Egoism and I

As Smith recognizes, the existence of Sympathy presents a strong challenge to Psychological Egoism.  But, the more incisive, and instructive, critique targets the concept of I on which the theory is built. For, whether 'I' is a bundle of perceptions, a mode of Nature, or an illusion, as Hume, Spinoza, and Schopenhauer, respectively, propose, the locus of Egoism is problematic.  Indeed, in the cases of the latter two, the vital drive that one experiences is only apparently merely one's own, just as the sex impulses, like the organs in which they are localized, is fundamentally a manifestation of the reproductive processes of the species, not some merely selfish seeking of pleasure.  The instability of the I in these cases suggests that the I is no mere given Atom, but is derived from a more comprehensive entity, e. g. a Species, and, likewise, that Atomist Psychology is derived from Organicist Psychology.