THE CONCEPT OF

“SELF” FROM
VARIOUS
PHILOSOPHICAL
PERSPECTIVES
 2

INTENDED LEARNING
▫
OUTCOMES
Explain why it is essential to understand the self.

▫ Describe and discuss the different notions of the self from points of view
of various
philosophers across time and place.

▫ Compare and contrast how the self has been represented in different
philosophical schools.

▫ Examine one’s self against the different views of self that were
discussed in class.
WHAT IS
PHILOSOPHY?
Let’s start
 4

PHILOSOPHY
▫ Studies the fundamental nature, knowledge, reality,
and existence in an academic discipline
▫ Investigates the nature of ordinary and scientific
beliefs
▫ Determines the legitimacy of concepts by rational
argument
 5

“
The Greeks we re the ones
who seriously
moved away questioned
from them to
myths and reality and respond
understand
to perennial questions of
curiosity, including the question
of the self.
SEVERAL PERSPECTIVES
OF PHILOSOPHERS ON
THE CONCEPT OF SELF
 7

1. Pre-
Socratics
Thales, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Empedocles,
etc.
 8

PRE-SOCRATICS
▫ They were concerned with questions such as:
▫ What is the world really made up of?
▫ Why is the world the way it is?
▫ What explains the changes that
happen
around us?
 9

PRE-SOCRATICS
▫ They introduced the term “arché”
▪ Arché refersto the origin or source/”soul” as
the primal matter
▪ the soul’s movement is the ultimate arché of all other
movement
▪ Arché has no origin outsideitself and cannotbe
destroyed
▪ Explains the multiplicity of things in the world
 10

2.
Socrates
 1
1

SOCRATE
▫
S
Concerns the problem of the self
▫ “the true task of the philosopher is
to know oneself”
▫ “the unexamined life is not worth living”
 12

SOCRATE
▫
S
underwent a trial for‘corrupting the
minds of the youth’
▫ succeeded made people think about who
they are
 13

SOCRATE
▫ ‘the
S
worst thing that can happen
anyone is to live but die to
▫ inside’
“every person is
dualistic”
 14

SOCRATE
S

MAN = Body + Soul

Individual = Imperfect & Permanent Body + Perfect & Permanent
Soul
 15

3.
Plato
 16

PLATO
▫ Emphasizes the three components to the soul
▫ Rational soul- reason & intellect to
govern
affairs
▫ Spirited soul- emotions should be kept at
bay
▫ Appetitive soul- basic desires (food,
sleep,
sexual needs, and others)
 17

PLATO
▫ When the three components are
attained, the human person’s
soul becomes just & virtuous
 18

4. St.
Augustine
 19

ST.
▫
AUGUSTINE
‘spirit of man’ in medieval philosophy
▫ following view of Plato but adds
Christianity
▫ man is of a bifurcated nature
 20

ST.
▫
AUGUSTINE
part of man dwells in the world (imperfect) and
yearns to be with the Divine
▫ other part is capable of reaching immortality
▫ body – dies on earth; soul – lives eternally in
spiritual bliss with “God”
 21

5. St. Thomas
Aquinas
 22

ST. THOMAS
▫
AQUINAS
man = matter + form
▪ matter (hyle) – “common stuff that makes up
everything in the universe”
▪ form (morphe) – “essence of a
substance or
thing”; (what makes it what it is)
 23

ST. THOMAS
▫ the
AQUINAS
body of the human is similar to
animals/objects, but what makes a human is his
essence
▫ “the soul is what makes us humans”
 24

6. Rene
Descartes
 25

RENE
▫
DESCARTES
Father of Modern Philosophy
▫ human person = body + mind
▫ “there is so much that we should
doubt”
 26

RENE
DESCARTES
▫ “If something is so clear and lucid as not to be
doubted, that’s the only time one should
believe.”
▫ the only thing one can’t doubt is existence of the
self
 27

RENE
▫
DESCARTES
“I think, therefore I am”
▫ the self = cogito (the thing that thinks) +
extenza
(extension of mind/body)
▫ the body is a machine attached to the mind
 28

RENE
DESCARTES
▫ It’s the mind that makes the man
▫ “I am a thinking thing. . . A thing that doubts,
understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses,
imagines, perceives.”
 29

7. David
 30

DAVID
▫
HUME
disagrees with the all the other aforementioned
philosophers
▫ “one can only know what comes from the senses
& experiences” (he is an empiricist)
▫ “the self is not an entity beyond the
physical
body”
 31

DAVID
▫ you know
HUME
that other people are humans not
because you have seen their soul, but because
you see them, hear them, feel them, and other
sensory experiences.
 32

DAVID
HUME
▫ “the self is nothing but a bundle of impressions
and ideas”
▫ impression means basic objects of our
experience/sensation and it forms the core of
our thoughts
▫ idea means copies of impressions and not as
“real” as impressions
 33

DAVID
HUME
▫ Self refers to a collection of different perceptions
which rapidly succeed each other
▫ Self is in a perpetual flux and movement
▫ We want to believe that there is a unified ,
coherent self, soul, mind, etc., but it is all just a
combination of experiences.
8.
Immanu
el Kant
 35

IMMANUEL
▫ agrees
KANT
with Hume that everything starts
with
perception/sensation of impressions
▫ there is a MIND that regulates these impressions
▫ “time, space, etc. are ideas that one cannot find
in the world, but is built in our minds
▫ “apparatus of the mind”
 36

IMMANUEL
▫
KANT
the self organizes different impressions that one
gets in relation to his own existence
▫ we need active intelligence to synthesize
all
knowledge and experience
▫ the self is not only personality but also the
seat
of knowledge
 37

9. Gilbert
 38

GILBERT
RYLE
▫ denies the internal, non-physical self
▫ “what truly matters is the behavior that a person
manifests in his day-to-day life.”
▫ the self is not an entity one can locate and
analyze but simply the convenient name that we
use to refer to the behaviors that we make
 39

10. Merleau-
 40

GILBERT
▫ a RYLE who
phenomenologist says the mind-body
bifurcation is an invalid problem
▫ mind and body are inseparable
▫ “one’s body is his opening toward his existence
to the world”
▫ the living body, his thoughts, emotions, and
experiences are all one.