In the West, views about the self and personal identity first surfaced in Ancient Greece. Prior to that there were no recorded theories of self-identity. One to the earliest hints of interest in the self occured in a play written in 500 BCE Greece. A debtor decides he doesn’t need to pay back his lender. This is because the passage of time has changed the debtor sufficiently so he cannot be held responsible. Soon a solution to the riddle was provided: Beyond the ever-changing material world there reside changeless realms and therein resides the changeless essential self. The debt was paid.

In my presentation I will trace major western theories of the self from ancient Green to current times. I draw primarily on the work of Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity and also the work of Raymond Martin and John Barresi, The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self and certain other philosophers. As usual there will be time for discussion.