THE CONCEPT OF

“SELF” FROM VARIOUS

PHILOSOPHICAL
PERSPECTIVES
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INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES

▫ Explain why it is essential to understand the self.

▫ Describe and discuss the different notions of the self from points of view of various
philosophers across time and place.

▫ Compare and contrast how the self has been represented in different philosophical schools.

▫ Examine one’s self against the different views of self that were discussed in class.
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?
Let’s start
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PHILOSOPHY
▫ Studies the fundamental nature, knowledge, reality,
and existence in an academic discipline
▫ Investigates the nature of ordinary and scientific
beliefs
▫ Determines the legitimacy of concepts by rational
argument
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“
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.
SEVERAL PERSPECTIVES OF
PHILOSOPHERS ON THE
CONCEPT OF SELF
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1. Pre-Socratics
Thales, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Empedocles, etc.
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PRE-SOCRATICS
▫ They were concerned with 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?
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PRE-SOCRATICS
▫ They introduced the term “arché”
▪ Arché refers to the origin or source/”soul” as the
primal matter
▪ the soul’s movement is the ultimate arché of all other
movement
▪ Arché has no origin outside itself and cannot be
destroyed
▪ Explains the multiplicity of things in the world
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2. Socrates
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SOCRATES
▫ Concerns the problem of the self
▫ “the true task of the philosopher is to
know oneself”
▫ “the unexamined life is not worth living”
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SOCRATES
▫ underwent a trial for ‘corrupting the
minds of the youth’
▫ succeeded made people think about who
they are
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SOCRATES
▫ ‘the worst thing that can happen to
anyone is to live but die inside’
▫ “every person is dualistic”
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SOCRATES

MAN = Body + Soul

Individual = Imperfect & Permanent Body + Perfect & Permanent Soul
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3. Plato
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PLATO
▫ Emphasizes the three components to the soul
▫ Rational soul- reason & intellect to govern
affairs
▫ Spirited soul- emotions should be kept at bay
▫ Appetitive soul- basic desires (food, sleep,
sexual needs, and others)
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PLATO
▫ When the three components are
attained, the human person’s
soul becomes just & virtuous
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4. St. Augustine
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ST. AUGUSTINE
▫ ‘spirit of man’ in medieval philosophy
▫ following view of Plato but adds Christianity
▫ man is of a bifurcated nature
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ST. AUGUSTINE
▫ 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”
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5. St. Thomas Aquinas

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ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

▫ man = matter + form
▪ matter (hyle) – “common stuff that makes up
everything in the universe”
▪ form (morphe) – “essence of a substance or
thing”; (what makes it what it is)
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ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

▫ the body of the human is similar to
animals/objects, but what makes a human is his
essence
▫ “the soul is what makes us humans”
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6. Rene Descartes
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RENE DESCARTES
▫ Father of Modern Philosophy
▫ human person = body + mind
▫ “there is so much that we should doubt”
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RENE DESCARTES
▫ “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
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RENE DESCARTES
▫ “I think, therefore I am”
▫ the self = cogito (the thing that thinks) + extenza
(extension of mind/body)
▫ the body is a machine attached to the mind
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RENE DESCARTES
▫ It’s the mind that makes the man
▫ “I am a thinking thing. . . A thing that doubts,
understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses,
imagines, perceives.”
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7. David Hume
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DAVID HUME
▫ disagrees with the all the other aforementioned
philosophers
▫ “one can only know what comes from the senses
& experiences” (he is an empiricist)
▫ “the self is not an entity beyond the physical
body”
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DAVID HUME
▫ you know that other people are humans not
because you have seen their soul, but because
you see them, hear them, feel them, and other
sensory experiences.
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DAVID HUME
▫ “the self is nothing but a bundle of impressions
and ideas”
▫ impression means basic objects of our
experience/sensation and it forms the core of
our thoughts
▫ idea means copies of impressions and not as
“real” as impressions
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DAVID HUME
▫ Self refers to a collection of different perceptions
which rapidly succeed each other
▫ Self is in a perpetual flux and movement
▫ We want to believe that there is a unified ,
coherent self, soul, mind, etc., but it is all just a
combination of experiences.
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8. Immanuel
Kant
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IMMANUEL KANT
▫ agrees with Hume that everything starts with
perception/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”
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IMMANUEL KANT
▫ 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
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9. Gilbert Ryle
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GILBERT RYLE
▫ denies the internal, non-physical self
▫ “what truly matters is the behavior that a person
manifests in his day-to-day life.”
▫ the self is not an entity one can locate and
analyze but simply the convenient name that we
use to refer to the behaviors that we make
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10. Merleau-Ponty
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GILBERT RYLE
▫ a phenomenologist who says the mind-body
bifurcation is an invalid problem
▫ mind and body are inseparable
▫ “one’s body is his opening toward his existence
to the world”
▫ the living body, his thoughts, emotions, and
experiences are all one.