History as Prologue Western Theories of the Self

In philosophical theory, as well as in common parlance, the words self and person are often used interchangeably, usually, but not always, in an effort to express the same idea. For instance, John Locke, in one of the most consequential discussions relating these terms, declared that: ‘PERSON, as I take it, is the name for . . . self. Wherever a man finds what he calls himself, there, I think, another may say is the same person.’ But when Locke actually defines person and self he defines self as ‘that conscious thinking thing, whatever substance made up of (whether spiritual or material, simple or compounded, it matters not), which is sensible, or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness extends’. By contrast, he defines person as ‘a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself,