PHILOSOPHICAL SELF

What is Philosophy

• Is a combination of philo meaning love, and

sophia, wisdom
• It denotes love for wisdom or knowledge or
the search for understanding about human
existence
• metaphysics - the part of philosophy that is
concerned with the basic causes and nature of
things
THE DUALISTIC AND METAPHYSICAL SELF OF
SOCRATES, PLATO AND ST. AUGUSTINE
• Dualism – root word duo which means two; posing the self as
consisting of two independent elements: physical body and
mind or soul
SOCRATES
• Self has two separate elements
• Physical body – exists in the material field, finite, temporal
substance, earthly existence, mortal and therefore transitory,
is a lesser state than the mind or spirit
• Mental or soul – non material, resides in the ideal infinite
world, absolute, eternal substance, in constant search for
knowledge and wisdom as a way to achieving perfection by
virtue of its capacity for reason
• THE TWO HOWEVER HAS ALMOST ANTAGONISTIC
RELATIONSHIP
PLATO
Three-part Soul or Self
1. Reason-gives us ability to think deeply, reflectively and
critically
enables us to appreciate the finer virtues in life and
to rise above the limiting capacity of basic drives or
emotional, lustful impulses of our ephemeral selves.
reason gives us the power to control our feelings and
desire such that we become wise, virtuous and enlightened
beings whose ultimate goal should be with the Forms in the
eternal realm
2. Physical Appetite – basic survival mechanisms called
biological or physical needs
3. Spirit or Passion – gives us capacity for emotional
experiences
St. Augustine
• Laid a foundation for a theistic conceptualization about the self
• The idea of soul that lives forever persisted
• The dualistic relationship between the physical body and the
mind or soul described as contentious or antagonistic pervade
• physical body which is imperfect, corruptible, finite, and inferior
was also regarded as the prison which needs to be overcome in
due time by the more superior soul
• Came up a more integrated and harmonized perspective on the
dynamics between the body and soul that comprise the self.
• Physical body – “spouse of the soul”, united with the soul by a
natural appetite, without which, human beings will never reach a
sense of integration or wholeness
RENE DESCARTES
• Introduced the dualistic and rational self (more
cognitive view of self)
• Self as capable of thinking and reasoning, can be a
subject for a more systematic inquiry
• As a thinking being, self is able to do mental
operations like understanding, reasoning, doubting
• Famous line, “I think, therefore, I am” comes the
concept of a self that already implies self-identity—one
that is able to be aware as it does specific mental
activities while in the act of doing these(Chaffee, 2016)
RENE DESCARTES
• Physical self – exists in the natural world thus subject
of physical laws of nature
• Soul or Conscious self - a self that can be a subject for
a more systematic inquiry , a thinking entity that exists
apart from the body. an immortal, conscious
substance that is part of the spiritual realm,
independent of the physical laws of the universe but is
subject to the laws of reason and God’s will. an
inseparable unity, that continues to exist even after
physical body’s (an extended substance) death as it
seeks to unite with the spiritual realm and God’s
infinite and eternal mind, the only and ultimate
substance.
JOHN LOCKE
• Father of Empiricism
• claims that the ultimate source of knowledge is direct
or sense experience that is knowable through our
capacity for conscious awareness, reflection, and
remembering
• self is a conscious, thinking person who is aware of
itself and the things it is experiencing at any given
moment. It is a thinking, intelligent being who can
reason and reflect
• conscious means being aware that one is thinking.
• consciousness always goes with thinking and is
necessary for the rational process to unfold
DAVID HUME
• A skeptic, we can not really know anything with outright
certitude
• the idea of a rational soul or mind or self that has the ability
to fully understand the world is suspicious
• the idea of an essential self that has the potential to exist
endlessly in the realm of the divine is unthinkable
• The self is, thus, rendered fictional, an imaginary creature
• self is nothing but a collection or bundle of ever-changing
perceptions that are merely passing thru the so-called
“theater of the mind”, thus, came out his “bundle theory” of
self.
• we experience basic sensations called impressions, from this
we can eventually have a built up ideas which are then stored
in the mind (vessel for passing sensations)
IMMANUEL KANT
• SELF is active and thinking, exists independently of
experience
• it constructs and unifies the contents or elements of
consciousness
• It is a conscious and active self which is a product of
pure reason—a regulating principle that has the
capacity to understand human condition.
• The self has a cognitive mechanism which we may
call mind that is able to construct meanings and
with organizing rules that are inborn in each
individual thus, the self is able to form cognitions or
knowledge from their different experiences.
SIGMUND FREUD’S MULTI-LAYERED SELF
The self has three structures
Conscious - operate in the ‘reality principle’ as it facilitates the
self ‘s navigation of its external environment in a reasonable,
mindful, and functional manner, contains the EGO and
SUPEREGO
Pre-conscious - contains all those psychic materials that are out
of awareness but are accessible to conscious awareness, as
need arises
Unconscious - is the centerpiece of Freud’s theory and is the
storehouse of an individual’s rugged instincts, painful memories,
unfulfilled wishes, and childhood fantasies or unacceptable
impulses, contains the ID
SIGMUND FREUD’S MULTI-LAYERED SELF
• EGO- rational, executive order
• ID - repository of basic and irrational
impulses
• SUPEREGO - the moral, ideal
component of the self
GILBERT RYLE(2000)
• Self is an empirical entity characterized by a
pattern of behaviour or the person’s behavioral
dispositions in specific contexts or
circumstances.
• What can be then regarded as mental
phenomena are merely aspects of observable
behaviours like actions, speeches, gestures,
utterances, and the like.
• The mind is a public manifestations of inner
processes e.g. thoughts and feelings, as well as
actions that comprise the so-called human self
JERRY FODOR’S FUNCTIONAL SELF
• functionalism believes that the self exists or acts not according
to its fundamental structures like an inborn substance
components but based on how its elements work as they are
put together
• regard the various mental states as cognitive associations or
processing centers linking sensory information (inputs )and
behavioral responses (outputs).
• self operates like a computer, behaving or functioning like a
configuration of bits and pieces of computer hardware with
their mental states being likened to a computer software or
central processing unit(CPU).
PAUL CHURCHLAND
• his theory, eliminative materialism, asserts that folk or
common sense psychology that talks about people’s inner
mental states and experiences will eventually be
eliminated by neurophysiology
• SELF is the brain itself
• the individual’s thoughts, emotions, behaviors are not
caused by a conscious , thinking self but are the results
of neural activation in certain brain areas
• The key to a far-reaching scrutiny of the human mind is
through a thoughtful analysis of how the different areas
of the brain works
THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL SELF
• phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserl and
Maurice Merleau-Ponty picture the self as a “living
body” that fully expresses the unity of the physical
body and the imperceptible mind
• Phenomenology is a philosophical perspective that
focuses on the study of man’s immediate
experience, attempting to describe them as they Edmund Hus
are.
• The goal is the descriptions of the vividness of every
phenomenon as it is perceived by the experiencing
person.
• The subjective self is a fully conscious, aware, and
perceiving entity—mindful of things as they appear
to the senses.
INTEGRATION
• Philosophically, the self may be construed as a thing that exists through time and
space. As such, we may conceive of it as being made up of a physical element
observable to the senses, and of a non-material mind or soul that is either eternal
or temporal
• has the capacity of knowing its own essence, or its separateness from, or
connectedness with other knowing substances.
• It can be regarded as living in or with the body temporarily before the body dies
and by then, it transitions to the heavenly realm.
• Or, you could view the self as a sense of identity that emerges out of a growing
consciousness formed in the human memory resulting from accumulated ideas,
impressions or perceptions of sense experiences;
• Or, the self, as but a process like behaving or thinking that goes with the
continuing activation of the complex neural and physiological mechanisms or
systems in the human body;
• Or the self as simply a fully experiencing body that has awareness of its existence
within a given moment.