DOUGLAS ALLEN

Examination of the nature of self has been one of the key concerns of both
Eastern and Western philosophers. ¹ With a few significant exceptions, such
as the teachings of the Buddha or various forms of relativism and skepti-
cism, traditional philosophers have argued in favor of views upholding the
reality of an ahistoric, objective, universal, "true," or authentic, self. ² Tra-
ditional philosophers could not avoid recognizing that various concepts of
self were historically and culturally constituted; but they typically de-
scribed these concepts as subjective, superficial, illusory, and inadequate, as
veiling or distorting the deeper, underlying, objective view of the self that
transcended such historical and cultural expressions.

My approach to uncovering and analyzing constructions of self differs
from that of most traditional philosophers. Concepts and images of self
appear in the most privileged texts. They are "given" in the sense of being
constructed by dominant socioeconomic, cultural, scientific, philosophi-
cal, religious, and other social forces. These constructions of self are pre-
sented in traditional philosophies as expressing the objective, universal,
true self. Alternative, even oppositional, self-images also appear in less
privileged texts.

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