The Self from

various
perspectives
GEED 10023 – Understanding the Self
 Unit B.
SOCIOLOGY
• It is derived from the Latin word “socius” that
means “companion” or “associate” and the
Greek word “logos” for “study”
• Sociology is the study of human social
relationships and institutions.
• Sociology’s subject matter is diverse, ranging
from crime to religion, from the family to the
state, from the divisions of race and social class
to the shared beliefs of a common culture, and
from social stability to radical change in whole
societies.
• Sociological theories of the self attempt to
explain how social processes such as
socialization influence the development of the
self.
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• The self: The self is the individual person, from his or her own perspective.
• Self-awareness is the capacity for introspection and the ability to reconcile oneself as an individual
separate from the environment and other individuals.
• Generalized other: the general notion that a person has regarding the common expectations of others
within his or her social group. It is the ability to understand and take into account the attitudes and
viewpoints of those in our society, as well as our expected roles within society.
• Socialization: The process of learning one’s culture and how to live within it.
• Community: A group sharing a common understanding and often the same language, manners,
tradition and law.
 THE SELF AS A PRODUCT OF
MODERN SOCIETY AMONG
OTHER CONSTRUCTIONS

1. Primary Socialization, also called as

initial socialization, is when a child learns
to interact, behave and talk in society
through family members.occurs when a
child learns the attitudes, values, and
actions appropriate to individuals as
members of a particular culture.
 THE SELF AS A PRODUCT OR MODERN SOCIETY AMONG
OTHER CONSTRUCTIONS

2. Secondary socialization refers to the process of learning the appropriate behavior

as a member of a smaller group within the larger society.
Secondary socialization occurs during the school years and adolescent years
and happens through non-family influence.
 THE SELF AS A PRODUCT
OR MODERN SOCIETY
AMONG OTHER
CONSTRUCTIONS

3. Group socialization is the theory

that an individual’s peer groups,
rather than parental figures,
influences his or her personality and
behavior in adulthood.
THE SELF AS A PRODUCT
OR MODERN SOCIETY
AMONG OTHER
CONSTRUCTIONS

4. Organizational socialization is
the process whereby an employee
learns the knowledge and skills
necessary to assume his or her
organizational role.
 In the social sciences,
institutions are the structures and
mechanisms of social order and
cooperation governing the
behavior of a set of individuals
within a given human collectivity.
Institutions include the following:

1. FAMILY
2. RELIGION

3. PEER GROUP
4. ECONOMIC SYSTEMS 5. LEGAL SYTEMS
6. PENAL SYSTEMS 7. LANGUAGE
8. MEDIA
GEORGE HERBERT MEAD AND THE SOCIAL SELF

» One of the most important sociological approaches to the

self was developed by American sociologist George Herbert
Mead. Mead conceptualizes the mind as the individual
importation of the social process.
» This process is characterized by Mead as the “I” and the
“me”. The “me” is the social self and the “I” is the response
to the “me”. The “I” is the individual’s impulses. The “I” is self
as subject; the “me” is self as object.
» For Mead, existence in a community comes before individual
consciousness. First one must participate in the different
social positions within society and only subsequently can
one use that experience to take the perspective of others
and thus become self-conscious.

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GEORGE HERBERT MEAD AND THE SOCIAL SELF

» Mead presented the self and the mind in terms of a social

process. As gestures are taken in by the individual organism,
the individual organism also takes in the collective attitudes of
others, in the form of gestures, and reacts accordingly with
other organized attitudes.
» This process is characterized by Mead as the “I” and the “me”.
The “me” is the social self and the “I” is the response to the
“me”. In other words, the “I” is the response of an individual to
the attitudes of others, while the “me” is the organized set of
attitudes of others which an individual assumes. The “me” is the
accumulated understanding of the “generalized other,” i.e. how
one thinks one’s group perceives oneself. The “I” is the
individual’s impulses. The “I” is self as subject; the “me” is self
as object. The “I” is the knower, the “me” is the known.

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O R G A N I C S C O M PA N Y
Unit C.
ANTHROPOLOGY
(ánthrōpos, “ man, mankind, human,
humanity ”)) + -logy (from Ancient Greek-λογία (-
logía).
Anthropology is a relative newcomer to the
debate on selfhood. It emerged as a subject from the
imperial ambitions of European states during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and was initially
an effort to identify the weaknesses and failings of
other cultures so that they could be exploited and
subjugated.
It was only in the late-nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries that anthropology threw off its
intimate links with the national and religious
organizations it had been serving, and began to ask
the big question that has informed its research ever
since: ‘What does it mean to be human?’ BEST FOR You
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THE SELF AND PERSON IN CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGY

» Karl Marx, who opposed the imperial version of anthropology

when it was at its strongest, the problem was socio-political. At
some point in the past, humans had adopted a stratified social
system in which individuals became specialized not only in their
productive roles but also in their social roles. Capitalism meant
that some individuals became rulers and owners (the
bourgeoisie), while the rest became the proletariat, workers
without the freedom to choose in any useful way. The workers
were alienated from their work – they had no control over what
they did – and alienated from their own selves, from their
innate potential as individuals. The solution proposed by Marx
was communism, in which the workers would once again take
control over their work. The illusion of selfish but powerless
individual selfhood, fostered by capitalism, would be replaced
by a communally aware selfhood in which the individual is
fulfilled by their work for the collective.

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O R G A N I C S C O M PA N Y
THE SELF AND PERSON IN CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGY

» Émile Durkheim, like Marx, saw modern society as a form of

alienation of the individual; but for Durkheim the alienation
was caused by an enhanced sense of personal identity, and it
was not a bad thing. Traditional societies have collective
awareness and weak self-identity, while modern Western
societies have individual awareness and strong self-identity;
traditional societies enforce conformity by dealing with deviant
behavior, while modern Western societies deal with the deviant
individual; and, while conformity in traditional societies means
adoption of a standard role, modern Western conformity is a
matter of finding a specialist role in a complex and highly
differentiated society. For Durkheim, the enhanced selfhood in
modern societies is a necessary outcome of social
complexity: social complexity generates new and varied ways
of being human, so the individual has more choice in their way
of being human.

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O R G A N I C S C O M PA N Y
THE SELF AND PERSON IN CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGY

» Claude Lévi-Strauss thought that the individual was almost

entirely the product of their social environment, and any
selfhood was therefore imposed on the individual by the local
culture. Like Durkheim, he saw the collectively defined self as
the natural state in traditional societies, while modern humans
were in a state of enhanced individuality. However, unlike
Durkheim (and more like Marx), he believed the traditional
state was preferable to the modern. Modern individuality
leads to the celebration of individual creativity, which cannot
actually exist. Everything created is continuous with what has
gone before; which means that attempting to consciously add
newness usually adds imperfection – it is not creation, it is
destruction.

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THE SELF AND PERSON IN CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGY
» Joseph Campbell, another anthropologist with an interest in
myth, took a very different view of selfhood in traditional
societies. He looked at the myths as hero-myths, descriptions
of the growth and emancipation of the individual protagonist in
the story – who is usually male, and usually forced to undertake
a series of ego-enhancing tasks. However, like Lévi-Strauss,
Campbell saw all myth as carrying one single message, which
he called the monomyth. This myth has four functions: to
explain nature; to reconcile the conscious experience of life to
the subliminal experience; to establish the constraints that
society must place on the individual to ensure group survival;
and to provide a template by which individuals should live to
ensure personal survival. For Campbell, the monomyth was not
a call to abandon individuality, but an explanation of the
interface between the personal individual and the social
individual, the ‘selfish’ self and the cooperative self. It explained
how the selfish self can move from the safety of the known
through the unsafe unknown, and emerge once again into the
known, but with a new social awareness.
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O R G A N I C S C O M PA N Y
THE SELF AND PERSON IN CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGY

» Dorinne Kondo raised an important issue for selfhood in

anthropology. Her experience while conducting fieldwork in
Japan made her realise that her own selfhood had intruded
onto her research in an unexpected and disturbing way: in her
effort to understand the ‘Japaneseness’ of her subjects, she had
increasingly identified with, and adopted, the attitudes and
views of her subjects. The transformation did not happen in her
objective knowledge of being Japanese but in her subjective
knowledge. Yet it was only through her subjective knowledge
that she was able to objectively identify the cultural differences
between being Japanese and being American.

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O R G A N I C S C O M PA N Y
THE SELF AND PERSON IN CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGY

» Thomas Csordas took a somewhat different direction on

selfhood, when he proposed that any anthropological study of
the self needs to recognise the physical body. The existence of a
body is the cause of the existence of the self, and the existence
of groups of bodies is the cause of culture – both the physical
culture evident in many non-humans and the symbolic culture
evident in humans. The human self is both a subjective thing
experienced in a physical culture and an objective thing
experienced in a symbolic culture; but the subjective and
objective selves are not different things, they are different sides
of the same thing. Only by acknowledging the embodiment of
the self can we hope to reconcile our subjective and objective
experiences. For Csordas, the self is an enduring thing, defining
culture by its very existence.

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THE SELF EMBEDDED IN CULTURE
Large Image
Culture and the Self: A New Global Perspective
How we see ourselves shapes our lives, and is shaped by our cultural context. Self-perceptions influence,
among other things, how we think about the world, our social relationships, health and lifestyle choices, community
engagement, political actions, and ultimately our own and other people's well-being.
For several decades, psychological scientists have commonly assumed that Western cultures foster seeing
oneself as independent from others, whereas the rest of the world's cultures foster seeing oneself as interdependent
with others. Critics have argued that this view of cultural diversity is too simplistic, but it has remained a dominant
assumption in the field — and researchers often explain unsupportive findings away as methodological failures rather
than question it.
The new research paints a much richer picture of diversity in cultural models of selfhood. It shows that
Western cultures tend to emphasize certain ways of being independent (e.g., being different from others, self-
directed, and self-expressive), but not others (e.g., being self-interested, self-reliant, and consistent across contexts).
Viewed in global context, Western cultures are not "exceptional" but they form part of the broad
kaleidoscope of global variation. Nor is cultural individualism linked straightforwardly to independent self-perceptions,
as has been commonly presumed. Different ways of seeing oneself as both independent and interdependent were
emphasized in different parts of the world, and this was partly explained by socioeconomic development and religious
heritage of the cultural groups.
A richer understanding of cultural variation, based firmly on empirical research rather than stereotypes,
could help practitioners intervene more effectively with members of diverse cultural communities.
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 Unit D.
PSYCHOLOGY
» Latin psychologia with psycho meaning ‘of the
soul, spirit, psyche, or mind’ and logia from the
Greek word logos which ‘denotes the characters,
actions, or departments of knowledge’ that
precedes the logos.
» In psychology, the notion of the self refers to a
person's experience as a single, unitary,
autonomous being that is separate from others,
experienced with continuity through time and
place. The experience of the self includes
consciousness of one's physicality as well as one's
inner character and emotional life.

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THE SELF AS A COGNITIVE CONSTRUCTION
» In examining the self as a cognitive construction, attention focuses on those cognitive-
developmental processes that result in changes in the structure of the self-system, namely,
how self-representations are organized. This approach provides an account of normative,
developmental changes, and emphasizes the similarities among individuals at a given stage of
development.

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O R G A N I C S C O M PA N Y
1. WILLIAM JAMES’ CONCEPT OF SELF: THE ME- SELF AND THE I-
SELF

» I-Self/Thinking Self – it is cognitive, how we interpret the world

falls under this. It mirrors the souls and mind or what kind of
person he/she is and it is also called pure ego. The thinking self is
quite capable of taking it all for granted. Rather than help us to
connect with our reality in the present moment, the thinking self
often captures our focus and takes us mentally to seemingly more
interesting thoughts in a different time and place
» Me-Self – it is empirical. It is based on personal experiences of a
person. It does not matter if the experience is new, exciting,
familiar, or unpleasant – it’s all simply acceptable. When a person
has an attitude of openness and curiosity in the present, moments
which the thinking self-had anticipated with dread often either
disappear or they turn out to be much less unpleasant that
expected.

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1. WILLIAM JAMES’ CONCEPT OF SELF: THE ME- SELF AND THE I-
SELF

» James suggests that "the total self of me, being as it were

duplex," is composed of "partly object and partly subject." He is
careful to hedge his bet and point out that they are discriminated
aspects of self rather than “separate things," but the truth is that
they come off rather separate in his description of them

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 2. GLOBAL vs DIFFERENTIATED MODELS
» With regard to terminology, global self-evaluations have typically been referred to as self-esteem, self-
worth, or general self-concept. In each case, the focus is on the overall evaluation of one’s worth or value
as a person. It is primarily reserved for evaluative judgments of attributes I discrete domains such as
cognitive competence, social acceptance, physical appearance or “domain-specific self-evaluations”.
» Murray Bowen, MD developed the self-differentiation theory which applies to human development and
family dynamics. His theory has two major parts. 1) “Differentiation of self is the ability to separate
feelings and thoughts. Undifferentiated people cannot separate feelings and thoughts; when asked to
think, they are flooded with feelings, and have difficulty thinking logically and basing their responses on
that. 2) Further, they have difficulty separating their own from others’ feelings; they look to family to
define how they think about issues, feel about people, and interpret their experiences.”
» “Differentiation is the process of freeing yourself from your family's processes to define yourself. This
means being able to have different opinions and values than your family members but being able to stay
emotionally connected to them. It means being able to calmly reflect on a conflicted interaction
afterward, realizing your own role in it, and then choosing a different response for the future.”

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3. REAL SELF vs IDEAL SELF
» The concept of Real and Ideal self is usually attributed to Humanistic
perspective in psychology, specifically to Carl Rogers. These
concepts however, trace all the way back to psychoanalytic
perspective, considering that humanistic psychologists were big
critics of deterministic psychoanalysis. Nevertheless, the concept of
Real and Ideal self is very actual and important to understand as it
has many applications in real world, outside of psychology books.

» Ideal self, defined from humanistic perspective, is the person we

would like to be, our aspirations, goals, the way we imagine our
future. Following this definition, however, one might think that
there is nothing wrong about ideal-self. In reality, Ideal-self is easily
corrupted. Corrupted by social scripts and norms, social acceptance
factor, our social groups, our micro achievements and defense
mechanisms. In fact, ideal self plays one of the key roles in
development and reinforcement of our defense mechanisms.

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3. REAL SELF vs IDEAL SELF
» We acquire defense mechanisms in order to deal with neuroticism (for example, stress and anxiety).
We turn away from the real self towards seemingly better, ideal self. And, we deny the reality and who
we are. Also, ideal self can be attributed to a social mask concept which is basically the way we present
ourselves in different social groups, when we want to be perceived as something better or more
relevant to that group. Ideal self, can be one of those psychological aspects that starts of innocent and
with good intentions, but ends up transforming a person into one helpless and hopeless individual.
» Real self, on the other hand is what we really are, which, is not as simple as it sounds. And obviously, at
this point, you understand that the goal is to discover and be our real-selves, while controlling the ideal-
self and slowly moving towards the set goals of that ideal-self. But, how can we be our real-selves,
when most of us don’t know what that real-self is? It can take a long time to figure out what that real-
self is and it might take even longer to develop enough mastery in order to be ones real-self, but, it is
essential and very rewarding. Also, it is worth mentioning that real and ideal selves are closely
associated with the self-concept, self-esteem, mastery and mattering. Excessive attribution to ideal-
self can have negative impact on all three.

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O R G A N I C S C O M PA N Y
3. TRUE SELF vs FALSE SELF
There is a natural human tendency to protect our authentic selves from the scrutiny of the outside world.
When we protect our true selves, we are able to avoid being rejected or hurt. There is a downside to this
protection though – we may miss out on the opportunity to have genuine connections with other people.
» Authentic Self:
» Thoughts, beliefs, words, and actions come from a deep-seated place within
» Lack of disparity between values and lived values
» Unique combination of your vast multitude of talents, skills, interests, and abilities

» False Self:
» Putting on a facade with others may result in an internal sensation of being depleted, drained, or
emotionally numb
» Possible tendencies to turn to mood-altering substances in order to feel “different”
» Actions may feel forced, alienated, or detached

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4. MULTIPLE vs UNIFIED SELVES

» David Lester said that the mind is composed of multiple

such subselves that are autonomous sets of psychological
processes such as dreams, desires, emotions and
memories.
» Unified self is the integration of of the subselves into one,
however, integration is a task for the later part of life. True
self is inherently moral, good, and transcends situations
and circumstances and culturally stable; governed by the
moral code.

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4. MULTIPLE vs UNIFIED SELVES
» Rita Carter accepts the existence of multiple selves,
defined as others have defined them, but she introduced
the division of multiple selves into major and minor selves
and a number of fragmentary micros. A major is a “fully
fleshed out character with thoughts, desires, intentions,
emotions, ambitions and beliefs”. Minors are less complex
than majors and come out in particular situations. A minor
may be no more than a small collection of responses, just
enough to deal with a particular situation, such as a
compulsion to argue with certain people or smoking in
certain situations. Micros are “the building blocks of
personalities—individual responses, thoughts, ideas,
habit”, as small as a physical or vocal tic or a repeated
intrusive thought or emotion. Micros combine to form
minors which in turn can coalesce into majors.

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THE SELF AS PROACTIVE AND AGENTIC
According to Albert Bandura, humans, through their agency are
perceived as proactive agents of experiences. Agency is the ability
of a human to influence one’s functioning and the course of events
by one’s actions.
There are four functions through which human agency is
exercised:
» Intentionality – it is when people make intentions of their
action plans and strategies for realizing them. Intention means
you are aware of it. Collective endeavors require commitment
to shares intention and coordination of interdependent plans of
action to realize it.
» Forethought – people foresee likely outcomes of prospective
actions to guide and motivate them to exert efforts for their
goals. It is the ability to anticipate outcomes on current
activities and it is like you are predicting your future. A
forethought perspective provides direction, coherence and
meaning to one’s life.
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THE SELF AS PROACTIVE AND AGENTIC

» Reactiveness – Agents are not only planners and thinkers.

They are also self-regulators. Agency also needs to construct
appropriate courses of action and to motivate and regulate
their execution. This multifaceted self-directedness operates
through self-regulatory processes in the explanatory gap to
link through action.
» Self-reflectiveness – In this function we need introspection.
Through functional self-awareness, they reflect on their
personal efficacy, the soundness of their thoughts and
actions, the meaning of their pursuits, and make corrective
adjustments if necessary.

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THE SELF AS PROACTIVE AND AGENTIC

» According to Bandura, people do not operate as

autonomous agents. Nor is their behavior wholly
determined by situational influences. Rather, human
functioning is a product of a reciprocal interplay of
intrapersonal, behavioral and environmental
determinants. This triadic interaction incudes the exercise
of self-influence as part of the causal structure. It is not a
matter of “free will, which is a throwback to medieval
theology but in acting as an agent, an individual makes
causal contributions to the course of events.

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O R G A N I C S C O M PA N Y
Unit E:
THE SELF IN
WESTERN AND
ORIENTAL/EASTERN
THOUGHT

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O R G A N I C S C O M PA N Y
INDIVIDUALISTIC AND COLLECTIVE SELF
» People from individualistic cultures
are more likely to have
an independent view of themselves
(they see themselves as separate
from others, define themselves
based on their personal traits, and
see their characteristics as relatively
stable and unchanging).
» On the other hand, people
from collectivistic cultures are more
likely to have
an interdependent view of
themselves (they see themselves as
connected to others, define
themselves in terms of relationships
with others, and see their
characteristics as more likely to
change across different contexts).
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INDIVIDUALISTIC AND COLLECTIVE SELF

» While individualism/collectivism can be measured in any culture, much of the research so far has
been conducted on East Asian and Western cultures. Researchers have found that Western cultures
tend to be more individualistic while East Asian cultures tend to be more collectivistic. However, it’s
important to remember that many factors can influence individualism/collectivism, so individuals
within a culture can also differ in their levels of independence/interdependence. Individualism and
collectivism can even be affected by the situational context.

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INDIVIDUALISTIC AND COLLECTIVE SELF
» How does culture impact
relationships? In individualistic cultures,
relationships are often seen as voluntary, and it’s
not uncommon to choose to end relationships
that are not beneficial. On the other hand,
relationships in collectivistic cultures are often
seen as more stable and
permanent. Additionally, researchers have
hypothesized that, in collectivistic cultures, there
is a greater obligation to not be a burden on close
others. And as I’ve written about previously when
discussing attachment style, parent-child
relationships can differ from culture to culture.
It’s important to recognize that what’s “normal”
in a relationship isn’t the same everywhere: there
is no one particular type of relationship that
works best in all cultures.

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INDIVIDUALISTIC AND COLLECTIVE SELF
» How does culture affect social support? When
we’re under stress, our cultural background may
impact the type of social support we seek out
and benefit from most. Research has found that
East Asians and Asian Americans are less likely
than European Americans to talk about an event
that they are stressed by (although this
difference was smaller for Asian Americans who
were born in the United States). Psychologists
have suggested that East Asians are less likely to
talk about a stressful event because doing so can
present a challenge to relationships in
collectivistic cultures. Instead, individuals from
East Asian cultures are more likely to seek
out implicit social support, which involves
spending time with close others without actually
talking about a stressor.

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O R G A N I C S C O M PA N Y
 THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE SELF IN WESTERN THOUGHT
» Ideas about the formation of self in habits and as developing in social interaction in the work of the
pragmatists—Peirce, James, Dewey and Mead—as Richard Menary makes clear in his extended
discussion of a pragmatic conception of self. This conception reinforces the agentive idea that what
we do makes us who we are: I am what I do.
» As such, there is no pre‐established certainty in the self; it is marked by fallibility and I come to know
myself only through my interactions with physical and social environments. My self‐awareness
develops only by attending to the continuities and habitualities in my practices, which are already
permeated by the gestures of others, which I internalize to form what I call my self. All of these actions
and interactions and self‐formations shape a moral dimension in which we have to negotiate our
freedom, since we are neither absolutely free nor absolutely determined.

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 THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE SELF IN WESTERN THOUGHT

» Richard Menary takes this pragmatic account to

support an externalist conception of the self. We
construct ourselves out in the world, among things,
with people, in institutions, all of which operate as
scaffolds in this process. To the extent that the
environment affords regular structures, including
those that are shaped on the bodies of others—
gestures, words and facial expressions—our habits
become regularized. Yet, they do not become rigid,
and the environments themselves are not entirely
predictable or stable. The self, then, is not
something ‘in the head’, the Cartesian ego, a
mental structure, or the brain; it is distributed
through embodied practices into the environment.

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THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE SELF IN WESTERN THOUGHT

» John Dewey, noting his proximity to recent conceptions

of extended cognition. In complete contrast to what we
normally take to be the Cartesian self, Dewey states:
‘Thinking, or knowledge getting, [and here we would
insert ‘self’] is far from being the armchair thing it is
often supposed to be. The reason it is not an armchair
thing is that it is not an event going on exclusively within
the cortex.…Hands and feet, apparatus and appliances of
all kinds are as much a part of it as changes within the
brain.’

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THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE SELF IN WESTERN THOUGHT
» The externalist view opens up the question pursued
by Kenneth Gergen—is the self socially constructed? A
social constructionist approach to the self is critical
insofar as it targets many of the traditional conceptions
of self under discussion in this volume. At the same time,
a point of departure for the social constructionist is
something mentioned numerous times before: that self
and self‐knowledge find their origins in human—social,
cultural—relationships. This social orientation, however,
is set as the compass for truth and falsity, objectivity and
subjectivity, the scientific and the mythical, the rational
and the irrational, and so forth. That is, these categories,
and the power that they have over our philosophical
ideas as well as our everyday practices, are brought into
being through historically and culturally situated social
processes. The social constructionist thus challenges the
concept of the individual autonomous self, the rational,
self‐directing, morally centered agent of action.
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THE SELF AS EMBEDDED IN RELATIONSHIPS AND THROUGH
SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT IN CONFUCIAN THOUGHT

» In our task of making explicit the Confucian concept of

Self, we then must, it seems, shed the western
conception of the same, and see the issue under a
different paradigm. The issue is no longer one of finding
an inherent essence, but one of finding an understanding
for true becoming. But the human condition at birth in
Confucianism is not to be confused with that of being a
tabula rasa, upon which our experiences write what will
become our personality. The human nature already
seems predisposed toward the becoming of Jen, in that
we begin with a heart that is already aimed at it by its
nature. The same holds true for the other three virtues
Yi, Li, and Chih.

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» The human adult self, in Confucianism, has above been

defined as an ‘achieved state of moral excellence rather
than a given human condition’, and there are several
implications to such an understanding. First, strictly
speaking, one may speak of a human being in
Confucianism only as such with regard to the human
potential to become a human being. In other words, at
birth, being human is no different from being an animal.
The true human condition is achieved in life, if indeed it is
being achieved, through the practice of the virtues. While
these virtues are almost impossible to be achieved in
anyone’s lifetime, being human refers to making the
effort of achieving them.

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SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT IN CONFUCIAN THOUGHT

» To be on the way, to follow the Tao toward perfection, is the as close to perfection one is likely to
come. In this, the concept of ‘self’ in Confucianism is closely linked with all those areas that the
virtues stand for. To become a person of Jen, one aims to become a person of love. On the exact
meaning of Jen extensive writing has been done, to bring this Confucian concept closer to the
western mind by relating it to the western concept of "Agape". A person of Jen is a
compassionate human being, for whom rules and regulations are a means to an end, and not an
end in itself. But such a person does not act arbitrarily. The "superior" person also follows the
virtue of Yi, which relates to righteousness. Further, he follows the rules and laws of the nation
he lives in, and respects its customs. In that, he follows the virtue of Li. Finally, a true human
being has developed his heart of wisdom. That is, he follows Chih, which refers to a wisdom that
has been developed through living a life according to the other virtues. In fact, although we may
speak of the four virtues, this is a distinction only for practical purposes of intellectual
understanding. For the true man, those four virtues are interrelated, and are impossible without
any one of them. In this, they are one.

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SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT IN CONFUCIAN THOUGHT

» In Confucianism then, the self can

never be static. If one stops to develop
the virtues in one’s living, one has
already lost them all. To be human
means to develop and to keep
pursuing the virtues. In the sage, this
has ceased to be a conscious effort or
decision. The dynamic has been
integrated into the nature of the self,
and has become the self. It has
become an unconscious way of being.

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Thank You
Christine Joy D. Peñamante, RPm
+639615574805
cjpenamante@gmail.com