A Study of the Fundamental Ego

Abstract

The present paper is a critical evaluation of the many different theories of the self or ego which have been increasingly proposed in connection with its experimantal psychological study.
I For the clarification of the concept it is proposed that attention be paid to the following three points.
(1) Is the self or ego under contemplation the self as the subject or the self as the object?
(2) Is it the self that appears in the conscious experience of a person as the subject, that is, the self that subject become conscious of, or the self that is postulated or inferred as the subject of a behavior?
(3) Is it the self that is grasped either in connection with, or with an eye on, various physical or mental functions or states of a person ; or in opposition to the other or society, or in connection with the mode of its relation, interaction or reaction?
II The above three cirteria have been applied to the eight concepts of the self as enumerated by G. W. Allport, so that the meanining of each concept may be clarified.
III What is the primary fundamental self that gives the common name to many different ideas of the self? The idea of the “Bewustseins-Ich” as expounded by Th. Lipps as an attempt to give an answer to the question is not adequate enough to explain the processes by which various selves branch out from it. For it is postulated to accompany every conscious experience, hence the Bewust-seins-Ich itself is regarded as a very vague ex-perience. The “psychological self” as subject as expounded by P. A. Bertocci can well explain the processes by which various kinds of the self as the object branch out from the subject, but the concept of the psychological self has a defect in that the self as the knower and the self as the fighter for ends are regarded as one and the same. Revising the idea of the fighter for ends the present writer has adopted the idea of the subject of action, i.e., the subject that initiates an action, and tries to argue that the self that is at once the knower and the initiator of action is the primary fundamental self.
IV The writer has tried to show how various ideas of self are derived from this primary fundamental self, citing, as an example, the manner how the ego or self, according to P. M. Symonds, or the Ego, according to Sheriff and Cantril, branch out into various kinds of self or ego.