The self and the other

You can't doubt that thinking is happening, and thinking needs a thinker — so your own existence is certain.

The Buddhist teaching that there is no fixed, separate self — only a changing bundle of experiences (Vasubandhu).

Looking inside, he only ever found particular perceptions — never a 'self' underneath. Echoes anattā.

'Thinking is happening' is certain; 'therefore a separate ME exists' adds an owner the no-self view rejects.

She rejects the lonely, solipsistic self: a self is real but only becomes itself through others.

Treating your own mind as the only thing you can be sure exists.

Descartes (yes, a certain thinker); no-self (only a bundle); De Beauvoir (real, but never separate from others).

A European and an Indian Buddhist thinker reach the same no-self conclusion — showing the idea across traditions.

'I think, therefore I am' — I know myself first, alone, without others.

Thinking uses language, which is learned from others — so the self may never be truly alone.

Explore an issue, weigh views in tension, and reach a reasoned conclusion — don't just describe.

The boundary between 'me' and 'not-me' — and the sharpest 'not-me' is another person, so others help draw the self.

The moment another person's gaze makes you aware of yourself as a self — like being caught peeping at a keyhole.

Lost in watching, there's no 'you' in mind; the instant someone looks, you feel yourself become a person who can be judged.

You fully become a self only when another self recognises you — treats you as a someone, not a something.

Being aware of yourself as a self, not just aware of the world around you.

Both say the self needs the Other; Hegel's recognition can be mutual and lifting, Sartre's Look can pin you down as an object.

To have a sense of 'me' you need a 'not-me' to set it against — the boundary helps make the self.

No other, no self — you come to know and become yourself in the eyes of other people.

The view that only your own mind is certain to exist; every other mind is a guess you can't confirm.

You only ever meet the outside of others — a face, words, behaviour — never their inner feeling, so you can't check.

The moment you love, grieve or apologise, you treat other minds as completely real — so no one truly believes it.

A perfect robot could wince and cry with nothing inside, so behaviour alone never proves a mind is there.

She rejects the sealed-off lonely self it assumes: we don't start alone and prove others; we start among them.

Don't try to prove other minds — show the question is badly framed: you were with others all along.

Unbeatable in theory, impossible in practice, and built on a lonely self that never existed.

Not that others definitely don't exist — only that your own mind is the one thing you can be certain of.

The fact that we share one world of meaning with other minds, rather than each living in a private bubble.

Carefully describing experience from the inside, exactly as it's lived (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty).

Describe experience honestly and you're always already among others — the world comes pre-shared.

We read each other through the body — you feel a friend's sadness in their slumped shoulders before any words.

Meeting another person fully as a 'you' — truly present, one person to another.

Treating another person as a thing — an object you use or size up.

You only become a full self in genuine I–Thou meetings, not by using people as Its.

Not by proving other minds, but by showing you never started alone — you were always in a shared world.

You are partly made of your relationships — not a sealed individual who just happens to meet others.

Biological, social, psychological, spiritual — others shape your body, society, mind and sense of meaning.

You literally came from others — born, fed, kept alive by them; no one is self-made from scratch.

Your language, manners and roles are handed to you by a group — you think in words others taught you.

How you feel about yourself grows from how others treated you — praise, blame, love, neglect.

Meaning, belonging and purpose usually come through others — a faith, a cause, people you'd live for.

You can rebel and remake yourself — but using language and ideas others gave you, so relations run all the way down.

Your freedom isn't cancelled by others; it's exercised THROUGH the language, ideas and groups they gave you.

The view that a self is constituted by its relationships — made by them, not just shaped by them.

You become a self by living your roles and relationships well (child, friend, neighbour), not by escaping them.

The African view 'I am because we are' — a person becomes a full person through other persons, inside a community.

Immersion (dropped into a shared world), participation (joining its practices), coordination (matching others).

That 'me' is itself built up out of the immersing and coordinating — take those away and it isn't there.

Both drop the sealed core: the self is a stream of relating and participation, not a fixed thing underneath.

Is there a self? → the self needs the other → the self is MADE through others (the relational self).

Exploring and weighing several views on the stimulus and reaching a reasoned conclusion — not describing.