
an attempt to answer the mysteries surrounding the lives of human beings. With
concrete pieces of evidence, this essay will bring out the facts that a sense
of self and individuality are concepts that were brought to meaning in early
modern Europe.
BACKGROUND
Concept
of Soul Concerning Sense of Self And Individuality in the Late Medieval Period
Image 1: Medieval Image
About
Plato, the soul is an immortal part of a human being. According to him, the
soul destination is the world of all forms in that it is only accessible
indirectly in this world by those with higher thinking capacity. He continues
to argue that knowledge of all dimensions that surrounds human beings and their
environment comes from one’s soul. In addition to this, Plato indicates that
the body is the immortal part of a human being that hinders the soul from
reaching the world in all forms. He hereby points out that, it is only those
that are capable of ignoring body distractions that manage to make maximum use
of their soul to obtain diversified knowledge from the world. To clarify the
misery surrounding the concept of the soul, Plato identified three aspects of the
soul. That is reason, spirit and desire. According to him, “reason” means the search
for truth and rules the soul, “spirit” includes the human aspects that can be
trained and controlled for instance aggression and emotion, “Desire” concerning
soul according to him meant the idea of seeking the pleasure of ones being that
includes the desire for basic necessity. In general, Plato tried to bring out a
perception of what it entails to achieve a sense of self. This hereby acted as
incite for other scholars essentially in Europe who came after him and tried to
use his way of reasoning to give meaning to this concept[3].
Aristotle irrefutably diverged from
Plato’s perception and reasoning that the soul is separable from one’s body.
Aristotle insisted that human beings are a composite of body and soul and for
this reason, the soul cannot be considered separate from the body. He constructed
the philosophy of self in terms of homomorphism such that the soul of human
beings is the form of the body structure.
According to him, there are three types of souls, that is the vegetative
soul, the sensitive soul (actuality) and the rational soul. The vegetative soul
is meant for growth, the sensitive soul is meant for sensing and the rational
soul is responsible for human reasoning. He indicated that it is the rational
soul that makes human beings more unique in comparison to plants and animals.
In addition to this, Aristotle continued to argue that soul has little to do
with personal identity and individuality. According to him, there exists no
reason to think or believe that one’s soul is in any important respect
different from any other human soul. He, therefore, believed that we are
different human beings because we are different compounds of form and matter[4].
Sense and Individuality in Early Modern
Europe
Image2: European Perception of Individualism in Modern
Europe
Various pieces of evidence ranging from autobiographies, portraiture, literary texts, diaries and letters written in the different historical eras do act as evidence to indicate that sense and individuality was developed in early modern Europe. Jacob Burckhardt points out that it is in the Middle Ages that man began becoming conscious of himself as a member of a particular race, people, group, family or corporation[5].
Benvenuto
Cellini in his autobiography that was written in 1558-66 and first published in
1728 illustrates his sense of self and individualism. He says that he was born
free and he deserves to live free from any form of limitation. Still in his
autobiography, it is clear that he has achieved realization of the purpose of
him being in this world. Before leaving Florence to Rome, he had already made
up his mind that he wanted to focus on issues to do with arts once he arrives in
Rome. In addition to this, his autobiography still shows some sense of one’s
personal belief on what is right and wrong. This is clearly shown when he
demands to be paid his salary by his new master, Firenzuola, who at first hesitates
to pay him arguing that he doesn’t deserve payment. In response to this, the
chief intervened to ensure Benvenuto Cellini gets what was rightfully his[6]. Through this
autobiography, it is therefore clear that people in this period had begun developing
some sense of self and individualism.
In
the Confessions Book II, of St Augustine dating from 354-430, the confessions
made indicates that human being had developed some sense of self and
individuality. For instance, human beings in this era begun becoming conscious
of their social relationship, the realization of the purpose of life and the
sources of human joy and happiness. This book indicates that the people of this
era believed that obeying God’s law was their priority and these laws were
written in men’s hearts. This is therefore an indication that they believed in
some form of a sense of self, in that one could figure out what was right and
wrong by themselves. In addition to this, they had distinctive moral values
that were perceived as paramount. For instance, fornication, stealing, murder
and revenge were seen as a deviation of humane[7]. Confessions in this book
indicate that human beings had begun realizing the uniqueness of oneself and it
is for this reason they considered themselves close to their God such that
instead of them seeking revenge, they were sure God could revenge on their
behalf.
Jean-Jacques
Rousseau confessions that were completed in 1776 and first published in 1781
gives some sense of self and individualism surrounding the life of Rousseau. In
his confession, he claims how he was wrongly accused of breaking the teeth of Miss
Lambercier’s combs, although he firmly denied the claim indicating that he
wasn’t guilty, he got punished severely. He continues to indicate that he was
determined to suffer to death than submit, this, in turn, made him do away with
the fear of punishment. Through this, we can derive the argument that
Jean-Jacques Rousseau had to some extent achieved consciousness on what was
right and what was wrong and for this reason, he believed that it was rather
dying than admitting to having done something he had no clue of. In addition to this, he indicates that the
first instance of violence and oppression is so deeply engraved in his memory[8]. This is therefore a clear
indication of his uniqueness in keeping into the memory of disgusting moments.
With this case study, therefore, it is clear to point out that Jean-Jacques
Rousseau is one of the people in his period who had begun developing some sense
of self and individuality.
The
Diary of Samuel Pepy that dates from 1660, January 1st
to 1669, 15th April is another vital piece of evidence that self and
individuality developed in early modern Europe. In this diary, Samuel Pepy
gives out a narration of his personal life, more specifically issues related to
his daily work and family life. At first, he describes how he got into affairs
with another girl which in turn irritates his wife. To avoid ruining his
relationship with his wife, he decides to cheat his wife that he had not gotten
into affairs with the girl. This hereby is a clear indication that he was
conscious of the world surrounding him and the dangers he could pose to himself
if he failed to act accordingly. Apart from this, he also describes what is
required of him, which is working, taking care of his family and behold all act
responsibly[9].
This is hereby an indication that Samuel Pepy had managed to get to the realization
of his purpose in this world. Putting into consideration Samuel Pepy’s writing,
it is clear to note that the people in the 16th century more
specifically in Europe had already developed some sense of self and
individuality.
About
The history of sexuality, Foucault
argues that a significant change in thinking about a sense of self occurred in
the wake of the decision by the Fourth Lateral Council of 1215. This was particularly the famous decree that
required annual confession of sins by every baptized Christians over the age of
twelve years who hoped to get to heaven. This form of confessions resulted in the
emergence of the ritual that forced people to unearth the truth about their
lives. This hereby acted as a basis or a guiding principle on making people
more specifically the Christian believers have some form of realization of whom
they are, their purpose in life and behold that, they came into consciousness
that every man for himself and God for us all. This was because they were made
to believe that God was going to judge them on an individual basis, not as a
group[10].
Much
of the literary works in the medieval period do express the formation of the
self or simply the literary character with depth and interiority in this era.
Through the work of Chaucer and Langland, pearl-poet
and Gower, there exist a frequent
way which one can compare canonicals texts with non-canonical texts to bring
out a sense of realization of beings and the purpose of their existence[11]. The work of these two
writers was based on the confessions of one’s personal life and through their
work, we can hereby conclude that these confessions were guided under the basis
of the sense of self and individuality.
John
Martin in his book, Inventing Sincerity,
Refashioning Prudence: The Discovery of the Individual in Renaissance
Europe points out that in the Middle Ages, both sides of human consciousness,
i.e that which was turned within as well as that was turned without do lay
half-awake beneath a common veil. He indicates that the veil was a kind of
faith, childish prepossession and illusion through which the world and history
were seen a kind of strange hues. He clarifies individuality by indicating that
a man is only conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party,
family, or organization[12]. In Italy for instance,
this veil took its root as an objective treatment and consideration of the
state and all things in the world became possible.
Jerrold Seigel in his book, The Idea of the Self: Thought and
Experience in Western Europe since the Seventeenth Century, organizes his
dense, sprawling, consistently thoughtful historical ideas of the self within
two perspectives. In the first framework, he tries to break the self into three
dimensions: the social self, the reflective self and the body self. In his
view, there exist three features of self that every creative thinker must put
into consideration. This, therefore,
acts as a guiding principle to scrutinizing the sense of self in one’s daily
activities. Sergei periodically
discusses the diversified change in the experiential possibilities of self, for
instance, the new sociability that emerged in the late seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries, or the new culture of reading during the same period or
rather the sense of personal liberation that interfered with the interpersonal
relations, political relations and economic aspect of human beings. Furthermore,
Jerrold discusses the ideas of how individuals in Europe overshadowed the
experiential aspect in his era and for this reason, he chooses to discrete
clusters of intellectuals[13].
Erving Goffman in his
book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life presents
his perception and argument regarding the sense of self and individuality
concerning early modern Europe. He uses the theatre to portray the nuances and
significance of face-to-face social interaction. To make a clear illustration of
what he meant, he puts forth a theory of the social interaction that he termed
as a dramaturgical model of social life. He links day to day human life to a
theatre such that people in everyday life are like actors on stage at which
each has a unique role to play. He continues to add that everyone has a role to
play in influencing that what surrounds them. This hereby does act as evidence
of how the Europeans in the 1950s perceived themselves as core controllers of
the world surrounding them. In addition to this, he indicates that when an
individual takes a role that is new to him or her, he or she may end up finding
that they are already various well-established fronts among which he must
choose. To deal with such a scenario, then one has to follow the new situation
and find his new unique way of dealing with the situation[14]. This is hereby an indication that Europeans of
his era had begun putting into consideration human creativity, uniqueness and
individuality in dealing with day to day issues.
Timothy J. Reiss gives concrete notions and experiences of
being a person from European antiquity to Descartes. He offers a quite new interpretation
of what pertains to one’s sense of self, the uniqueness of human beings and
what it is to be a person. The trajectory the author discloses reaches from the
ancient sense of self-set in a totality of the surroundings inseparable from an
individual, to a rising sense of impermeability to the world in anger replaced
affections of love in affirming a sense of self. He hereby formulated a basis
on a concrete understanding of the concept of sense of self in respect to the
ancient period of the Europeans. This can therefore be used as a basis to the
argument that indeed the meaning of the concept of sense of self and
individuality was first developed by European scholars since it was a human
phenomenon that becomes realistic first in early modern Europe.
Karl Joachim analysis of
autobiographies of ancient people in his book, The Value of the Individual: Self and Circumstance in
Autobiography, gives vivid evidence indicating that Europe’s sense of self and
individuality is a concept that traces back to early Europe. He traces the
modern sense of individuality as it appears in a select group of
autobiographies, ranging from st. Augustine to Goethe. He continues to argue that there exist
varying degrees of the specific nature of the unique self. Although there exists
no need to use autobiographies as a core quest for self-gratification and
self-justification, to some extent these autobiographies can easily give a
clear view of the superabundance of subjective individuality[15].
When these autobiographies are closely scrutinized, to large extent the writers
lived in accordance to the patterns, this hereby shows some extent of the precarious
balance in between the vastly talented individuals and the man’s representative
is achieved.
Sorabji argues informatively that when
dealing with a concept of sense of self, it is quite true that there is nothing
new under the sun but there is notifiable progressive development of the sense
of individuality more particularly in Europe. He points out the account of self
in Plutarch and passages in Chrysippus and Philo as evidence that sense of self
and individuality has been a concept that has been embraced by the people of
Europe over the past to the present. Still, Sorabji quotes a reading passage in De Rerum Natura that Lucretius discusses
whether one should be a concerned with the suffering of a replica of oneself
and proceeds to explain how the Stoic reasoning that each person is attached to[16].
This kind of idea is aligned with the concept of one's sense of self during the
ancient period in the European continent.
Stephen Greenblatt in his book Self-Fashioning, Authorising, points
out that Shakespeare’s literature work is a piece of existing evidence that
sense of self and individuality are concepts that can be traced to have
developed in early modern Europe. In analyzing the concept of sense of self, Greenblatt borrows the idea of
"thick description" in the reading of Shakespeare texts. This text tries
to clarify one’s self-realization, the purpose of living and the uniqueness of
each individual[17]. These
texts are one of the legendary texts explaining the concept of the human sense
of self and individuality that have remained relevant past all ages across the
whole world.
CONCLUSION
Europe
being one the continents with the majority of scholars of different eras, it is
hereby possible to justify the claims that indeed most of the human concepts
like the sense of self and individuality first found their meaning and got
developed within this region. This is evident through the writings that cut
across the history of human beings ranging from bibliographies,
autobiographies, literary texts, diaries, letters and portraiture[18]. With such writings, it
becomes easy to figure out how the concept of a sense of self and individuality
has been developed in Europe from one generation to another.
Contact:
Email address: researchwriters087@gmail.com
[1]
Leibowitz, M. Interpreting projective drawings: A self-psychological
approach. Routledge, 2013.
[2]
Zahavi, D. Exploring the self: Philosophical and Psychopathological
Perspectives on self-experience. John Benjamins Publishing, 2000.
[3]
Harvey, Celeste D. Gale Researcher Guide for Plato on Soul and Body.
Gale, Cengage Learning, 2018.
[4]
Philoponus, and John Philoponus. On Aristotle's "On the Soul
1.3-5". 2006.
[5]
Hinde, John R. Jacob Burckhardt and the Crisis of Modernity.
Montreal: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 2000.
[6]
Cellini, Benvenuto. The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini. 2010.
[7] Augustine, Saint,
and Henry Chadwick. The Confessions. Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks, 2008
[8]
Rousseau, Jean J. The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Norderstedt: BoD – Books on Demand, 2018.
[9]
Pepys, Samuel. The Diary of Samuel Pepys. London: Everyman's Library,
2018.
[10]
Taylor, Chloe. The Routledge Guidebook to Foucault's The History of
Sexuality. Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis, 2016.
[11]
Middleton, Anne, and Steven Justice. Chaucer, Langland, and
Fourteenth-century Literary History. Variorum, 2013.
[12]
Martin, John J. The Renaissance World. London: Routledge, 2015.
[13]
Seigel, Jerrold. The Idea of the Self: Thought and Experience in Western
Europe Since the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005.
[14]
Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London:
Penguin Books, (UK), 1990.
[15]
Weintraub, Karl J. The Value of the Individual: Self and Circumstance
in Autobiography. 1982.
[16]
Sorabji, Richard. Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality,
Life, and Death. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
[17]
Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
[18]
Taylor, C. Sources of the self: The making of the modern identity.
Harvard University Press, 1989.
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Bibliography
Augustine, Saint, and Henry
Chadwick. The Confessions. Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks, 2008.
Cellini, Benvenuto. The
Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini. 2010.
Goffman, Erving. The
Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin Books, (UK), 1990.
Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance
Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2005.
Harvey, Celeste D. Gale
Researcher Guide for Plato on Soul and Body. Gale, Cengage Learning, 2018.
Hinde, John R. Jacob
Burckhardt and the Crisis of Modernity. Montreal: McGill-Queen's Press -
MQUP, 2000.
Leibowitz, M. Interpreting
projective drawings: A self-psychological approach. Routledge, 2013.
Martin, John J. The
Renaissance World. London: Routledge, 2015.
Middleton, Anne, and Steven Justice.
Chaucer, Langland, and Fourteenth-century Literary History. Variorum,
2013.
Pepys, Samuel. The Diary of
Samuel Pepys. London: Everyman's Library, 2018.
Philoponus, and John Philoponus. On
Aristotle's "On the Soul 1.3-5". 2006.
Rousseau, Jean J. The
Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Norderstedt: BoD – Books on Demand,
2018.
Seigel, Jerrold. The Idea of the
Self: Thought and Experience in Western Europe Since the Seventeenth Century.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Sorabji, Richard. Self: Ancient
and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life, and Death. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Taylor, C. Sources of the self: The
making of the modern identity. Harvard University Press, 1989.
Taylor, Chloe. The Routledge
Guidebook to Foucault's The History of Sexuality. Oxfordshire: Taylor
& Francis, 2016.
Weintraub, Karl J. The
Value of the Individual: Self and Circumstance in Autobiography. 1982.
Zahavi, D. Exploring the self:
Philosophical and Psychopathological Perspectives on self-experience. John
Benjamins Publishing, 2000.
Contact:
Email address: researchwriters087@gmail.com
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