- Socrates’ question ‘Who am I?’ in our time.
All the things we do with ourselves nowadays make us see that the individual as
a separate coherent self that somehow has to be carried intact from t 1 to t 2 is a
creature of Western modernism grown on the fertile ground of European
philosophy. The postmodern self is different in that it constructs itself, at least in
part, and recognizes this fact. It is inherently fluid, constantly reinventing itself.
In this, it is akin to Eastern concepts of personal identity. To mention but one
rich tradition, in contrast to European dualism, the holistic view of humanity that
Confucianism represents treats the self as an ethical concept predicated on a
ceaseless process of self-cultivation and moral improvement.