Abstract

This dissertation outlined philosophical perspectives on the problems of personal identity with the relevance to adult education. An argumentative discourse revolving around the nature of self included scientific materialism, traditional metaphysics, and esotericism. An emphasis of this discourse was on the concept of self as subjectivity. ;A descriptive analysis of the phenomenon of "I" was used to verify the validity of the existing arguments on the nature of self. These arguments were tested through personal experiences of individual learners---students enrolled in the College of Education at Northern Illinois University. Their personal experiences were reflected in the essays written on the topics related to the content of various educational courses. ;This study pursued several objectives: to explore the theories that might be responsive to what constitutes an "adult person" and "adulthood" at a deeper philosophical level, to trace possible links between philosophical underpinnings of the concepts of the self/adult and their interpretations and understanding by individual persons, and to demonstrate the implications of ontological arguments for adult education theories of learning, development, and transformation. ;Phenomenological analysis of the data collected for the purposes of this research revealed four essential structures of self---"My Everyday Self," "I Am Sorge," "'I' as a Transcendental Subject," and "I Am Unio Mystica." These four structures comprise the model of personal identity: "the self," "I," "adult," or the self-system in this research. Personal experience stories selected for the phenomenological analysis testify to the validity of philosophical arguments that underpin essential structures of the self. Although a different number of essential structures of self is possible to identify based on different types of data, audience, or settings, a theoretical discourse on the nature of self as it is outlined in this research exhausts the possibilities. ;This study demonstrated direct links between the ontology of a human subject and teleological concerns in adult education. The way a person understands herself or himself preconditions a person's perspective on education. Given that adults are self-directed learners, the knowledge of one's self as an "integrated being" is essential to identify the needs and goals for a life-long commitment to learn and to learn successfully. Given that adults grow and develop continuously, the knowledge of one's self as the "whole person" is essential for the purposes of transformation