Post by mgm on Dec 1, 2017 17:46:21 GMT
Butt says that “what ‘having a self’ means is having a constructive relationship to the past and the future” (p. 137). Explain what you think this quotation means. Explain why you think he includes the word “constructive” in his description.
This quote is indicative of Butt’s view of the self as a process of being; the very process of reflecting on the past and anticipating the future is the self - it is something that is constantly being constructed. In this view, the self is not an object that exists inside of us, but rather it is the temporal process of thinking about ourselves. Perhaps it could be compared to the two different ways that someone could view a river: If viewed from a helicopter, from a very broad perspective, the river looks very much like a fixed object, almost as if existing outside of time (this is the way we usually think of our ’self’), you can maybe even see where it begins and where it ends, but if you are standing neck deep in the rushing water, it would seem very different. You wouldn't be able to see the 'river' as whole , you'd just be experiencing the constant dynamic flow of water. It is this type of dynamic process that is the self to Butt.
This quote is indicative of Butt’s view of the self as a process of being; the very process of reflecting on the past and anticipating the future is the self - it is something that is constantly being constructed. In this view, the self is not an object that exists inside of us, but rather it is the temporal process of thinking about ourselves. Perhaps it could be compared to the two different ways that someone could view a river: If viewed from a helicopter, from a very broad perspective, the river looks very much like a fixed object, almost as if existing outside of time (this is the way we usually think of our ’self’), you can maybe even see where it begins and where it ends, but if you are standing neck deep in the rushing water, it would seem very different. You wouldn't be able to see the 'river' as whole , you'd just be experiencing the constant dynamic flow of water. It is this type of dynamic process that is the self to Butt.
