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Full Idea
Control is the ultimate criterion of the self: I am the sum total of the parts I control directly.
Gist of Idea
I am the sum total of what I directly control
Source
Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §4.2)
Book Ref
Dennett,Daniel C.: 'Elbow Room - Free will worth wanting' [MIT 1999], p.82
A Reaction
This looks awfully like a flagrant self-contradiction, and I think it is. It seems pretty obvious that there is at least a distinction between the bit or bits that do the controlling, and the bits that get controlled.
| 7502 | For Stoics the true self is defined by what I can be master of [Stoic school, by Foucault] |
| 21421 | Within nature man is unimportant, but as moral person he is above any price [Kant] |
| 5647 | Hegel claims knowledge of self presupposes desire, and hence objects [Hegel, by Scruton] |
| 22770 | A person is a being which is aware of its own self-directed and free subjectivity [Hegel] |
| 15579 | My active existence is defined by being able to say 'I can' [Heidegger] |
| 3847 | Man is nothing else but the sum of his actions [Sartre] |
| 4020 | The modern self has disengaged reason, self-exploration, and personal commitment [Taylor,C] |
| 3825 | Action requires a self, even though perception doesn't [Searle] |
| 3797 | I am the sum total of what I directly control [Dennett] |
| 9758 | To make sense of personal identity, focus on agency rather than experience [Korsgaard] |
| 9757 | A person viewed as an agent makes no sense without its own future [Korsgaard] |