Western culture’s concept of the self, initiated by Plato and continued through the centuries by thinkers like Saint Augustine and Descartes, is so woven into the philosophical frameworks of many of us that it’s difficult to conceive of radically different concepts of the self if we haven’t been exposed to them. Yet the fact is that these different concepts of the self do in fact exist, and they are assumed to be true by people immersed in different cultures and religions.

One of the most influential of these alternate views is the Buddhist conception of the self, and comparisons are often made between Hume’s concept of the self as a unified bundle of thoughts, feelings, and sensations and Buddhism’s concept of anatta or “no-self.” Although there are surface similarities between the two views of the self, a deeper analysis reveals significant differences. For Hume, a close examination of our stream of consciousness reveals no self, soul, or “I” that exists continually through time. We each create a “fictional self” to unify these transient mental events and introduce order into our lives, but this self has no real existence.

Buddhist doctrine agrees with Hume that the notion of a permanent self that exists as a unified identity through time is an illusion. For Buddhists, every aspect of life is impermanent and all elements of the universe are in a continual process of change and transition, a process that includes each self as well. The self can best be thought of as a flame that is continually passed from candle to candle, retaining a certain continuity but no real personal identity. But if the self or “I” doesn’t refer to a continuous identity, then what does it signify? According to Buddhist philosophy, the self is composed of five aggregates: physical form, sensation, conceptualization, dispositions to act, and consciousness. Each self is comprised of the continual interplay of these five elements, but there is no substance or identity beyond the dynamic interaction of these five elements.

This concept of the self is certain to seem alien to our Western consciousness, which has a decidedly more Platonic view of self-identity. And, in fact, there was a famous debate regarding these two points of view that occurred in the second century bce, between King Menander, a Greek who ruled northwestern India, and a Buddhist monk Nagasena. Witnessed by 500 Greeks and thousands of monks, the argument hinged on a chariot simile, though in a much different fashion than that employed by Plato!