What am I?

The suggestion argued for in this dissertation is that no matter who is asking the What am I? question, the answer is always the same: a self. Throughout this dissertation, a new definition for ‘self’ is outlined: a psychocorporeal locus of agency. This definition of self builds on work from Eric Olson, Diana Meyers, and David Velleman, and the account is preferable to other traditional theories of self, which include no-self views (particularly reductive physicalist accounts of the self), body and brain criterion views, and psychological approaches. A major focus on this project is dissociative identity disorder (DID), because the experiences of human beings with DID inform a theory of self that is more accurate for those with DID and those without it. The experiences and accounts of individuals with dissociative identity disorder (DID) conflict with leading accounts of the self, which have tended to focus on the experiences and accounts of individuals who do not have DID.