Month: April 2014

There is an old joke that goes: Rene Descartes went into his local for a drink. When he had finished his first drink the bartender said, “Mr Descartes would you like another?” To which Rene replied “I don’t think…” and disappeared!

To understand the joke you need to know that Rene Descartes, the 17th century French philosopher and mathematician, often regarded as the father of modern philosophy, coined the phrase ‘I think, therefore I am’ (Cogito ergo sum). You are probably familiar with Descartes’ other great contribution in the field of geometry, even if you are unaware, because  every time you see a graph with an x-y axis you are seeing Descartes work, as he invented the Cartesian representation that you see.

‘Who am I?’ The issue of identity is a vexing one, complex and simple at the same time. Over the last century and a half, psychologists have grappled with the notion of identity and  human behaviour, previously the domain of philosophers and theologians. The Psychoanalytic approach suggested that who we are is determined by unconscious conflicts that exist  within us, most of which we are not even aware. Behaviourists reject this approach, focussing only on human behaviour that can be observed. ‘Who we are’ is explained by what we have learnt.

Behaviours continue if rewarded but decrease if punished. The Cognitive approach says that how we think about the world and ourselves determines who we are. Errors in cognition  (thinking) are to blame for many of the troubles we face. The Humanistic approach has an overwhelmingly positive view of human beings, suggesting that by and large, all things being  equal, we will strive for self-actualisation, to better ourselves and will search for meaning in our lives. I have struggled to find among these psychological theories a satisfactory answer to the question