Name: Ian Jay M.

Descutido
Course and Section: BSMA 2B

In today’s discussion we were able to discuss about the definition of self and
different philosophies about self-coming from different philosophers. Today, I was able to
understand that self is the one that is responsible for the thoughts and actions that we as
individuals were ascribed. We also discussed various perspective about self-coming from
philosophers. Judging from what I have learnt today, I could say that understanding or
acquiring knowledge about self is indeed one of the hardest things. The fact that various
philosophers had their own view about self, explains that there is no concrete definition
of self which make acquiring self-knowledge hard. From today’s they were actually three
perspective of philosophers that I like the most. This are perspective from Socrates, Plato
and David Hume.

In Socrates perspective of self he said, “Our true self is our soul”. I was puzzled
about his perspective about self at first, because I was not sure of what the soul means
in his statement. As the discussion go along I was able to understand that the soul he
was referring here is not connected to any religious belief. The time that I understood the
meaning of the soul he was referring to in his statement I agree to his perspective. I
believe that our true self as individuals are not what we show to others. Our true self is
who we really inside. The other perspective that I want from today’s discussion is from
Plato. He said, “Ignorance. The root and stem of every evil”. In this perspective I would
not totally agree because I believe that ignorance is not the root cause of every evil. Some
people are completely aware that what are they doing is evil yet they continued in doing
it. The last perspective about self that I retained from today’s discussion is the one from
David Humes. He said, “No man will threw away life while it was worth living”. I completely
agree with this perspective. In my own opinion, no man will waste his life if it is still worth
to live for. Some people take their lives or waste it if they do not find a reason anymore to
live. In connection to understanding the self, I think if all people understand their self and
find their self-purpose no life will be wasted.

In conclusion, I could say that today’s discussion is so meaningful. All the learnings
that we learnt today will be useful as we strive on understanding ourselves. Self-
knowledge or understanding the self is one of the hardest thing we could encounter in
this life. With all the perspectives coming from different people about the real definition of
self, it is still you who is responsible on knowing who you really are.