I would like to take a moment to consider how we think about ourselves, and what sort of language we use to describe ourselves.

Sometimes we talk about ourselves like we’re static objects

Self-reflexive or meta-cognitive statements such as “I think…,” “I believe…,” or “I feel…”, are crucial for thinking about oneself, but they are not the type of statements I am interested in here. Discussed here are statements of the form “I am…” These are an especially important sort of statement. They are statements of knowledge about oneself as an object. By contrast, statements like “I believe…” or “I think…” or “I feel…” are not statements about oneself as an object, but rather about one’s experience as a subject. I am committed to the importance of knowing oneself as a subject, but I am especially interested in how we know and characterize ourselves as objects.

Statements one makes of oneself as an object are distinct from statements one makes of oneself as a process. This distinction is of interest to me because I believe one is always in a process of becoming, i.e. I make myself and I am the making itself. At the very least, it must be acknowledged that the full extent of who or what we are is not merely a story of what we have done or experienced but also what we are yet to do or experience: not only of what we have been but also of what we can be. Nonetheless, at a given moment one may regard oneself as an object of knowing with a certain internal state, a location, spatial extent, etc. What I am particularly interested in here are statements that are implicitly or explicitly contrary to the view of oneself as a process, e.g. “I am lazy,” or “I am a man,” or “I am a doctor.” The focus is therefore on how we encapsulate this process of constant change and becoming into static self-descriptions. This poses a philosophical and practical challenge as it goes against the fluid, ever-evolving nature of our identities. When we make “I am” statements like “I am lazy,” “I am a man,” or “I am a doctor,” we are crystallizing a multitude of experiences, traits, behaviors, roles, and societal expectations into a single, seemingly unchanging entity. Such statements might be called “essentialist self-statements.”

Essentialist self-statements are a (sometimes useful) simplification

These statements suggest that there is some unchanging essence or core to our identity that remains constant amidst change. They bring stability and coherence to our sense of self, yet they risk oversimplifying the complexity of our identities and ignore their dynamic, evolving nature. At the same time, they can be limiting or liberating. Some religions (especially Buddhism) assert the ultimately illusory nature of this static “core” of essentialist self-statements. Nevertheless, it is considered by others to be of practical importance to maintain a balance between acknowledging one’s current state (as captured in “I am” statements) and recognizing one’s potential for change and growth (reflecting our inherent “process-ness”). Underlying this balance is a tension between our need for coherence and stability in our identities, and the reality of our identities as fluid and constantly evolving. Essentialist self-statements illustrate how language, while a powerful tool for self-expression, can also constrain our understanding and expression of the self, given its tendency to categorize and fix things into stable, distinct classes.

I may be accused in this endeavor of attempting to produce such stable, distinct classes of essentialist self-statements, which (if the above logic of self-as-process is followed to its most extreme conclusions) may be regarded as ultimately illusory. Yet I acknowledge from the beginning that classification of any particular statement into the foregoing classes is “fuzzy,” and that a single self-statement can fall into multiple classes, i.e. the classes are not distinct. Rather, they are intended as a means to organize thought and to establish a vocabulary for ongoing conversations about personal identity, which are at the heart of discourse in our politics and are moreover a timeless component of people’s inner dialogues.

Which essentialist self-statements are “objective,” if any?

A first class of essentialist self-statements are what one would be forgiven to call “objective” or could better be called “conventionally measurable” self-statements. These involve physically measurable quantities such as lengths, weight, mass, times, locations, etc. For example, “I am 6 feet tall” or, “I am in Times Square.” These statements, though seemingly straightforward, merit a word of further exposition. These statements are most aptly regarded as being of the form, “According to an explicit convention, I am measurably thus.” This characterization is helpful to remember.

By contrast, what are “subjective” essentialist self-statements?

There is a second, important class of essentialist self-statements, which we might call “subjective” essentialist self-classifications. Some examples of statements from this class are, “I am lazy” or, “I am brave.” These are a sort of statement that we routinely make, but which we cannot in fact reasonably make, since one knows oneself first-personally and others only third-personally, and also because one’s state is subject to constant flux and change based on one’s own decisions. For this class of statements, one cannot rightly say “I am thus” nor even “I am thus relative to X,” but merely “I have tended to behave thusly relative to Y during time period Z,” because this final statement views oneself and others from the same third-personal perspective, i.e. via outward manifestations of inner states, and makes explicit the point of reference for judgment. Moreover, it acknowledges the provisional nature of this self-knowledge and in particular that it is subject to change based on one’s own decisions. It is important to realize that even with the third-personal restatement offered above, the classifications, and the associations one has with the labels according to which one is classifying oneself, are one’s own and may differ from others’ classifications and associations. Hence the label of these statements as “subjective” essentialist self-characterizations. 

How do we use statements of this second type? Should we use them at all?

It may be noted that subjective self-characterizations of this sort serve a practical purpose as abstractions from experience that have potential explanatory power. As such, they reduce the search time for explanations of phenomena involving oneself. It is much easier to say of oneself, “These phenomena in which I am involved make sense because I am X” than to delve into the underlying reasons why one is or has become “X-like.” However, relying on labels of this sort can produce bad explanations because they are often not arrived at by reasonable means. Moreover, the reliance upon such labels for explanations of phenomena, if they are accepted unconsciously and regarded too much as fixed, can produce self-fulfilling prophecies (as in the case, “I will fail to complete this task, as I have failed to complete other tasks, because I am lazy”) or even existential anxiety when the labels seems not to hold (as in the case, “If I am smart, why am I struggling with this course?”). Often these labels are constructed in practice by our interactions with others, either directly or indirectly, by imagining what others would say or think of us. The eye and voice of the hidden or internalized “other” is a powerful force in shaping self-perception; but in truth the eye and voice are one’s own to avert and to quieten.

Sometimes we make something true of ourselves by stating it at all

Yet another class of essentialist self-statements are declarative self-statements, especially of desire for affiliation or non-affiliation, e.g. “I am a Libertarian” or, “I am Catholic” or “I am not a member of my family.” These are acts of self-declaration, assertions of the desire to be classed by others in a certain way. These statements themselves may be further classified as contingent or necessary statements about oneself. For example, one can say, “I am (contingently) Libertarian” or one can say, “I am Libertarian” in the sense that if he were not he would not be himself, i.e. “Libertarian” is a necessary property of what the person calls “I.” These essentialist self-statements can be especially liberating. Like the previous class, these labels tend to be relied upon as having potential explanatory power. The difference with this class of self-labeling statements is that they are a positive assertion, rather than a tacit, often subconscious acceptance, that the narratives one tells of oneself and the social scripts that others follow in regarding and interacting with them can and should be colored by the power and implications of the label itself.

Sometimes our self-statements are part of scripts that have socially binding force

In this quest to identify classes of statements that are structured around “I am,” I would like to consider a final class related to “performativity.” These statements aren’t just descriptions of the self, but also acts that can affect the self and the world around it. For instance, statements such as “I am sorry” or “I am indebted to you” are not only expressions of a state of being, but are also actions in their own right that bear an impact on our relationships and responsibilities. They are in general not essentialist self-statements of the sorts discussed above, though there may be overlap. However, they underscore the dynamic, performative nature of our identities, reminding us that who we “are” is not just about what we think or feel, but also about what we do and how we interact with the world and with others.

Consider your own essentialist self-statements

From here we can ask interesting questions, such as: In what class or classes of statements is the declaration, “I am gay”? What about a transgender person’s declaration, “I am a woman”? How about, “I am a Republican,” or, “I am a Democrat”? How do these statements relate to each of the classes enumerated here? Are they of a nature not considered above?