1.2 Personality Analysis
Personality analysis is… well, it can mean different things to different people. To a novice, it would mean assessing and evaluating a person’s core qualities and characteristics, such as determination, reliability, organization, or gentleness. But there are more to it. It goes further than assessing core qualities and characteristics. It means understanding their childhood past and its impact, subconscious and unconscious ideals, dominant love language, dominant sense (such as sight or hearing), dominant brain system(s), their temper, etc.
1.3 Personality Identity
Personal identity is the concept you develop about yourself that evolves over the course of your life. This may include aspects of your life that you have no control over, such as where you grew up or the color of your skin, as well as choices you make in life, such as how you spend your time and what you believe. You demonstrate portions of your personal identity outwardly through what you wear and how you interact with other people. You may also keep some elements of your personal identity to yourself, even when these parts of yourself are very important.
Have you ever struggled with the question, ‘Who am I?’ or thought about who you might become in the future? These questions have been thought about and discussed throughout history, in particular by philosophers who have immersed themselves in the search for knowledge about the nature of being human. Such questions as, ‘What does it mean to be a person?’ and ‘Do I matter?’ have engaged key thinkers and created conversations that we still grapple with in our society. Most people feel they want to endure in some way, both in their lives and beyond death. The philosophy of personal identity aims to address these matters of existence and how we even know we exist through time.
The Philosophy of Personal Identity
How do you know you are the same person you were as a child? Is it because you remember yourself growing within the same body you have now? Or is it because you perceive that you have the same mind? What criteria can be used to confirm you are, in fact, a ‘person’?
When you ask yourself how you know you are the same person you were as a baby, this is a question of persistence. In this context, persistence means our existence across time and how we can prove it. In other words, we perceive that our self ‘persists’ through our life as the same human being, but how do we know for sure? The philosophers Plato and René Descartes, as well as many religions, have proposed that we persist because we have a soul, a timeless essence that continues in some form even after the death of our living, breathing human body.
Descartes, in particular, aimed to provide a scientifically-oriented argument for this enduring inner self. He used rational arguments and examples to demonstrate that the mind and body are distinct. He promoted the view that the mind can exist and persist without the body. This distinction between a person’s mind and body is known as mind-body dualism and has been an influential and powerful theory in our society.
Even today, you may often hear the phrase, ‘body and soul’. This way of thinking has evolved from the ideas of religious traditions as well as philosophical ways of viewing our personal identity.
Development of Personal Identity
Personal identity develops over time and can evolve, sometimes drastically, depending on what directions we take in our life. For instance, a person who at 25 identifies himself as part of a particular political party, of a particular faith, and who sees himself as upper-middle class, might discover that at 65, he’s a very different person. Perhaps he’s no longer interested in politics, he’s changed his religion, and he’s living on less money than when he was 25. Any variation is possible during a person’s life span.
Children developing their sense of self may experiment with different ways of expressing personal identity. This can include various ways of dressing or wearing their hair, and it will also include a variety of ways of behaving and thinking. They might find that some ways of expressing themselves work well and feel right, while others do not last. Throughout life, we have a sense of who we are that continually changes.
