PHILOSOPHICAL

PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF

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Socrates
● Greek philosopher
● Born c. 470 BCE, Athens [Greece]
● Died 399 BCE, Athens

Quick facts:
● Had three sons
● Worked as a mason
● Served in armored infantry

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Socrates
● Socrates never wrote anything
● His life is chronicled through second-hand
information from the writings of;
○ Plato- his student
○ Xenophon- a historian

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Socrates
● Socratic Method- testing an idea by asking a series of questions to;
○ Determine the underlying beliefs
○ The extent of knowledge
● Because of this, he was described to have gone about in Athens
questioning everyday views and popular Athenian beliefs.
● Apparently offended the leaders in his time
● Accused of impiety for the gods and for corrupting the minds of the
youth

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Socrates
● At 70 years old, he was sentenced to death by drinking
a cup of poison hemlock (poisonous herb)
Quick facts;
● Before his execution, friends offered to bribe the
guards and rescue him
● He declined, stating he wasn't afraid of death and said
he was still a loyal citizen of Athens, willing to abide by
its laws, even the ones that condemned him to death.

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Socrates
● Some of Socrates’ ideas were;

○ The soul is immortal

○ The care of the soul is the task of philosophy

○ Virtue is necessary to attain happiness

● Philosophy had a very important role to play in the lives of the people

● Most quoted phrase “The unexamined life is not worth living”

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Socrates
● Self-knowledge or examination of one’s
self are very important concerns because;
Only by knowing yourself can you hope to
improve your life
● It would open your eyes to your true nature
● The state of your inner being (soul/self)
determines the quality of your life

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Socrates
● Two kinds of existence;
○ Visible existence-changes, the body
○ Invisible existence- remains constant, invisible yet sense and
understood by the minds
● Socratic Dialogue; “When the soul and body are together nature assigns
our body to be a slave and to be ruled and the soul to be ruler and master”
○ The body is a reluctant slave and the soul gets dragged towards
what’s always changing

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 Socrates
● The goal of life is to be happy
● Virtuous man is a happy man
● Virtue, a supreme good that will secure one’s happiness
○ defined as moral excellence
● Even death is a trivial matter for the truly virtuous; one realized
the most important thing is the soul and the acts taken from
taking care of it through self-knowledge

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Guess who?

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Plato
● Greek philosopher
● Born 424/423 BCE, Athens, Greece
● Died 348/347 BCE, Athens

● Student of Socrates
● Wrote the Socratic dialogue
○ Socrates as the main character
and speaker

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Plato
● Philosophical method, “collection and division”
○ Collection- the philosopher would collect all the generic ideas
having common characteristics then;
○ Division- divide them into different kinds until the subdivision
ideas became specific
● Theory of forms, the physical world is not the real world—the
ultimate reality exist beyond the physical world

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Plato
● The soul is the most divine aspect of human being
● The soul/self/mind is the aspect of human being
● Three parts of soul;
○ The appetitive (sensual)- element that enjoys sensual experiences
○ The rational (reasoning)- element that forbids the person to enjoy
the sensual experiences, rules over through the use of reason
○ The spirited (feeling)- element that is inclined towards reason but
understands the demands of passion

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St. Augustine
● Saint Augustine of Hippo
● Born on November 13, 354
● Died on August 28, 430

● One of the Latin Fathers and Doctors

of the Church
● One of the Significant Christian
thinkers

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St. Augustine
● Deeply influenced by Plato’s ideas
● Christian perspective of the Theory of Forms, these forms were
concepts existing between the perfect and eternal God where the
soul belonged
● The self was an inner, intangible “I” having self-knowledge and
self-awareness
● Human being as both the soul and the body

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St. Augustine
● The immaterial but intelligible God would only be clear to the minds of
those who tunes into his/her intangible self or soul
● Aspects of self/soul;
○ Able to be aware of itself
○ Recognizes itself as holistic one
○ Aware of its unity

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St. Augustine
● Everything related to the physical world
belongs to the physical body;
○ if one concerns oneself to the physical
world, then one will not be any different
from animals

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Rene Descartes
● French philosopher, mathematician &
scientist
● Born on March 31, 1596
● Died on February 11, 1650

● Father of modern Western philosophy

● Emphasized the use of reason and
connect it to the natural phenomenon

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Rene Descartes
● Doubt as a principal tool of disciplined inquiry
● Hyperbolical/metaphysical doubt or methodological skepticism- a
systematic process of being skeptical about the truth
● Human senses could be fooled
● One thing is for sure in this world, that is everything could be doubted

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Rene Descartes
● Claims about the “self”:
○ Constant, not prone to change, not
affected by time
○ Only the immaterial soul remains the
same throughout the time
○ The immaterial soul is the source of
our identity

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Rene Descartes
● Despite the body-soul union, the soul is still distinct from the body

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John Locke
● Was a Philosopher and a Physician.

● One of the most influential

Enlightenment thinkers.

● He was commonly known as the

father of liberalism.

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 John Locke
● Locke believed that the self is identified with consciousness and this “self”
consists of memory, that the person existing now is the same person
yesterday.

● A person’s memories provide a continuity of experience that allows

him/her to identify himself/herself as the same person over time.

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 John Locke
● To Locke since the person is the same “self” in the passing of time, he/she
can be held accountable for past behaviors, however if that person could
only be held accountable for behaviors he/she can remember.

● Punishing someone for actions that were not remembered by him/her is

equivalent to punishing someone for actions that they didn’t make

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David Hume
● Was a Scottish Philosopher,
economist and historian during the
age of enlightenment.

● He was a fierce opponent of

Descartes’ Rationalism

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David Hume
● Rationalism -is a theory based on the claim that reason is the source of
knowledge.

● Empiricism - is a theory based on the claim that experience is the source

of knowledge.

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David Hume
Bundle Theory

● Wherein he describe the self as a bundle or collection of perceptions that

are moving very fast and successive manner.

● Hume divided the mind’s perceptions into two groups stating that the
difference between the two “Consists in the degrees of force and
liveliness with which they strike upon the mind. “

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David Hume
● Impressions - These are the perceptions that are the most strong. They
enter the senses with force. these are directly experienced.

● Ideas - These are the less forcible and less lively counterparts of
impressions. These are mechanism that copy and reproduce sense data
formulated based upon the previously perceived impressions.

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David Hume
● He believed there is no logical justification for the existence of anything other than what
your senses experienced.

● According to Hume is not just one impression but a mix impression and a loose cohesion
of various experience. He insisted that there is no constant impression that endures
throughout life.

● Hume’s “self” is a passive observer similar to watching one’s life pass before the eyes
like a play or on a screen ; whereby the total annihilation of the self comes at death.

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Immanuel Kant
● Is a German Philosopher and a central
figure for Enlightenment thinkers.

● Has contributed to metaphysics,

epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics.

● One of the most influential figures in

modern Western philosophy.

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Immanuel Kant
● Kant's view of the "self" is transcendental, which means the "self" is
related to a spiritual or non-physical realm.

● The "self" is not in the body, but the body and it's qualities are rooted to
the "self", and it is knowledge that bridges the "self" and the material
things all together.

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Immanuel Kant
Two kinds of consciousness of self (Rationality):

● Consciousness of oneself and one’s psychological states in inner sense.

● Consciousness of oneself and one’s states by performing acts on

apperception.

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Immanuel Kant
● Apperception - is the mental process by which a person makes sense of
an idea by assimilating it to the body of ideas he or she already
possesses.

● Kant insisted that you perceive the outside world because there is
already an idea residing within you.

“Bodies are objects of outer sense; souls are objects of inner sense”

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Immanuel Kant
Two components of the “self”

● Inner Self - You are aware of alterations in your own state. This includes
your rational intellect and your psychological state, such as moods,
feelings, and sensations, like pleasure and pain.

● Outer Self - It gathers information from the external world through the
senses, which the inner self interprets and coherently expresses.

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Immanuel Kant
Kant proposed that the self organizes information in three ways:

● Raw perceptual input

● Recognizing the concept

● Reproducing in the imagination

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 Sigmund Freud
● Philosopher, physiologist and a
psychologist, he was one of the most
influential thinkers of the 20th century.

● His most important contribution was in

psychology and it was psychoanalysis, a
practice devised to treat those who are
mentally ill through dialogue.

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 Sigmund Freud
Psychoanalytic Theory

● A repository for traumatic repressed memories

● The source of anxiety-provoking drives that is socially or ethically

unacceptable

● Base on the notion that an individual gets motivated by unseen forces, is

controlled by the conscious and the rational thought.

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Sigmund Freud
Three Levels of consciousness:
● Conscious - which deals with awareness of present perceptions, feelings,
thoughts, and fantasies at any particular moment.

● Pre Conscious - which is related to data that can readily be brought to

consciousness.

● Unconscious -which refers to data retained but not easily available to the
individual’s conscious awareness scrutiny.

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Sigmund Freud

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Sigmund Freud
ID
● It operates on the pleasure principle, every wishful impulse should be
satisfied immediately regardless of the consequences.

● When the Id achieves its demands, you experience pleasure; when it is

denied you feel unpleasure or tension.

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Sigmund Freud
Ego
● It operates according to the reality principle. It works out realistic ways of
satisfying the id’s demand.

● Often compromising or postponing satisfaction to avoid negatives

consequences of society.

● The ego considers social realities and norms etiquette and rules in
deciding how to behave.

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Sigmund Freud
Superego
● It incorporates the values and moral of society. The superego’s function is
to control the id’s impulses.

● It persuades the ego to choose moralistic goals and to strive perfection

rather than simply realistic ones.

● The superego consists of two systems

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Sigmund Freud
Superego
● Conscience - If the ego gives in to the id’s demands. the superego may
make the person feel bad through guilt.

● Ideal Self - It is an imaginary picture of how you ought to be. It represents

career aspirations; how to treat other people; and how to behave as
member of society.

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Gilbert Ryle
● British philosopher
● Born on August 19 1900
● Died on October 6 1976

● He wrote “The concept of Mind

(1949)
● Called the distinction between mind
and matter a “category mistake”

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Gilbert Ryle
● Analyzed the relation between “mind” and “body” as if the two
were terms of the same categories.
● His points against descartes theory are;
○ The relation between mind and body are not isolated processes
○ Mental processes are intelligent acts, and are not distinct from
each other
○ the operation of the mind is itself an intelligent act

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Gilbert Ryle

● The rationalist view that mental acts are distinct from physical acts
and that there is a mental world distinct from the physical world is
a “misconception”
● criticized the theory that the mind is a place where mental images
are apprehended, perceived, or remembered.
● asserted that sensations, thoughts and feelings do not belong to a
mental world separate from the physical world

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Gilbert Ryle
● asserted that self is from our behaviors and actions.
● your actions define your own concept of “self”

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Paul Churchland
● Canadian philosopher
● Born on october 21 1942
● studies in neurophilosophy and the
philosophy of mind

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Paul Churchland
● His philosophy stands on a materialistic view or the belief that
nothing but matter exists
● If something can be seen, felt, heard, touched, or tasted, then it
exists.
● the immaterial, unchanging soul/self does not exist because it
cannot be experienced by the senses

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Paul Churchland
● His idea is called “eliminative materialism” or the claim that
people’s common-sense understanding of the mind is false
● certain classes of mental states which most people believe in
do not exist.
● He pointed out that in mental conditions, such as depression,
it is technically wrong to say that the person is “out of his
mind”

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Paul Churchland
● Brain activity and even brain shape, appears to be associated
with severe mood disorders
● In severe head injury, the victim’s personality changes occur
● if the mind were a separate entity, then the victim should have
retained his/her personality despite the damage to the brain

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Paul Churchland
● The sense of “self”
originated from the brain
itself, and that this “self” is
a product of electrochemical
signals produced by the
brain.

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Maurice Merleau-Ponty
● French phenomenological
philosopher
● Born on march 14 1908
● Died on May 3 1961
● Emphasizes the body as the primary
site of knowing the world

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Maurice Merleau-Ponty
● “self” is an embodied subjectivity
● rejected the cartesian mind-body dualism and insisted that the mind
and body are intrinsically connected
● center of consciousness is the mind
● human beings are embodied subjectives and that the understanding the
“self” should begin from this fundamental act.

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Maurice Merleau-Ponty
● the body is not a mere “house” where the mind resides
● through the lived experience of the body that you perceive are informed
and interact with the world
● the body is part of the mind, and the mind is part of the body
● the body acts what the mind perceives as a unified one.

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Maurice Merleau-Ponty

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That’s all, Thankyou!

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