Understanding The Self

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 The Self from the Various Perspective

“ The good life is the

process, not a state being.
It is a direction, not a
destination.”- Carl Rogers
 PHILOSOPHERS’ PERSPECTIVE OF THE
SELF
• SOCRATES
• PLATO
• ST. AUGUSTINE
• RENE DESCARTES
• JOHN LOCKE
• DAVID HUME
• SIGMUND FREUD
• IMMANUEL KANT
• GILBERT RYLE
 SOCRATES(470-399 B.C)
• He explored his philosophy of immortality in the
days following his trial and before his sentence to
death was executed.
• According to him, an unexamined life is not worth
living. This statement is reflected in his idea of
the self.
• He believed in Dualism that aside from the
physical body(material substance) each person
has an immortal(eternal/undying)
soul(immaterial substance)
• The body belongs to physical realm(territory
/monarchy/land) and the soul to the ideal realm.
When you die, your body dies but not your soul.
There is a life after death of your physical body.
There is a world after death.
• According to him, in order to have a good life, you
must live a good life, a life with the purpose, and
that purpose is for you to do well. Then there you
will be happy after your body dies.
 PLATO
• He was greatly affected by Socrates’ death.
Socrates was Plato’s teacher.
• He believed that the self is immortal and it
consists of 3 parts: the Reason, Physical
appetite and Spirit or Passion.
REASON- the divine essence that enables you to
think deeply, makes wise choices and achieve
an understanding of eternal truths.
PHYSICAL APPETITE- your basic biological needs
such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire

SPIRIT or PASSION- your basic emotions such as

love, anger, ambition, aggressiveness and
empathy.
The 3 components may work together or in
conflict. If human beings do not live in
accordance with their nature/function, the
result will be an injustice.
 ST. AUGUSTINE
• He was a great explorer in his youth and
young adulthood; he spent great times with
his friends and up to the extent of fathering an
illegitimate child.
• He explorations led to his conversation to
Christianity where in he spent the remainder
of his day serving the bishop of Hippo and
writing books and letters including his idea of
the self.
• At first, he thought the body as the “slave” of the
soul but ultimately, regarded the body as the
“spouse” of the soul both attached to one
another. He believed that the body is united with
the soul, so that man may be entire and
complete. His first principle was ,”I doubt,
therefore I am.”
• The self seeks to be united with God through
faith and reason and he described that humanity
is created in the image and likeness of God,
That God is supreme and all-knowing and
everything created by God who is all good is
good.
 JOHN LOCKE
According to Locke, the human mind at birth is
tabula rasa “blank slate” the self or personal
identity is constructed primarily from sense
experiences which shape and mold the self
throughout a person’s life.
Personal identity is made possible by self
consciousness. In order to discover the nature
of personal identity, you need to find out what
it means to be a person.
A person is thinking, intelligent being who has abilities to
reason and to reflect.
A person is also someone who considers itself to be the
same thing at different times and different places.
Consciousness means being aware that you are thinking;
this what makes your belief that you are the same
identity at different times in different places.
The essence of the self is its conscious awareness of itself
as thinking, reasoning and reflecting identity.
 RENE DESCARTES
• He was a scientist in his professional life and
during his time, scientists believed that after
death the physical body dies, hence the self also
dies.
• The self is a thinking thing, distinct from the body
.
• The thinking self or soul is nonmaterial, immortal,
conscious while the physical body is material,
mortal, non thinking entity fully governed by
physical laws of nature.
 DAVID HUME
• He left the University of Edinburg at the age of
15, to study privately. Although he was
encourage to take up law, his interest was
philosophy. it is during his private study that
he began raising questions about religion.
• For him there is no “self” only a bundle of
perceptions passing through the theater of
your minds.
• According to him, humans are so desperately
wanting to believe that they have unified and
continuous self or soul that they use their
imagination to construct a fictional(unreal or
imaginary) self.
The mind is theatre, container for fleeting the
sensations and disconnected ideas and reasoning
ability is merely a slave to the passions. Hence
personal identity is just a result of imagination.
 IMMANUEL KANT
• Although Kant recognizes the legitimacy in
Hume’s account, he opposes the idea of Hume
that everything starts with perception and
sensation of impressions, that’s why he
brought the idea of the self as response
against the idea of Hume.
• For Kant, there is unavoidably a mind that
systematizes the impressions that men get
from external world.
• Therefore, Kant believed that the self is a
product of reason because the self regulates
experience by making unified experience
possible.
• We construct the self. The self exists
independently of experience and the self goes
beyond experience.
 SIGMUND FREUD
• He develop his theories during a period in
which he experienced heart irregularities,
disturbing dreams and periods of depression.
• Based on him, self is composed of three
layers, conscious, preconscious, and
unconscious.
• CONSCIOUS MIND includes thoughts, feelings
and actions that you are currently aware of.

• PRECONSCIOUS MIND includes mental

activities that are stored in your memory not
presently active but can be accessed or
recalled
• UNCONSCIOUS MIND includes activities that
you are not aware of.
• According to him, there are thought, feelings
and urges that the conscious mind wants to
buried, hide in your unconscious but may shed
light to your unexplained behavior.
 GILBERT RYLE
• His concept on is provided in his philosophical
statement, “I act therefore I am .”
• He views the self as the way people behave,
which is composed of a set of patterned
behavior.
• Basically, for Ryle, the self is the same as your
behavior.
 PAUL CHURCHLAND
• His theory is anchored in the statement “” the
self is the brain”
• The self is inseparable from the brain and
physiological body BECAUSE the physical brain
gives the sense of self.
• In short the self and the brain is one. Once the
brain is dead the self is dead too.
 MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY
• He won the school’s “Award for outstanding
Achievement” in Philosophy it traced his
commitment to the vacation of Philosophy.
• His concept, “ the self has embodied
subjectivity” explained that all your
knowledge about yourself and the world is
based in your subjective experiences and
everything that you are aware of it contained
in your consciousness.
SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
 SOCIOLOGY
• Is the study of society, patterns of social
relationships, social interaction and culture of
everyday life
• Man is social being who is born into existence in a
community before he is able to know himself
• Early in life, as children, you became aware of
your social nature. And it is through socialization
that begins in family that you are exposed to
behavior, social rules and attitudes that lead to
social development.
And through social institutions: family, school,
church and community you interact with
everyday that will lead you deeper
understanding of your social identity that is
understanding your social life.
 What is PERSONALITY?
• The concept of personality is a descriptive
one.
Personality is the basic organization of
individuals that determines the uniqueness of
their behavior.
The basic organization refers to the structure of
the personality-how is it put together and the
relationships among the various parts.
• It consists of the total physical, intellectual
and emotional structure of the individual.
Each one is unique. Each one of you has your
own way of interacting with others and with
your social environment.
 Some Aspects of Personality
A. PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS- physical appearance is
the most obvious of an individual’s personality.
(height, complexion, pointed or flat nose) These
characteristics are inherited but can be altered by
your culture.
B. ABILITIES-are skills that are developed within the
culture. Example, one may develop the ability in
playing sepak takraw or football, to program
computers or use an abacus. Other than abilities, you
have the capacity to learn skills, or to acquire a
particular body of knowledge-aptitude.
• Aptitude is more related to heredity, as
abilities are always related to culture.
C. INTEREST-acquired from various kinds of
things. You all differ in interests. The things
that you become interested is depend on the
cultural alternatives that are available-and an
awareness of your existence.
D. BELIEFS- about yourself, your friends, nature,
religion, work etc. it also includes attitudes,
values, preferences , superstitions, prejudices
and knowledge. Some are based on fact,
others are not. But all beliefs are related to
the culture and learned from others in the
society.
E. HABITS-are regular, routine ways of thinking,
feeling or behaving. This can be observed in
dressing, eating, interacting with others and in
your everyday task. . These are learned from
others and help you distinguish one person’s
behavior from others. And almost all habits
are related to the culture.
 The Influence of Heredity and
Environment
Is it “nature or nurture” if culture affects all
aspects of your personality , what role then
does heredity play in your personality
development?
 A. HEREDITY
• Characteristics that are innate, present at
birth-physical characteristics, like hair, skin
and eye color and body size. It is transmitting
of genetic characteristics from your parents to
you. We inherit basic needs and capacities.
• This gives you biological needs. Heredity plays
an important role in shaping human
personalities by setting limits on individuals.
For example, if you born with five-foot frame,
you are not likely to become a professional
basketball player. On the other hand, it is not
guarantee that you’ll become one even if you
are seven-foot tall. Inherited characteristics
place limits on what is possible, but it will not
determine what you will do and what kind of
personality you will have.
 B. BIRTH ORDER
• Your personality is also influenced by whether
you have brothers, sisters, both, or neither.
You were born first, last or in between. Do you
have only brothers- or only sisters-or both?
Think about ways in which your own life
situation could have been different, and how
your personality might have been affected by
these factors.
 C. PARENTS
• Another difference within the family that can
be influence a person’s personality is the age
of the parents. How might you be affected by
your parent’s age? Parents amount of
education, religious, beliefs, ethnic
backgrounds, economic or social status,
occupations and communities in which they
live, all contributes to the personality
development of an individual.
 D. SUBCULTURES
• It is a portion of a society that has enough
characteristics of its own to set it apart and
yet it is included within the general society.
Identify subculture differ from your own.
• Imagine growing up in it. What would your
family life, interests, values and beliefs might
be like? How might your personality
influence?
 E. THE CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT
Every culture is different. These cultural
differences affects your personality. It is
cultural environment that makes individuals
human. It makes you embrace your similarities
and celebrate your differences.
Your personality-our humanity-comes from our
cultural environment.
 The Social Self
At birth, you can talk, walk, feed yourselves, or
even protect yourself from harm. You know
nothing about the ways of your culture or
society. Then through interaction with other
people and your environment , you are
developed into individuals who have
knowledge of your culture-you become
participants of you society.
 SOCIALIZATION
• The process of cultural molding, how
individuals learn the basic skills, values, beliefs
and behavior pattern of the society.

THE SOCIALIZATION PROCESS

The following theories will help you understand
how we become socialized and develop you
identity or self.
 JOHN LOCKE
• He was an English philosopher who insisted
that each newly born individual was tabula
rasa- blank slate, on which we could be
written just about anything.
• He claimed that you are born without
qualities. You develop your personality as
result of your experiences. Through the
socialization process, you develop your social
self.
• The social self – is the way that you see
yourselves as a result of interacting with
others you begin to have a sense of your own
self from your daily interactions with other
people.
 CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
• Was an American sociologist who develop the
theory about the social self.
• He observed that you only begin to have a
sense of your own self – of who you are and
what you are like – after you notice how
others see you.
• According to him, a newborn baby has no
sense of person or place.
• Various people like parents, brothers, sisters
and other family members and friends can
interact with the baby. These people as they
relate to the baby provide the infant with a
mirror that reflects the infant’s image. The
image reflected back is created during the
interaction between the baby and other
people. This theory puts a great deal of
responsibility on parents and others who have
contact with children.
They contribute the child sense ‘s sense ability
or inability depending on the way they
interact with the child.
He called his theory ”the looking glass theory”
According to him, you are as other people see
you. You can only see yourselves as others see
you.
How do you react when others see you
differently from the way you see yourself?
 GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
• According to him, seeing yourselves as others see you
is only the beginning. Eventually, you not only come to
see yourselves as other see you, but actually take the
role of other.
• He believes that all of us come into contact with two
kinds of people “significant others” they are from
earlier contact, people who are most important people
to you, they know you and love you for what you are-
parents, brothers, sisters , friends and relatives they
are important to you because of what they are rather
than just for what they can do for you; and
”generalized others”.