The Self from Various Philosophical Perspectives

A. Socrates
- While many of his contemporaries were concerned with explaining what the
world is really made up, Socrates focused his attention on another subject –
the problem of the self
- For Socrates, the true task of the philosopher is to know oneself “gnōthi
seauton”
- The self emerges from self-knowledge or one’s degree of understanding
about the world and knowing one’s capabilities and potentials
- He believed that an unexamined life is not worth living
- Socrates believed every human person is dualistic:
a. an imperfect and impermanent body
b. a perfect and permanent soul (divine, immortal, intelligible,
uniform, indissoluble, and ever self-consistent and invariable)
- The ruler of the body is the soul.

B. Plato
- Plato subscribed to idealism which holds that the empirical reality we
experience in the experiential world is fundamentally unreal, only the
ultimate reality is real as it is eternal and constitutes abstract universal
essences of things
- The word self then means a certain ideal self, particulars selves partake of
the nature of the self, but more or less imperfectly
- It is through imperfection that there are variations to the self, the ideal self is
real while particular selves are only apparent
- Was one of the first Philosophers to believe in an enduring self that is
represented by the soul
- Plato supported Socrates’ idea on the duality of human person and further
posited that there are three components of the soul
a. a rational part that govern the affairs of the human person
b. a spirited part in charge of emotions
c. an appetitive part in charge of base desires like eating, drinking,
sleeping, and having sex
- Plato believed that the human person’s soul become just and virtuous when
the spirited and appetitive parts are kept at bay

C. St. Augustine
- Medieval perspectives on the self infused philosophy with doctrines of
Christianity

Prepared by Jo Vincent T. Bardaje, RPm

Instructor 1, CSPC
 - Augustine’s interest on the relations between time and memory inspired him
to develop the method of introspection or the process of being conscious of
one’s own mental processes
- He believed that it is through memory that one can think of temporal
continuity (passage of time)
- He introduced the concept of self in the past, present, and future time and
argued that one’s identity can be determined by the mind’s extendedness or
its ability to extend back to any past action or forward to actions to come
- Augustine echoed Socrates’ view on the bifurcated nature of the human
person:
a. an imperfect aspect that dwells in the world yet yearns to be with
the divine
b. an aspect that is capable of reaching immortality
- The goal of the human person is to attain communion and bliss with the
Divine by living a virtuous life on earth

D. Thomas Aquinas
- Adapting some ideas from Aristotle, Aquinas held that the human person is
composed of two parts:
a. Matter (hyle in Greek) refers to the common stuff that makes up
everything in the universe
b. Form (morphe in Greek) refers to the essence or substance of a
thing
- To Aquinas, the body is akin to the makings of any other living being in the
world. The soul is what animates the body and makes us humans.

E. Rene Descartes
- Descartes held that we should only believe those which can pass the test of
doubt (verifiable by empiricist standards)
- He believed that the only thing we cannot doubt is the existence of the self.
Thus, his famous, cogito ergo sum, “I think therefore, I am.” The fact that one
thinks should lead one to conclude without a trace of doubt that he or she
exists.
- He argued that only humans the hubris (excessive pride) and impertinence to
be actually self-aware of their own existence and try to figure out the
meaning of life
- Tried to resolve the mind-body problem by clarifying their dynamics. He
stressed that the body exerts a greater influence on the mind than previously
supposed.
- For Descartes, the mind had only a single function which is that of thought,
all other processes (e.g. reproduction, perception, movement) are that of the
body

Prepared by Jo Vincent T. Bardaje, RPm

Instructor 1, CSPC
 - His focus on a physical-psychological duality shifted the mind-body discourse
from subjective metaphysical/ theological analysis to objective observation
and experimentation.
- Descartes believed that the mind and body mutually interacted in the
conarium, the only part of the body that is not divided and duplicated in each
hemisphere.

F. John Locke
- Locke argued that humans are born blank slate or tabula rasa. The mind
acquires knowledge through experience.
- His main philosophy about the self is founded on consciousness or the
perception of what passes in one’s own mind.
- He argues that one personal’s identity (self) lies not in the brain but in one’s
consciousness. This is because one’s brain (as well as body) may change
overtime whereas consciousness always remains intact.
- This view could be illustrated by Locke’s story of the Prince and the Cobbler.
Suppose the Prince dies and is resurrected in the body of a cobbler whose
soul has also just departed, his consciousness will dictate him to still act as a
prince despite finding himself in a new body.
- Thus it is one’s consciousness that maintains the self despite changes in the
body and soul.

G. David Hume
- As an empiricist, Hume espoused the idea that knowledge can only be
possible if it is sensed and experienced
- Hume argued that all experiences can be categorized into two:
a. as impressions/perceptions or the basic objects of our experience
or sensation, their being direct products of our direct experiences
with the world make them vivid
b. as ideas or mere copies of impressions
- For Hume, the self is nothing but a bundle of impressions
- He rejected the existence of the soul holding that the notion of a soul or a
unified self is nothing but a bundle of sensory experiences. Any concept of
self is simply memory and imagination.
- He reduced personality and cognition (the awareness of one’s self) as
something which can be activated or deactivated, such as when you are
asleep or when you die

H. Immanuel Kant
- Rejected Hume’s idea of the self as a mere combination of impressions
- Kant proved the existence of the mind by defining it as the organizing
principle that regulates the impressions that one gets from the external
world

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Instructor 1, CSPC
 - Defined the self as the seat of knowledge acquisition for all humans
- Kant spoke of a unified consciousness as the central feature of the mind. The
goal of the human person is to achieve unity between one’s inner
(psychological and intellect) and outer senses (experience of the physical
world).

I. Gilbert Ryle
- Resolved the mind-body problem by blatantly denying the existence of an
internal, non-physical self
- For Ryle the “self” is not an entity one can locate and analyze, it is simply the
name that people use to refer to all the behaviors they make.
- Ryle instead views the mind as consisting of dispositions based on what
people know, feel, want, etc.
- The mind’s existence is made visible and evident in one’s activities like
singing, dancing, running, etc. not as a thing existing apart from and parallel
to the body (e.g. a soul).
- While Ryle acknowledges that the self is a combination of the mind and
body, he maintains that they are not separate. He challenged the dualistic
view espoused by many earlier thinkers.

J. Maurice Merleau-Ponty
- As a phenomenologist, Merleau-Ponty believes that the human person is
embodied through lived experiences
- Merleua-Ponty problematized the mind-body problem asserting that it is
futile and invalid
- The phenomenological perspective stresses that the self is best understood
by studying experiences as they occur and not reducing them to their
elementary components (e.g. mental vs physical states)
- He regarded the self as an embodied subjectivity, not so much as
disembodied minds (existing without a body) or complex machines, but as
living creatures whose consciousness is actualized by their involvement with
the world.
- He opposed the Cartesian cogito stating that the “I think” implies an “I can”
- For Merleau-Ponty, the living body, one’s thoughts, emotions, and all
experiences are one
Sources:
Corpuz, R., Estoque, R., & Tabotabo, C. (2019). Understanding the Self. C & E, Publishing, Inc.
Alata, E., Caslib, B., Serafica, J., & Pawilen, R.A. (2018). Understanding the Self (1st ed.). Rex
Book Store, Inc.
Schultz, D., & Schultz, S. (2011). A history of modern psychology(10th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Prepared by Jo Vincent T. Bardaje, RPm

Instructor 1, CSPC