Chapter 1 Lesson 1

CHAPTER 1: DEFINING THE SELF: PERSONAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL
PERSPECTIVES ON SELF AND IDENTITY
Lesson 1:
The Self from Various Philosophical Perspectives
Intended Learning Outcomes
At the end of this lesson, the student will be able to:
1. Explain why it is essential to understand self

2. Describe and discuss the different notions of the self from the points of view of
various philosophers across time and place;
3. Compare and contrast how the self has been represented in different philosophical
schools; and
4. Examine one’s self against the different views of self that were discussed in class.
Introduction
As a student, we are told to always write our names on our papers, projects, or any
output for that matter. Our names signify us. Death cannot even stop this bond between the
person and her name. Names are inscribed even into one’s gravestone.
A name is not the person itself no matter how intimately bound it is with the bearer. It
is only signifier. A person who was named after a saint most probably will not become an
actual saint. He may not even turn out to be saintly! The self is thought to be something
else than the name. The self is not static thing that one is simply born with like a mole on
one’s face or is just assigned by one’s parent just like a name. Everyone is tasked to
discover one’s self.
Discussion
SOCRATES: KNOW YOURSELF
² Socrates is principally concerned with man. He considers man

from the point of view of his inner life.
² He is the first philosopher who ever engaged in a systematic
questioning about the self.
² “Know yourself”, tells each man to bring his inner self to light.
² A bad man is not virtuous through ignorance, the man who
does not follow the good fails to do so because he does not
recognize it.
² Socrates affirms, claimed by Plato in his dialogue that the
unexamined life is not worth living.
² He took himself as the “gadfly” that disturbs Athenian men from their slumber and
shakes them off in order to reach the truth and wisdom.
² He thought that the worst that can happen to anyone, to live but die inside.
PLATO: THE IDEAL SELF, THE PERFECT SELF
² Man was omniscient or all-knowing before he came to be born

into this world.
² He believed that humans were divided into three aspects;
 The body, the mind and the soul.
 The Body- concerned with the material world and through which we are
able to experience the world, and through which we are able to experience
the world we live in. It is needed to be satisfied. It experiences gratifications.
 The Mind- directed towards the heavenly realm of ideas.
 The Soul- is the driving force of the body; it is what gives us our identity.
 Plato added that there are three parts or components of the soul.
 The Rational Soul- forged by reason and intellect has to govern the affairs
of the human person.
 The Spirited Soul- which is in charge of emotions should be kept at bay.
 The Appetitive Soul- is in charge of base desires like, eating, drinking,
sleeping and having sexual intercourse, is controlled well.
² When this ideal state is attained the human person’s soul becomes just and virtuous.
ST. AUGUSTINE: LOVE AND JUSTICE AS THE FOUNDATION OF INDIVIDUAL SELF
² Augustine view of human person reflects the entire spirit of the

medieval world when it comes to man.
² He agreed that man is bifurcated nature. There is an aspect of
man, which dwells in the world that is imperfect and continuously
yearns to be with the divine while other is capable of reaching
immortality.
² The body is bound to die on earth and the soul is to anticipate
living eternally in a realm of spiritual bliss in communication with
God.
² The goal of every human person is to attain this communion and bliss with the Divine
by living his life on earth in virtue.
² St. Augustine believes that a virtuous life is dynamism of love. It is constant following
of and turning towards love while a wicked life is a constant turning away from love.
² Loving God’s means loving one’s fellowmen; and loving one’s fellowmen denotes
never doing any harm to another or, as the golden principle of justice states, ding
unto others as you would have them do unto you.
THOMAS AQUINAS
² Thomas Aquinas is the most eminent 13th century scholar and

stalwart of the medieval philosophy.
² He added man is composed of two parts; matter and form
² Matter or hyle in Greek refers to common stuff that makes up
everything in the universe. Form omorphein Greek refers to the
essence of a substance or thing.
² In human person, the body of the human person is something that he shares even
with animals. The cells in the man’s body are more or less akin to the cells of any
other living, organic being in the world.
² What makes a human person a human person and not a dog o tiger is his soul, his
essence.
² The soul is what animates the body; it is what makes us humans.
RENE DESCARTES: I THINK THEREFORE I AM
² Father of Modern Philosophy, conceived that the human person

as having a body and mind.
² In his famous treatise, The Meditations of First Philosophy
claims that there is so much that we should doubt.
² In fact, he says that much what we think and believe is because
they are infallible, may turn out to be false.
² One should only believe that which can pass the test of doubt.
If something is so clear and lucid as not to be even doubted,
then that is the only time when one should actually buy a
proposition.
² Descartes thought that the only thing that cannot doubt is the existence of the self.
For even if one doubts oneself, that only proves that there is a doubting self, a thing
that thinks and therefore, that cannot be doubted.
² His first famous principle was “cogito ergo sum” or I think therefore, I am
² The fact that one thinks should lead one to conclude without a trace of doubt that he
exists.
² Descartes states that the self is also a combination of two distinct entities: the cogito,
or the thing that thinks, which is the mind and the extenza, or extension of the mind,
which is the body.
² In Descartes view, the body is nothing else but a machine that is attached to the
mind. The human person has it but it is not what makes man a man.
DAVID HUME: THE SELF IS THE BUNDLE THEORY OF MIND
² David Hume is a Scottish philosopher that has a very unique way

of looking at man.
² As an empiricist, Hume argues that the self is nothing like what
his predecessors thought of it. The self is not an entity over and
beyond the physical body.
² Empiricism is the school of thought that espouses the idea that
knowledge can only be possible if it is sensed and experiences.
² Men can only attain knowledge by experiencing. For example, Jack knows Jill is
another human person not because he has seen her soul. He knows she is just like
him because he sees her, hears her, and touches her.
² Hume believe that self is nothing else but a bundle of impressions. If one tries to
examine his experiences, he finds that they can all be categorized into two:
impressions and ideas.
² Impressions are the basic object of our experiences or sensation. They therefore
form the core of our thoughts.
² When one touches an ice cube, the cold sensation is an impression. Impressions
are vivid because they are products of our direct experience with the world. Ideas,
are copies of impressions. They are not vivid or as lively as our impressions.
² What is self then?
o SELF is “ a bundle or collection of different perceptions which succeed each
other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and
movement”. Men simply want to believe that there is a unified, coherent self,
a soul or mind just like what the previous philosophers thought. In reality,
what one thinks as unified self is simply a combination of all experiences with
a particular person.
IMMANUEL KANT: RESPECT FOR SELF
² Man is the only creature who governs and directs himself and his
actions, who sets up ends for himself and his purpose, and who
freely orders means for the attainment of his aims.
² Kant thinks that the things that men perceive around them are
not just randomly infused into the human person without
organizing principle that regulates the relationship of all these
impressions.
² For Kant, there is necessarily a mind that organizes the
impressions that men get from the external world.
² Time and space, for example are ideas that one cannot find in the external world but
it is built in our minds. Kant calls these the apparatus of the mind.
² Kant suggested that the self is an actively engaged intelligence in man that
synthesizes all knowledge and experiences. Thus the self is not just what gives one
his personality. It is also the seat of knowledge acquisition for all human persons.
GILBERT RYLE
² Gilbert Ryle solves the mind-body dichotomy that has been

running for a long time in the history of thought by denying
blatantly the concept of an internal, non-physical self/
² According to Ryle, what truly matter is the behaviors that a
person manifests in his day to day life.
² Looking for and tying to understand a self.
² He suggest that the self is not an entity ne can locate and analyse but simply the
convenient name that people use to refer to all the behaviors that people make.
MERLEAU-PONTY
² Merleau-Ponty is a phenomenologist who asserts that the mind-

body bifurcation that has been going on for a long time is a futile
endeavor and an invalid problem.
² He says that the mind and body are so intertwined that they
cannot be separated from one another.
² One cannot find any experience that is not an embodied
experience. All experience is embodied.

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CHAPTER 1: DEFINING THE SELF: PERSONAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL

PERSPECTIVES ON SELF AND IDENTITY

Intended Learning Outcomes

At the end of this lesson, the student will be able to:

1. Explain why it is essential to understand self

SOCRATES: KNOW YOURSELF

² Socrates is principally concerned with man. He considers man

PLATO: THE IDEAL SELF, THE PERFECT SELF

² Man was omniscient or all-knowing before he came to be born

ST. AUGUSTINE: LOVE AND JUSTICE AS THE FOUNDATION OF INDIVIDUAL SELF

² Augustine view of human person reflects the entire spirit of the

² Thomas Aquinas is the most eminent 13th century scholar and

RENE DESCARTES: I THINK THEREFORE I AM

² Father of Modern Philosophy, conceived that the human person

DAVID HUME: THE SELF IS THE BUNDLE THEORY OF MIND

² David Hume is a Scottish philosopher that has a very unique way

IMMANUEL KANT: RESPECT FOR SELF

² Gilbert Ryle solves the mind-body dichotomy that has been

² Merleau-Ponty is a phenomenologist who asserts that the mind-

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