The term "self" is difficult to define but usually involves the inner life of the individual, the psychological dimension of human existence as opposed to the outward, physical form. The self is conceived as a creature of consciousness, a mind capable of thought and able to engage in deliberate action. A self is capable of self-consciousness, which means it recognizes its own ability to think and to contain first-person thoughts. The question is, however, is there a Self or not, and if there is, what is its nature? This has been argued in philosophy since the time of the Greeks and has been answered differently by philosophers, religious leaders, and psychologists at different times in history. Some of those answers have bene embodied in the works of Plato, the Buddha, Descartes, and William James, whose views will help clarify the issue.
In the Phaedo, Plato offers a number of arguments concerning immortality and the survival of the soul, and in so doing he suggests a definition of the Self that can be equated with the soul. If there is immortality, something must survive death, and that something is the soul. The immortality discussed by Socrates is specifically the survival of the soul. The existence of the soul itself is presumed in this dialogue. Phaedo reports that Socrates did not object to dying because he believed in the soul and that the soul would pass over to be with the gods and with men who had already made this journey. The gods were seen as wise and good, and the men who now were with the gods were seen as better men than those in the world of the living. Socrates in fact saw death as an opening to a new learning experience, and he believed that as a good man he would have in death a god who would be a good master.
Socrates views death as a separation of the soul from the body, and here it is evident that the inner life, the life of the mind, is part of the soul and is to be differentiated from physi...