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Lesson 1 The Philosophy of The Self
Lesson 1 The Philosophy of The Self
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LEARNING OUTCOMES:
At the end of the course, the students will be able to:
1. Discuss the different representations and conceptualizations
of the self according to various disciplinal perspectives.
2. Compare and contrast how the self has been represented
across different disciplines and perspectives.
3. Examine the different influences, factors and forces that
shape the self.
4. Demonstrate critical and reflective thought in analyzing the
development of one’s self and identity by developing a theory
of the self.
Understanding the Self Unit 1: The Self from Various Disciplinal Perspectives
LESSON 1
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SELF
Lesson Objectives:
a. Define the Self based on the philosophical perspective.
b. Recognize the similarities and differences of self conceptualizations according to the point of
view of philosophy.
c. Evaluate one’s concept of the ‘self’ as compared to its philosophical perspectives.
ACTIVATE
Pretend that you are a fresh graduate ready to enter the
real world of the labor force. While looking at the Classified Ads,
you came across the advertisement of your dream company, hiring
a qualified candidate who can genuinely take the role and contribute
to the advancement of the company. Then, you sent your resume
for evaluation and surprisingly, you got a phone call from the HR Department asking
you to come in for an interview. How are you going to sell yourself to get hired?
What characteristics about yourself are you going to say to the Interviewer? Write as
many descriptions as you can to define yourself. Use the space provided below and
answer the questions that follow.
1. How do you feel about choosing the best descriptions about yourself?
Understanding the Self Unit 1: The Self from Various Disciplinal Perspectives
EMPOWER
People say that the secret to success is to “know yourself”. Do you
agree? Have you ever asked yourself the question, “Do I really know
myself?” Some of you may have found the activity on the previous page
quite easy, but surely, many of you found it tough to look for the finest
words to describe yourself. Some of you may have encountered instances
wherein you underestimate yourself either because you are afraid to get embarrassed or you have
absolutely no idea of what you are capable of doing. Why do you think this happens?? The answer is
simple: because you do not truly know yourself.
Indeed, it is necessary to know yourself. But how do you go about it, right? This lesson
explores the philosophies of the self, which breaks into several key theories about human existence
that have been a heated debate throughout history and are still being argued about up until now.
In an effort to answer the countless inquiries about the self, the greatest thinkers, known as the
philosophers, have immersed themselves in search for knowledge about the nature of being human.
Questions like, “What does it mean to be a person?” or “Who am I?” or “Do I really matter?” or
“How do I know that I will continue to be me in the future?” have engaged key thinkers to address
these matters of existence to help us understand the different views about the self.
Understanding the Self Unit 1: The Self from Various Disciplinal Perspectives
preserve our souls for the afterlife, we must be fully aware of who we are and the virtues
that come with its attainment.
He also believed that an individual’s personhood is composed of the body and soul. The soul, for
him, is immortal. For this reason, he insisted that death is not the end of existence. Rather, it is
simply the separation of the soul from the body.
Socrates also raised the point that just because something seems true does not mean it is true
(Rowe, 2007). He further noted that, in reality, many people believe things that are not true.
Hence, Socrates made a distinction between knowledge and belief. The former being always and
universally true while the latter is only true in certain circumstances.
What made Socrates a menace was the fact that even matters of faith fall short of his
standard of truth since every religion in the world is full of contradictions. By undermining religion,
Socrates is essentially questioning the foundation of his society. So the Athenians made the worst
decision they could have made—they took him and turned him into a martyr (Anagnostopoulos, 2006).
In his dialogue, “The Republic” (Santas, 2010), Plato argued that the human soul or the
psyche is divided into three parts labelled as appetitive, spirited, and rational. For justice in the
human person to be attained, these parts of the soul should be in tune with one another.
Imagine this, there are three things in front of you: a moist, warm piece of chocolate cake, a
slice of your self-baked but half-burnt pie, and your favorite fruit. Which one would you end up
selecting to eat?
Plato’s theory tells us that if we are left with our own instincts to decide what is good for us,
then we are most likely to choose based on our desires (appetitive soul) to satisfy our needs in ways
that are easier and more likeable for all of us. We are also likely to choose based on our mood or
emotions (spirited soul) that have to be kept in control at all times to prevent causing us problems.
Lastly, we also choose based on logic and intellect (rational soul), choosing the healthy one for us.
When these three work in with each other, then the tendency to be enslaved by our own false
opinions is lesser and the human soul becomes just and virtuous through our capability of making
rational decisions, capable of breaking free of opinions, scrutinizing misleading sensory perceptions
and discovering true knowledge (Shoefield, 2006).
Understanding the Self Unit 1: The Self from Various Disciplinal Perspectives
Like Plato, he also asserted that the soul is immortal. However,
he believed that the soul AND the body make up a human. He does
not believe that the soul jumps from one body to another. Instead,
one person is made up of one body and one soul.
Augustine’s view of the human person states that the body is
that imperfect aspect of man that is bound to perish on earth,
which incessantly longs to be in communion with the spiritual realm
of the Divine God. The soul, on the other hand, is “capable of
reaching immortality by staying after death in an eternal realm with
the all-transcendent God (Mennel, 1994). The purpose, therefore, of
every human person is to attain this spiritual union with God by living
his life according to virtues.
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Understanding the Self Unit 1: The Self from Various Disciplinal Perspectives
He further believed that the mind is the seat of our consciousness. Because it houses our
drives, intellect, passion and understanding, it gives us our identity and our sense of self. In short,
all that we really are comes from the mind. As Descartes puts it, “I think, therefore I am” (“ Cogito,
ergo, sum” in Latin). He argued that the only thing that cannot be doubted is the existence of the
self, as man himself was the one doing the doubting in the first place. One thing should be clear
by now, we exist, because we think; we think therefore we exist. In the Second Meditation, he
explored on the idea that he is “nothing but a thinking thing that doubts, understands, affirms,
denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions” (Skirry, 2005; Flage &
Bonnen, 2014).
identity is not defined by our physical being. Whether we grow taller, 767PH767&source=ln ms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwisuIyer9X aAh-
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lose hair, go blind or get a face lift, our memories are still the same. Therefore, Locke simply tells
us that our memories give us our identity (Ayers, 1993).
Understanding the Self Unit 1: The Self from Various Disciplinal Perspectives
impressions together and makes sense of them as ’me.’
To Hume, the idea of the self that we make is a bunch of physical impressions. He argued in
his bundle theory, the assertion that the properties we can sense are the only real parts of an
object (Larsen & Buss, 2013). If an orange fruit is round and orange in color, the theory holds that if
we remove all the properties of an orange, the idea of the orange vanishes and we are left with
nothing. In the same manner, Hume emphasized that if a human is stripped off of all his/her
physical properties, the idea of the human also disappears. Therefore, our sense of self is simply a
combination of all the impressions that we have, that, once removed, leave us with a complete lack
of self.
Understanding the Self Unit 1: The Self from Various Disciplinal Perspectives
Conversely, rationalists who cancel out representation miss by just as much. It is through these
that Kant believed that the inner and outer self combine to give us our consciousness instead of
self being one or the other.
teachers, students, and dorms, she looked at the tour guide and
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sweetly asked, ‘This is all nice, but when do I get to see the university?'
With this question, the girl committed a category mistake. Rather than realizing everything she saw
made up the university, she thought it existed as a separate category.”
To Ryle, the idea that “there is something called ‘mind’ over and above a person’s behavioral
dispositions” is questionable. He argued that the mind does not exist and therefore cannot be the
seat of self. In other words, we neither get our sense of self from the mind nor from the body,
but from our behaviors in our day-to-day activities.
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To prove this, Churchland points out that if the mind is the seat of
the self, how can personalities be altered by physical injuries or brain trauma? Using this
argument, he claims that the physical brain is the origin of the ‘self’ and that the belief in the mind
is rather unnecessary.
Understanding the Self Unit 1: The Self from Various Disciplinal Perspectives
-
Maurice Merleau-Ponty believed the physical body to be an
important part of what makes up the subjective self (Carbone,
2004).
Subjectivity, or subject is something that has being (Zahavi,
2005; Clark, 1997). It is defined as a real thing that can take real
action and cause real effects. In short, it exists. However, he ar-
gued that this concept contradicts with rationalism and empiri-
cism.
Rationalism asserts that reason and mental perception, rather
than physical senses and experience, are the basis of knowledge
and self (Alloa, 2017). Merleau-Ponty believed that the mind is the
seat of our consciousness (Barbaras, 2014). The body is just a shell
and it is the subject behind what it means to be human. On the
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other hand, empiricism is the belief that our physical senses are
our only source of knowledge. If the source of knowledge cannot be seen, touched, heard, tasted,
etc., it really cannot be trusted. While the rationalists would say, ‘I think, therefore I am,” Empiri-
cists would say, “I sense, therefore I am!.”
Merleau-Ponty disagreed with these concepts. Rather than seeing and perceiving the mind and
the body as two separate entities, Merleau-Ponty argued that they are interconnected. They both
are our seat of knowledge, and they both give us our sense of self. Like love and marriage, you
cannot have one without the other! In other words, the self and perception are encompassed in a
physical body. The physical body is part of the self — the body is not a prison house of self, rather,
it is the subject that embodies self.
.
Understanding the Self Unit 1: The Self from Various Disciplinal Perspectives