PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE ON

SELF

INTRODUCTION:

What is philosophy? 
- Greek words :
"Philos" and "Sophia"
(meaning: love for wisdom) 

- study of acquiring knowledge through rational thinking and inquiries that involves in answering
questions regarding the nature and existence of man and the world we live in.

PHILOSOPHER'S PERSPECTIVE OF SELF

A. Socrates 

- first martyr of education, knowledge and philosophy

- charged with corruption of minors 
- made to choose between exile and death via the intake of hemlock
- died as a martyr that fought against ignorance and narrow-mindedness
- his philosophy underlies in the importance of the notion "knowing oneself"
- for him, men's goal in life is to obtain happiness 
- happiness motivates us to act towards or avoid things that could have negative effects in our
lives
- as such, by fully knowing oneself a person will be able to achieve happiness 
- possession of knowledge is a virtue; ignorance is a depravity (evil, corruption, wickedness)
- a person's acceptance of ignorance is the beginning of acquisition of knowledge
- knowing ourselves, lies in our own abilities, and wisdom
- use socratic method or socratic conversation (role of both the teacher and the
student is known to the world; asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and
to draw out ideas and underlying presumptions).

B. Plato 
 Student of Socrates.
 wrote several literature that tackles politics, human nature, and established the idea of
virtue and intelligence.
 father of academy (a place where learning and sharing of knowledge happens;
later became one of the pillars and basis of what schools and education is now in the
present).
 followed the idea of Socrates in knowing thyself.

- Notables works are: 

1. Allegory of the cave 
2. The apology
3. Perfect government and societal system, 
4. The republic (here he said that the world can only be led by a philosopher king, a person who
is virtuous, as well as intelligent)

 According to him, a person who is a follower of truth and wisdom will not be tempted by
vices and will always be correct/moral/ethical.

 He believed in the division of a person's body and soul which forms the person as a
whole aside from the material things and that could be observed and associated with a
person.

 Believed that the soul is divided into 3 different parts that has different views, leading to
different behaviors .

1. Appetitive soul - the part of the person that is driven by desire and need to satisfy
oneself. This satisfaction involves physical needs and pleasures and desires, objects and
situations.

2. Spirited soul - courageous part of a person. One who wants to do something or to right
the wrongs that they observe. This is very competitive and is very active.
Competitiveness drives one to expect positive results and winning. 

3. Rational soul - the drive of our lives. The part that thinks and plan for the future (the
conscious mind). It decides what to do, when to do it and the possible results one
could have depending on their actions.

C. St. Augustine

 A saint and a philosopher of the church.

 Follows that idea that god encompasses us all, that everything will be better if we are
with god .
 -Believed that god and his teachings affect various aspects in life (that everything is
better if we devote ourselves in mending our relationship with god.
 His idea of a man and how to understand who we are as a person is related to our
understanding of who we are and how we question ourselves.
 Relates our existence to god being modeled in his likeness though being alive means that
we are still far from god and has yet to be truly with him.
 Rejected the doubtfulness of the academy in which one cannot or should not accept ideas
from others.
 Emphasized that we may not be able to give our agreement to everything other people tell
us but we can still agree to those who we are from our own perception.
 Think is right is right or wrong based from our perception.
 Our notion of ourselves and our idea of existence comes from a higher form of sense in
which bodily senses may not perceive or understand and the more one doubts and
question his life means that, the person is actually living.
 Teaching of the church and establishing our sense of self with god identifies the essence
of our existence and role in the world (the reason for this is because our bodies are
limited).
  We need to establish relationship with god through being virtuous.

D. Rene Descartes
 French philosopher known to be the father of modern philosophy because of his
radical use of systematic and early scientific method to aid his ideas and
assumptions.
 Believe in modern dualism or the existence of body and mind and its importance
to one's existence were presented with the evidences from experiments as well as
philosophical reasoning.
 Known to be the proponent of the "methodical doubt" (continuous process of
questioning -what we perceive and accepting the fact that 
doubting, asking questions are part of one's existence.
 Defined the roles of the mind and body to the notion of one's existence and sense
of self .
 Known for the statement "cogito ergo sum" (i think therefore i am) .
 According to him, a person is comprised of mind (thinks and question or doubt
what the body has experienced) and body (perceives from the 
different senses).
 Body and its perceptions cannot fully be trusted or can easily be deceived (for
example: there are times that we feel that a dream is real before actually waking
up or having different perception of size based on an objects distance from the
viewer).
 We should focus on the mind in order to perceive as who we are or the essence of
our existence because we cannot always trust our senses.
 Explained that the more we think and doubt what we perceived from our 
senses and the answer that came from such thinking or doubting leads to 
better understanding of ourselves.
 Being in constant doubt regarding one's existence is proof that a person actually
exists.

E. John Locke 

 English philosopher and physician

 Considered to be the father of classical liberation 
 His works paved the way to several revolutions to fight the absolute powers of
monarchs and rulers of his time that led to the development of governance,
politics and economic system that we now know. 
 Work on the self is most represented by the concept "tabula rasa" (blank 
slate).
 The experiences and perceptions of a person is important in the establishment of
who that person can become.
 He does not disregard the experiences of the person in the identification and
establishment of who we are as a person.
 Stated that a person is born with knowing nothing and that is susceptible to
stimulation and accumulation of learning from the experiences, failures,
references, and observations of the person.
 F. David Hume 

 Scottish philosopher.
 Focused his work in the field of empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism.
 Self is accumulation of different impressions, and does not exceed the
physical realm.
 There is no permanent self because impressions of things are based from
our experiences where we can create our ideas and knowledge. thus, it 
may improve or totally be replaced.
 Example: if the neither you knew your entire life to be happy and have a
positive outlook suddenly looked sad and discontented can we say that the
person you seeing is not your neighbor anymore? 

G. Immanuel Kant 

 German philosopher that is known for his works on empiricism and rationalism.
 Establish that the collection of impressions and different contents is what it only
takes to define a person.
 Awareness of different emotions that we have, impressions and behavior is 
only a part of our self.
 to fully understand the self, a certain level of consciousness or sense 
that uses our intuition which synthesizes all the experiences, impressions 
and perceptions of ourselves will pave the way to define and know who we are
really are.
 Argued that the sense called "transcendental apperception" is an essence 
of our consciousness that provides basis for understanding and establishing the
notion of self by synthesizing one's accumulation of experiences, intuition and
imagination.
 We experience but still be able to become aware of.
 For example: the idea of time and space, we may not be able to observe the
movement of time and the vastness of space but we are still capable of 
understanding their concept based from what we can observe as their
representation.
 the idea of self are not only an object that perceives and reacts to whatever it is
that we are experiencing; we also have the capabilities to understand beyond
those experiences and be able to think and have a clear
identification who we are and establish a sense of self that is unique and distinct
from others.

H. Sigmund Freud
 Austrian psychologist and physician.
 Father of psychoanalysis.
 Known for his work on human nature and the unconscious.
 Believed that man has different constructs of personality that interacts 
with each other.
  Conceptualize about the different levels of consciousness that provides an idea
how a person develops a sense of self.

- Man has 3 aspects of personality

1. Id - the child aspect of a person; attention is on satisfaction of one's needs and self-
gratification. Driven by pleasure principle.
2. Super ego - the conscience of one's personality. Has the inclination to uphold justice and do
what is morally right and socially acceptable actions. Involved in the notion of right or wrong
that is imparted to us by our parents or people that took care for us during childhood.
3. Ego - police or the mediator between id and super ego. Operates within the boundaries of
reality, primary function is to maintain the impulses of the id to an acceptable degree.

 Introduced the idea that the accumulation of the experiences of a person 

helps build his personality although such information are not stored in a 
single area where we can access them at any time.

- Introduced the levels of consciousness: 

1. Conscious - where minority of our memories are being stored and the memories that are in
the conscious is easier to be to be tapped or access 
2. Pre-conscious - the middle part of the entirety of our 
consciousness; the memories stored in this area can still be accessed but with a little difficulty.
3. Unconscious - this area is where majority of our memories since childhood are deeply
stored. it is very difficult to tap the memories. it would need a trained professional and several
special techniques in order to make some memories resurface.
- he believed that we are a by-product of our experiences in the past and that are actions are
driven by the idea of resisting or avoiding pain, and are molded from our need for pleasure or
being happy.

I. Gilbert Ryle 
 Used behavioristic approach to self.
 Self is the behavior presented by the person.
 Behavior that we show, emotions, and actions are the reflection of our mind and as such
is the manifestation of who we are.
 Does not believe that the mind and body are two separate entities which is 
said to be evident in the unexplainable phenomenon or abilities of the mind where the
soul is considered; however, to some they can co-exist.
 To him, once we encounter others, their perceptions of what we do, how we act, and the
way we behave will then result to the understanding of other people band establishing of
who we are.
 Self is exemplified in his "ghost in the machine" view (man is a complex machine with
different functioning parts, and the intelligence, and other characteristic or behavior of
man is represented by the ghost in the said machine.
 His idea is saying that the things that we do, how we behave and react and all other
components like the way we talk, walk and look is generally who we are as a person.
 J. Paul Churchland
 Canadian philosopher whose focus is on the idea that people should improve our
association and use of worth in identifying the self.
 The self is defined by the movement of our brain.
 His work revolves around folk psychology or common sense psychology 
(the notion and terms being used to explain behavior or to explain how a person
feels, thinks, and act with regards to physiological phenomenon that is
happening in the body as well as definition brought by emotions.).
 Main is philosophy is the idea of "eliminative materialism" (opposes that 
people's common sense understanding of the mind is false and the mental 
states that man are into are not existing; applies the understanding of behavior
and emotions).
 conceptualize about neurophilosophy wherein he believed that to fully l
understand one's behavior, one should understand the different neurological
movement of the brain that pertains to different emotions, feelings, actions and
reactions and how such brain movements affect the body.
 Understanding the different neural pathways, how they work, and what
implications are those movement to people is a measurable classification on
one's behavior.
 Constant movement of the brain can be the basis of who the person is
(emphasized by church land and his wife in the statement "the brain as the self").

K. Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty 

 French philosopher.
 -Known for his works on existentialism and phenomenology.
 -Self- regarded that the body and mind are not separate entities but rather 
those two components is one and the same.

Coined the idea of phenomenology of perception (unity of the function of 

the mind and the body) which is divided into three divisions:

1. The body - that both receives the experiences as well as integrates such experiences in the
different perception.
2. The perceived world - the accumulation of the perception as integrated by the experiences of
the body.
3. The people and the world - enable one to not only be able to integrate the other objects in the
world but also to be able to experience the cultural aspect and relate to others.

 Idea of perception follows the idea of Gestalt psychology (gives importance

on the whole than the sum of its parts.
 Perception guides our action based from our experiences.
 The body perceives while our consciousness provides the meaning or
interprets the various perceptions we have in the world and the self could be
established by the perceptions we have in the world.
 One's actions, behavior and language used could be said to be the reflection
of our united perception of the world.