Perspective and views on the self by philosophers from the ancient times to the contemporary period

1. Socrates- “problem of the self”

-1st philosopher who ever engaged in a systematic questioning about the self.

- The true task of the philosopher is to know oneself.

-affirmed that the unexamined life is not worth living.

- Every man is composed of body and soul; this means that every human body is dualistic.

-all individuals have an imperfect, impermanent aspect to him, and the body, while maintaining
that there is also a soul that is perfect and permanent.

2. Plato- “man is a dual nature of body and soul”

- Three components of the soul: the rational soul, the spirited soul and the appetitive soul.

-in “The Republic” he emphasizes that justice in the human person can only be attained if the three
parts of the soul are working harmoniously with one another.

- the rational soul forged by reason and intellect has to govern the affairs of the human person, the
spirited part which is in charge of emotions should be kept at bay, and the appetitive soul in
charge of base desires like eating, sleeping having sex etc are controlled as well.

-when the ideal self is attained, then the human person’s soul become just and virtuous.

3. Augustine- “Man is of a bifurcated nature” - an aspect of man dwells in the world and is imperfect and
continuously yearns to be with the Divine and the other is capable of reaching immortality.

-the body is bound to die on earth and the soul is to anticipate living eternally in a realm of
spiritual bliss in communication with God. This is because the body can only thrive in the
imperfect, physical reality that is the world, whereas the soul can also stay after death in an
eternal realm with the transcendent God.

-the goal of every human person is to attain this communion and bliss with the divine by living
his life on earth in virtue.

4. Thomas Aquinas- “Man is composed of 2 parts: matter and form.”

*matter-(hyle) refers to the “common stuff that makes up everything in the universe”
*form- (morphe) refers to the essence of a substance or thing
-the soul is what animates the body: it is what makes us humans

5. Rene Descartes- Father of modern philosophy

-human person has a body and a mind

 -the only thing that one cannot doubt is the existence of the self, for even if one doubts oneself,
that only proves that there is a doubting self, a thing that thinks and therefore, that cannot be
doubted.

-“I think therefore I am”

-the self is a combination of two distinct entities, the cogito, and the thing that thinks, which is
the mind, and the extenza or extension of the mind, which is the body.

6. David Hume- “the self is nothing else but a bundle of impressions”

*impressions- basic objects of our experience or sensation

*ideas- are copies of impressions.

-self is a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an
inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement (Hume & Steinberg 1992).

7. Immanuel Kant- there is necessarily a mind that organizes the different impressions that men get from
the external world.

- without the self, one cannot organize the different impressions that one gets in relation to his
own existence.

- suggest that it is an actively engaged intelligence in man that synthesizes all knowledge and
experience.

-the self is not just what gives one his personality, it is also the seat of knowledge acquisition for
all human persons.

8. Ryle- what truly matters is the behaviour that a person manifest is his day to day life.

- the self is not an entity one can locate and analyze but simply the convenient name that
people use to refer to all the behaviours that people make.

9. Merleau-Ponty- the mind and body are so intertwined that they cannot be separated from one
another.

- one cannot find any experience that is not embodied experience.

- one’s body is his opening toward his existence to the world. Because of these bodies, men are
in the world.

-the living body, his thoughts, emotions, and experiences are all one.
 The Self from the Anthropological Perspective

 Culture

 Cultura/cultus- care or cultivation

 Personal identity- the way he/she sees himself or herself as an individual

 Collective identity- the way he/she sees himself or herself as member of a certain group.

 Identity- “who the person is” or the qualities and traits of an individual that make him/her different
from others.

• -also refers to how a person sees and expresses oneself

 Cultural Identity

 Identity or feeling of belongingness to a certain culture group.

 It is an individual’s perception about himself or herself anchored on race, gender, nationality, religion, ethnicity,
and language.

 Cultural identity theory explains why a person acts and behave the way he/she does.

 -make sense of how an individual is influenced by the cultural contects he/she is situated in.

 Nation- is a group of people built on the premise shared customs, traditions, religion,language, art, history, and
more

 National identity- the identity or feeling of belongingness to one state or nation.

 - a body of people who feel that they are a nation. –Robert Emerson, political scientist

 Material culture- such as the national flag, emblem, or seal isrepresentative of all the people who are
part of a nation.

 Non- material culture- embodies the shared understanding of a group of people which includes norms,
beliefs, and traditions.

 Self- categorization

 one must identify himself or herself with an in-group (identifying with one’s nation) and differentiate himself or
herself from the out-groups (other nations)

 Brian Morris’ Anthropology of the Self

 “self”- as an individual’s mental representation of his/her person, as kind of self representation.

 “other” in relation to the self- refers to how one perceives the mental representations of others.

 Dialogical self

 Dialogical self theory- was introduced in 1992 by Hubert Hermans.

 regarded “self” as the “society of Mind”

  He posited the idea that the self is considered as extended to significant others in the environment that
populate the self as a dynamic multiciplity of I- positions in which dialogoical or monological
relationships may emerge.

 In this theory, an individual’s sense of self is established through how one identifies himself or herself
with the different positions he/she holds, internally/externally , to himself or herself

 Internal I-position refers to how one functions in himself or herself

 External I-position refers to how one identifies himself or herself based on particular external factors.

 Ex. Internal: I as emphatic, I as diligent; external: I as brother, I as part of an organization

 The dialogic self approach calls for the need for the I-positions to come in contact with each other-to be in a
dialogue wit one another in order for an individual to become fully aware of the different dimensions that
constitute his or her self.

 Culture can be seen as the collective voices that shape the social positions of the self.

 Such positions or voices are expressions of historically situated selves that are, particularly on the interface of
different cultures, constantly involved in dialogical relationshop with other voices. (Herman, 2003)

 Individual self, Relational Self and Collective Self

 Individual self reflects the coginitions related to traits, states, and behaviors that are stored in memory ex. “I am
religious”, “ I feel cold”

 Relational self reflect cognitions that are related to one’s re;ationships (“I am the father,” I am the godfather)

 The collective self reflects cognitions that are related to one’s group (“I am an Ilocano” or “I am a Filipino)
(Zhum, Wu,Yang, & Gu, 2016)

 Identity Struggle

 Anthony Wallace & Raymund Fogelson

 It characterize the discrepancy between the identity a person claims to possess and the identity attributed to
that person by others.

 Psychological Perspective of the Self

 Theories of Personality

 Psychoanalytic Perspective

 Humanistic Perspective

 Trait Perspective

 Social Cognitive Perspective

Define each perspective and identify who is the proponent of each perpective

 Research in the library and arrange your answers in a graph form.

 Put it in a 1 whole sheet of bond paper

 Carl Rogers’ Self Theory

 - the self develop gradually during childhood wherein one differentiates the self from non-self.

 -by means of free choice and action, one can shape himself/herself based on what he/she wants to be.

 -focuses on the nature of the self and the conditions that allow the self to freely develop

 Real Self & Ideal Self

 Real self- who an individual actually is, intrinsically.

 Ideal self- is the perception of what a person would like to be or thinks he/she would be.

 Self-concept

 Self concept- the totality of complex, organized, and dynamic system of learned beliefs, attitudes, and opinions
that each person holds to be true about his/her personal experience.

 It is a social product, developing out of interpersonal relationships and stiving for consistency (Rogers, 1959)

 Aspects of Self-Concept

 The existential self- begins when an individual recognizes his or her existence as a separate entity from others
and realizes that he/she will continue to exist over a period of time and space.

 Categorical self- starts after a child recognizes his/her existence as a separate entity and becomes aware that
he/she is an object of the world.

 3 Components of the Self

 1. Self worth/ self-esteem- is what one thinks about oneself.

 2. self- image- how one sees himself or herself, which is important for good psychological health.

 Ideal self- is the person that one wants to be.

 The Psychoanalytic perspective

 Sigmund Freud

 is a psychological theory that revolves around the unconscious mind and how an individual’s childhood
experiences have shaped it.

 Trait Perspective-Hans Eysenck

 focused on temperament—innate, genetically based personality differences.

 He believed personality is largely governed by biology, and he viewed people as having two specific personality
dimensions:

 extroversion vs. introversion

 neuroticism vs. stability.

 people high on the trait of extroversion are sociable and outgoing and readily connect with others

 people high on the trait of introversion have a higher need to be alone, engage in solitary behaviors, and limit
their interactions with others.

 In the neuroticism/stability dimension, people high on neuroticism tend to be anxious; they tend to have an
overactive sympathetic nervous system and even with low stress, their bodies and emotional state tend to go
into a flight-or-fight reaction.

 people high on stability tend to need more stimulation to activate their flight-or-fight reaction and are therefore
considered more emotionally stable.

 people who are high on psychoticism tend to be independent thinkers, cold, nonconformist, impulsive,
antisocial, and hostile.

 People who are high on socialization (often referred to as superego control) tend to have high impulse control—
they are more altruistic, empathetic, cooperative, and conventional.

 “An Agentic Perspective on Positive Psychology”

 According to Bandura, self-efficacy is not a trait that some have and others do not. Instead, it is the ability to
exercise and strengthen one’s self-efficacy, regardless of their past or current environment.

 Views the self as a person and not as a distinct entity responsible for bearing information and regulating
behavior.

 Human agency

 -it is the capability of an individual to exert influence over the course of hi/her actions.

 Four core properties of human agency

 1. intentionality

 2. forethought

 3. self- reactiveness

 4. self reflection

 Intentionality- is manifested in how an individual forms intentions with action plans and strategies to realize
them.

 Forethought- refers to how an individual positions his/her plans in the future.

 Self-reactiveness- shows that agents are not only planners and forethinkers but also self-regulators.

 Self-reflection- signifies that people are capable of self- examining their own functioning.