MODULE 3

THE SELF FROM VARIOUS PHILOSOPHER

PERSPECTIVE

This Module is prepared by

Modesta C. Franco-Igloria, LPT, MA Psych, MPA
SY 2020-2021
 Objective:

The student should be able to perform the following:

1. Able to associate philosopher to the current

theorist on each disciplinary approach.

2. Able to understand each theory of each philosopher

and be able to compare each theory.

3. Able to answer the question: Who Are you (me)

4. Able to reinvent the new’ You”

Overview

The Greek is the first language of Western philosophy which means love of wisdom. There are
many ways that human beings could express their love of wisdom thru arts, religion and so forth.
Philosophy is distinct prior to the 19th centur, having a systematic use of reasoning that make it’s
a unique and distinct approach.
Philosophers focuses on analyzing ideas, meaning of it, and beliefs. They break them down into
their parts and then build them back up again and combine them in new ways. More likely, the
building blocks, dismantle it one by one, then a new creation can be form and new figure. In
addition to analysis, philosophers reflect on what goes in the mind and in the world; they seek
wisdom through intuitions of whole structure of thoughts or experiences.
Indeed, ancient Greece in the seventh century b.c.e., with inquiry about the earth and the cosmos
by the so-called Pre-Socratic philosophers.
Between the Pre-Socratics and Socrates, the Sophists were the first to focus on the human world,
although their methods were adversarial and perhaps unethical. The two subjects are on the natural
world and the human world. In simpliest form, philosophers were after on the physical and social
sciences.
Philosophy is the only way to come close to answers to important questions that no amount of
observation can resolve.
For example, philosophy strives to answer questions such as: "What is the
right thing to do if there are 10 people in a lifeboat that can only hold six
safely?" "What is the meaning of life?" "Can we prove that God does or does
not exist?"
Generally, the kind of wisdom philosophers love consists of answers to questions, which have to
be worked out in the mind instead of discovered through microscopes, telescopes, surveys, or
measurement.
 For example, a sociologist will study what people believe, but a philosopher
will ask if those beliefs are true or justified by what is true.

Because philosophical questions cannot be answered with facts, their answers are largely a matter
of opinion. But the opinions are special, because reasons are always given.
 THE SELF: PHILOSOSPHICAL PERSPECTIVES
Accordingly, philosophers helps in conceptualizing the thoughts of understanding the self
through their interlocutor process. They delved and they record the proceedings.

SOCRATES as a Greek philosopher whose way of life,

character, and thought exerted a profound influence on ancient
and modern philosophy.

He served as a hoplite (a heavily armed soldier) in the Athenian

army and fought bravely in several important battles. Unlike
many of the thinkers of his time, he did not travel to other cities
in order to pursue his intellectual interests. Although he did not
seek high
office, did not regularly attend meetings of the Athenian Assembly (Ecclesia), the city’s principal
governing body (as was his privilege as an adult male citizen), and was not active in any political
faction, he discharged his duties as a citizen, which included not only military service but
occasional membership in the Council of Five Hundred, which prepared the Assembly’s agenda.
He describes himself not as a teacher but as an ignorant inquirer, and the series of questions he
asks are designed to show that the principal question is being attune to his line of ideas.

His style became well known and called as a “Socratic method” and has now come into general
usage of educational strategy that involves cross-examination of students or individuals.

The method employed by Socrates, in other words, is a strategy for showing that the interlocutors
can receive several answers that does not fit together as a group, thus revealing to the interlocutor
his own poor grasp of the concepts under discussion.

He engaged himself on self-examination with the clear

conviction that he could come to understand truth by
means of clarification of concepts, and it can only achieve
not through individual self-reflection but through dialogue.

The new proposed answers to Socrates’ principal is avoided

the errors and it revealed during the preceding of cross-
examination, fresh answer with difficulties are uncovered. According to Socrates, at the end of the
cross-examination the “ignorance” statement is a kind of wisdom.

ratic Method involved nor conveying knowledge, but rather asking question after clarifying question until his students arrived at their own understanding”
 Plato, he teaches Aristotle (384–322 BCE), and he founded the
Academy, known as Lyceum.

Plato’s works is a continuation of Socrates teaching, it is divided into

three groups:

(1) A Socratic dialogue, dialogues represent conversations in which

Socrates tests others on issues of human importance without
discussing metaphysics (no basis in reality);

(2) A Literary masterpieces, typically contain views originating with Plato on human issues,
together with a sketch of a metaphysical position presented as foundational such as the cause,
identity, time and other matter that are related to the previous questions; and lastly

(3) A Technical studies, treat this metaphysical position in a fuller and more direct way.

After the death of Socrates. Plato was profoundly affected by both the life and the death of
Socrates. Plato as young man, he focuses his philosophy on the principle of Socrates. He
challenge men who supposedly had expertise about some facet of human excellence to give
accounts of various virtues such as courage and piety.

“The genus to which a thing belongs possess a greater reality than the thing itself” -Plato’s ideal

According Plato’s middle dialogues, he tackles the imitation or resemblance. According to Plato,
Achilles and Helen are imperfect imitations of the beauty which itself is maximally or uttermost
beautiful. On this interpretation, the “pure being” of the forms consists of their being perfect
exemplars of themselves and not exemplars of anything else.

This “super-exemplification” interpretation of participation provides a natural way of

understanding the notion of the pure being of the forms and such self-predication sentences as
“the Beautiful is beautiful.” In Plato’s theory, forms play the functional role of universal and
most universals, such as greenness, generosity, and largeness, are not exemplars of themselves.
(Greenness does not exhibit hue; generosity has no one to whom to give; largeness is not a
gigantic object.) Moreover, it is problematic to require forms to exemplify only themselves,
because there are properties, such as being and unity, that all things, including all forms, must
exhibit. In more concrete descriptive, a largeness must have a share of Being to be anything at all
and it must have a share of Unity to be a single form.

This Module is prepared by

Modesta C. Franco-Igloria, LPT, MA Psych, MPA
SY 2020-2021
 St. Augustine or Saint Augustine of Hippo, original Latin
name Aurelius Augustinus, (born November 13, 354, Tagaste,
Numidia.

He became bishop of Hippo from 396 to 430, one of the Latin Fathers
of the Church and perhaps the most significant Christian thinker after
St. Paul.

His most important writings are Confessions and The City of God,it shaped the practice of
biblical exegesis or interpretation and helped lay the foundation for much of medieval and
modern Christian thought. He is recognized by the roman Catholic as a DOCTOR OF THE
CHURCH.

For St. Augustine, the “confessions” is a catches all term for acts of religiously that expressly
praise of God, blame of self, and confession of faith. Of greater significance is the account of
redemption.

St. Augustine was influenced by the powerful intellectual preacher of the suave or elegant and
diplomatic Bishop Ambrose. They both believe on the attractions of the intellectual and
social culture of antiquity. This St. Augustine was brought up and of which he was a master of
spiritual teachings in Christianity. He acquired from them an intellectual vision of the fall and rise
of the soul of man, a vision he found confirmed in the reading of the Bible proposed by Bishop
Ambrose.
The narrative of Confessions shows Augustine forming the will to renounce
sexuality through a reading of the letters of St. Paul. St. Paul describe scene
that occurs in the garden in Milan, where a child’s voice seems to be St.
Augustine, whereupon he finds St. Paul’s writings the inspiration to adopt a
life of chastity. Aside from the two writing, he shared also his
masterpieces:

1.De Doctrina Christiana, this is an imitation of Cicero’s Orator for

Christian purposes to interpretation the Scripture and offers practical
guidance for those who are on the path to being a preacher. Its emphasis on
allegorical or constituting the interpretation.
 RENE DESCARTES (born March 31, 1596, La Haye,
Touraine, France—died February 11, 1650, Stockholm, Sweden),
French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher.

He formulated the first modern version of mind-body dualism,

from which stems the mind-body problem, and because he
promoted the development of a new science grounded in
observation and experiment, he has been called the Father Of
Modern Philosophy.

The apparent or clear knowledge that derived from authority is

the application of system of methodical doubt. He followed the
new epistemic foundation on the basis of the intuition and he
expressed in the dictum or formal announcement, “I think,
therefore I am”
(best known in its Latin formulation, “Cogito, ergo sum,” though originally written in French, “Je
pense, donc je suis”). The cogito is a logically self-evident that based on the truth and it also
gives intuitively certain knowledge of a particular thing’s existence of one’s self. Descartes
argues that all ideas that are as “clear and distinct” as the cogito must be true and since “I think, I
am” cannot be doubted, all clear and distinct ideas must be true.

According to Descartes’s metaphysics is rationalist idea are based on the postulation of innate
ideas of mind, matter, and God. While in his physics and physiology, he based on sensory
experience, mechanistic and empiricist. He also devised a universal method of deductive
reasoning which is based on mathematics, that is applicable to all the sciences. This method,
which he later formulated in Discourse on Method (1637), one of the first important
philosophical works not written in Latin. He also believe that everyone could tell the true from
false by the natural light of reason.

In addition, he wrote the Rules for the Direction of the Mind (written by 1628 but not published
until 1701), is direct application of mathematical procedures, consists of four rules:

(1) accept nothing as true that is not self-evident;

(2) divide problems into their simplest parts;
(3) solve problems by proceeding from simple to complex; and
(4) recheck the reasoning.

He then spent the rest of his life working on the branches of mechanics, medicine, and morals.
Mechanics is the basis of his physiology and medicine, which in turn is the basis of his moral
psychology.

This Module is prepared by

Modesta C. Franco-Igloria, LPT, MA Psych, MPA
SY 2020-2021
According to Descartes, a human being is a union of mind and body,
two radically dissimilar substances that interact in the pineal gland
which will be located in the brain. Bodily action is thus the final
outcome of a reflex arc that begins with external stimuli. He believe
that the mind cannot change bodily reactions directly.

Descartes argued further that human beings can be conditioned by

experience to have specific emotional responses. Descartes himself,
had been conditioned to be attracted to cross-eyed women because he
had loved a cross-eyed playmate as a child. When he remembered this
fact, he was able to rid himself of his passion. This insight is the basis
of Descartes’s defense of free will and of the mind’s ability to control
the body, Descartes holds that most bodily actions are determined by
external material causes

John Locke, ( August 29, 1632, Wrington, Somerset,

England- October 28, 1704, High Laver, Essex), as an english
philosopher whose works lie at the foundation of modern
philosophical empiricism and political liberalism.

He was inspired by both group from

European Enlightenment and the Constitution of the United
States. His philosophical thinking was close to the founders of
modern science, especially Robert Boyle, Sir Isaac Newton, and other members of the Royal
Society. His political thought was grounded in the notion of a social contract between citizens
and in the importance of toleration, especially in matters of religion.

Locke’s major work in political philosophy, Two Treatises of Government (1689). In this respect
the Two Treatises was a response to the political situation as it existed in England at the time of
the exclusion controversy, though its message was of much more lasting significance. Locke
makes a clear that the arguments of the two treatises are continuous and that the whole constitutes
a justification of the Glorious Revolution, which brought the Protestant William III and Mary II to
the throne following the flight of James II to France.
It should be noted that Locke’s political philosophy was guided by
his deeply held religious commitments. Throughout his life
he accepted the existence of a creating God and the notion that all
humans are God’s servants in virtue of that relationship. God
created humans for a certain purpose, namely to live a life
according to his laws and thus to inherit eternal salvation. His most
importantly philosophy is “God gave humans just
those intellectual and other abilities necessary to achieve this
end”.

Thus, human using the capacity to reason are able to discover that God exists, able to identify the
laws and the duties that entail. And lastly, to acquire sufficient knowledge to perform their duties
and thereby to lead a happy and successful life.

The first treatise was aimed squarely at the work of another 17th-century political theorist,
Sir Robert Filmer, whose Patriarcha (1680, though probably written in the 1630s) defended the
theory of divine right of kings: the authority of every king is divinely sanctioned by his descent
from Adam—according to the Bible, the first king and the father of humanity. Locke claims that
Filmer’s doctrine defies “common sense.” According to Locke, the notion of the right to rule by
descent from Adam’s first grant no any historical evidence or record that God and Adam had
entered into contract. His refutation was widely accepted as decisive.
Locke’s importance as a political philosopher lies in the argument of the second treatise. He begin
to define political power as a right of making Laws with Penalties of Death, and consequently all
less Penalties, for the Regulating and Preserving of Property, and of employing the force of
the Community, in the Execution of such Laws and in defence of the Common-wealth from
Foreign Injury, and all this only for the Publick Good.

A prefatory or introduction to his chapter, Locke explains that the Essay is not offered as a
contribution to knowledge itself but as a means of clearing away some of the intellectual rubbish
that stands in the way of knowledge.

Locke begins the Essay by repudiating or accepting on the view that

certain kinds of knowledge about God existence is certain moral
truths, neither the laws of logic nor mathematics could not be explain
because it is innate and it imprinted on the human mind of the
creation. Locke argues to the contrary that an idea cannot be said to
be “in the mind” until one is conscious about it.
He begins by claiming that the sources of all knowledge are the
following:

1.Sense Experience (the function of our senses)

2.Reflection (reconfirming after using the senses)
Locke recalls the objects or materials that provided “ideas.” Ideas are objects or materials “before
the mind,” not in the sense that they are physical objects but in the sense that they represent
physical objects to consciousness.

Example: You attended a Junior Prom, the presenter with a new acquainted
person gave you ballpen (Object or material), you saw that same ballpen in the
bookstore. You recall the event in your junior prom.

All simple ideas are derived from sense experience, and all complex
ideas are derived from the combination of simple and complex ideas
by the mind.

Locke discussed another problem that had not before received

sustained attention: that of personal identity.

Example: Assuming one is the same person as the person

who existed last week or the person who was born many
years ago, what fact makes this so?

Locke was careful to distinguish the notion of sameness of person from the related notions of
sameness of body and sameness of man, or human being. Sameness of body requires identity of
matter, and sameness of human being depends on continuity of life but sameness of person
requires something else.

Locke’s proposal was that personal identity consists of continuity of consciousness. One is the
same person as the person who existed last week or many years ago if one has memories of the
earlier person’s conscious experiences. Locke’s account of personal identity became a standard
position in subsequent discussions.

The final achievement of Locke is the best available introduction to the intellectual environment
of the modern Western world. His faith in the salutary and powers of knowledge justifies his
reputation as the first philosopher of the Enlightenment. His influence remains strongly felt in the
West England, his notions of mind, freedom, and authority continue to be challenged and
explored.
 DAVID HUME (1711–1776), consider as one of the most
important philosophers that write in English version. In
reference, his master genre and major philosophical works that
have deep influential on the following: A Treatise of Human
Nature (1739–1740), the Enquiries concerning Human
Understanding (1748) and concerning the Principles of
Morals (1751), as well as his posthumously
published Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779).

As the title of the Treatise proclaims, in his first enquiry

is focused on human nature. He summarizes his project in
its subtitle: “An Attempt To Introduce The
Experimental Method Into Moral Subjects”. He define
the “moral” as the “science of human nature”. Hume’s
aim is to bring the scientific method to bear on the study
of human nature.
During his time, he concluded that the ancient
philosophers theories were entirely hypothetical and more
on invention rather than experience. He objects the
concept of his predecessor which focuses on the
imagination and speculation in constructing views about
the virtues and happiness without consideration of the
human nature and the moral aptitude.
In his second enquiry is a sustained and systematic attack on the “selfish” or “self-love”
theories of Hobbes and Mandeville.
According to Francis Hutcheson there are two distinct roles to self-interest in the accounts of
morality:
1. moral approval and disapproval are based in individual interest.
2. motive is approved because of self-interest.
SELF
Hume looks on the four cardinal types of virtue, such as the prudence, the justice, the
fortitude and the temperance which he eventually disagree. According to Hume, the approval
does not spring from a concern for our own happiness but rather from sympathy.
Hume believes that the reason people approve because people want to have benevolence or the
quality of well being; humanity or human race, and public spiritedness is that they are useful
to others or enthusiast to help and to society.
According to Hume, he agree on the theory of Hobbes’ that “deduction of morals from self-love”
begins with the realization that people cannot subsist alone. People should have such social order
that provides security, peace, and mutual protection.
Hume examines the remaining theory of Hobbes, three types of character traits such as:
1. useful to the agent (industriousness, good judgment),
2. agreeable to the agent (cheerfulness) or
3. agreeable to others (politeness, decency).
According to Joseph Butler which Humes borrowed his argument that happiness consist of
pleasures that arise from the satisfaction of particular appetites and desires. It is because
individual want food, fame, and other things that gives pleasure.

EMMANUEL KANT (April 22, 1724-February 12, 1804,

Königsberg, Russia), German philosopher whose comprehensive and

systematic work in epistemology (the theory of knowledge), ethics,
and aesthetics greatly influenced all subsequent philosophy,
especially the various schools of Kantianism and idealism.

His most original and instructive writing is the “Critique of

Judgment, 1970”. Thus, it is perhaps best regarded as a series of appendixes to the other two
Critiques. The writing is divided into two main parts, namely: the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment
and the Critique of Teleological Judgment.

In his Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, he discusses the “logical purposiveness.” He analyzed the
notion of “aesthetic purposiveness” in judgments that ascribe beauty to something. According to
him, judgement is a mere expression of taste, lays claim to general validity, yet it cannot be said
to be cognitive because it rests on feeling, not on argument. Moreover, it emphasizes that when a
person contemplates an object and finds it beautiful, there is a certain harmony between the
imagination and the understanding of which immediate delighted in the object.

In his Critique of Teleological Judgment, he define teleology as a nature that pose by the existence
of organic bodies. In dealing with these bodies,
one cannot be content with merely mechanical Kant has 12 categories in understanding:
principles. The mechanism imply that the
Cause & Effects Possibility/Impossibility
things to which it applies must be the work of
some supernatural designer, but this would Community Plurality
mean a passing from the sensible to the Existence/non-existenceReality
suprasensible, this conclusive remarks is
Limitation Substance
impossible based on his previous writing, the
Critique of Aesthetic Judgment. Kant Necessary/Contingent Totality
admitted that teleological language cannot be Negation Unity
avoided in taking account of natural
phenomena.The conclusion of his Critique
of
Teleological Judgment, as written “fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and
wonder, frequent and the more steadily we reflect on them.”
Until in his deathbed, he uttered his last word,“Es ist gut” (“It is good”). And in his gravestone
words are inscribed in German which translated, “The starry heavens above me and
the moral law within me”.

Sigmund Freud, (May 6, 1856, Freiberg, Moravia, Austrian

Empire - September 23, 1939, London, England), Austrian neurologist
and the founder of psychoanalysis.

Freud is the most influential intellectual neurologist of his age. His

creation of psychoanalysis was huge impact in all human that deals with
the theory of the human psyche. It is a form of therapy for the relief of certain illness and an
opening for the interpretation of culture and society.

The letter of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, dated Feb, 1, 1900: “I am actually not at all a
man of science, not an observer, not an experimenter, not a thinker. I am by temperament
nothing but a conquistador--an adventurer, if you want it translated--with all the curiosity,
daring, and tenacity characteristic of a man of this sort”. This is the basis of Freud to come up
with the metapsychology and soon became the basis for wide-ranging speculations about cultural,
social, artistic, religious, and anthropological phenomena.

The metapsychology is define as the speculative psychology

concerned with postulating the structure (such as the ego and id)
and processes (such as cathexis) of the mind which usually
cannot be demonstrated objectively. In the process of
metapsychology and speculation about culture, social, artistic,
religious and anthropological phenomena, his general findings
appeared in his two books in the 1920s: Jenseits des Lustprinzips
(1920; Beyond the Pleasure Principle) and Das Ich und das Es
(1923; The Ego and the Id).

Freud attempted to clarify the relationship between the division of the psyche into the
unconscious, preconscious, conscious and his subsequent structural process of personality and
categorization into id, ego, and superego.

The id is the most primitive urges for gratification in the infant. The urges dominated by the
desire for pleasure through the release of tension and the cathexis of energy. Moreover,
id is the
primary process directly expressing somatically generated instincts. Through the inevitable
experience of frustration the infant learns to adapt itself to the exigencies of reality.

The growth of ego as described by Freud is the reality principle. In reality principle it need to
delay gratification in the service of self-preservation is slowly learned in an effort to thwart or
prevent the anxiety that was produced by unfulfilled desires. Freud comes up with the defense
mechanisms to deal with such conflicts. Repression is the most fundamental, but Freud also
posited an entire repertoire of others, including reaction formation, isolation, undoing, denial,
displacement, and rationalization.

The last structural process according to Freud is the superego. He develops from the
internalization of society the moral command with parental dictates during the resolution of the
Oedipus complex. Only partly conscious, the superego gains some of its punishing force by
borrowing certain aggressive elements in the id, which are turned inward against the ego and
produce feelings of guilt.

Freud himself died only a few weeks after World War II broke out, at a time when his worst fears
about the irrationality lurking behind the facade of civilization were being realized.
 Freud’s death did not, however, hinder the reception and dissemination of his ideas. Freud has
remained one of the most potent intellectual figures of modern times.

GILBERT RYLE writes on “The Concept of Mind” as an

examination of multifarious specific mental concepts, such as those

of knowing, learning, discovering, imagining, pretending, hoping,
wanting, feeling depressed, feeling a pain, resolving, doing
voluntarily, doing deliberately, perceiving, remembering and so on.
His book focuses on the
“categorical mistakes” which
philosophers are prone to make mistakes most especially
when they consider the logical form of “mental conduct
verbs” and when they uses the “Janus” style. It is a Cartesian
conception of the mind, which relates to Descartes, his
mathematical methods to his philosophy, especially with
regard
ancient Roman religion andtomyth,
emphasize thegod
Janus is the logical analysis
of beginnings, andtransitions,
gates, its mechanistic
time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. He is usually
interpretation of physical nature.
Ryle believed that the usage of ordinary language should be
concern of all philosophers.
According to Ryle, he is interested in the informal logic of the
employment of expressions. The nature of the logical force in
expressions is a components of his theories and as pivots of
concrete arguments.
In his writing, he uses the cartesian theory and galilean method of scientific discovery to target the
“official doctrine”. Descartes conviction that the mental could not simply be a more complex
variety of the mechanical while Cartesian view the distinctive ontological, epistemological, and
semantic commitments that each lead to particular philosophical puzzles.
The Cartesian ontological commitment of the Official Doctrine, his view is that there are two
different kinds of things, body and mind, that are somehow harnessed together. The view that
mind and body are somehow fundamentally different or distinct. However, it interact and
leads to the philosophical conundrum or confusing known as the mind-body problem.
The Cartesian epistemological commitments of the Official Doctrine lead to the problem of
other minds. According to the traditional view, bodily processes are external and can be
witnessed by observers, but mental processes are private, “internal” as it is metaphorically or
figurative description. The proponents of the Official Doctrine are committed to the view that
 mental discourse serves to designate items that carry the metaphysical and epistemological
load of that doctrine.
The last Cartesian official doctrine begins by pointing out an absurdity or wildly unreasonable
in its semantic consequences. In accordance to the Official Doctrine, someone is described as
knowing, believing or guessing something, as hoping, dreading, intending or shirking
something, are the verbs that supposed to denote the occurrence of specific modifications in to
the word “occult” that stream from consciousness.

tural causes then it would not be able to apply the verbs. Thus, something wrong with the theory of mental phenomena t

The practice of employing such mental concepts would be a complete mystery on a view that it
takes the “truth-makers” of our mental statements.

Paul Monthgomery Churchland, Ph.D.

In February 2017, Churchland became a Professor Emeritus at University
of California, San Diego, California (UCSD) and also a member of the
Board of Trustees of the Center for Consciousness Studies of the
Philosophy Department, Moscow State University.

He continues to appear as a philosophy faculty member on the UCSD

Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Cognitive Science and with the
affiliated faculty of the UCSD Institute for Neural Computation.

His areas of interest are: epistemology, perception, philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy
of mind, philosophy of neuroscience, and philosophy of science. He has authored numerous
books on philosophy, including, Matter and Consciousness, Scientific Realism and the Plasticity
of Mind, and Neurophilosophy at Work.

Churchland theory had a major proponent on eliminative materialism, he viewed that the mind
and brain are identical. Coincided, he introduced the concept of “eliminative materialism which
are reflected in the books, entitled, Scientific Realism and Plasticity of Mind, 1979. In 1981, in
his
paper, he further refined the Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes, at the
University of Manitoba, Canada.

He and her wife, Patricia believe that the “folk psychology” will be eventually displaced by
complete neuroscience theory which substantially integrated within physical science generally.
The propositional attitudes of folk psychology do not constitute an unbreachable barrier to the
advancing tide of neuroscience.

In 1996, he introduced his worked, entitled, “The Engine of Reason”.

Churchland hypothesizes that consciousness might be explained in
terms of a recurrent neural network with its connection to the nucleus
that passes through the thalamus, and the feedback have the connections
to all parts of the cortex.

While in his book entitled, the “Matter and Consciousness” present a

contemporary overview of the philosophical issues surrounding the
mind and explains the main theories. Moreover, he introduced the
relevance of theoretical and experimental results in neuroscience and
cognitive
science while reviewing the current developments in the cognitive sciences and offers a clear, and
accessible account on the philosophy of mind.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty, (1908–1961), French

philosopher and public intellectual, was the leading academic
proponent of existentialism and phenomenology in post-war in
France. He is best known of his original and influential work on
embodiment, perception, and ontology. And he also made important
contributions to the philosophy of art, history, language, nature, and
politics.

Merleau-Ponty’s most important works of technical philosophy are:

La Structure du Comportement (1942);
The Structure of Behavior (1965);
Phénoménologie de la Perception (1945);
Phenomenology of Perception (1962).
He regarded that it is necessary to consider the organism as a whole to discover what will follow
from a given set of stimuli. Moreover, the perception is the source of knowledge and had to be
studied before the conventional sciences.

The Nature of Perception and The Structure of Behavior

Interestingly, this early proposal emphasizes the significance of the perception of one’s own body
for distinguishing between the “universe of perception” and its “intellectual reconstructions”. He
mentions the distinction between the natural and transcendental attitudes, and the intentionality of
consciousness as valuable for “revising the very notions of consciousness and sensation”. Based
on the Gestalt theory it is “a spontaneous organization of the sensory field” in which there are
“only organizations, more or less stable and articulated”. Merleau-Ponty’s brief summary of
Gestalt psychology, anticipating research presented in his first two books, emphasizes the figure-
ground structure of perception, the phenomena of depth and movement, and the syncretic
perception of children.
Merleau-Ponty’s first book, The Structure of Behavior (SC),
resumes the project of synthesizing and reworking the insights of
Gestalt theory and phenomenology to propose an original
understanding of the relationship between “consciousness” and
“nature”.
In his book, several ideas are being discussed and some
collaboration with Wolfgang Kohler, a key figure that developed
the Gestalt theory.
One of which is the the concept of “behavior”, as parallel to the
phenomenological concept of “experience” , it is the starting point
for the analysis of neutrality with respect to classical distinctions between the “mental” and the
“physiological”.
Another concept described, the “nervous system” as a field of forces and apportioned according to
modes of preferred distribution. This concept was inspired by Wolfgang Köhler’s Gestalt physics,
as observed that both physiology and behavior are “forms”:
total processes whose properties are not the sum of those which the
isolated parts would possess
 Another contribution which Merleau-Ponty considered on the
theories of higher behavior, such as Pavlov’s theory of conditioned
reflexes. Merleau-Ponty argues that such accounts rely on gratuitous
hypotheses lacking experimental justification and cannot effectively
explain the brain function or learning. Similarly, learning cannot be
explained in terms of trial-and-error fixing of habitual reactions, but
instead involves a general aptitude with respect to typical structures
of situations.
Merleau-Ponty proposes an alternative tripartite classification of
behavior according to the degree to which the structures toward
which it is oriented emerge thematically from their content.
Syncretic behaviors, as defined as the merging of different inflectional varieties of a word during
the development of a language. It is a response to all stimuli as analogues of vital situations for
which the organism’s responses are instinctually prescribed by its “species a priori”, with no
possibility for adaptive learning or improvisation.
Amovable behaviors or removable are oriented toward signals of varying complexity that are not
a function of the organism’s instinctual equipment and can lead to genuine learning. Here the
organism is guided by its vital norms and responded to signals as relational structures. While
amovable behavior remains attached to immediate functional structures, symbolic behavior (here
limited to humans) is open to virtual, expressive, and recursive relationships across structures.
Making possible orientation toward human objectivity, truth, creativity, and freedom from
biologically determined norms.
Merleau-Ponty argues that even intelligent animals like chimpanzee, lacks an orientation toward
objective things, which emerges only at the level of symbolic behavior. Mind is considered as a
symbolic level of form. Mind or consciousness cannot be defined formally in terms of self-
knowledge or representation, but it is essentially engaged in the structures and actions of the
human world and encompasses all of the diverse intentional orientations of human life.
In short, mind as a second-order or recursive structure is oriented toward the
virtualrather than simplytowardthe
real.Ideally, of life would
thebe
fully subordinate structure
absorbed into the
higher order of mind inafully humanbeing; integrated would be
transcendedby
the the But or detached and
biological “spiritual”. perfect
never complete,
integrationis
and mind can never be from its
moorings in a concrete situation. embodied

For human concept, “form” is characterized by a dialectical relation between the organism and its
environment that is a function of the organism’s vital norms, its “optimal conditions of activity and
 its proper manner of realizing equilibrium”, which express its style or “general attitude toward the
world”
For living things are not oriented toward an objective world but toward an environment that is
organized meaningfully in terms of their individual and specific style and vital goals.
The last chapter of The Structure of Behavior clarifies this revised understanding of consciousness
in dialogue with the classical problem of the relation between the soul and the body in order to
account for the relative truths of both transcendental philosophy and naturalism.
He tackles the issues concerning on how to reconcile the perspective of consciousness as
“universal milieu” (i.e., transcendental consciousness-relating to spiritual) with consciousness as
“enrooted in the subordinated dialectics”, that is, as a Gestalt emerging from lower-order(i.e.,
perceptual consciousness-ability to interpret & aware).
Merleau-Ponty aims to integrate the truth of naturalism and transcendental thought by
reinterpreting both through the concept of structure, which accounts for the unity of soul and
body as well as their relative distinction. He also insists that mind is an accomplishment of
structural integration that remains essentially conditioned by the matter and life in which it is
embodied; the truth of naturalism lies in the fact that such integration is essentially fragile and
incomplete. Since “integration is never absolute and always fails”, the dualism of mind and body
is not a simple fact; it is founded in principle, all integration presupposing the normal functioning
of subordinated formations, which always demand their own due.
The Structure of Behavior concludes with a call for further
investigation of “perceptual consciousness”, a task taken up
by its sequel, Phenomenology of Perception. In the concluding
pages of Structure, Merleau-Ponty offers a preliminary sketch of
phenomenologically inspired approaches to the “problem of
perception” that set the stage for his subsequent work, emphasizing:
(a) the difference between what is directly given as an aspect of
individual lived experience and intersubjective significations that are
only encountered virtually;
(b) the distinctiveness of one’s own body, which is never experienced directly as one objective
thing among many. The book concludes by identifying the “problem of perception” as its
encompassing concern.

n of the status of perception would lead to a redefinition of transcendental philosophy “in such a way as to integrate with it th
 GLOSSARY
Awe - a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear and wonder.

Cathexis -is a form mental telepathy and concentration

Conundrum -hard to answer, difficult situation or problem.

Pivot -main idea or central point.

Prefatory -is an introductory statement that can be seen as a preface.
Repudiate -refuse to accept.

Subsist - is supporting oneself or maintaining the status

Syncretism -mixture or amalgamation of different religion
 References

Journals:

Britannica Encyclopedia
Stanford Encyclopedia
Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes –– Journal of Philosophy (1981)
Functionalism, Qualia, and Intentionality –– Philosophical Topics. 12. (1981)
Reduction, Qualia and Direct Introspection of Brain States –– Journal of Philosophy. 82. (1985)
Some Reductive Strategies in Cognitive Neurobiology –– Mind. 95. (1986)
Folk Psychology and the Explanation of Human Behavior –– Proceedings of the Aristotelean
Society. Supp. Vol. LXII. (1988)
On the Nature of Theories: A Neurocomputational Perspective –– Minnesota Studies in the
Philosophy of Science. XIV. (1990)
Intertheoretic Reduction: A Neuroscientist’s Field Guide –– Seminars in Neuroscience. 2. (1991)
The Neural Representation of Social Reality –– Mind and Morals (1995)
Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes –– Journal of Philosophy (1981); Essays
The Primacy of Perception, James Edie (ed.), Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Thompson,
Evan, 2007

wEBSITE:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plato/Late-dialogues
https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Locke/Other-works
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rene-Descartes
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Immanuel-Kant/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sigmund-Freud/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ryle/