ABSTRACT
For over 2,000 years, people have been struggling with questions concerning the nature of our being. With no other, there would be no self, and vice versa. It is always to this comparison that we are pointing when we speak of self. Thus self is not a “thing” or a given, but an emergence in a given situation. For Plato, Self is an example of the Forms, the perfect essences of which the world we see is merely an imperfect image. So the Self is the perfect, immortal and real essence of the person that shows itself in the imperfect world at times, and returns to pure essence at death. Each act of will is an actualization of selfhood, and an act of separation from the rest of the world, which will respond in a way. It is important to notice that existentialist thinkers are not saying that we are essentially separate from the rest of the world.
