Pantoja, Ariel S.

1-Y2-12
BsNursing

PHILOSOPHER Summary on the Concept of “Self”

Socrates (Greek) - When we turn our gaze inward in search of self

knowledge, Socrates thought we would soon
discover our true nature. And contrary to the
opinion of the masses, one's true self, according to
Socrates, is not to be identified with what we own,
with our social status, our reputation, or even with
our body.

Plato (Greek) - Plato argues that the soul is really an entity

distinct from the body. Indeed, for Plato, the soul is
the self. As we can see, the body and the soul can
be separated. According to Plato, the soul,
conceived of as self, has three parts, namely, 1) the
rational soul, 2) the spiritual soul, and 3) the
appetitive soul.

St. Augustine (Numidia) - Augustine's sense of self is his relation to God,

both in his recognition of God's love and his
response to it achieved through self-presentation,
then self-realization. Augustine believed one could
not achieve inner peace without finding God's love.

Rene Descartes (French) - Descartes believed the mind is the seat of our
consciousness. Because it houses our drives,
intellect, and passions, it gives us our identity and
our sense of self. He also believed that the idea of
a mind controlling the body is as erroneous as the
idea of ghosts controlling machines.-
John Locke (English) - John Locke holds that personal identity is a matter
of psychological continuity. He considered personal
identity (or the self) to be founded on
consciousness (viz. memory), and not on the
substance of either the soul or the body.

David Hume (Scott) - Hume suggests that the self is just a bundle of
perceptions, like links in a chain. Hume argues that
our concept of the self is a result of our natural
habit of attributing unified existence to any
collection of associated parts. This belief is natural,
but there is no logical support for it.

Immanuel Kant (German) - According to Kant, both of these theories are

incomplete when it comes to the self. According to
him, we all have an inner and an outer self which
together form our consciousness. The inner self
consists of our psychological state and our rational
intellect. The outer self includes our sense and the
physical world.

Sigmund Freud (Prussian) - Freud's view of the self was multitiered, divided
among the conscious, preconscious, and
unconscious. And though the conscious self has an
important role to play in our lives, it is the
unconscious self that holds the greatest fascination
for Freud, and which has the dominant influence in
our personalities.

Gilbert Ryle (British) - Gilbert Ryle authored The Concept of Mind. He

also followed ordinary language philosophy. ...
Arguing that the mind does not exist and therefore
can't be the seat of self, Ryle believed that self
comes from behavior. We're all just a bundle of
behaviors caused by the physical workings of the
body.
Paul Churchland (Canadian) - Churchland holds to materialism, the belief that
nothing but matter exists. When discussing the
mind, this means that the physical brain, and not
the mind, exists. Adding to this, the physical brain is
where we get our sense of self.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (French) - Maurice Merleau-Ponty believed the physical

body to be an important part of what makes up the
subjective self. This concept stands in contradiction
to rationalism and empiricism. This work asserts
that self and perception are encompassed in a
physical body. The physical body is part of self.