1) Socrates viewed the self as consisting of two parts - the physical body and the immortal soul. The soul is the true self that survives death. 2) Plato saw the self as composed of reason, physical appetite, and spirit or passion. It is the role of reason to control and harmonize these parts. 3) Freud proposed the self has both a conscious and unconscious aspect, with the latter governed by pleasure and the former by reality. The mind operates through the id, ego, and superego.

1. The SELF According to
Prepared by: RODELON G. JOSE, RPm, CHRA

2. PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy is defined as the study of
knowledge or wisdom from its Latin
roots, philo (love) and sophia (wisdom).
This field is also considered as “ The
Queen of All Sciences” because
every scientific discipline has
philosophical foundations.

3. SOCRATES
• A philosopher from Athens, Greece and said to
have the greatest influence on European
thought.
• He was not able to write any of his teachings
and life’s account instead, he is known from the
writings of his student Plato.
• Socrates had a unique style of asking questions
called Socratic Method or dialectic method
which involves the search for the correct/proper
definition of a thing.

4. SOCRATES
• “Know Thyself” – Socrates would like to
emphasize that knowing or understanding
oneself should be more than the physical self, or
the body.
• Self is dichotomous which means composed of
two things: 1) the physical realm or the one that
is changeable, temporal, and imperfect and 2)
the ideal realm is the one that is imperfect and
unchanging, eternal, and immortal.

5. SOCRATES
• For Socrates, a human is composed of body
and soul, the first belongs to the physical realm
because it changed, it is imperfect, and it dies,
and the latter belongs to ideal realm for it
survives the death.
• The self, according to Socrates is the immortal
and unified entity that is consistent over time.
• “An unexamined life is not worth living”

7. PLATO
1. Reason enables human to think deeply, make wise
choices and achieve a true understanding of eternal
truths.
- Plato also called this as divine essence.
2. Physical Appetite is the basic biological needs of
human being such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire.
3. Spirit or passion is the basic emotions of human
being such as love, anger, ambition, aggressiveness
and empathy.
A student of Socrates, who introduced the idea of
a three part soul/self that is composed of reason,
physical appetite and spirit or passion.

8. PLATO
• “Phaedrus” - the soul is like a winged chariot
drawn by two powerful horses: a white horse,
representing Spirit, and a black horse,
embodying appetite.
• The charioteer is reason, whose task is to
guide the chariot to the eternal realm by
controlling the two independent-minded horses.
• Those charioteers who are unable to control
their horses and keep their chariot on track are
destined to experience personal, intellectual,
and spiritual failure.
According to Plato, it is always the responsibility of the
reason to organize, control, and reestablish harmonious
relationship between these three elements.

9. St. Augustine
• He is characterized as Christianity’s first theologian.
• Augustine believed that the physical body is
different from the immortal soul.
• He described body as “snare” or “cage” of the
soul.
• According to St. Augustine, the human nature is
composed of two realms:
1. God as the source of all reality and truth.
2. The sinfulness of man.
• He also stated that real happiness can only be
found in God.

10. Rene Descartes
A French philosopher, mathematician,
and considered the founder of modern
philosophy.
• Famous principle: the “cogito, ergo sum—“I
think, therefore I exist” established his
philosophical views on “true knowledge” and
concept of self.
• He explained that in order to gain true knowledge,
one must doubt everything even own existence.
• The essence of existing as a human identity is the
possibility of being aware of our selves: being
self-conscious in this way is integral to having a
personal identity.

11. Rene Descartes
• The self is a dynamic entity that engages in
mental operations – thinking, reasoning, and
perceiving processes. In addition to this, self-
identity is dependent on the awareness in
engaging with those mental operations.
• The thinking self or soul is a non-material,
immortal, conscious being, independent of the
physical laws of the universe while the physical
body is a material, mortal, non-thinking entity, fully
governed by the physical laws of nature.

12. John Locke
• The self, according to Locke is consciousness.
• He provided the following key points:
1. To discover the nature of personal identity, it
is important to find out what it means to be a
person.
2. A person is a thinking, intelligent being who
has the abilities to reason and to reflect.
3. A person is also someone who considers
themself to be the same thing in different
times and different places.
An English philosopher and physician and
famous in his concept of “Tabula Rasa” or
Blank Slate that assumes the nurture side of
human development.

14. John Locke
4. Consciousness as being aware that we are
thinking—always accompanies thinking and is an
essential part of the thinking process.
5. Consciousness makes possible our belief that we
are the same identity in different times and
different places.
The bottom line of his theory on self is that self is
not tied to any particular body or substance. It
only exists in other times and places because of
the memory of those experiences.

15. David Hume
• He was a Scottish philosopher and also an
empiricist.
• His claim about self is quite controversial
because he assumed that there is no self!
• Hume said that, if we carefully examine the
contents of [our] experience, we find that there
are only two distinct entities, "impressions"
and "ideas".

16. David Hume
• IMPRESSIONS are the basic sensations of our
experience, the elemental data of our minds:
pain, pleasure, heat, cold, happiness, grief, fear,
exhilaration, and so on.
• IDEAS are copies of impressions that include
thoughts and images that are built up from our
primary impressions through a variety of
relationships, but because they are derivative
copies of impressions, they are once removed
from reality.

17. David Hume
• Hume considered that the self does not exist
because all of the experiences that a person
may have are just perceptions and this includes
the perception of self.

18. Sigmund Freud
• A well-known Australian psychologist and
considered as the Father and Founder of
Psychoanalysis.
• The dualistic view of self by Freud involves
the conscious self and unconscious self.
• The conscious self is governed by reality
principle.
• The unconscious self is governed by
pleasure principle.

19. Sigmund Freud
He proposed how mind works, he called
this as provinces or structures of the mind.
The three levels of the mind are:
1. Id. This is primarily based on the
pleasure principle.
2. Ego. The structure that is primarily
based on the reality principle.
3. Superego. This is primarily dependent
on learning the difference between
right and wrong, thus it is called moral
principle.

20. Sigmund Freud
• According to Freud, there are two kinds of
instinct that drive individual behavior – the
eros or the life instinct and the thanatos of
the death instinct.
• The energy of eros is called libido and
includes urges necessary for individual and
species survival like thirst, hunger, and sex.
• In cases that human behavior is directed
towards destruction in the form of aggression
and violence, such are the manifestations of
thanatos.

21. Gilbert Ryle
• A British analytical philosopher.
• According to him, the self is best
understood as a pattern of behavior, the
tendency or disposition for a person to
behave in a certain way in certain
circumstances.

22. Immanuel Kant
• A German Philosopher who made great
contribution to the fields of metaphysics,
epistemology, and ethics.
• According to him, it is the self that
makes consciousness for the person to
make sense of everything. It is the one
that help every individual gain insight
and knowledge.

23. Immanuel Kant
• Kant’s self is not the object of
consciousness, but it makes the
consciousness understandable and
unique.
• Kant emphasized that people should
always see duty as a divine command
(Price, 2000).

24. Paul and Patricia
Churchland
• An American philosopher interested in the
fields of philosophy of mind, philosophy of
science, cognitive neurobiology, epistemology,
and perception.
• selves—using such terms as belief, desire,
fear, sensation, pain, joy—actually
misrepresent the reality of minds and selves.
He claims that the self is a product of brain
activity.

25. Paul and Patricia
Churchland
• Patricia Churchland claimed that man’s brain
is responsible for the identity known as self.
• The biochemical properties of the brain
according to this philosophy of neuroscience is
really responsible for man’s thoughts, feelings,
and behavior.

26. Maurice Merleau-Ponty
• A French philosopher and phenomenologist.
• According to him, the division between the
“mind” and the “body” is a product of
confused thinking
• Developed the concept of self-subject and
contended that perceptions occur
existentially. Thus, the consciousness, the
world, and the human body are all
interconnected as they mutually perceive the
world.