The question of the self
We think of all possible qualities and qualitatively defined objects: the question is whether, when and under what conditions thinking in a certain quality is real. "What, the essence is given in advance, for its being is already asked. Primary is the essence and the secondary existence. The opposite is the situation with "I". For myself I know immediately and only one: that I am (I exist). For me my existence is never questioned - neither can I deny it or doubt it - because that would be obvious nonsense. But for me, my own essence always remains problematic - "what am I".
Here, life is primarily experienced as an undoubtedly secure being, but we ask about "what," about essence.This difference is fundamentally inalienable. "I" is not a qualitatively defined thing that is relevant to being, therefore I am not qualitatively definitely present, but "I myself am being" - a being with its own image, existence, "existence" - to use here as the term introduced by Heidegger. Here I experience, I infer myself to a given, I do not live an existing one, but one being, existence. Basically this is the correct and profound meaning of "I think, therefore, I am." But Descartes vitiated his thought when "cogito" (think) made "res cogitans": one thing whose essence lies in thought, in the self-security of his being, in contrast to the external things, on the being to which we draw conclusions. I know one thing I look at at different times, from different countries, in its different phenomena as the "same" thing. I know him in his equally remaining (essence) essence. On the contrary, I do not think of my own essence, because I find within myself the same qualitative essence, different from the others.
However, I know first of all about my identity in existence, and therefore I suppose that I am attuned to a lasting essence I ask. In another way is the question of my knowledge of "me" of other people and that is why, because this knowledge must go along the path of knowledge of the "identity of the thing" concerning the foreign body. Self-consciousness of the alien "self" applies what I "experience" in myself: its identity in existence is established, regardless of and before any knowledge of an inherent essence. Just as with the identity of my "I", it is in the course of time with its absolute separation from any other "I". Two things are two, but numerically they are different because they are different in space, time and quality. So the difference in their "what" in all definitions of what "what" bases their difference and if we eliminate it, then these two things coincide. The difference between "me" and "you" on the contrary is the primacy of existence, which does not depend on a familiar difference of "what."