What is the self? There is an abundance of varying positions on what the self is. Although knowledge of the self dates back to the times of Ancient Greece, with Socrates and Plato, the context to support and prove each varying position of self-concept is certainly limited. As an example, the self can be described as the soul or the mind. There are also two opposing positions of what the self is – materialism and dualism. A materialistic approach is one that looks at the self as an unimportant concept, in other words, human beings are simply just a physical body. On the other hand, dualism is the position that humans consist of two interrelated concepts – a nonphysical soul and a physical body. According to psychologist Anthony Marcel and
