My Own Philosophical Perspective of the Self

“Self is not defined by the existence of body and soul, rather, it is defined by the presence
of self-consciousness.”
The body is a known component of the self that defines one’s personal identity.
However, there are two problems that can be encountered with this concept since we all
know that body is not a permanent aspect in our lives. First, body continuously undergo
changes overtime, at one point it will develop and on the other hand it can deteriorate.
This can be observed in the life cycle of a person, wherein we undergo transition from
childhood until we reach the old age. With this, we are unsure if we were to compare our
60-year-old selves from our 6-year-old self if it would still be the same. Another problem
is, if a person undergoes body alteration such as amputated body parts, will he/she still
be the same person? Or will they be living totally different lives. That is why self cannot
be defined by the existence of the body.
Meanwhile, the soul is defined as a spirit of a person that passes through one’s
body into another dimension such as heaven or hell. However, this still remains as a
mysterious concept since there are still no proof that can prove its existence. In addition,
the concept of the soul is related to religion, and not all people believe in afterlife.
Therefore, the soul is insufficient in defining the self.
That is why self can only be defined by the presence of self-consciousness. The
reason behind this is that the body and soul will be meaningless if an individual is not
conscious of his self, his actions and everything around him. Our consciousness
undergoes various stages, we start from having a blank state of mind, then as we grow
older, we gain consciousness through the experiences we encounter. However, the
problem is that we do not have the ability to remember every single experience in our life
consciously. But in this philosophical perspective, the definition of our self will remain
unchanged even if we are unable to remember what we have done years or months ago.
Because, not remembering doesn’t mean we are not conscious during that time, it
is only that there is a limit to what can be held in conscious focal awareness. Wherein, an
alternative storehouse of one’s prior experience is needed, which is now the
subconscious. We can take the river as a metaphor. If you see a river flowing every day,
you will not be looking at the same part of the river (experiences), you are conscious while
witnessing the river flow, but as time passes by new consciousness will be added, so
there is already a need to store the prior consciousness in our subconscious to free up
space in our minds. Hence, doing so will not change the way we see the river (the
meaning of our self).
My Own Sociological Perspective of the Self
“Self-conception have two versions either a person views himself as an independent
entity “Me” or an interdependent entity “We”.
In my philosophy, there are two versions of thinking that helps us in our self-
construction process or how we think of ourselves. The first version of thinking is, some
individual will always tend to consider him or herself as an independent entity or what we
call the” Me”. “Me” space is all about doing things my way, “getting what’s owed to me”;
getting or taking credit to become acknowledged, protecting what’s ours, and making sure
our hands are on everything. We don’t want to depend on others, because we’ve got this,
and we don’t have the faith they will. Maybe we’ve been let down in the past so we only
trust ourselves. In this version, an individual is focused on his or her own needs and
desires.

Another way of thinking is to consider yourself as an interdependent entity. In a

“we” space, our self is focused on how we fit within a group of people. It is more about
“us” and the community. In this version, a person disregards his independent identity,
because he or she have already developed feelings of safety, connection, belonging, and
acceptance. This s where we thrive as human beings, we thrive when we know we’re
loved and cared for and when we put our trust in others. In a “we” environment, we are
no longer in control of everything. We allow more flow rather than insertion of our own
personal thoughts and ideas. Here, we no longer feel like we have things “taken away
from us,” because they don’t belong to us for, we are already a part of a larger whole.
The concept of our self of either being a “Me” or a “We” is influenced by external
factors in our society such as the culture in a particular society or the practices and beliefs
of the basic social institutions present.