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16. Persons / A. Concept of a Person / 3. Persons as Reasoners

[concept of a person is needed for reasoning]

5 ideas
Self is the rider, intellect the charioteer, mind the reins, and body the chariot [Anon (Upan)]
     Full Idea: Know that the Self (Atman) is the rider, and the body the chariot; that the intellect is the charioteer, and the mind the reins.
     From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Katha')
     A reaction: This strikes me as exactly right. Even my intellectual powers are servants of the self. This suggests the view of the mind as a tool, which does not seem to occur in modern discussions.
I can hardly care about rational consequence if it wasn't me conceiving the antecedent [Reid]
     Full Idea: The conviction of personal identity is indispensably necessary to all exercise of reason. Reasoning is made up of successive parts. Without the conviction that the antecedent have been seen by me, I could have no reason to proceed to the consequent.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
     A reaction: Society needs philosophers precisely to point such things out. It isn't conclusive, but populist waffle about the self not existing undermines the very concept of a 'train of thought', which everybody is signed up to. Trains of thought can take years.
Giving reasons for action requires reference to a self [Searle]
     Full Idea: The requirement that I state reasons that I acted on requires a reference to the self. …Only for a self can something be a reason for an action.
     From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.VII)
     A reaction: Why can't we just say that this reason, given this desire and this belief, led to this action, and never mention the self? Admittedly leaving out 'I' is an odd circumlocution, but I don't find this particular argument very convincing.
A 'self' must be capable of conscious reasonings about action [Searle]
     Full Idea: In order to be a self the entity that acts as an agent must also be capable of conscious reasoning about its actions.
     From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.VIII)
     A reaction: I can't accept this all-or-nothing account. A chimpanzee is some sort of 'agent', and there are bad chimpanzees you wouldn't want in your colony. Why does Searle want to cut us off in some special compound where our actions are totally different?
An intentional, acting, rational being must have a self [Searle]
     Full Idea: Selfhood in my sense comes for free once you have a conscious intentional being capable of engaging in free actions on the basis of reasons.
     From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.5.II)
     A reaction: The concept of an 'action' is probably the thing that most clearly needs a self, because it implies co-ordination and purpose, and there must be some item which benefits. Personally I think you can drop 'free actions' and still have a self.