2. Socrates: Know Yourself
• Principally Concerned with Man
• Considers Man from POV of his inner self
– “Know Yourself” tells man to bring inner self to
light.
• Bad Man is not virtuous through to ignorance;
the man who does not follow the good fails to
do so because does not recognize it.
3. • Core Ethics: Virtue and Knowledge
– Virtue: Deepest and most basic propensity of man
– Knowledge: Awareness of one’s virtue is
necessary.
– Virtue is innate in the mind and self knowledge is
the source of all wisdom.
• An individual may gain possession of one self
and be one’s master through knowledge
4. Plato: The Ideal Self and The Perfect
Self
• Man is Omniscient before conception
• Separation from the paradise of truth and
knowledge and long exile on earth, man
forgot all knowledge he has.
• Constant remembering through
contemplation and doing good, man can
regain his former perfection.
5. • Man being exiled on earth has a guiding star a
model/divine exemplar man must follow too to
reach and attain his destiny.
• In practical terms man should follow or imitate,
his former self, specifically, man should live a life
of virtue in which true human perfection exist.
• Happiness' which is the fruit of human virtue is
attained by constant imitation of divine exemplar
of virtue, embodied in mans former perfect self.
6. Immanuel Kant: Respect for Self
• Man is the only creature who Governs and
directs his action, also sets up ends for himself
and his purpose.
• Who freely orders means for the attainment
of his aims.
• Every man is thus an end in himself and
should never be treated as a means – per
order of divine creator and natural order of
things.
7. • This rule is a plain dictum of reason and
justice.
• Respect others as you respect yourself.
• Persons should not be used: as a tool,
instrument, or device to accomplish anothers
private ends.
• All men are persons gifted with basic rights
and should treat each other as equal.
8. Rene Descartes: I think therefore I am
• Self is a thinking entity distinct from the body.
• Although mind and body are independent,
man must use his own mind and thinking
abilities to investigate, analyze, experiment
and develop himself.
9. John Locke: Personal Identity
• Personal Identity (the self) is a matter of
psychological continuity.
• For him PI is founded on consciousness (memory)
and not on the substance of either soul or the
body.
• PI is a concept about oneself that evolves over
the course of individuals life.
• May include aspects of life that self has no
control such as where he grows up, the color of
skin, choices he make: like how he spends his
time and what he believes.
10. David Hume: The Self is the Bundle
Theory of Mind
• Skeptical about the existence of the self, specifically whether there is a
simple, unified self that exists over time.
• Man has no “Clear and Intelligible” idea of the self.
• That no single impression at the self exists.
• Rather, the self is just the thing to which all perception of a man is
ascribed.
• Moreover, even if there were, such an impression of the self it would have
to remain constant over time constitute identity.
• However, man’s impressions vary and always change.
• Even attempts to have impressions at self must fail for all these attempts
are just occasional for one to notice perceptions.
• Person can never observe oneself without some other perception.
• Hume asserts that what we call the “self” is really just a bundle on
collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an
inconceivable ripidity.
