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2.2.1 Historico-philosophical approaches to the ‘Self’The self is an entity. It is also a concept and probably a psychological reality. The notion of theself is one that emerged in the writing of the ancient Greeks including Plato and Aristotle. InPlato’s work there appears to be inter-changeability between the terms spirit, soul and self (seeThomas, 1998). For Aristotle, the focus is much more on how an individual ‘self’ responds toits duties within a nation state and to the moral imperatives of citizenry (Ross, 1997). There iscertainly plenty of evidence, therefore, that in the ancient Greek world the relationship of the selfto the political world was an important matter of philosophical debate.The 'self' is both the subject and object of some significant figures in Western thought.Augustine, in his Confessions (see Outler, 1995), wrote of the impact of the self on morality andthe dynamic interplay between the moral self and the public self. Fundamentally, however, heabrogates responsibility for his actions to a greater power – God:"And what is there in me that could be hidden from thee, Lord, to whose eyes theabysses of man's conscience are naked, even if I were unwilling to confess it tothee? In doing so I would only hide thee from myself, not myself from thee. Butnow that my groaning is witness to the fact that I am dissatisfied with myself,thou shinest forth and satisfiest. Thou art beloved and desired; so that I blush formyself, and renounce myself and choose thee, for I can neither please thee normyself except in thee." (Augustine Confessions Bk 10 Ch. 2)St. John of the Cross acknowledged the struggle of the self in its quest for truth in The DarkNight of the Soul (Whiston, 2000) and picks up Augustine’s theme of temptation, pointing tothose things which can de-rail a self from that quest:"Herein it extols the great happiness which it found in journeying to God throughthis night with such signal success that none of the three enemies, which areworld, devil and flesh (who are they that ever impede this road), could hinder it;inasmuch as the aforementioned night of purgative [20] contemplation lulled tosleep and mortified, in the house of its sensuality, all the passions and desireswith respect to their mischievous desires and motions." (St. John of Cross, DarkNight of the Soul Book 1)43Simon Hughes Ph.D. Thesis (October 2012)