DISCOVERING THE SELF:

WHO AM I?
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 WHAT IS A SELF?
2 problems

1.Duality of Body and Soul

- The body is separate and distinct from
the soul

- The soul is the aspect in our being that

is not material

- Soul or spirit is often referred to as

“mind” (faculty/ ability to reason)

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 PLATO’S CONCEPT OF THE BODY
- The human soul exists prior to the body
and even after the body is long gone.

- Connected to the Theory of Forms

where the material world is separate
from the eternal realm of forms (world
of ideas)

- The soul is immortal and learning is

mere remembering or recollecting what
the soul once knew
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 RENE DESCARTES
- Expressed dualism by stating that a
doubt requires a doubter
- He acknowledges that he is a body
that is bounded by some figure and
can be located in some place and
occupy space.
- He that exists is a thing that thinks –
a mind or a reasoning being.
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 2. UNITY OF BODY
St. Thomas Aquinas
AND SOUL
- The body is one being made up of matter and form
(Aristotle)

- Although the body is the matter and the soul is the form, a
being cannot remain a being if matter and form are not
united.

- A human person ceases to exist in death because the

matter and form that make up that being is no longer
complete.

- The whole is a sum total of its parts. Remove a part and it is

no longer whole.

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 HUMAN BEING’S
UNDERSTANDING OF HIMSELF
Immanuel Kant
- Kant claims that the human person has
the responsibility of respecting other
people in the same way he respects
himself.

- “Who am I?” is a question that deals with

a person’s concrete and specific
historicity, a questions that encompasses
a person’s self-being

- Every human person is endowed with

reason

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 HUMAN BEING’S ENCOUNTER WITH
EXISTENTIAL LIMIT SITUATIONS
• In existence, human being is always in
concrete situations, and he is always
confronted with various situations.

• According to Karl Jaspers, these

situations are boundary situations
which are inescapable and inevitable
breaks of the ordinary patterns of
human existence

• Death, suffering, conflicts, tragedy,

sickness, failure, communication,
struggles and guilt
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 HUMAN BEING’S ENCOUNTER WITH
EXISTENTIAL LIMIT SITUATIONS
• These boundary situations break the
conventional pattern or ordinariness of
life.

• They cause pauses and give opportunity

to look into the question “Who am I”
seriously; and even question the usual
answers or discourse about the question.

• For Jaspers, these situations lead human

being to a deeper consciousness and
experience of his limitations and finitude.

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• These boundary situations lead
human being into a deeper reflection
on his own self-being and begins to
ask questions such as “Why am I
experiencing guilt or death, or pain?”
or “Why am I suffering this kind of
illness or suffering?”

• Human being is not the only one

questioning, but at the same time,
he is now the question.
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THANK YOU

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