READING IN PHIL.

HISTORY
● CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY: DEFINITION, ISSUES,
SOURCES AND METHODOLOGY
● HISTORY 
– THE STUDY OF PAST
-Often dread the subject for its notoriety in requiring them to memorize dates,
places, names, and events from distant eras.
-Derived from the Greek word historia which means “knowledge acquired through
inquiry or investigation
-History as a discipline existed for around 2,400 years and is as old as mathematics
and philosophy
-Historia became known as the account of the past of a person or of a group of
people through written documents and historical evidence.
-History became an academic discipline.
-It became the historian’s duty to write about the lives of important individuals like
monarchs, heroes, saints, and nobilities
-History was also focused on writing about wars, revolutions, and other important
breakthroughs
-Traditional historians lived with the mantra of “no document, no history”.
-History progressed and opened to the possibility of valid historical sources, which
were not limited to written documents
● HISTORIOGRAPHY
-Historiography is the history of history. History and historiography should not be
focused with each other
-History has played various roles in the past
 ● POSITIVISM 
– Is the school of thought that emerged between the eighteenth and nineteenth
century. Positivism also entails an objective means of arriving at a conclusion.
In the discipline of history, the mantra “no document no history” stems from
this very same truth, where historians were required to show written primary
documents to write a particular historical narrative. Positivist historians are also
expected to be objective and impartial not just in their arguments but also in
their conduct of historical research.
-When the ilustrados, like Jose Rizal, Isabelo de los Reyes, and Pedro Paterno
wrote history, they intended it for the Spaniards so they would realize that
Filipinos are people of their own intellect and culture. When American
historians depicted the Filipino people as uncivilized in their publications, they
intended that narrative for their fellow Americans to justify their colonization of
the islands.
-They wanted the colonization to appear not as a means of undermining the
Philippines sovereignty, but as a civilizing mission to fulfill what they called as
the “white man’s burden”. The same is true for nations which prescribe official
versions of their history like North Korea, the Nazi Germany during the war
period, and Thailand. The same was attempted by Marcos in the Philippines
during the 1970s.
● POST COLINIALISM
-it is a school of thought emerged in the early twentieth century when formerly
colonized nations grappled with the idea of creating their identities and
understanding their societies against the shadows of their colonial past.
● Postcolonial history looks at two things in writing history:
-First is to tell the history of their nation that will highlight their identity free from
the colonial discourse and knowledge, and
-Second is to criticize the methods, effects, and idea of colonialism.
-Postcolonial is therefore a reaction and an alternative to the colonial powers
created and thought to their subjects.
-One of the problems confronted by the history is the accusation that the history is
always written by victors. This connotes that the narrative of the past is always
written from the bias of the powerful and more dominant player.
-However, the historical investigation will reveal more nuanced account of the
history of that period instead of a simplified narrative as a story of hero versus
villain.

● HISTORY AND HISTORIAN

-Historians only get to access representation of the past through historical sources
and evidence.
-The historian’s job not just to seek historical evidence and fact but also to
interpret these facts.
- “Facts cannot speak for themselves”
-Meanwhile, the historian is not a blank paper who mechanically interprets and
analyzes present historical facts.
-He is a person of his own who is influenced by his own context, environment,
ideology, education, and influences among others.
-History is always subjective
-Historical research requires rigor, the study of history remains scientific because
of the rigor of research and methodology that historian s employ.
-Historical methodology comprises certain techniques and rules that historians
follow to properly utilize sources and historical evidence in writing history.
● The Annales School of History - is a school of history born in France, that
challenged the canons of history. This school of thought did away with
common historical subjects that were almost always related to the conduct of
states and monarchs.
● Annales scholars like Lucian Fever, Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel, and
Jacques Le Goff studied other subjects in a historical manner. They were
concerned with social history and studied longer historical periods.

-   Annales thinkers married history with other discipline s like geography,

anthropology, archaeology, and linguistic.
 ● HISTORICAL RESOURCES
-With the past as history’s subject matter, the historian’s most important research
tools are historical sources. In general, historical sources can be classified between
primary and secondary sources
-The classification of sources between these categories depends on the historical
subject being studied.

● PRIMARY SOURCES
-Are those sources produced at the same time as the event, period, or subject
being studied.
-The primary sources can include the minutes of the convention, newspaper
clippings, record, and even photographs of the event
-Archival documents, artifacts, memorablia, letters, census, and government
records, among others are the most common examples of primary source.
● SECONDARY SOURCES
-Ae those sources, which were produced by an author who used primary
sources to produce the material.
-Secondary sources are historical sources, which studied a certain historical
subject. For example, about Philippine Revolution of 1896, students can
read Teodoro Agoncillo’s Revolt of the Masses: The Story of Bonifacio and
the Katipunan published originally in 1956.
-More than this, in the writing of the book, Agoncillo used primary sources
with his research like documents of the Katipunan, interview with the
veterans of the Revolution, and correspondence between and among
Katipuneros.
-A textbook is usually classified as a secondary source, a tertiary source
even. However, this classification is usual but not automatic.
-If the historian chooses to write the history of education in the 1980s, he
can utilize textbooks used in that period as a primary source.
-Both primary and secondary sources are useful in writing and learning
history.
-The historian should be able to conduct an external and internal critism of
the source, especially primary sources which can age in centuries.
● INTERNAL CRITICISM
-Is the practice of verifying the authenticity of evidence by examining its
physical characteristics; consistency with the historical characteristic it the time
when it was produced; and the materials used for the evidence. Examples of
things that will be examined when conducting external criticism of a document
include the quality of the paper, the type of the ink, and the language and words
used in the material.
-Is the examination of the truthfulness of the evidence. Internal criticism looks
at the truthfulness and factuality of the evidence by looking at the author of the
source, it’s context, the agenda behind its creation.
-For example, Japanese reports and declarations during the period of the war
should not be taken as a historical fact hastily.
-Internal criticism entails that the historian acknowledges and analyze how such
reports can be manipulated to be used as war propaganda.
-One of the most scandalous cases of deception in the Philippine history is the
hoax Code of Kalantiaw. The code was a set of rules contained in an epic,
Maragtas, which was allegedly written by a certain Datu Kalantiaw.
-The task of the historian is to look at the available historical sources and select
the most relevant and meaningful for history and for the subject matter that he
is studying.
-The task of the historian is to organize the past that is being created so that it
can offer lessons for nations, societies, and civilization.
● PHILIPPINE HISTORIOGRAPHY
-Underwent several changes since the precolonial period until the present.
-Ancient Filipinos narrated their history through commual songs and epics that
they passed orally from a generation to another.
-Early nationalist reputed this perspective and argued tripartite view. They saw
precolonial society as aluminous age that ended with darkness when the
colonizers captured their freedom.
-Filipino historian Zeus Salazar introduced the new guiding philosophy for
writing and teaching history: pantayong pananaw (for us- from us perspective).
This perspective highlights the importance of facilitating an internal
conversation and discourse among Filipinos about our own history, using the
language that is understood b everyone.
 CONTENT AND CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF SELECTED
PRIMARY SOURCES IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY
● SOME REASON WHY HISTORY IS IMPORTANT
-History help us understand past and other cultures.
-History help us understand our own society.
-History helps us understand our own identities.
-History give us insight into present-day problems.

Nostradamus’ book:
“There will be a twin year (2020) from which will arise a queen (corona)
who will come from the east (China) and who will spread a plague (virus) in
the darkness of night, on a country with 7 hills (Italy) and will transform the
twilight of men into dust (death), to destroy and ruin the world. It will be the
end of the world economy as you know it.

● A Brief Summary of the First Voyage Around the World by Magellan

by Antonio Pigafetta
-This book was taken from the chronicles of contemporary voyages and navigation
of the sixteen centuries. One of them was Italian nobleman Antonio Pigafetta, who
accompanied Ferdinand Magellan in hid circumnavigation of the world.
Pigafetta’s work instantly become a classic that prominent literary men in the West
like William Shakespeare, Michael de Montaigne and Giambattista Viro referred to
the book un the interpretation of the New World.
● FIRST VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD BY MAGELLAN BY
ANTONIO PIGAFETTA
-Antonio Pigafetta was an Italian scholar and explorer. He joined the expedition to
the Spice Islands led by explorer Ferdinand Magellan
- “Magellan-Elcano expedition”
-1st recorded circumnavigation of the earth in 1522
-Pigafetta detailed in amazement and fascination the palm tree which bore fruits
called cocho and wine. He also described what seemed like a coconut.
-Pigafetta characterized the people as “very familiar and friendly” and willingly
allowed them different islands and the names of these islands.
-The fleet went to Humunu Island (Homonhon) and there they found what
Pigafetta referred to as the “Watering Place of Good Signs”. This is the place
where Pigafetta found the first signs of gold in the island. They named the island
with the nearby islands As the archipelago St. Lazarus. They left the island, then
on March 25th. 
-Pigafetta recounted that they saw two ballanghai (balangay), a long boat full of
people in Mazzava/Mazauna. The leader, who Pigafetta referred to as a king of the
ballanghai (balangay), sent his men to ship of Magellan.
-The Europeans entertained these men and gave them gifts. When the king of
balangay offered to give Magellan a bar of gold and a chest of ginger, Magellan
declined. Magellan sent the interpreter to the king asked money for the needs of his
ships and expressed that he came into the island as a friend and not as an enemy.
The king responded by giving Magellan the needed provisions of food and
chinaware. Magellan exchanged gifts of robes in Turkish fashion, and red cap, and
gave the people knives and armor.
-On March 31st, which happened to be Easter Sunday, Magellan ordered the
chaplain to preside a Mass by the shore. The king heard of this plan and send two
dead pigs and attended the mass with the other king.
-After the mass, Magellan ordered that the cross be brought with nails and crown
in the place. Magellan further explained that the cross would be beneficial for their
people because once other Spaniards saw the cross, then they would know that
they had been in this land and would not cause trouble.
-The king concurred and allowed for the cross to be planted. This mass would go
down in history as the first Mass in the Philippines, and the cross would be the
famed Magellan’s Cross still preserved at present day.
-By April 7th of the same year, Magellan and his men reached the port of Cebu.
The king of Cebu, through Magellan’s interpreter, demanded that they pay tribute
as it was customary, but Magellan refused. Magellan said that he was a captain of a
king himself and thus would not pay tribute to other king.
-On the 14th of April, the people gathered with the king and other principal men of
the islands. Magellan spoke to the king and encourage him to be a good Christian
by burning all the idols and worship the cross instead. The king of Cebu was
baptized as a Christian.
-After eight days, Pigafetta counted that all the island’s inhabitant were already
baptized. He admitted that they burned a village down for obeying neither the king
nor Magellan. The mass conducted by the shore every day. When the queen came
to the mass one day, Magellan gave her an image of the Infant Jesus made by
Pigafetta himself.
-Magellan visited Mactan -April 27, 1521
-Why Magellan is important in the study of Philippine history?
The Discovery of the Philippines:

Ferdinand Magellan is regarded as the first European to discover the Philippine

archipelago. Ironically, this also became the last country he discovered. His
explorations and discoveries came to a tragic end after he was killed in battle in the
island of Mactan.
-Magellan was credited with leading the first expedition that proved that the world
is round by sailing from east to west. After him, five more Spanish expeditions
followed between 1525 and 1542, starting Spain's colonization of the Philippines
in the next three centuries.
Analysis of Pigafetta’s Chronicle
-The chronicle of Pigafetta was one of the most cited documents by historians who
wished to study the precolonial Philippines.
-Being the earliest detailed documentation, it was believed that Pigafetta’s writings
account for the “purest” precolonial society.
-In reading Pigaffeta’s description of the people, one must keep on mind that he
was coming from a (sixteenth century European perspective)
-These contexts should be used and understood to have a more qualified reading of
Pigafetta’s account.
The KKK and the “Kartilya ng Katipunan’’
-The Kataastaasan, Kagalanggalang, Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan “KKK” or
Katipunan arguably the most important organization formed in the Philippines
history.
- (1.) a united Filipino nation that would revolt against the Spaniards for (2.) the
total independence of the country from Spain.
-El Rey de Ilocos (The King of Ilocos)
-On the other hand, the propaganda movements led local by the “ilustrados”
-The Kartilya can be treated as the Katipunan’s code of conduct.
Analysis of the “Kartilya ng Katipunan”
As a document written for fraternity whose main purpose is to overthrow a colonial
regime, we can explain the context and provisions of Kartilya as a reaction and
response to a certain value system that they found despicable in the present state of
things that they struggled against with.
Kartilya repeatedly emphasized the important of honor in words and actions. The
teaching of Katipunan on how women should be treated with honor and respect,
while positive in many respects and certainly significant stride from the practice of
raping and physically abusing women, can still be telling of the Katipunan’s
secondary regard for women in relation to men.
In the contemporary eyes, the Katipunan can be criticized because of these
provisions. However, one must not forget the context where the organization was
born. Not even in Europe or in the whole of the West at that juncture recognized
the problem of gender inequality.
Aside from Rizal’s known Letter to the Women of Malolos, no same effort by the
supposed cosmopolitan Propaganda Movement was achieved until the movement’s
eventual disintegration in the letter part of the 1890’s. 
The rules in the Kartilya can be classified as either directed to how one should treat
his neighbor or to how one should develop and conduct oneself.
All in all, proper reading of the Kartilya will reveal a more thorough understanding
of the Katipunan and the significant role that it played in the revolution and in the
unfolding of the Philippine history, as we know it.
Reading the “Proclamation of the Philippine Independence”
Every year the country commemorates the anniversary of the Philippine
Independence proclaimed on 12 June 1898, in the province of Cavity. Indeed, such
event is a significant turning point in the history of the country because it signaled
the end of the 333 years Spanish Colonization.

Interestingly, reading the details of the said document in hindsight is telling of the
kind of government that was created under Aguinaldo, and the forthcoming hand
of the United States of America in the next few years of the newly created
republic.
The declaration was a short 2,000-word document, which summarized the reason
behind the revolution against Spanish, the war for independence, and the future of
the new republic under Emilio Aguinaldo.
The proclamation commenced with a characterization of the conditions in the
Philippines during the Spanish colonial period.
The passage also condemns the unequal protection of the law between the Filipino
people and the “eminent personages.”
The document narrates the spread of the movement “like an electric spark” through
different towns and provinces like Bataan, Pampanga, Batangas, Bulacan, Laguna
and Morong and the quick decline of Spanish forces in the same Provinces.
The document also narrates the Cavite Mutiny of January 1872 that caused the
infamous exaction of the martyred native priests Jose Burgos, Mariano Gomez, and
Jacinto Zamora, “whose innocent blood was shed through the intrigues of those so-
called religious orders” that incited the three secular priests in the said mutiny.
The proclamation of independence also invokes that the established republic would
be led under the dictatorship of Emilio Aguinaldo.
The proclamation that is worth looking at is its explanation on the Philippine flag
that was first waved on the same day.
The white triangle was derived from the symbol of the Katipunan. The red and
blue colors of the flag are often associated with courage and peace, respectively.
The original symbolic meaning can of something presents us several historical
truths that can explain the subsequent events, which unfolded after the declaration
of independence on the 12th day of June 1898.

Analysis of the “Proclamation of the Philippine Independence”

It is a re-examination of the document on the declaration of independence can
reveal some often-overlooked historical truths about this important event in
Philippine history.
The documents reflect from the general revolutionary sentiment of that period.
The abuses specifically mention in the proclamation.
Example:
Friar abuse
Racial Discrimination
Inequality before the law (reflect the most compelling sentiment represented by the
revolutionary leadership)
However, no mentioned was made about the more serious problem that affected
the masses more profoundly (i.e., the land and agrarian crisis felt by the numerous
Filipino peasants in NINETEENTH CENTURY.)
This is ironic especially when Philippine Revolution historian, TEODORO
AGONCILLO, stated that the “Philippine Revolution was an agrarian revolution”.
THE TREATY OF PARIS- It was an agreement signed between Spain and the
United State of America regarding the ownership of the Philippine Island and the
other Spanish colonies in South America the agreement ended the short lived
Spanish American War. Treaty was signed on December 10, 1898, (six months
after the revolutionary government declared the Philippine Independence.) The
Philippine was sold to the United State at $20 million. The American occupied the
Philippines immediately which resulted in the Philippine- American
The proclamation also gives us the impression on how the victorious revolutionary
government of Aguinaldo historicized the struggle for independence.
The execution of the GOMBURZA, for example, and the failed Cavite Mutiny of
1872 was narrated in detail.
 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
REVIEWER
• Socrates and Plato 
- Socrates was the first philosopher who ever engaged in a systematic
questioning  about the self; the true task of the philosopher is to know
oneself.  
- For Socrates, every man is composed of body and soul; all individuals have an 
imperfect, impermanent aspect to him, and the body, while maintaining that
there is  also a soul that is perfect and permanent. 
- Plato supported the idea that man is a dual nature of body and soul. 
- Plato added that there are three components of the soul: the rational soul, the
spirited soul, and the appetitive soul.  

• Augustine and Thomas Aquinas 

- Augustine agreed that man is of a bifurcated nature; the body is bound to die on
earth  and the soul is to anticipate living eternally in a realm of spiritual bliss in
communion  with God. 
- The body can only thrive in the imperfect, physical reality that is the world,
whereas the  soul can also stay after death in an eternal realm with the all-
transcendent God. 
- THOMAS Aquinas said that indeed, man is composed of two parts: matter and
form. Matter, or  hyle in Greek, refers to the “common stuff that makes up
everything in the universe.”  Man’s body is part of this matter. Form, on the other
hand, or morphe in Greek refers  to the “essence of a substance or thing.”  
- To Aquinas the soul is what animates the body; it is what makes us humans. 

• Rene Descartes 
- Conceived of the human person as having a body and a mind 
 - The body is nothing else but a machine that is attached to the
mind. The human  person has it but it is not what makes man a man.
If at all, that is the mind.  
• David Hume 
- The self is not an entity over and beyond the physical body. 
- Men can only attain knowledge by experiencing. 
- Self, according to Hume, is simply “a bundle or collection of different
perceptions,  which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity,
and are in a perpetual flux  and movement.”  

• Immanuel Kant 
- Things that men perceive around them are not just randomly infused into
the human  person without an organizing principle that regulates the
relationship of all these  impressions. 
- There is necessarily a mind that organizes the impressions that men
get from the  external world. 
- Time and space are ideas that one cannot find in the world, but is built in our
minds; he  calls these the apparatuses of the mind. 
- The self is not just what gives one his personality; it is also the seat of
knowledge  acquisition for all human persons. 
• Gilbert Ryle  
- Blatantly denying the concept of an internal, non-physical self; what truly
matters is the  behavior 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. 
• Merleau-Ponty 
- The mind and body are so intertwined that they cannot be separated from one
another. 
- One cannot find any experience that is not an embodied experience. All
experience is  embodied; one’s body is his opening toward his existence
to the world.  
- The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and experiences are all one. –
 • What Is the Self? 
The self, in contemporary literature and even common sense, is
commonly defined by  the following characteristics: 
- Separate means that the self is distinct from other selves. The self is
always unique  and has its own identity. 
- Self-contained and independent because in itself it can exist. Its
distinctness allows it  to be self-contained with its own thoughts,
characteristics, and volition. 
- Consistency means that a particular self’s traits, characteristics,
tendencies, and  potentialities are more or less the same. 
- Unitary in that it is the center of all experiences and thoughts that run through
a certain  person
- Private means that each person sorts out information, feelings and
emotions, and  thought processes within the self. This whole process is
never accessible to anyone  but the self.  
• The Self and Culture 
- According to Marcel Mauss, every self has two faces:  
Moi refers to a person’s sense of who he is, his body, and his
basic identity, his  biological givenness. 
Personne is composed of the social concepts of what it means to be who he is. 
- Language is another interesting aspect of this social constructivism; it is a
salient part  of culture and ultimately, has a tremendous effect in our
crafting of the self. 
- If a self is born into a particular society or culture, the self will have to adjust
according  to its exposure. 
• The Self and the Development of the Social World 
- More than his givenness (personality, tendencies, and propensities,
among others),  one is believed to be in active participation in the
shaping of the self. 
- Men and women in their growth and development engage actively in the
shaping of  the self. 
- The unending terrain of metamorphosis of the self is mediated
by language.
  • Mead and Vygotsky 
- For Mead and Vygotsky, the way that human persons develop is with
the use of  language acquisition and interaction with others. 
- Both Vygotsky and Mead treat the human mind as something that is made,
constituted  through language as experienced in the external world and as
encountered in dialogs  with others. 
• Self in Families  
- The kind of family that we are born in, the resources available to us
(human, spiritual,  economic), and the kind of development that we will
have will certainly affect us. 
- Human beings are born virtually helpless and the dependency period of a
human baby  to its parents for nurturing is relatively longer than most other
animals. 
- In trying to achieve the goal of becoming a fully realized human, a
child enters a  system of relationships, most important of which is
the family. 
- Human persons learn the ways of living and therefore their selfhood by
being in a  family. It is what a family initiates a person to become that
serves as the basis for this  person’s progress. 
• Gender and the Self 
- Gender is one of those loci of the self that is subject to alteration,
change, and  development. 
- The sense of self that is being taught makes sure that an individual fits in a
particular  environment, is dangerous and detrimental in the goal of truly
finding one’s self, self determination, and growth of the self. 
- It is important to give one the leeway to find, express, and live his identity. 
- Gender has to be personally discovered and asserted and not dictated by
culture and  the society.
- There are various definitions of the “self” and other similar or interchangeable
concepts  in psychology. 
- Other concepts similar to self are identity and self-concept: 
Identity is composed of personal characteristics, social roles, and
responsibilities, as  well as affiliations that define who one is. 
Self-concept is what basically comes to your mind when you are asked
about who you  are. 
- Self, identity, and self-concept are not fixed in one time frame. 
- Carl Rogers captured this idea in his concept of self-schema or our
organized system  or collection of knowledge about who we are. 
 - Theories generally see the self and identity as mental constructs,
created and  recreated in memory.

- Freud saw the self, its mental processes, and one’s behavior as the
results of the  interaction between the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. 
- There are three reasons why self and identity are social products: 
- We do not create ourselves out of nothing. Society helped in
creating the  foundations of who we are. 
- Whether we like to admit it or not, we actually need others to
affirm and  reinforce who we think we are. 
- What we think is important to us may also have been influenced
by what is  important in our social or historical context. 
- Social interaction and group affiliation are vital factors in
creating our self concept especially in the aspect of providing
us with our social identity;  
- There are times when we are aware of our self-concepts; this is also
called self awareness; 
- Carver and Scheier identified two types of self that we can be aware of: - the
private self or your internal standards and private thoughts and feelings;
and 
- the public self or your public image commonly geared toward
having a good  presentation of yourself to others. 
- Self-awareness also presents us with at least three other
self-schema:  - The “actual” self is who you are at the
moment 
- The “ideal” self is who you like to be 
- The “ought” self is who you think you should be  
- Self-awareness may be positive or negative depending on the
circumstances  and our next course of action. 
- Our group identity and self-awareness also has a great impact on
our self esteem, defined as our own positive or negative
perception or evaluation of  ourselves. 

- One of the ways in which our social relationship affects our self-esteem
is through  social comparison: 
• The downward social comparison is the more common type of
comparing  ourselves with others, by comparing ourselves with
those who are worse off  than us. 
 • The upward social comparison which is comparing ourselves
with those  who are better off than us. 
- Social comparison also entails what is called self-evaluation
maintenance theory,  which states that we can feel threatened when
someone out-performs us,  especially when that person is close to
us. 
- In the attempt to increase or maintain self-esteem, some people
become  narcissistic, a “trait characterized by overly high self-esteem,
self-admiration, and  self-centeredness.”  
- There is a thin line between high self-esteem and narcissism and there
are a lot of  tests and measurements for self-esteem like the
Rosenberg scale. 
- Though self-esteem is a very important concept related to the self,
studies have  shown that it only has a correlation, not causality, to
positive outputs and outlook. 
- Programs, activities, and parenting styles to boost self-esteem should only be
for  rewarding good behavior and other achievements and not for the
purpose of merely

Eastern thoughts: 

- Sees the other person as part of yourself as well as the things you may create, a 
drama in which everyone is interconnected with their specific roles 
- Asian culture is called a collectivistic culture as the group and social
relations that is  given more importance than individual needs and
wants. 

Western thoughts: 
- Looks at the world in dualities wherein you are distinct from the other
person, the  creator is separate from the object he created, in which the
self is distinguished and  acknowledged 
- The Western culture is what we would call an individualistic culture since
their focus is  on the person. 
 • Confucianism 
- A code of ethical conduct, of how one should properly act according
to his/her  relationship with other people 
- The identity and self-concept of the individual are interwoven with
the identity and  status of his/her community or culture, sharing its
pride as well as its failures. 
- Self-cultivation is seen as the ultimate purpose of life. 
- The cultivated self in Confucianism is what some scholars call a “subdued
self”  wherein personal needs are repressed (subdued) for the good of
many, making  Confucian society also hierarchal for the purpose of
maintaining order and balance in  society. 

• Taoism 
- Living in the way of the Tao or the universe 
- Rejects having one definition of what the Tao is 
- Rejects the hierarchy and strictness brought by Confucianism and
would prefer a  simple lifestyle and its teachings thus aim to describe
how to attain that life 
- The self is not just an extension of the family or the community; it is
part of the  universe. 

- The ideal self is selflessness but this is not forgetting about the self; it is
living a  balanced life with society and nature, being open and accepting
to change, forgetting  about prejudices and egocentric ideas and thinking
about equality as well as  complementarity among humans as well as
other beings. 

• Buddhism 
- The self is seen as an illusion, born out of ignorance, of trying to hold
and control  things, or human-centered needs; thus, the self is also
the source of all these  sufferings. 
- To forget about the self, forget the cravings of the self, break the attachments you
have  with the world, and to renounce the self which is the cause of all suffering and
in doing  so, attain the state of Nirvana.