UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

1.state the importance of understanding one’s self;

2.explain the various notions of the self from different
philosophical perspectives; and
3.examine one’s self in relation to the philosophical
perspectives of the self.
 ACTIVITY
Directions: Try to know more about yourself by answering the
following questions.

1. Aside from your name, course, age, address, physical attributes,

and interests, how would you characterize yourself?
2. Reflecting on your younger years, how did yourself develop? What
external factors or personal decisions made the biggest impact?
3. How is your “self” related to others, and what makes it different
from others?
4. What do you think is the connection of your “self” to your physical
body?
5.Do you think a separate “self” exists after death? What do you think
happens to this entity?
 ANALYSIS
1. Based on your answers, how do you view your personal
“self” (internal) and its connection to others (external)?

Internal External
2. Based on your answers, how do you view the development
of the self?
The Self in Our Younger The Self During The Self After Death
Years (From Infancy to Adulthood
Teenage years) (20 years old and
above)
As a broad field about knowledge, thinking, reasoning,
nature, as well as how we should live, among others, it is
almost inevitable that the study of philosophy would lead to
the philosophers to reflect on themselves and ask, “Who
am i? What characterizes this “self” that I say I am?”

Greek thinkers prior to Socrates, like Thales, Pythagoras,

and Heraclitus, among others, focused on the composition
and processes of the world around them. Unsatisfied with
mere mythological and supernatural explanations, these
so-called Pre-Socratic philosophers turned to observation,
documentation, and reasoning.
(469-399 BCE)
 Socrates provided a change of
perspective by focusing on the self.
 His life and ideas, documented by his
students, the historian Xenophon and
the philosopher Plato, showed how
Socrates applied systematic
questioning of the self.
 Socrates believed that it is the duty of
the philosopher to know oneself. To
live without knowing who you are and
what virtues you can attain is the worst
that can happen to a person. Thus, he
noted that an “unexamined life is
not worth living.”
Socrates saw a person as
dualistic, that is, every
person is composed of Self
body and soul. There is
an imperfect and
impermanent aspect of
every one of us, which is
our physical body, and
then, there is also the
perfect and permanent, Body Soul
which is the soul.
(428-347 BCE)
 Plato further expounded on the idea of
the soul by stating that it has three
parts/components:
1. the appetitive soul – responsible
for the desires and cravings of a
person;
2. the rational soul – the thinking,
reasoning, and judging aspect; and
3. the spirited soul – accountable for
emotions and also makes sure that
the rules of reason is followed in
order to attain victory and/or
honor.
  In his work The Republic, he
emphasized that all three parts
of the soul must work
Self harmoniously to attain justice
and virtue in a person. The
rational soul must be well-
developed and in-charge, the
Body Soul emotions from the spirited soul
are checked, and the desires of
the appetitive must be
controlled and focused to those
Appetitive Rational Spirited that give life, like eating,
drinking, and sleeping, among
others.
(354-430 CE)
 St. Augustine is considered as
one of the most significant
Christian thinkers, esp. in the
development of the Latin
Christianity theology.
 His idea of the “self” merged
that of Plato and the then new
Christian perspective, which led
him to believe in the duality of
a person.
St. Augustine
• He believes that there is an imperfect part of us, which is
connected with the world and yearns to be with the divine;
• and there is part of us that is not bound by this world and
therefore attain immortality;
• The imperfection of the body incapacitates it from thriving in the
spiritual communion with God, thus, it must die for the soul to
reach the eternal realm. However, this communion of the soul
with God can only be attained if the body lives in this world with
virtue.
(1596-1650)
 René Descartes was a French
mathematician, scientist, and philosopher.
 He claimed that the person is composed of
the cogito (the mind), and the extenza
(the body), which is the extension of the
mind.
 He argues that a person should only believe
the things that can pass the test of doubt.
 In his “Discourse on the Method” and
“Meditations on First Philosophy”, he
therefore concluded that the only thing that
a person cannot doubt is the existence of
his/her “self”. Because even doubt about
the self proves that there is a
(1596-1650)
thinking/doubting self (“cogito ergo
sum”)
René Descartes

 The mind makes a person, and the body is just some kind
of a machine that is attached and controlled by it;
 “I think therefore I am.”
 What is a thinking thing? It is a thing that doubts,
understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses; imagines and
perceives.
(1632-1704)
 John Locke was an English philosopher.
 His works as a physician provided him
with an idea that deviated from te
duality of the body or soul.
 A person’s mind is a blank state
(tabula rasa) at birth; it is through
experiences that this blank state is
filled, and a personal identity or “self’ is
formed.
 This “self” cannot be found in the soul
nor the body but in one’s
consciousness (Nimbalkar 2011).
John Locke

 However, the consciousness is not the brain itself.

It is something that goes beyond the brain; and
 Thus, the consciousness and the “self” that comes
with it can be transferred from one person or body
to another (Nimbalkar 2011).
(1711-1776)
 David Hume was a Scottish philosopher
and an empiricist who believes that all
concepts as well as knowledge come
from the senses and experiences.
 He argued that there is no self beyond
what can be experienced.
 We do not know others because we have
seen/touched their souls; we know them
because of what we can actually
observe.
 This “self” according to him is a “bundle
or collection of different perceptions,
which succeed each other with an
(1711-1776)
inconceivable rapidity, and are a
perpetual flux and movement”
David Hume
 Simply, the self is a combination of experiences of
a person.
 Experiences can be categorized into:
1. impressions and ideas – real/actual
experiences or sensations like feeling the rough
edges of a stone or tasting a sweet ice cream
2. ideas – copies of impressions/representation of
the world and sensations, like love, faith, or
even an association that this certain event is
caused by something in the past could possibly
create another reaction in the future.
(1711-1776)
 One of the most influential
philosophers in Western philosophy.
 Kant contributed to the fields of
metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics
among others.
 While everything starts with
sensations and impressions, he
believes that there must
necessarily be something in us
that organizes these sensations to
create knowledge and ideas.
 Kant is against Locke who is an
empiricist.
Immanuel Kant
 He thinks that reason, not mere experience, is the
foundation of knowledge. It is like seeing a visual
effect in television, your experience say it is there,
but the reason says it is only a computer-generated
image.
 The “self” organizes our experience into something
meaningful. It can do such thing because it is
independent from sensory experiences; something
that transcends or is above even our consciousness.
(1900-1976)
 A British philosopher mainly
associated with Ordinary Language
Philosophy Movement.
 Gilbert Ryle proposed that we should
instead focus on the observable
behavior of a person in defining the
“self”.
 One of the things that the duality
approach seems to state is that there
can be a private, unobservable
aspect of a person, and a different
public and observable part; one can
describe “self” as good but do
(1900-1976)
otherwise in real life.
Gilbert Ryle
 Ryle do not adhere to the idea of duality and sees
the self as an entirely of thoughts, emotions and
actions of a person that relates to observable
behavior.
 We get to know others by observing their behavior
and inferring about their “selves”; we can apply
the same observation and reflections on ourselves.
(1908-1961)
 A leading French existentialist and
phenomenologist, also contributes
to the idea by stating that mind and
body are interconnected with
each other and therefore, cannot
be separated.
 Our body is our connection to the
external world, including other
people, thus all experiences are
embodied. This also includes the
thoughts and emotions of a
(1908-1961)
person.
(1942-)
 A Canadian philosopher known for his
studies in neurophilosophy and the
philosophy of mind (the study of the
philosophy of the mind, the philosophy
of science, neuroscience and
psychology).
 He further utilized knowledge from
other academic and research fields
to talk about the self as well as the
mind.
 One of those who proposed the use of
“eliminative materialism” or
“eliminativism”.
Paul Churchland

 “eliminative materialism” or “eliminativism” means

that the old terms we use to describe the mind are
outdated.
 If not mere “folk psychology”, thus the need to use
more accurate and scientifically proven terms,
esp. based on neuroscience research.
 Neuroscience somehow shows a connection of what
we call mental states to that of the physical
activities of the brain.
 The dual perspective of the “self” continues
to exist, perhaps because our brains are
programmed to think of dualities. Our
religious beliefs, that of a mortal body and
an immortal soul, also affects such
continuity. However, new ideas from
academic fields as well as findings from
technological advances are being considered
and incorporated in this debate and the
discovery of the self.

Being open to such new ideas may help us

know more about our own “self”.
Assignment

Directions:
Read the poem
and answer the
questions that
follow.
1.Research about the background or an interpretation of the
poem. Cite your source/s.
2. In your own perspective, how was the “self” represented
in the poem?
3. Based on your reading of the poem, as well as the
information you have researched, which of the
philosophical ideas discussed in this lesson best describes
the representation of idea about the self in this poem?
Provide a brief explanation.
4. From the discussions, what now is your idea of the “self”?
End of Lesson 1