Volume 5, Issue 2/3, Summer/Fall 1998
Realism, Constructionism, and the Self
Joe Barnhardt
Pages 33-37
Dissociation
An Evolutionary Interpretation
My hypothesis is that human personhood has ancient biological roots which make it possible for social reinforcers to contribute to the gradual construction of real persons who are always deeper than the stories about them. Multiple persons do sometimes emerge from one human organism. Rather than try to prove they are real, I explore the consequences of assuming them to be genuine emergents
that become social environment to one another. I suggest that the multiple-persons phenomenon has profoundly influenced the development of human ethics and the attainment of personhood through the pursuit of ideals.