THE SELF IN VARIOUS

PERSPECTIVES

Philosophy
 PHILOSOPHY

• Study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and

existence, especially when considered as an academic
discipline.
 SELF

• The study of self is the study of the many conditions of identity

that make one subject of experience distinct from other
experience.
 perspective

• Perspective is the art of drawing solid objects on a two - dimensional

surface.
• It is a view or prospect.
Learning Objectives

• Discuss the diverse representation and conceptualization of self

using different disciplines and perspectives.

• Demonstrate a critical and reflective thinking in evaluating the

development of self and identity.
 The “butt – hurt generation

Where everyone is offended by everything; and if they’re not, they try to be.
Generation Alpha
2013 - 2025
 ma g–
m o silang
H a yaan l s a yo”
“ hab o

2018
- E x B
Ikaw, ano bang ultimate “Hugot” mo?
 Agree or Disagree?

We create an illusion
of the self.
 SOCRATES

• Know Thyself
• Question Everything
• Only the Pursuit of Goodness Bring Happiness
• Socratic Method: Question and Answer;
Leads Students to think for Themselves

An unexamined life is not worth living

 PLATO
Tripartite Soul

• The Rational part desires to exert reason and attain rational

decisions (RULING CLASS)

• The Spirited part desires supreme honor

(MILITARY CLASS)

• The Appetite part of the soul desires bodily pleasures such as food,
drink, sex, etc. (COMMONER)
 ARISTOTLE
• Contributed the foundation of both symbolic logic and scientific
thinking

• The best way to gain knowledge was through “natural philosophy,”

which is what we would now call science.

• Happiness, which is dependent in an individual’s virtues, is the central

purpose of human life and a goal in itself.

“Happiness depends in ourselves”

 ST. AUGUSTINE
• An important figure in the development of Western Christianity

• His philosophy of man brings together wisdom of the Greek philosophy and the divine
truths contained in the scripture.

• The absolute and immutable is the Living God, the Creator of the entire universe.

• To love God means to love one’s fellowmen, and to love one’s fellowmen means never
to do any harm to another.

“Do unto others, what you want others

do unto you”
 RENE DESCARTES
• The Self is defined as a subject that thinks.

• The self that has full competence in the powers of human reason.

• Having distanced the self from all sources of truth from authority and
tradition, the self can only find its truth and authenticity within its own
capacity to think.

“The fact that I am doubting, cannot be

anymore open to doubt”
John Locke
 JOHN LOCKE
• Personal identity is a matter of psychological continuity.
• Personal identity (or the self) is founded on consciousness.

• Identity over time is fixed by awareness of the past.

• Locke posits an “empty” mind, a tabula rasa, which is shaped by

experience, and sensations and reflections being the two sources of all
our ideas.

“Our concept of personal identity must derive

A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
-David Hume
 DAVID HUME
• He rejects the notion of identity over time.
• There are no “persons” that continue to exist over time, there are
merely impressions.
Challenge: Try to think about your “self.”

• According to Hume, you cannot.

• Or, when you do, the only things you are thinking about are individual
impressions or perceptions of your self.

“The self is a bundle of

 IMMANUEL KANT
• Consciousness is the central feature of the self.

• The consciousness is divided into:

1. Internal Self - composed of psychological states and informed decisions;

remembering our own state, how can we combine the new and old ideas with our mind

2. External Self - made up of ourselves and the physical world where the
representation of objects
The child is the
father of a man.
--Sigmund Freud
 SIGMUND FREUD
• The self continues from childhood to adulthood
• Personality is determined by childhood experiences
• Personality is largely unconscious

Structure of the Self

• Id: animalistic self; pleasure principle
• Ego: executive self; reality principle
• Superego: conscience; morality principle
I made it, and so I am.
 GILBERT RYLE
• Rejects the theory that mental states are separable from physical states.

• He concluded that adequate descriptions of human behavior need never refer to

anything but the operations of human bodies
• His form of Philosophical Behaviorism (the belief that all mental phenomena can be
explained by reference to publicly observable behavior) became a standard view for
several decades.
• He argued that philosophers do not need a "hidden" principle to explain the
supra-mechanical capacities of humans, because the workings of the mind are not
distinct from the actions of the body, but are one and the same.
 MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY

• His work is commonly associated with the philosophical movement called

existentialism and its intention to begin with an analysis of the concrete experiences,
perceptions, and difficulties, of human existence.

• Consciousness, the world, and the human body as a perceiving thing are intricately
intertwined and mutually "engaged”.

• Our perception of the self is a collection of our perceptions of our outside world.