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Students Zone / Questions / Chapter 16: The Essence of Self

1. Is it fair to argue that while Kant’s transcendental ego provides an answer to the question, ‘What is essential to being a self?’, it doesn’t provide an answer to the question, ‘What is essential to being a particular self?’

2. Outline the religious conception of self. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this account?

3. Explain why Descartes comes to the view that I am essentially my mind, a spiritual or mental being, and not my body. What problems are there with this account?

4. Explain the importance of consciousness in Locke’s account of the self. What problems arise from his assumption that as long as we have the same consciousness we have the same self, the same personal identity?

5. If Hume is right that there is no self just a ‘bundle or collection of different perceptions’, how does he explain our belief that we are continuous selves?