THE SELF

ACCORDING
TO PHILOSOPHY
SOCRATES
  A philosopher from Athens, Greece and said to have the greatest
influence on european thought.
 According to the history he was not able to write any of his
teachings and life’s account instead, he is known from the writings of his
student Plato who became one of the greatest philosophers of his time.
Socrates had a unique style of asking questions called Socratic Method.
 Socratic method or dialectic method involves the search for the
correct/proper definition of a thing. In this method, Socrates did not
lecture, he instead would ask questions and engage the person in a
discussion.
 The foundation of socrates philosophy was the delphic oracle’s that
command to “know thyself”. Here, socrates would like to emphasize that
knowing or understanding oneself should be more than the physical self,
or the body.
  According to socrates, self is dichotomous which means composed of two
things: the physical realm or the one that is changeable, temporal, and imperfect.
The best example of the physical realm is the physical world. The ideal realm is the
one that is imperfect and unchanging, eternal, and immortal. This includes the
intellectual essences of the universe like the concept of beauty, truth, and goodness.
 For socrates, a human is composed of body and soul, the first belongs to the
physical realm because it changed, it is imperfect, and it dies, and the latter belongs
to ideal realm for it survives the death. Socrates also used the term soul to identify
self.
 The self, according to Socrates is the immortal and unified entity that is
consistent over time.
PLATO
  A student of Socrates, who introduced the idea of a threepart
soul/self that is composed of reason, physical appetite and spirit or
passion.
The reason enables human to think deeply, make wise choices and
achieve a true understanding of eternal truths. Plato also called this as
divine essence.
The physical appetite is the basic biological needs of human being
such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire.
The spirit or passion is the basic emotions of human being such as
love, anger, ambition, aggressiveness and empathy.
ST. AUGUSTINE
  He is considered as the last of the great ancient philosophers whose
ideas were greatly platonic.
 Like Plato, Augustine believed that the physical body is different
from the immortal soul. Early in his philosophical development he
described body as “snare” or “cage” of the soul and said that the body is
a “slave” of the soul he even characterized that “the soul makes war with
the body”. Later on he came to view the body as “spouse” of the soul,
with both attached to one another by a “natural appetite.” He concluded,
“that the body is united with the soul, so that man may be entire and
complete, is a fact we recognize on the evidence of our own nature.”
  According to st. Augustine, the human nature is composed
of two realms:
1. God as the source of all reality and truth. Through
mystical experience, man is capable of knowing eternal truths.
This is made possible through the existence of the one eternal
truth which is God.
2. The sinfulness of man. The cause of sin or evil is an act
of mans’ freewill. Moral goodness can only be achieved through
the grace of god.
  He also stated that real happiness can only
be found in God. He said that if man loves God
first and everything else to a lesser degree, then
all will fall into its rightful place.
RENE DESCARTES
  A french philosopher, mathematician, and considered the founder
of modern philosophy.
 Descartes, famous principle the “cogito, ergo sum—“i think,
therefore I exist” established his philosophical views on “true
knowledge” and concept of self.
 He explained that in order to gain true knowledge, one must doubt
everything even own existence. Doubting makes someone aware that
they are thinking being thus, they exist. The essence of existing as a
human identity is the possibility of being aware of our selves: being self-
conscious in this way is integral to having a personal identity.
  The self is a dynamic entity that engages in metal operations
– thinking, reasoning, and perceiving processes. In addition to
this, self-identity is dependent on the awareness in engaging with
those mental operations.
  He also maintained that the soul and the body are independent of
one another and each can exist and function without the other. In cases in
which people are sleeping or comatose, their bodies continue to function
even though their minds are not thinking, much like the mechanisms of a
clock.
 He identified the physical self as part of nature, governed by the
physical laws of the universe, and available to scientific analysis and
experimentation, and the conscious self (mind, soul) is a part of the
spiritual realm, independent of the physical laws of the universe,
governed only by the laws of reason and god’s will. And because it exists
outside of the natural world of cause-and-effect, the conscious self is able
to exercise free will in the choices it makes.
JOHN LOCKE
  An english philosopher and physician and famous in his concept of
“tabula rasa” or blank slate that assumes the nurture side of human
development.
 The self, according to locke is consciousness. In his essay entitled
on personal identity he discussed the reflective analysis of how an
individual may experience the self in everyday living. He provided the
following key points:
1. To discover the nature of personal identity, it is important to find
out what it means to be a person.
2. A person is a thinking, intelligent being who has the abilities to
reason and to reflect.
3. A person is also someone who considers themself to be the same
thing in different times and different places.
 4. Consciousness as being aware that we are thinking— always
accompanies thinking and is an essential part of the thinking process.
5. Consciousness makes possible our belief that we are the same
identity in different times and different places.
The bottom line of his theory on self is that self is not tied to any
particular body or substance. It only exists in other times and places
because of the memory of those experiences.
DAVID HUME
  He was a scottish philosopher and also an empiricist.
 His claim about self is quite controversial because he assumed that there is no
self! In his essay entitled, “on personal identity” (1739) he said that, if we carefully
examine the contents of [our] experience, we find that there are only two distinct
entities, "impressions" and "ideas".
 Impressions are the basic sensations of our experience, the elemental data of
our minds: pain, pleasure, heat, cold, happiness, grief, fear, exhilaration, and so on.
 On the other hand, ideas are copies of impressions that include thoughts and
images that are built up from our primary impressions through a variety of
relationships, but because they are derivative copies of impressions, they are once
removed from reality.
 Hume considered that the self does not exist because all of the experiences
that a person may have are just perceptions and this includes the perception of self.
None of these perceptions resemble a unified and permanent self-identity that exists
over time.
  Hume explained that the self that is being
experienced by an individual is nothing but a kind of
fictional self. Human created an imaginary creature which
is not real. “Fictional self” is created to unify the mental
events and introduce order into an individual lives, but this
“self” has no real existence.
SIGMUND FREUD
  A well-known australian psychologist and considered as the father
and founder of psychoanalysis. His influence in psychology and therapy
is dominant and popular in the 20th to 21st century.
 The dualistic view of self by Freud involves the conscious self and
unconscious self.
 The conscious self is governed by reality principle. Here, the self is
rational, practical, and appropriate to the social environment. The
conscious self has the task of controlling the constant pressures of the
unconscious self, as its primitive impulses continually seek for
immediate discharge.
 The unconscious self is governed by pleasure principle. It is the
self that is aggressive, destructive, unrealistic and instinctual.
  Subconscious serves as the repository of past experiences, repressed
memories, fantasies, and urges. The three levels of the mind are:
1. Id. This is primarily based on the pleasure principle. It demands immediate
satisfaction and is not hindered by societal expectations.
2. Ego. The structure that is primarily based on the reality principle. This
mediates between the impulses of the id and restraints of the superego.
3. Superego. This is primarily dependent on learning the difference between
right and wrong, thus it is called moral principle. Morality of actions is largely
dependent on childhood upbringing particularly on rewards and punishments.
Image
 According to freud, there are two kinds of instinct that drive
individual behavior – the eros or the life instinct and the thanatos
of the death instinct. The energy of eros is called libido and
includes urges necessary for individual and species survival like
thrist, hunger, and sex.In cases that human behaior is directed
towards destruction in the form of aggression and violence, such
are the manifestations of thanatos.
GILBERT RYLE
  A british analytical philosopher. He was an important
figure in the field of linguistic analysis which focused on
the solving of philosophical puzzles through an analysis of
language.
 According to Ryle, the self is best understood as a
pattern of behavior, the tendency or disposition for a
person to behave in a certain way in certain circumstances.
IMMANUEL KANT
  A german philosopher who made great contribution to
the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Kant
is widely regarded as the greatest philosopher of the
modern period.
 Kant maintained that an individual self makes the
experience of the world comprehensible because it is
responsible for synthesizing the discreet data of sense
experience into a meaningful whole.
  Additionally, the self is the product of reason, a regulative
principle because the self regulates experience by making unified
experience possible and unlike Hume, knt’s self is not the object
of consciousness, but it makes the consciousness understandable
and unique.
PAUL AND PATRICIA
CHURCHLAND
  An american philosopher interested in the fields of philosophy of
mind, philosophy of science, cognitive neurobiology, epistemology, and
perception.
 Churchlands’ central argument is that the concepts and theoretical
vocabulary that people use to think about the selves— using such terms
as belief, desire, fear, sensation, pain, joy— actually misrepresent the
reality of minds and selves. He claims that the self is a product of brain
activity.
 The behavior of the self can be attributed to the
neuropharmacological states, the neural activity in specialized
anatomical areas.
  Patricia Churchland claimed that man’s brain is responsible for the
identity known as self. The biochemical properties of the brain according
to this philosophy of neuroscience is really responsible for man’s
thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
MAURICE MERLEAU-
PONTY
  A french philosopher and phenomenologist.
 He took a very different approach to the self and the
mind/body “problem.” According to him, the division between
the “mind” and the “body” is a product of confused thinking. The
self is experienced as a unity in which the mental and physical
are seamlessly woven together.
 Developed the concept of self-subject and contended that
perceptions occur existentially. Thus, the consciousness, the
world, and the human body are all interconnected as they
mutually perceive the world.
  According to him, the world and the sense of self are emergent
phenomena in the ongoing process of man’s becoming.
 Phenomenology provides a direct description of the human
experience which serves to guide man’s conscious actions. He further
added that, the world is a field of perception, and human consciousness
assigns meaning to the world. Thus man cannot separate himself from his
perceptions of the world.
 Perception is not purely the result of sensations nor it is purely
interpretations. Rather consciousness is a process that includes sensing as
well as interpreting/reasoning.
ABEL, MARCO
ABARQUEZ, JARE
ALVERT
ALTEZA,VELIENETT
E
BSA 1102