UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

CHAPTER 1
The Self from Various Perspectives

Philosophical
Perspectives on the
Self
At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

1.state the importance of understanding one’s self;

2.explain the various notions of the self from different
philosophical perspectives; and
3.examine one’s self in relation to the philosophical
perspectives of the self.
 Much of philosophy concerns
with the fundamental nature of
“self.
Greek thinkers prior to Socrates, like
Thales, Pythagoras, and Heraclitus, among
others, focused on the composition and
processes of the world around them.

Unsatisfied with mere mythological and

supernatural explanations, these so-called
Pre-Socratic philosophers turned to
observation, documentation, and
reasoning.
Key Terms
• Rationalism – regards reason as the chief source and
test of knowledge. Philosophers: Socrates, Plato and
Descartes

• Skepticism – always in doubt and that knowledge is

uncertain. Philosophers: Humes and Socrates

• Empiricism – all of our knowledge comes from our

sensory experience. Philosophers: Humes, Locke and
Aristotle

• Naturalism – all beings and events in the universe are

natural.
(469-399 BCE)
 Socrates provided a change of
perspective by focusing on the self.
 His life and ideas, documented by his
students, the historian Xenophon and
the philosopher Plato, showed how
Socrates applied systematic
questioning of the self.
 Socrates believed that it is the duty of
the philosopher to know oneself. To
live without knowing who you are and
what virtues you can attain is the worst
that can happen to a person. Thus, he
noted that an “unexamined life is
not worth living.”
Socrates saw a person as
dualistic, that is, every
person is composed of Self
body and soul. There is
an imperfect and
impermanent aspect of
every one of us, which is
our physical body, and
then, there is also the
perfect and permanent, Body Soul
which is the soul.
(428-347 BCE)
 Plato further expounded on the idea of
the soul by stating that it has three
parts/components:
1. the appetitive soul – responsible
for the desires and cravings of a
person;
2. the rational soul – the thinking,
reasoning, and judging aspect; and
3. the spirited soul – accountable
for emotions and also makes sure
that the rules of reason is followed
in order to attain victory and/or
honor.
  In his work The Republic, he
Self emphasized that all three parts
of the soul must work
harmoniously to attain justice
and virtue in a person. The
rational soul must be well-
developed and in-charge, the
Body Soul
emotions from the spirited soul
are checked, and the desires of
the appetitive must be
controlled and focused to those
that give life, like eating,
Appetitive Rational Spirited drinking, and sleeping, among
others.
Platonic Dualism

1. The Realm of the Shadows (changing sensible

things which are lesser entities and therefore
imperfect and flawed)
2. The Realm of Forms(eternal things which are
permanent and perfect-the source of all reality and
true knowledge)
(354-430 CE)
 St. Augustine is considered as
one of the most significant
Christian thinkers, esp. in the
development of the Latin
Christianity theology.
 His idea of the “self” merged
that of Plato and the then new
Christian perspective, which led
him to believe in the duality of
a person.
St. Augustine
• He believes that there is an imperfect part of us, which is
connected with the world and yearns to be with the divine;
• and there is part of us that is not bound by this world and
therefore attain immortality;
• The imperfection of the body incapacitates it from thriving in the
spiritual communion with God, thus, it must die for the soul to
reach the eternal realm. However, this communion of the soul
with God can only be attained if the body lives in this world with
virtue.
(1596-1650)
 René Descartes was a French
mathematician, scientist, and philosopher.
 He claimed that the person is composed of
the cogito (the mind), and the extenza
(the body), which is the extension of the
mind.
 He argues that a person should only believe
the things that can pass the test of doubt.
 In his “Discourse on the Method” and
“Meditations on First Philosophy”, he
therefore concluded that the only thing that
a person cannot doubt is the existence of
his/her “self”. Because even doubt about
the self proves that there is a
(1596-1650)
thinking/doubting self (“cogito ergo
sum”)
René Descartes

 The mind makes a person, and the body is just some kind
of a machine that is attached and controlled by it;
 “I think therefore I am.”
 What is a thinking thing? It is a thing that doubts,
understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses; imagines and
perceives.
(1632-1704)
 John Locke was an English philosopher.
 His works as a physician provided him
with an idea that deviated from te
duality of the body or soul.
 A person’s mind is a blank state
(tabula rasa) at birth; it is through
experiences that this blank state is
filled, and a personal identity or “self’ is
formed.
 This “self” cannot be found in the soul
nor the body but in one’s
consciousness (Nimbalkar 2011).
John Locke

 However, the consciousness is not the brain itself.

It is something that goes beyond the brain; and
 Thus, the consciousness and the “self” that comes
with it can be transferred from one person or body
to another (Nimbalkar 2011).
(1711-1776)
 David Hume was a Scottish philosopher
and an empiricist who believes that all
concepts as well as knowledge come
from the senses and experiences.
 He argued that there is no self beyond
what can be experienced.
 We do not know others because we have
seen/touched their souls; we know them
because of what we can actually
observe.
 This “self” according to him is a “bundle
or collection of different perceptions,
which succeed each other with an
(1711-1776)
inconceivable rapidity, and are a
perpetual flux and movement”
David Hume
 Simply, the self is a combination of experiences of
a person.
 Experiences can be categorized into:
1. impressions – real/actual
experiences or sensations like feeling the rough
edges of a stone or tasting a sweet ice cream
2. ideas – copies of impressions/representation of
the world and sensations, like love, faith, or
even an association that this certain event is
caused by something in the past could possibly
create another reaction in the future.
(1711-1776)
 One of the most influential
philosophers in Western philosophy.
 Kant contributed to the fields of
metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics
among others.
 While everything starts with
sensations and impressions, he
believes that there must
necessarily be something in us
that organizes these sensations to
create knowledge and ideas.
 Kant is against Locke who is an
empiricist.
Immanuel Kant
 He thinks that reason, not mere experience, is the
foundation of knowledge. It is like seeing a visual
effect in television, your experience say it is there,
but the reason says it is only a computer-generated
image.
 The “self” organizes our experience into something
meaningful. It can do such thing because it is
independent from sensory experiences; something
that transcends or is above even our consciousness.
 CONTRIBUTIONS PHILOSOPHY
 The founder of German Idealism  Mind is not just a passive receiver of
in which his philosophy was sense experience but rather actively
awakened and motivated by David participates in knowing the objects it
Hume. experiences.
Wrote three books: Critique of Instead of the mind conforming to
Pure Reason, Critique of Practical the world, it is the external world that
conforms to the mind.
Reason and Critique of Judgment
Knowledge is the result of human
(Price, 2000) understanding applied to sense
experience.
 VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE
 When the self sees an object, it tends  All objects of knowledge, which
to remember its characteristics and includes the self, are phenomenal;
applies on it, the forms of time and that the true nature of things is
space. Therefore, altogether unknown and unknowable
a self must exist or there could be no (Price, 2000).
memory or knowledge. OTHERS:
Transcendental apperception – the In the matter of God, Kant stated
experience of the self and its unity with that the kingdom of God is within
objects. man; that God manifested in people’s
lives therefore, it is man’s duty to
move towards perfection.
(1900-1976)
 A British philosopher mainly
associated with Ordinary Language
Philosophy Movement.
 Gilbert Ryle proposed that we should
instead focus on the observable
behavior of a person in defining the
“self”.
 One of the things that the duality
approach seems to state is that there
can be a private, unobservable
aspect of a person, and a different
public and observable part; one can
describe “self” as good but do
(1900-1976)
otherwise in real life.
Gilbert Ryle
 Ryle do not adhere to the idea of duality and sees
the self as an entirely of thoughts, emotions and
actions of a person that relates to observable
behavior.
 We get to know others by observing their behavior
and inferring about their “selves”; we can apply
the same observation and reflections on ourselves.
PROFILE
British Philosopher whose ideas  He had an enormous influence on
contradicted Cartesian Dualism of the development of 20th
Descartes. Century Analytic Philosophy,
 Used behavioristic approach to self particularly in the areas
(self is the behavior presented by the of Philosophy of the Mind and
person. Philosophy of Language.
• Was a 20th Century philosopher,
mainly associated with the Ordinary
Language Philosophy movement.
 CONTRIBUTIONS PHILOSOPHY
Ryle stigmatized the mind as Once we encounter others, their
the “Ghost in the Machine” (man perceptions of what we do, how we
is a complex machine with act, and the way we behave will
different functioning parts, and then result to the understanding of
the intelligence, and other other people and establishing of
characteristics or behavior of who we are.
man is represented by the ghost
in the machine.
VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE

Freewill was invented to He agreed with Kant who

answer the question of whether stated that freewill involves a
an action deserves praise or moral responsibility which
blame. further assumes that man’s
actions must be moral for it to
be free.
(1908-1961)
 A leading French existentialist and
phenomenologist, also contributes
to the idea by stating that mind
and body are interconnected with
each other and therefore, cannot
be separated.
 Our body is our connection to the
external world, including other
people, thus all experiences are
embodied. This also includes the
thoughts and emotions of a
(1908-1961)
person.
 PHILOSOPHY VIEW OF HUMAN
At the center of his philosophy is the The world and the sense of self are
emphasis placed on the human body as emergent phenomena in the on-going
the primary site of knowing the world. process of man’s becoming..
 Self-regarded that the body and mind The world is a field of perception, and
human consciousness assigns meaning to
are not separate entities but rather those
the world.
two components are one and the same perception is not purely the result of
sensations nor it is purely interpretation.
Rather consciousness is the process that
includes sensing as well as
interpreting/reasoning.
 A Canadian philosopher known for his
studies in neurophilosophy and the
philosophy of mind (the study of the
philosophy of the mind, the philosophy
of science, neuroscience and
psychology).
 He further utilized knowledge from
other academic and research fields
to talk about the self as well as the
mind.
 One of those who proposed the use of
“eliminative materialism” or
“eliminativism”.
Paul Churchland

 “eliminative materialism” or “eliminativism” means

that the old terms we use to describe the mind are
outdated.
 If not mere “folk psychology”, thus the need to use
more accurate and scientifically proven terms,
esp. based on neuroscience research.
 Neuroscience somehow shows a connection of what
we call mental states to that of the physical
activities of the brain.
 PHILOSOPHY VIEW OF HUMAN
Patricia claims that man’s Human nature is complicated. Man
brain is responsible for the is endowed with more than just
physical or neurological
identity known as the self and characteristics. Despite research
the biochemical properties of the findings, neurophilosophy states that
brain is really responsible for the self is real, that it’s a tool that
man’s thoughts, feelings and helps the person tune-in to the
behavior. realities of the brain and the extant
reality.
What and who the person is
(ex. how he makes decisions, controls
impulses and how he sees himself is
largely determined by his neurons,
hormones and overall genetic make-
up.
 PROFILE CONTRIBUTIONS
 The Churchland’s couple focuses on: Applied modern scientific inquiry
through the use of
the idea that people should improve our NEUROPHILOSOPHY.
association and use of worth in Philosophy of the neuroscience – the
study of the philosophy of the mind, the
identifying the self; the self is defined philosophy of science, neuroscience and
by the movement of our brain. psychology. It aims to explore the
relevance of neuroscientific
experiments/studies to the philosophy of
the mind (the issue of brain-mind is the
central of this study).
The dual perspective of the “self” continues
to exist, perhaps because our brains are
programmed to think of dualities. Our
religious beliefs, that of a mortal body and
an immortal soul, also affects such
continuity. However, new ideas from
academic fields as well as findings from
technological advances are being
considered and incorporated in this debate
and the discovery of the self.

Being open to such new ideas may help us

know more about our own “self”.
Assignment

Directions:
Read the poem
and answer the
questions that
follow.
1. In your own perspective, how was the “self”
represented in the poem?

2. Based on your reading of the poem, as well as

the information you have researched, which of
the philosophical ideas discussed in this lesson
best describes the representation of idea about
the self in this poem? Provide a brief
explanation.

3. From the discussions, what now is your idea of

the “self”?
End of Lesson 1