Under Construction...
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Different philosophers and psychologists, philosophies and schools of psychology, use the 'concept-phenomenon' of 'The Self' differently.
David Hume believed that 'The Self' was only a 1. 'man-made concept': with no corresponding 2. 'objectively real phenomenon' that the man-made concept of 'Self' represents.
In other words, according to David Hume, 'the Self' does not exist. It is just another useless, man-made generalization and concept that effectively stands for 'nothing'; just a lot of human hot air and hot speech with no corresponding 'structural-empirical real object' to back up what the concept is supposed to -- but doesn't -- stand for.
Come on Mr. Hume. Spoil the 'epistemological party', why don't you? Are you trying to tell me that the word 'I' has no meaning? That the word 'me' has no meaning? That the word 'ego' has no meaning? That the words 'ego-state' and 'ego-function' and 'Central, Mediating Ego' have no meaning?
Blasphemy! Go start your own epistemological party. Nobody will come. Or correction. Take Nietzsche with you. And Socrates. and Derrida. And you can all talk about what does and doesn't exist in the world. You can 'deconstruct' each other's arguments until their is no epistemology -- no knowledge -- left in the world. Just a million or a billion 'deconstructed concepts'.
I will take the 'idealists' and the 'constructionists' and the 'structuralists' and the 'objectivists' out there amongst you -- and start a different party. At least we might have something to talk about. And something build.
You hard-line deconstructionists out there -- you can spend your hours of each day continually tearing down the few things and processes that the other deconstructionists in your party actually begrudgingly try to admit are real -- that have some 'objectivity' attached to them.
My group, my party, should actually have a 'full-blown philosophy' by the time we are finished building what we start. You full-blown deconstructionists will have nothing. No philosophy other than your 'philosophy of the negative'. Just a lot of 'would have been, could have been ideas' that are deconstructed before they lead anywhere. Effectively, your philosophy takes you nowhere. Just down a lot of philosophical blind alleys and dead ends. Ending at Nowheresville. Even Nietzsche had the philosophy of 'The Superman'. And that was worth something. He wasn't completely all about tearing down everything.
Hume, if I understand my history right, was a more Liberal political philosopher than he was an epistemologist. I will have to check that. Anyways, he was probably the hardest line epistemologist in the history of Western philosophy. For Hume -- like the Behavioral Psychologists who would eventually follow him and his deconstructionist epistemological ideas -- 'if you coudn't see it, then it didn't exist'. Too bad there was no one back then to explain to him about 'bacteria' and 'viruses'. Probably he would counter-argue -- 'Yes, they are indeed invisable to the naked eye, but they are very much alive and visable under a good microscope.'
Whatever. What many psychologists call the 'Self' is invisable; therefore it doesn't exist. According to Hume.
DGBN Philosophy counter-argues that 'The Self' may indeed be invisable; it may even be described as a speculative, metaphysical concept -- like 'God'. But still, it is worth talking about. There is value in talking about the Self, about 'my Self', about 'your Self' -- that goes beyond 'empirically observable processes'.
First we have to talk about 'Ego-State Functionality, Awareness, and Accountability..
