Several philosophers throughout history have proposed different understandings of the self based on their philosophical orientations: - Pre-Socratics like Thales saw the self as the soul which gives movement and is the primal matter underlying all things. Socrates viewed self-knowledge as the key to virtue and happiness. Plato believed the rational soul should govern the other parts. - St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas incorporated Christian theology, seeing the soul as immortal and what distinguishes humans from animals. Descartes defined the self as mind/soul separate from the body. - Later empiricists like Hume and Locke rejected the immaterial soul, seeing the self as a bundle of perceptions or

1. THE SELF
from Various
Philosophical
Perspectives
Lecture 1 in
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

2. 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.

3. PHILOSOPHY
- academic discipline concerned with
investigating the nature of significance of
ordinary and scientific beliefs
- investigates the legitimacy of
concepts by
concerning
rational
their
argument
implications,
relationships as well as
reality, knowledge, moral judgment,
etc.

4. Much of
philosophy concerns
with the fundamental
nature of self.

5. 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.

6. following are discussions of
perspectives and under-
The
different
standings of the self according to its
prime movers. From philosophers of the
ancient times to the contemporary period.

7. 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?

8. THE PRE-SOCRATICS
• arché- origin or source/the “soul”/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

9. DO YOU AGREETHAT THERE
IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE
BODY AND THE SOUL?
DO YOU THINK YOU
HAVE BOTH?
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE
BETWWEEN THE TWO?

10. SOCRATES
• concerned with the problem of the self
• “the true 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

11. SOCRATES
• A person fully knowing
one’s self is true
happiness.
• Knowledge is virtue and
ignorance is depravity
• Introspection is the only
way for us to understand
the self

12. SOCRATES
• ‘the worst thing that can
happen to anyone is to
live but die inside’
• “every person is dualistic”

13. SOCRATES
• man = body + soul
• individual =
imperfect/permanent
(body)
+ perfect & permanent
(soul)

14. PLATO
• 3componentsto the soul
rational soul – reason & intellect to
govern affairs
spirited soul – emotions should be
kept at bay
appetitive soul – base desires (food,
drink, sleep, sexual needs, etc.)
• when these are attained, the human
person’s soul becomes just & virtuous

15. WHAT HAPPENS TO A
PERSON WHOSE
3
COMPONENTS
OF THE SOUL
ARE IMBALANCED?

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

17. DO YOU BELIEVE IN
THE CONCEPT OF THE
SOUL COMING TO
HEAVEN AFTERDEATH?

18. WHAT MAKES US
PEOPLE
DIFFERENT FROM
ANIMALS?

19. 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)
• the body of the human is
animals/objects, but what
similar to
makes a
human is his essence
• “the soul is what makes us humans”

20. Summary
Philosophers Philosophical
Orientation
Understanding about the self
Socrates Idealism • Knowledge of one’s self is good; Ignorance is evil
• Self-knowledge is the ultimate virtue- leads to happiness
Plato Idealism • Moral virtue is rooted in the intellect and leads to happiness
• Wisdom and knowledge leads to virtue – happiness
Aristotle Empiricism • Ideal is found in the phenomena
• Ideals are ESSENCE and Phenomena is MATTER
• Matter and Form need each other
St. Augustine Neoplatonism • All knowledge leads to God
• Only the pure in heart can see God
• Knowledge and relationship with God leads to happiness
St. Thomas
Aquinas
Scholasticism • Self-knowledge is dependent on our experience of the world
around us.
• for Aquinas, we don’t encounter ourselves as isolated minds or
selves, but rather always as agents interacting with our
environment.
• God is the Summom Bonum

21. MODERN PHILOSOPHY

22. ReneDESCARTES
• Father of Modern Philosophy
• human person = body + mind
• “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

23. ReneDESCARTES
• “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
• it’s the mind that makes the man
• “I am a thinking thing. . . A thing that
doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills,
refuses, imagines, perceives.”

24. John Locke
• Is an English Philosopher
and Physican
• “Tabula Rasa” – no innate
knowledge
• Experience and Perception
is essential in
understanding the self

25. John Locke
• It is the consciousness that
identity exist not in the
body and soul

26. DO YOU AGREE WITH
THE STATEMENTSABOUT THE
SELF(body & soul)
SO FAR?
WHATSEEMS TO BE
QUESTIONNABLE IN
THEIR CONJECTURES?

27. 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”
• you know that other people are humans
not because you have seen their soul, but
because you see them, hear them, feel
them etc

28. David HUME
• “the self is nothing but a bundle of
impressions and ideas”
• impression –
- basic objects of our
experience/sensation
- forms the core of our thoughts
• idea –
- copies of impressions
- not as “real” as impressions

29. David HUME
• self = a collection of different
perceptions which rapidly succeed each
other
• self = in a perpetual flux and
movement
• we want to believe that there is a
unified , coherent self, soul, mind, etc.
but ~~actually~~ it is all just a
combination of experiences.

30. ImmanuelKANT
• agree
starts
starts
with HUME that everything
with perception/sensation of
• 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”

31. ImmanuelKANT
• the self organizes different impressions
that one gets in relation to his own
existence
• we need
synthesize
experience
active intelligence to
all knowledge and
• the self is not only personality but also
the seat of knowledge

32. ImmanuelKANT
• Reason is the final authority in morality

33. HOW DO YOU FEEL
ABOUT THE
DISCUSSION SO
FAR?

34. Sigmund Freud
• Sigmund Freud, an Austrian Psychologist, and
Physician is also known as the father of
psychoanalysis and is known for his work on
human nature and the unconscious.
• Freud believed that man has different constructs of
personality that interact with each other and along
with his concept of the different levels of
consciousness provides an idea of how a person
develops a sense of self.

35. Aspects of Personality
• ID - It is driven by the pleasure principle.
• Ego - the primary function is to maintain the
impulses of the ID to an acceptable degree.
• Super ego - inclines to uphold justice and do
what is morally right and socially acceptable
actions.
Sigmund Freud

36. • Freud believed that we are a by-
product of our experiences in the past.
And that our actions are driven by the
idea of resisting or avoiding pain, and
are molded from our need for pleasure
or being happy.
Sigmund Freud

37. Paul Churchland
• Canadian philosopher whose focus is on the idea
that people should improve their association and
use of words in identifying the self.
• He has this idea that the “self” is defined by the
movements of our brain.
• he believed that to fully understand one’s behavior,
one should understand the different neurological
movement of the brain that pertains to different
emotions, feelings, actions and reactions and how
such brain movements affect the body.

38. GilbertRYLE
• denies the internal, non-physical self
• “what truly matters is the behavior that
a person manifests in his day-to-day
life.”
• looking for the self is like entering CHCC
and looking for the “school”

39. GilbertRYLE
• 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

40. MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY
• a phenomenologist who says the mind-
body division 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.

41. MERLEAU-PONTY
• For him, perception guides our action-based
on what our experiences are, the body
perceives while our consciousness provides
the meaning or interprets the various
perception we have in the world and the self
could be established by the perceptions we
have in the world, whereas one’s action,
behavior and language used could be said to
be the reflection of our united perception of
the world.

42. Philosophers Philosophical
Orientation
Understanding about the self
Rene
Descartes
Rationalism • The mind and soul can exist without the body
• The soul is immortal even after death
John Locke Empiricism • It is the consciousness that determines that we exist
David Hume Empiricism • All knowledge passes through the sense
• Separate ideas can be joined in the mind
• There is no self but only bundle of perception
St. Augustine Neoplatonism • All knowledge leads to God
• Only the pure in heart can see God
• Knowledge and relationship with God leads to happiness
Immanuel
Kant
Rationalist/
Empiricist
• Reason is the final authority in morality
• Inner self – rational reasoning and the psychological state
• outer self – body and physical mind
Summary

43. Philosophers Philosophical
Orientation
Understanding about the self
Gilbert Ryle Empiricism • I act therefore I am
• The mind is not the seat of self. It is not separated from the
body
Paul
Churchland
Neuro-
philosophy
• the “self” is defined by the movements of our brain
Sigmund
Freud
Psycho-
analysis
• The self is the product of past events in human life
• Human is driven by desires
Maurice
Merleau-
Ponty
Existentialism • We are our body
Summary

44. ANYQUESTIONS?