THE FORMATION OF MULTICULTURAL RELIGIOUS IDENTITY WITHIN PERSONS IN KOREAN-AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

Abstract

Intra-personal identity Rene Descartes was a pivotal figure in stating a Western selfunderstanding. His cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore am) epitomized the Western idea of the self. He started his philosophy with human consciousness {cogito). The cogito (I think) is invested with the zeal for establishing an ultimate foundation for self-knowledge. For him, the cogito arose from the extreme condition of doubt. The subject of the doubt, however, is free from its own body, which is never the foundation of the self. This free-floating / is problematic in terms of its own identity uprooted from its body. The foundational ambition of the Cartesian cogito is responsible for the great oscillation that causes the of the I think to appear to be elevated extravagantly to the heights of a first truth and then hurled down to the depths of a vast illusion (Ricoeur, 1992,4-5). The West dwells on the idea of the existence of the self as a basic unit. It is partially due to two Western theoretical foundations: natural science (Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton) and social science (Descartes). From Democritus (5th B.C.E) to Einstein, natural scientists have looked for the smallest unit that is the foundation of the physical universe, and Democritus named it as an atom, the indivisible. Descartes found an unshakable foundation of all knowledge in his doubting self {cogito, ergo sum). Such substantial views are in conflict with the inter-connectional view of the East. The self in the East is always understood in its relational context.