INTRODUCTION
"Tell us something about yourself. Who
are you?"
It is almost a common practice in every
beginning of the school year that students
as well as teachers must tell something
about themselves,and the introduction
also usually follows this format: name,
course or year, address if the class is
composed of mostly migrating students to
the school's location,as well as interests or
hobbies.
A name can already tell a lot of things
about a person. Some parents have certain
stories surrounding their children's name.
Some surnames are stereotypically
associated with rich or famous families.
Some even reflects the historical events of
the year a person is born! It is a term that
most of us will associate ourselves with for
the rest of our lives. It is the term that we
will react to when we hear it mentioned in
the streets. For some, it creates some
bond or sense of pride when we read it in
a story, a book, or even as an example in
an exam. But, is our name us? Is it the only
thing that defines us?
Your course or year level in school may say
something about your interests, skills, and
activities. Your place of origins (i.e ., your
province) may provide others some idea,
true or not, about what to expect from
you. Your interests and hobbies are
probably your ways to express yourself, so
to speak, and others may associate
themselves with you because of that. Yet,
are they the self? Do they define who you
are?
Who are you?
ABSTRACTION
As a broad field about knowledge,
thinking, reasoning,nature,aswellashow
we should live, among others, it is almost
inevitable that the studyof philosophy
would lead for the philosophers to reflect
on themselves and ask, "WhoamI?What
characterizes this 'self' that I say I am?" Joy
Here ob are worlseveral
philosophersandtheir ideas that we can
also reflect on.
Greek thinkers prior to Socrates, like
Thales, Pythagoras, and Heraclitus, among
others, focused on the composition and
processes of the world around them.
Unsatisfied with mere mythological and
supernatural explanations, these so-called
Pre-Socratic philosophers turned to
observation, documentation, and
reasoning.
Socrates and Plato
Socrates (469-399 BCE) provided a change
of perspective by focusing on the self. His
life and ideas, documented by his
students, the historian Xenophon and the
philosopher Plato, showed how Socrates
applied systematic questioning of the self.
Socrates believed that it is the duty of the
philosopher to Socrates and Plato know
oneself. To live without knowing who you
are and what virtues you can attain is the
worst that can happen to a person. Thus,
he noted that an "unexamined life is not
worth living."
Socrates saw a person as dualistic, that is,
every person is composed of body and
soul. There is an imperfect and
impermanent aspect of every one of us,
which is our physical body, and then, there
is also the perfect and permanent, which is
our soul .
Plato (428-347 BCE) further expounded on
the idea of the soul by stating that it has
three parts or components: the appetitive
soul, the rational soul, and the spirited
soul. The appetitive soul is the one
responsible for the desires and cravings of
a person; the rational soul is the thinking,
reasoning, and judging aspect; and the
spirited soul is accountable for emotions
and also makes sure that the rules of
reason is followed in order to attain victory
and/or honor.
In his work The Republic, Plato emphasized
that all three parts of the soul must work
harmoniously to attain justice and virtue in
a person. The rational soul must be well-
developed and in-charge, the emotions
from the spirited soul are
checked, and the desires of the appetitive
must be controlled and focused to those
that give life, like eating, drinking, and
sleeping among others.
St. Augustine
St. Augustine (354-430 CE) is considered as
one of the most significant Christian
thinkers, especially in the development of
the Latin Christianity theology. His idea of
the "self" merged that of Plato and the
then new Christian perspective, which led
him to believe in the duality of a person.
He believes that there is this imperfect
part of us, which is connected with the
world and yearns to be with the divine,
and there is a part of us that is not bound
by this world and can therefore St.
Augustine attain immortality. The
imperfection of the body incapacitates it
from thriving in the spiritual communion
with God, thus, it must die for the soul to
reach the eternal realm. However, this
communion of the soul with God can only
be attained if the body lives in this world
with virtue.
René Descartes
René Descartes (1596-1650) was a French
mathematician, scientist, and philosopher.
He claimed that the person is composed of
the cogito or the mind, and the extenza or
the body, which is the extension of the
mind. He argues that a person should only
believe the things that can pass the test of
doubt (Descartes 2008). In his "Discourse
on the Method" and "Meditations on First
Philosophy," he therefore concluded that
the only thing that a person cannot doubt
is the existence of his or her "self."
Because even doubt about the self proves
that there is a thinking or doubting self.
Thus, famous quote "cogito ergo sum."
What makes a person a person is therefore
the mind, and the body is just some kind of
a machine that is attached and controlled
by it. In his words, "But what then, am I? A
thinking thing. It has been said. But what is
a thinking thing? It is a thing that doubts,
understands (conceives), affirms, denies,
wills, refuses; that imagines also, and
perceives" (Descartes 2008).
John Locke
Locke (1632-1704) was an English
philosopher, political theorist,and
physician. His works as a physician
provided him with an idea that deviated
from the duality of the body or soul.
A person's mind is a blank slate or tabular
as a at birth. It is through experiences
that this blank slate is filled, and a
personal identity or "self" is formed. This
"self" cannot be found in the soul nor the
body but in one's consciousness
(Nimbalkar 2011).
Note, however, that the consciousness is
not the brain itself. It is something that
goes beyond the brain and thus, for Locke,
the consciousness and the "self" that
comes with it can be transferred from one
person or body to another (Nimbalkar
2011).
David Hume
Hume (1711-1776) was a Scottish
philosopher and an empiricist who
believes that all concepts as well as
knowledge come from the senses and
experiences. Based on such perspective,
he argued that there is no self beyond
what can be experienced. We do not know
others because we have seen or touched
their souls; we know them because of
what we can actually observe.
The "self," according to Hume, is "a bundle
or collection of different perceptions,
which succeed each other with an
inconceivable rapidity, and are in a
perpetual flux and movement" (Hume and
Steinberg1992). Simply, the self is a
combination of experiences of a person.
We can categorize these experiences into
impressions and i deas. Impressions are
real or actual experiences or sensations,
like feeling the rough edges of a stone or
tasting a sweet ice cream. Ideas are copies
of impressions or representation of the
world and sensations, like love, faith,or
even an association that this certain event
is caused by something in the past could
possibly create another reaction In the
future.
Immanuel Kant
One of the most influential philosophers
in Western philosophy, Kant (1724-1804)
contributed to the fields of metaphysics,
ethics, and aesthetics among others.
While everything starts with sensations
and impressions, Kant believes that there
must necessarily be something in us that
organizes these sensations to create
knowledge and ideas. Against the
empiricist Locke, Kant is a rationalist who
thinks that reason, not mere experience, is
the foundation of knowledge. It is like
seeing a visual effect in television, your
experience say it is there, but reason says
it is only a computer-generated Immanuel
Kant image.
bexiFor Kant, it is the self that organizes
and synthesizes our experiences into
something meaningful for us. It can do
such thing because it is independent from
sensory experiences. It is something that
transcends or is above even our
consciousness.
Ryle, Churchland, and Merleau-Ponty
The debate on the duality of a person's
self, of mind and body, of consciousness
and substance, internal and external, have
been revised and adapted for a long time
that several modern-day philosophers had
to take drastic actions, so to speak.
This action is the rejection of that duality.
private, of the things unobservable that
the aspect duality of approach a person,
seems and of a person to state in defining
is that there the"self."can be One a part.
One can describe one's "self" as good but a
different do otherwise public in and real
observable life.
know emotions, Ryle others do and by not
actions observing adhere of to a their this
person behavior idea that and relates and
sees inferring the to observable self about
as an their entirety behavior. "selves." of
We thoughts,We get canto apply the same
observation and reflection on ourselves.
Maurice Jean Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961),
a leading French existentialist and
phenomenologist, also contributes to the
idea by stating that mind and body are
interconnected with each other and
therefore cannot be separated. Our body
is our connection to the external world,
including other people, thus all
experiences are embodied. This also
includes the thoughts and emotions of a
person.
More recent philosophers, like Paul
Churchland (1942-) further utilized
knowledge from other academic and
research fields to talk about the self as
well as the mind. He was one of those who
proposed the use of "eliminative
materialism" or "eliminativism," which
claims that the old terms we use to
describe the mind are outdated, if not
mere "folk psychology," thus the need to
use more accurate and scientifically
proven terms, especially based on
neuroscience research.
Neuroscience somehow shows a
connection of what we call mental states
to that of the physical activities of the
brain. It can be argued therefore that the
self is actually located in the brain, and
that the actions of the mind or the self are
processes of the brain.
The dual perspective of the "self"
continues to exist, perhaps because our
brains are programmed to think of
dualities. Our religious beliefs, that of a
mortal body and an immortal soul, also
affects such continuity. However, new
ideas from other academic fields as well as
findings from technological advances are
being considered and incorporated in this
debate and the discovery of the self. Being
open to such new ideas may help us know
more about our own "self."