COURSE CODE: SS 111-UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

Module 1

Week 1: August 31- Sept. 14, 2020 | 1st Semester, S.Y. 2020-2021

Introduction
Before we even had to be in any formal institution of learning, among the many things
that we were taught as kids is to articulate and write our names. Growing up, we were told to
refer back to this name when taking about ourselves. Our parents painstalkingly thought
about our names. Shoud we be named after a famous celebrity, a respected politician or
COURSE MODULE

historical personality, or even a saint? Were namedafter one? Our names represent who we
are. It has not been a custom to just randomly pick a combination of letters and number (or
even punctuation marks) like zhjk756!! to denote our being. Human beings attach names that
are meaningful to birthed progenies because names are supposed to designate us in the
world. Thus, some people get baptized with names such as “precious,” “beauty,” or “lovely.”
likewise, when our parents call our names, we were taught to respod to them because our
names represent who we are. As a student, we are told to write always 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 berear. It is
only a signifier. A person who was named after a saint most probably will notbecome an
actual saint. He may not turn out to be saintly! The self is thought to be something else than
the name. The self is something that a person perrenially mols, shapes, and develops. The
self is not a static thing that one is simply born with like a mole on one’s face or is just
assigned by one’s parents just like a name. Everyone is talked to discover one’s self. Have
you truly discovered yours?

Intended Learning Outcomes

 Describe how the self has been represented across different disciplines (sociological,
psychological, economic, philosophical, political, digital, anthropological, historical,
etc).
 Discuss the different representations and conceptualization of the self from various
disciplinal perspective.
 Differentiate how the self has been represented across different disciples and
perspective.
Topic 2

. The Self from Various Philosophical

Perspectives
Philosophy
 study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence, especially in an
academic discipline.
 a particular theory that someone has about how to live or how to deal with a particular
situation.
 academic discipline concerned with investigating the nature f significance of ordinary
and scientific beliefs.
 investigates the legitimacy of concepts by rational argument concerning their
implications, relationships as well as reality, knowledge, moral judgment, etc.

The Greeks were the ones who seriously questioned myths and moved away from them
to understand reality and respond to perennial questions of curiosity, including the question
of the self.
 The following discussions of different perspectives and understandings of the self
according to its prime movers. From philosophers of the ancient times to the contemporary
period.

THE PRE-SOCRATICS
The Pre-Socratics (Thales, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Empedocles, etc.) were
concerned with answering questions such as:
What is the world really made up of?
Why is the world the way it is?
What explains the changes that happen around us?
COURSE MODULE

 arche-origin or source/the “soul” the primal matter

 the soul’s movement is the ultimate arche of all other movement
 arche has no origin outside itself and cannot be destroyed
 explains the multiplicity of things in the world

SOCRATES
 concerned with the problem of the self
 ‘the trues task of the philosopher is to know oneself”
 “the unexamined life is not worth living”
 underwent a trial for’corrupting the minds of the youth’
 succeeded made people think about who they are
 ‘the worst thing that can happen to anyone is to live but die inside’
 “every person is dualistic” means that every man composed of body and soul
Man = body + soul

Individual perfect& permanent soul

imperfect/impermanent body

PLATO
  supported the idea of Socrates that man is a dual nature of body and soul;
 added that there are three components of the soul:
Rational soul- reason and intellect to govern affairs
Spirited soul- changed of emotions should be kept at bay;
Appetitive soul- base desires (food, drink, sleep,sexual needs, etc.)
When these are all attained, the human person’s becomes just and virtuous.
COURSE MODULE

ST. AUGUSTINE
 ‘spirit of man’ in medieval philosophy
 following view of Plato but adds Christianity
 man is of a bifurcated nature
 part of man dwells in the world (imperfect) and yearns to be with the Divine
 other part is capable of reaching immortality
 Body- dies on earth; soul - lives eternally in spiritual bliss with “God”

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

 he is the most eminent thirteeth century scholar and stalwart of the medieval
philosophy;
 adapting the ideas from Aristotle that man is composed of two parts: matter and form
Matter or hyle in Greek,
-refers to the “common stuff that makes up everything in the universe.
Form or morphe in Greek,
- refers to the “essence of a substance or thing.” (what makes it what it is

MODERN PHILOSOPHY
COURSE MODULE

Rene DESCARTES
 Father of the Modern Philosophy
 Human person = body + mind
 Descartes states that,“there is so much that we should doubt”
 “if something is so clear and lucid as not to be doubted that’s the only time one should
believe.”
 The only thing one can’t doubt is existence of the self.
 His famous principle, cogito ergo sum, “ I think therefore, I am.”
The self = cogito + extenza
( the thing that thinks) ( extension of the mind/body)
 The body is a machine attached to the mind.
 It’s the mind that makes the man.
 “I am a thinking thing… A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills,
refuses, imagines, perceives.”

David HUME
 Disagrees with all the other aforementioned philosophers
 For him, ‘one can only know what comes from the senses and experiences”
( he is an empiricist)
Empiricism- is the school of thought that espouses that one can know only what comes
from the senses and experienced.
 “ the self is not an entity beyond the physical body”
 You know that other people are humans not because you have seen thir soul, but
because you seen them, hear them, feel them etc.

 “The self is nothing but a bundle of impressions and ideas”

IMPRESSION IDEAS

*basic object of our * copies of impressions

experience/ sensation
* not as “real” as
* forms the core of our impressions
thoughts
 For David Hume:
Self is a collection of different perceptions which rapidly succeed each other.
Self is a perpetual flux and movement.
“We want to believe that there is a unified, coherent self, soul, mind, etc. Bur actually it’s
all just a combination of experiences.”
COURSE MODULE

Immanuel KANT
 agrees with Hume that everything starts with perceptions/sensation of impressions
 there is a MIND that regulates these impressions
“time, space, etc. are ideas that one cannot find in the world, but is built in our minds,
 “apparatus of the mind”
The SELF organizes different impressions that one gets in relation to his own existence.
We need active intelligence to synthesize all knowledge and experience.
The SELF is not only personality but also the seat of knowledge.

Gilbert RYLE
 denies the internal, no-physical self
 “What truly matters is the behavior that a person manifests in his day-to-day life.”
 Looking for the self is like visiting your friend’s university and looking for the
“university.”
 Ryle suggest that the SELF is not an entity one can locate and analyze but simply the
convenient name that people use to refer to all behaviors that people make.


Merleau-Ponty
 A phenomenologist who asserts that the mind-body bifurcation is invalid problem.
  Mind and body are inseprable.
 “Once body is his opening toward his existence to the world.”
 The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and experiences are all one.

References
COURSE MODULE

* Chan, Shin (2018).UNDERSTANDING THE

SELF.https://www.slideshare.net/shinpaiwa/understanding-the-self-lecture-1-philosophical-
perspectives
* Eden Joy Pastor Alata, Bernardo Nicolas Caslib, J., et al (2018) .UNDERSTANDING THE
SELF.REX Book Store