MIDTERM

GE 101
UNDERSTANDING
THE SELF
CHAPTER 1
DEFINING THE SELF:
PERSONAL
DEVELOPMENTAL
PERSPECTIVES ON SELF
AND IDENTITY
 LESSON 1
THE SELF
FROM
VARIOUS
PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES
SIR RUEL D. TORRES
Instructor I

A.Y. 2022-2023
 Lesson Objectives:
• Explain why is it essential to understand the self;
• Describe and discuss the different notions of the self from the points-of-
view of the various philosophers across time and place;
• Compare and contrast how the self has been represented in different
philosophical schools; and
• Examine one’s self against the different views of self that were discussed in
class.
 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?

Finding answers to serious

questions about ourselves and
about the world we live in.
 Philosophy derived from
the Greek words “PHILO”
means “LOVE” and “SOPHIA”
means “WISDOM” To translate
it, “LOVE OF WISDOM”
Philosophy was
first used by
PHYTHAGORAS.
 ORIGIN OF PHILOSOPHY:

❖ Search of truth
❖ Search to look for something
❖ Search for meaning
 In studying Philosophy, we will understand:

❖What is morally right and wrong? and why?

❖Does God exist?
❖What is good life?
❖ Do we know anything at all?
What will you get out of philosophy?
The skills are:
❖Critical thinking
❖Communication
❖Argument skills
❖Reasoning
❖Analysis
❖Problem Solving
 Philosophy will allow you to:
❖Justify your opinion.
❖Spot a bad argument, no matter what
topic is.
❖Explain to people why they are wrong
and you are right.
 The point of philosophy
is questioning existing
knowledge and
intuitions to get closer to
the truth.
Philosophy ask a
lot of
QUESTIONS.
Philosophy basically
teaches you to
THINK.
 GREEKS
❖Earliest thinkers in the history of philosophy
❖The ones who seriously questioned myths and
moved away from them in attempting to
understand reality and respond to perennial
questions of curiosity, including the question
of the self.
PHILOSOPHERS
FROM THE
ANCIENT TIMES
“KNOW THYSELF”
or “KNOWING
YOURSELF”

SOCRATES
 SOCRATES
• First philosopher who ever engaged in a systematic questioning about the
self.
• The true task of the philosopher is to know oneself.
• “Unexamined life is not worth living.”
• Every man is composed of body and soul (human person is dualistic). Body
is imperfect and impermanent while soul is perfect and permanent.
•
SOCRATES
The person can be have a meaning
and happy life only if he become
virtuous and knows the value of
himself that can be achieved through
constant soul-searching.
“THE SOUL IS
IMMORTAL”

PLATO
 PLATO
• claimed that philosophy of the self can be explained as a
process of self-knowledge and purification of the soul.
• Socrates’s student supported the idea that man is a dual
nature of body and soul.
• he believed in the existence of the mind and soul.
• he said that mind and soul are given in the perfection with
God.
 PLATO
THE THREE COMPONENTS OF THE SOUL
1. RATIONAL SOUL
❖ forged by reason and intellect has to govern the affairs of
the human person
❖ divine essence that enables to think deeply, make wise
choices, and achieve a true understanding of eternal truths.
 PLATO
THE THREE COMPONENTS OF THE SOUL
1. RATIONAL SOUL
❖ basically, “thinking soul” or “intellectual soul”
 PLATO
THE THREE COMPONENTS OF THE SOUL
1. SPIRITED SOUL
❖ charge of emotion and passion
❖ basically emotions such as love, anger, ambition,
empathy, and aggressiveness.
 PLATO
THE THREE COMPONENTS OF THE SOUL
1. APPETITIVE SOUL
❖ charge of base desires like eating, drinking,
sleeping, and having sex are controlled as well.
 PLATO
❖ These 3 elements of ourselves are in a dynamic
relationship with one another, sometimes in conflict.
❖ When conflict occurs, Plato believes that it is the
responsibility of the rational soul to sort things out and
exert control, restoring a harmonizing relationship among
the three elements of ourselves.
 PLATO
❖ Plato believes that genuine happiness can be only
achieved by people who consistently make sure that their
rational is in control of the spirits and appetites.
❖ Plato emphasizes that justice in the human can only be
attained if the three parts of the soul are working
harmoniously with one another.
 PHILOSOPHERS
FROM THE
CONTEMPORARY
PERIOD
“I AM DOUBTING
THEREFORE
I AM ”

AUGUSTINE
AUGUSTINE
• Agreed that man is of a bifurcated nature.
• An aspect of man dwells in the world and is imperfect and
continuously yearns to be with the Divine (body) and the other
is capable of reaching immortality (soul).
• The goal of every human person is to attain this communion and
bliss with
the Divine by living his life on earth in virtue.
AUGUSTINE
• integrated the ideas of Plato and Christianity.
• Augustine’s view of the human person reflects the entire spirit of
the medieval world.
• The soul is united with the body so that man may be entire and
complete.
• He believed human kind is created in the image and likeness of
God.
AUGUSTINE
• TO UNDERSTAND THE PERSPECTIVE OF ST.
AUGUSTINE:

•“KNOWING GOD IS
EQUAL TO KNOWING
OURSELVES.”
AUGUSTINE
The SELF known
only through knowing
GOD.
 “MAN IS
DICHOTOMOUS”

THOMAS AQUINAS
THOMAS AQUINAS
• Most eminent thirteenth century scholar and stalwart of the medieval
philosophy.
• Man is composed of two parts:
• Matter “hyle” – common stuff that makes up everything in the universe.
(body). Man’s body is part of this matter.
• Form “morphe” – essence of a substance or thing. It is what makes it what
it is. (soul)
 THOMAS AQUINAS
• To Aquinas, the soul is what animates the body, it is
what make us humans. You are not a human without a
soul.
• What is the difference in comparison to other human
being is that we have our own form or the essence of
living. Even though you and other people are different
because you have your own souls and that makes your
body moves.
 “I THINK
THEREFORE
I AM”

RENE DESCARTES
 RENE DESCARTES
• Father of Modern Philosophy
• Human person as having a body and mind.
• “I think therefore, I am.” – “cogito ergo sum.”
• The fact that one thinks should lead one to conclude without a trace of doubt that he
exists.
• Self is a combination of two distinct entities:
• Cogito (mind) – the thing that thinks.
• Extenza(body) – extension of the mind.
• In Descartes’s view, the body is nothing else but a machine that is attached to the
mind.
 RENE DESCARTES
• Doubts is the existence of his own physical body.
• The existence of the body is NOT the proof that he
exists.
• The ability you questions things is the ability that you
EXIST.
• We question a lot of things about “existence.”
 RENE DESCARTES
• How can Descartes says that we exist?
• “The mere fact that I can doubt is the evidence
that I exist even though I don’t believe that I
exist because of my body. The mere fact that
that I doubt, it is a proof that I exist. “ He ended
the term, “Hyperbolical doubt.”
 “SELF IS
NOTHING
BUT A BUNDLE
OF
IMPRESSIONS”
DAVID HUME
 DAVID HUME
• A Scottish philosopher and empiricist who believes that one can know only what
comes from the senses and experiences.
• Knowledge can only be possible if it sensed and experienced. Men can only attain
knowledge by experiencing (sense of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch).
• Self is nothing but a bundle of impressions. A bundle or collection of different
perceptions.
Unified self is simply a combination of all experiences with a particular person.
• Experiences are categorized into two:
• Impressions – basic objects of our experience or sensation. They form the core of our thoughts. Vivid
and products of our direct experience with the world.
• Ideas – copies of impressions. A product of imagination.
 DAVID HUME
• All knowledge is derived from human senses meaning he
valued what he called EMPIRICISM.
• EMPIRICISM is the school of thought that espouses the idea
that knowledge can only be possible if it is sensed and
experienced. Men can only attain knowledge by experiencing.
• He believed on things that cannot be seen but rather they value
the capability of the senses.
• Self, according to Hume, is simply, “a bundle or collection of
different perceptions, which succeed each other with an
inconceivable rapidity, and are in perpetual flux and
movement.
 “WE
CONSTRUCT
THE SELF”

IMMANUEL KANT
 IMMANUEL KANT
• There is necessarily a mind that organizes the impressions that men get from
the external world.
• Ideas that are not found in the world but built in our minds are called the
apparatuses of the mind.
• Self is an actively engaged intelligence in man that synthesizes all knowledge
and experience. It is also the seat of knowledge acquisition for all human
persons.
 “I ACT
THEREFORE I
AM”

GILBERT RYLE
 GILBERT RYLE
• What truly matters is the behaviour 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 behaviours that people make.
 “The self is
embodied
subjectivity.”

MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY
 MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY

“Mind and body are so

intertwined that they cannot be
separated from one another.”
 MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY

• One cannot find any experience that is not an

embodied experience. All experience is embodied.
• The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and
experiences are all one.
 Thank you!
Be ready for our
first quiz next week!