Understanding the Self: The Self

from various philosophical

perspectives

Prepared by:

Rachel Saliganan-Sy, RGC, LPT

 Socrates
 The first philosopher who ever engaged in a
systematic questioning about “the self”.
 Became his life-long mission, the true task of
the philosopher is to know oneself.
 Every man is composed of body and soul- This
means that every human person is dualistic,
that is, he is composed of two important
aspects of his personhood
 For Socrates, this means all individuals have
an imperfect, impermanent aspect to him and
the body while, maintaining that there is also
a soul that is perfect and permanent.
 Plato
 Student of Socrates
 Supported that idea that man is a dual nature of
body and soul.
 He added that there are three components of the
soul: The rational soul, the spirited soul, and the
appetitive soul.
 In his book entitled The Republic- Plato
emphasizes that justice in the human person can
only be attained if the three parts of the soul are
working harmoniously with one another.
 The rational soul-forged by reason and intellect
has to govern the affairs of human person.
 The spirited soul- which is in-charge of emotions
 The appetitive soul-in charge of base desires like
eating, drinking, sleeping and having sex are
controlled as well.
 When this ideal state is attained, then the human
person’s soul becomes just and virtuous.
 Augustine
 He infused the view of plato with the newfound
doctrine of Christianity.
 He agreed that man is of a bifurcated nature.
 An aspect of the man dwells in the world and is
imperfect and continuously yearns to be with the
divine and the other is capable of reaching
immortality.
 The body is bound to die on earth and the soul is
to anticipate living eternally in a realm of spiritual
bliss in communion with God.
 This is because the body can only thrive in the
imperfect , physical reality that is the world,
whereas the soul can also stay after death in
an eternal realm with the all-transcendent
God .
 The goal of every human person is to attain
this communion and bliss with the Divine by
living his life on earth in virtue.
 Thomas Aquianas
 The most eminent 13th century scholar and
stalwart of the medieval philosophy, appended
something to this Christian view.
 He adapted some ideas from Aristotle and said
that indeed, Man is composed of two parts:
matter and Form
 Matter or Hyle in greek, refers to the “ common
stuff that makes up everything in the universe .”
Man’s body is part of this matter.
 On the other hand, Form or morphe in greek
refers to the “ essence of a substance or
thing.” It is what makes it what it is.
 To aquinas, just as in Aristotle, the soul is what
animates the body; it is what makes us
human.
 Descartes
• He is the Father of Modern Philosophy.
• He conceived of the human person as having a
body and a mind.
• He thought that the only thing that one
cannot doubt is the existence of the self, for
even if one doubts oneself, that only proves
that there is a doubting self, a thing that
thinks and therefore, that cannot be doubted.
 Cogito Ergo Sum- I think therefore I am
 The self then for Descartes is also a combination
of 2 distinct entities, the cogito- the thing that
thinks which is the mind and the Extenza or
extension of the mind which is the body.
 In view of Descartes, the body is nothing else but
a machine that is attached to the mind. The
human person has it but it is not what makes
man a thing. If at all, that is the mind.
 Hume
 David Hume, a scottish philosopher who has a
very unique way of looking at man.
 To him, the self is nothing but a bundle of
impressions. (What are expressions?) If one
tries to examine his experiences, he finds that
they can all be categorized into two:
impressions and ideas
• Impressions are the basic objects of our
experience or sensation. They therefore form the
core of our thoughts
• Impressions therefore are vivid because they are
products of our direct experience with the world.
• Ideas on the other are not as lively and vivid as
our impressions. When one imagines that feeling
of being in love for the first time, that still is an
idea.
 Self according to Hume is simply “ A bundle or
collection of different perceptions which
succeed each other with an inconceivable
rapidity and are in a perpetual flux and
movement” (Hume and Steinberg 1992)
 Self is simply a combination of all experiences
with a particular person.
 Kant
 He suggests that self is an actively engaged
intelligence in man that synthesizes all
knowledge and experience.
 The self is not just what gives one his
personality but also the seat of knowledge
acquisition for all human persons
 Ryle
 What truly matters is the behavior that a
person manifests in his day-to-day life.
 Ryle suggests that the “self” is not an entity
one can locate and analyze but simply the
convenient name that people use to refer to
all the behaviours that people make.
 Merleau- Ponty
 He is a phenomenologist who asserts that the
mind-body bifurcation that has been going on for
a long time is a futile endeavor and an invalid
problem.
 Unlike Ryle who simply denies the “self”,He
instead says that the mind and body are son
intertwined that they cannot be separated from
one another.
 The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and
experiences are all one.