The Self: Definition,

Nature and Significance

THE SELF: Definition, Nature and
Significance

OBJECTIVES:

Define self, and

identify its nature and
importance
 WHAT IS SELF?

WHY THERE IS A NEED

FOR US TO KNOW AND
UNDERSTAND
OURSELVES?
What is SELF?
It is a perceived personality, as a self-interest -
(wherein) one’s interest and welfare is placed
before those of other people, or as a complete
personality – one that a person recognizes as his or
her own and with which there is a sense of ease.
Encarta Dictionaries (Microsoft Encarta, 2009)
Meaning of the SELF
According to Ariola (2018), the term “self” is defined in many ways:
1. SELF is a unified being and is essentially connected to
consciousness, awareness, and activity or with the faculty of
rational choice.
● It means all the different aspects of the self are integrated (or
connected) in a harmonious way such that one aspect is not in
conflict with others or driven in another direction.
 For example:
Jenn M. Choi (2016), in her blog, “The Unified Self”, described that it is the
authentic integration of all the different aspects of herself and sharing the
whole human being for the world to see. Before, she felt a bit segmented.
The different parts of her life were compartmentalized into neat little
boxes. For years, when she was working in corporate, she felt like she had
to split between a Work Me and a Personal Life Me. It’s her passion to
help people more meaningfully connect through better communication. It
is her realization that the magical key to this, is recognizing that we are all
human beings who have our own emotions, dreams, inner worlds, and
beautifully diverse lives. For her, it only makes sense that she share her
vulnerability as a fellow human.
2. SELF is the condition of identity that makes one
subject of experience distinct from all others.
• This means that the situations we encounter every
day make our experiences unique from what other
people are experiencing.

For example:
The experience of losing someone you love in an untimely
death is more painful than the death of a friend’s loved
one where she had been prepared for his death.
 3. SELF is exhibited and inferred in the conduct and discourse that
emanate from the individual alone.
• Our self can be shown in our behavior and in the way we present
ourselves to others that it can only come from our own self.
For example:
President Duterte is known to be a strong and tough-talking
leader. Since 2016, he has unleashed a “war on drugs” and
an all-out war against communist insurgents, both of which
have allegedly led to widespread human rights abuses. He
agitated state forces and supporters with his bombastic
rhetoric against “enimies of the state.” He is notorious and
unapologetic for cursing and resorting to profanity when
expressing dismay and anger over the country’s social
problems (Palatino, 2020).
4. SELF is the person regarded as an individual apart from all others.
• It is the character of the person that makes him/her different from others.

For example:
Pia Wurtzbach, Miss Universe 2015, was known
for her answer in the Miss Universe Pageant –
“confidently beautiful with a heart” – describing the
best version of herself is when she is able to
inspire and help other people. Indeed, throughout
her reign she was able to inspire both men and
women as well as done charitable works proving
that she is confidently beautiful (Green, 2020).
5. SELF is one’s identity.
• Self is usually referred to as the sense of “who I am” and
“what I am”, while IDENTITY is referred to as how one
perceived you or how others perceived you to be. Therefore,
self is the way I see it as how others perceived me to be who I
am.

For example:
• I described myself as beautiful
because other people perceived me
to be beautiful.
6. SELF is expressed in the first person.
• Self is regarded as the “I” and the “me”.

For example:
I know how to dance.
Therefore, I can do it.
 7. SELF is a dynamic, responsive process that structures neutral pathways
according to past adolescent environment (Self, Culture and Society Class,
2015).

• Self is capable of change and has the ability to adjust in response to the
stimuli in the social environment
• Self is involved in regulating its actions and responses as influenced by past
adolescent environment.

For example:
Emotions related to negative experience with a teacher hinders
student to learn.
 Nature of Self
Ariola (2018) stated that there are many explanations with respect
to then nature of the self.
1. The self is independent of the senses. It has no sensory
contact with its own body. It is not logically dependent on any
physical being. – Avicenna in his famous essay, “The Floating
Man”
2. The self may have changed in many respects but the same
self appears present as was present then. Thus, the self is a
bundle or collection of different perspectives which succeed one
another with an inconceivable and are in perpetual flux and
movement. – David Hume
3. The self is a narrative center of gravity, not
physically detestable but a kind of convenient fiction
that does not correspond to anything tangible. “People
constantly tell themselves stories to make sense of their
world, and they feature in the stories as a character and
that convenient but fictional character is the self” – Daniel
Dennett
4. The self is both legal and moral person. It is legal in
the sense that he is free and equal to other selves; moral
because he may have a unique identity different from other
selves – Joshua Knobe
5. The self is an inter-subjective being, a unique being who is
never alone on its existence in the world. Since the self is an inter-
subjective being, the self establishes relationship with “I” and “thou”
(you) – Rick Warren in his “Purpose Driven Life”
6. According to Swami Vivekananda, the self is conditioned by three
factors: (1) the sense are unreliable; (2) the mind is conditioned by
space-time; and (3) the mind is conditioned by logical limitations.
7. The self is constantly evolving due to the complexities of culture
and societies. The self is dependent on the culture that the self has
been situated in. Eastern vs. Western cultures show that there are
differences among the self.
8. Religion views the nature of the self very widely. The self is a
complex and core subject in many spirituality. Spiritually is the self’s
search for ultimate meaning through independent comprehension of
the scared.
9. Human beings have a self – that is they are able to look back
themselves as both subjects and objects in the universe.
10. The Self is the thinking and feeling being within us and
within ourselves – it is the distinct identity which is the summation
of the experiences of an individual (Magalona, Sadsad and Cruz,
2018).
Importance of the Self
Philosophers look at self as very important in several ways
(Ariola, 2018):

1. According to Kant, by knowing ourselves, we can be free and our

actions and choices matter, we can make good on these
commitments without fear of being contradicted by theory. In other
words, we can be responsible to ourselves.
2. By knowing the self, we are able to examine what type of object
the self is and how it is constituted.
3. According to Thorin Klosowski, by knowing the self, we are able to develop
self-awareness and introspection which are the starting point to every
improvement. This improvement relates to understanding your own needs,
desires, and feelings, habits and everything else. The more you know about
yourself, the better you are at adopting life changes.
4.Understanding the self is a very important basis of quantified self-
movement which means that if a person collects data about himself, he can
make improvements based on that data (New York Times report)
5. Knowing the self requires more than intellectual self-examination for it
demands knowing something about your feelings and emotions. The more
you pay attention to your feelings and emotions and how you work on them,
the better you will understand why you do the things you do. Ultimately, the
more you know about your habits, the easier it is to improve those habits.