UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

Ronald ‘Gorby’ T. Resuello

Dorothy M. Agnis
Lecturers
INTRODUCTION
 Who or what are you named after?
 Our names represent us, who we are.
 Our names signify us.
 People attach names that are meaningful.
 System of naming. Is there such a thing?
 Different cultures have different system of
naming.
ACTIVITY #1
 Student will say his name and explain the
reason for getting his name.

THE SELF FROM VARIOUS
PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES
• Socrates
• Plato
• St. Augustine
• St. Thomas Aquinas
• Rene Descartes
• David Hume
• Immanuel Kant
• Gilbert Ryle
• Merleau-Ponty
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY
 The term Philosophy was first introduced by
Pythagoras (who, together with Parmenides
and Zeno, is an Italian by birth. But because
Italy became part of the Greek colonial
periphery, these pundits, by virtue of political
affinity, became Greeks themselves).
 Based on the lingo of Pythagorian

nomenclature, philosophy is originally

philosophia.
 Etimologically, it is derived from two Greek

words philia “Love” or “friendship” and

 sophia “wisdom”
 Literally Philosophy means love of wisdom
 Love is an urge, or a drive of the will towards
a particular object.
 As a drive, love always seeks unity with its

object and desires to possess its object.

 Wisdom means the good exercise or

application of knowledge.
 Thus, wisdom cannot be dissociated
from knowledge.
 Truth is considered as ultimate object of
knowledge.
 (Babor, 2007)
THE PURPOSE OF PHILOSOPHY
IT BENEFITS US IN THE FOLLOWING
WAYS
 1. Philosophy enables us to understand
ourselves better;
 2. Philosophy helps us understand others, our

fellowmen;
 3. Philosophy helps us understand the world

and our place and role in it;

 4. Philosophy helps us understand the

significance, meaning, value, and finality of

human life; and
 5. Philosophy helps us know and understand

God in his nature, essence, activities, and

attributes.
SOCRATES (ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHER)
“FATHER OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY.”

• Was more concerned with

the problem of the self.
• First philosopher who
engaged in a systematic
questioning about the self.
• Affirms that “the
unexamined life is not
worth living”.
• The worst thing that can
happen to a person is “to
live but die inside.” (470-399 BC)
PLATO ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHER OF
EXTRAORDINARY SIGNIFICANCE IN
THE HISTORY OF IDEAS.

 Man is a dual nature of

body and soul.
 Three components of the

soul: (Republic)
1. Rational soul
2. Spirited soul
3. Appetitive soul

(428-348 BC)
ST. AUGUSTINE (EARLY CHRISTIAN
PHILOSOPHER)

• Infused Socratic view

with doctrine of
Christianity.
• Man is a bifurcated
nature.
• The goal of every
human person is to
attain communion and
bliss with the Divine by (354-430 BC)
living his life on earth in
virtue.
 He saw the human being as a perfect unity of
two substances:
soul and body
 The soul is superior to the body.
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
(ITALIAN PHILOSOPHER)
 Man is composed of two
parts: Matter and Form
 Matter (hyle)
Common stuff that
makes up
everything
 Form (morphe)
The essence of a
substance of thing
(1225-1274
BC)
The things that we love tell
us what we are.
RENE DESCARTES
(FRENCH PHILOSOPHER)
• Father of Modern Philosophy
– Human person as having body and a mind.
• The Meditations of First Philosophy (claims
that there is so much that we should doubt)
• The only thing that one cannot doubt is the
existence of self. (Cogito ergo sum)
DESCARTES
 Self is a combination of two distinct
entities:
 The cogito (thing that thinks)
 Extenza (extension of the mind)
 Body is nothing else but a machine that is
attached to the mind.
 He concluded that, if he doubted, then

something or someone must be doing

the doubting, therefore the very fact
that he doubted proved his existence.
DAVID HUME (SCOTTISH
PHILOSOPHER)
 The self is not an entity over and beyond the
physical body.
 Empiricism: knowledge can only be possible

if it is sensed and experienced.

 Self is a bundle of impressions and ideas.

 “There is no such things as freedom of choice

 Unless there is freedom to refuse”

IMMANUEL KANT (GERMAN
PHILOSOPHER)
 Describes the apparatus of the mind.
 Self is an actively engaged intelligence in man

that synthesizes all knowledge and experience.

 “It is beyond doubt that all our knowledge

begins with experience”

GILBERT RYLE (BRITISH
PHILOSOPHER)
• Behaviors that a person manifests in his day-to-
day life.
• Self is not an entity one can locate and analyze
but simply the convenient name that people use to
refer to all the behaviors that people make.
• “I act, therefore, I am.”
• The mind is not the seat of self but the behavior.
MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY
(FRENCH PHENOMENOLOGICAL
PHILOSOPHER)
• Mind and body are intertwined that they cannot
be separated from one another.
• All experience is embodied.

• The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and

experiences are all one.
 Consciousness, the world, and the human body

as a perceiving thing are intricately intertwined

and mutually “engaged.”
 The world and the sense of self are emergent

phenomena in an ongoing “becoming.”

 THANK YOU!!!

 DANKE

 MERCI BEAUCOUP

 СПАСИБО (SPASIBO)

GRAZIE MILLE