What is identity?

Résumé du document

Philosophy essay about the notion of identity: personal identity and social identity.

Extraits

[...] In social science, it is a term used to describe an individual's comprehension of him or herself as a discrete, separate entity. Thus, identity is a term which can be specified by the disciplines of psychology and sociology, including the two forms of social psychology. In order to spot our Personal Identity we need “self-definition” or understanding”, because we will be pointing out a part of ourselves that is in some way important to us. Even though, there is still a problem left concerning Personal Identity, which is the problem of stating what aspects of a person it refers to and specifically in what sense these are important or essential? [...]

[...] And once there is confusion or a rift in these essential things, there is definitely a problem floating on the surface. At the end, we admit that we have not covered all the material related to the notion of identity. But by treating the mentioned theories, we can say that we have now a wider view of what identity is. Therefore, we can have our own definition for this concept depending on different perspectives which treated the questions. References: - Handbook of Self and Identity, Mark R. [...]

[...] Comparison: The individual tend to compare his/her group with other groups seeing some sort of a favorable prejudice toward the group to which he/she belongs. Psychological Distinctiveness: The desire of the group identity to be both distinct from and positively compared with other groups. As we realize from this theory, individuals have the tendency to be classified in groups. In reality, this theory could give us a hint on the reasons why a lot of political-social issues seem to be very clear in some countries. [...]

[...] So, we can say that Personal Identity consist those parts of ourselves that shape the base of our self-esteem and confidence. These understandings could lead us to analyze certain political issues, which involve matters of identity. By taking ethnic conflicts as an example, we see that they are prone to violence because belonging to an ethnic group is an important thing to satisfy people's need to the feeling of dignity and sense of worth, and any threat to this sense will general likely cause raging emotional reactions. II. Social Identity We will now move to discuss another theory for Identity. [...]

[...] Conclusion: We may say that each theory (Personal Identity and Social Identity) completes each other, because each theory deals with the notion of identity from a different point of view. The theory of personal identity depends on self-understanding. In other words, it deals with what the person thinks of him/her self, not losing sight of the importance of belonging to a group in order to support the self-esteem. On the other hand, the theory of social identity depends on categorizing or belonging to a group and how one's compare his group with other groups with a feeling of prejudice. [...]