Aristotle Self Identity

Ownership of objects in regards to self-identity can be quite a complicated subject. Plato believes that owning anything will harm your character, whereas Aristotle and Jean-Paul Sartre believe that it not only aids in building character, but Sartre also brings the idea of owning intangible objects as well. In their eyes what you own goes far beyond what you can see and touch. Based on what Aristotle claims, you could assume that he bases judgement off of what you own, because that’s what makes you who you are. I definitely believe that what you own helps build who you are, but it isn’t the whole story. If you look at stories like The Sword and the Stone, the main character didn’t have a lot of stuff, but as soon as he pulls the sword out of the stone everyone realizes that this simple commoner boy has all this greatness inside of him. Now yes, you could say that him owning the sword is what proves how great of a person he is, but to him, that sword doesn’t mean anything, it’s what made him realize what he was destined to do. The thing is that it doesn’t even have to be that big of an item to have such a strong emotional value for the owner, someone may have little to nothing for many reasons, but most of the time from what I've seen the person will hold something of value that shows character. …show more content…
She always wore it and said it reminded her of how strong her grandmother was, and how strong she wanted to be. To me, that is the strongest and most effective way to build someone's character and it shows the value in things that might seem so minuscule to everyone else. For someone to have a positive character, you need to not only have the physical objects, but the underlying emotional value and