This document provides an overview of different philosophical perspectives on the self, including:
1) Socrates, Plato, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas viewed the self as dualistic, composed of both body and soul or mind.
2) Descartes defined the self as the mind and thought separate from the body.
3) Hume saw the self as a "bundle of impressions" with no unified essence.
4) Mead and Vygotsky argued that language and social interaction shape cognitive development and the emergence of self-concept during childhood.
5) Psychology defines the self as a sense of personal identity developed through interactions with others and social/cultural influences over time.
1. Chapter 1-Defining the Self: Personal and Developmental
Perspectives on Self and Identity
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1.1The Self from Various Philosophical Perspectives
Lesson Objectives:
1.Explain why is it essential to understand the self;
2.Describe and discuss the different notions of the self from the points-of-
view of the 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.
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SOCRATES
• First philosopher who ever engaged in a systematic questioning about the
self.
• The true task of the philosopher is to know oneself.
“Unexamined life is not worth living.”
• Every man is composed of body and soul (human person is dualistic).
Body is imperfect and impermanent while soul is perfect and permanent.
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PLATO
• Socrates’ student who supported the idea that man is a dual nature of
body and soul.
• Three components of the soul:
1. The rational soul - reason and intellect has to govern the affairs of the
human person
2. The spirited soul - in charge of emotions
3. The appetitive soul - in charge of base desires like eating, drinking,
sleeping, and having sex.
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AUGUSTINE
• Agreed that man is of a bifurcated nature.
• An aspect of man dwells in the world and is imperfect and continuously
yearns to be with the Divine (body) and the other is capable of reaching
immortality (soul).
• The goal of every human person is to attain this communion and bliss
with the Divine by living his life on earth in virtue.
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THOMAS AQUINAS
• Most eminent thirteenth century scholar and stalwart of the medieval
philosophy.
• Man is composed of two parts:
1. Matter “hyle” – common stuff that makes up everything in the universe.
(body)
2. Form “morphe” – essence of a substance or thing. It is what makes it
what it is. (soul)
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RENE DESCARTES
Father of Modern Philosophy
• Human person as having a body and mind.
“I think therefore, I am.”
• The fact that one thinks should lead one to conclude without a trace of
doubt that he exists.
• Self is a combination of two distinct entities:
1. Cogito (mind) – the thing that thinks.
2. Extenza(body) – extension of the mind.
“But what then, am I? A thinking thing. It has been said. But what is a thinking
thing? It is a thing that doubts, understands (conceives), affirms, denies, wills,
refuses; that imagines also, and perceives” (Descartes 2008)
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DAVID HUME
• A Scottish philosopher and empiricist who believes that one can know
only what comes from the senses and experiences.
• Knowledge can only be possible if it sensed and experienced. Men can
only attain knowledge by experiencing (sense of sight, hearing, smell, taste
and touch).
• Self is nothing but a bundle of impressions. A bundle or collection of
different perceptions. Unified self is simply a combination of all experiences
with a particular person.
• Experiences are categorized into two:
1. Impressions – basic objects of our experience or sensation. They form
the core of our thoughts. Vivid and products of our direct experience with
the world.
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IMMANUEL KANT
• There is necessarily a mind that organizes the impressions that men get
from the external world.
• Ideas that are not found in the world but built in our minds are called the
apparatuses of the mind.
• Self is an actively engaged intelligence in man that synthesizes all
knowledge and experience. It is also the seat of knowledge acquisition for
all human persons.
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GILBERT RYLE
• What truly matters is the behaviour that a person manifests in his day-to-
day life.
• Self is not an entity one can locate and analyze but simply the convenient
name that people use to refer to all the behaviours that people make.
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MERLEAU-PONTY
• Mind and body are so intertwined that they cannot be separated from one
another.
• One cannot find any experience that is not an embodied experience. All
experience is embodied. The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and
experiences are all one.
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1.2 The Self, Society, and Culture
1. Explain the relationship between and among the self, society, and culture;
2. Describe and discuss the different ways by which society and culture
shape the self;
3. Compare and contrast how the self can be influenced by the different
institutions in the society; and
4. Examine one’s self against the different views of self that were discussed
in the class.
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What Is the Self?
• Commonly defined by the following characteristics: “separate, self-
contained, independent, consistent, unitary, and private.”
o Separate – the self is always unique and has its own identity.
o Self-contained and independent – it has its own thoughts, characteristics
and volition.
o Consistent – it has a personality that is enduring and therefore can be
expected to persist for quite some time.
o Unitary – center of all experiences and thoughts that run through a
certain person.
o Private – each person sorts out information, feelings, emotions, and
thought processes within the self and this is not accessible to anyone but
the self.
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The Self and Culture
• Marcel Mauss – every self has two faces:
o Moi – person’s sense of who he is, his body, his basic identity and
biological givenness.
o Personne – composed of the social concepts of what it means to be who
he is. It has much to do with what it means to live in a particular
environment and how to behave given expectations and influences from
others.
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The Self and the Development of the Social World
• More than our givenness (personality, tendencies, and propensities), one
is believed to be in active participation in the shaping of the self.
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Mead and Vygotsky
• For Mead and Vygotsky, the way that human person develop is with the
use of language acquisition and interaction with others. Cognitive and
emotional development of a child is always mimicry of how it is done in the
social world, in the external reality where he is in. For them, human mind is
something that is made, constituted through language as experienced in
the external world and as encountered in dialogs with others.
• For Mead, the child assumes the “other” through language and role-play.
A child conceptualizes his notion of “self” through this.
• For Vygotsky, a child internalizes real-life dialogs that he has had with
others.
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Self in Families
• While every child is born with certain givenness, disposition coming from
his parents’ genes and general condition of life, the impact of one’s family
is still deemed as a given in understanding the self. The kind of family that
we are born in, the resources available to us (human, spiritual, economic),
and the kind of development that we will have will certainly affects us as we
go through life. Human persons learn the ways of living and therefore their
selfhood by being in a family.
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Gender and the Self
• Gender is one of those loci of the self that is subject to alteration, change
and development. From the point-of-view of the social sciences and the
self, it is important to give one the leeway to find, express, and live his
identity. Oftentimes, society forces a particular identity unto us depending
on our sex and/or gender. The sense of self that is being taught makes sure
that an individual fits in a particular environment. This is dangerous and
detrimental in the goal of truly finding one’s self, self-determination, and
growth of the self. Gender has to be personally discovered and asserted
and not dictated by the culture and the society.
“Why do we try so hard to fit in when we are born to stand out?”
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1.3 The Self as Cognitive Construct
Lesson Objectives:
1. Identify the different ideas in psychology about the “self”;
2. Create your own definition of the “self” based on the definitions from
psychology; and
3. Analyze the effects of various factors identified in psychology in the
formation of the “self.”
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• Self is “the sense of personal identity and of who we are as individuals”
(Jhangiani and Tarry 2014)
• William James (1890) – conceptualized the self as having two aspects –
the “I” and the “me”. The “I” is the thinking, acting, and feeling self. The
“me” is the physical characteristics as well as psychological capabilities
that make who you are.
• Carl Rogers’ (1959) theory of personality also used the same terms, the “I”
as the one who acts and decides while the “me” is what you think or feel
about yourself.
• Other concepts similar to self are identity and self-concept. Identity is
composed of personal characteristics, social roles, responsibilities and
affiliations that define who one is. Self-concept is what basically comes to
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• Sigmund Freud – saw the self, its mental processes, and one’s behaviour
as the results of the interaction between the Id, the Ego, and the Superego.
o Id – pleasure principle
o Ego – reality principle
o Superego – morality principle
• Theory of symbolic interactionism, G.H. Mead (1934) argued that the self is
created and developed through human interaction.
• Three reasons why self and identity are social products:
1. We do not create ourselves out of nothing. Society helped in creating the
foundations of who we are.
2. Whether we like to admit it or not, we actually need others to affirm and
reinforce who we think we are. We also need them as reference points
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• Three self-schema:
1. The actual self – who you are at the moment
2. The ideal self – who you like to be
3. The ought self – who you think you should be
• Self-esteem – positive or negative perception or evaluation of ourselves.
• Social comparison theory – we learn about ourselves, the appropriateness
of our behaviours, as well as our social status by comparing aspects of
ourselves with other people.
o Downward social comparison – we create positive self-concept by
comparing ourselves with those who are worse off than us. By having the
advantage, we can raise our self-esteem.
o Upward social comparison – comparing ourselves with those who are
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1.4 The Self in Western and Eastern Thoughts
Lesson Objectives:
1. Differentiate the concept of self according to Western thought against
Eastern/Oriental perspectives;
2. Explain the concept of self as found in Asian thoughts; and
3. Create a representation of the Filipino self.
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t
• There are three Eastern thoughts highlighted in this lesson:
Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism.
• Confucianism – seen as a code of ethical conduct, of how one should
properly act according to their relationship with other people; thus, it is
also focused on having a harmonious social life. Therefore, the identity and
self-concept of the individual are interwoven with the identity and status of
his/her community or culture, sharing its pride as well as its failures.
o Self-cultivation – seen as the ultimate purpose of life but the
characteristics of a chun-tzu, a man of virtue or noble character, is still
embedded in his social relationships. (Subdued self)
• Taoism – is living in the way of the Tao or the universe. Adopt a free-
flowing, relative, unitary, as well as paradoxical view of almost everything.
The self is not just an extension of the family or the community; it is part of
