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Abstract:
The topic of self-knowledge has been central to Western
philosophy since its inception in ancient Greece. In the modern
era the three great philosophers, Descartes, Hume and Kant
accordingly held that self-knowledge should be expected to
provide the "Archimedes' point" for all knowledge, the "capitol
or center" of all human understanding, and the "supreme principle
for all employment of the understanding," respectively. Despite
its continuing importance, the topic has proven problematic, as
Descartes, Hume, and Kant's own analyses clearly illustrate.
Descartes held with common sense that we have clear intuitive
knowledge of self as single, simple, and continuing. Hume,
responding to Descartes, looked within and argued that he could
find nothing at all corresponding to the notion, and that it was
thus empty of all significance. In return, Kant argued,
paradoxically, that both Descartes and Hume were correct:
Descartes in that we have to have such a self, and Hume in that
there is no possibility whatsoever of experiencing it, or indeed
of knowing it as anything but an abstract, vacuous cipher. Since
subsequent philosophical discussions of the self have largely
been reaction to these analyses and conclusions, it will be worth
reviewing them briefly here.
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