THE SELF IN VARIOUS

PERSPECTIVES

Philosophical
Learning Objectives

• Discuss the diverse representation and conceptualization

of self using different disciplines and perspectives.

• Demonstrate a critical and reflective thinking in

evaluating the development of self and identity.
Ikaw, anong ultimate hugot mo?
 Agree or Disagree?

We create an
illusion of the self.
 SOCRATES

• Know Thyself
• Question Everything
• Only the Pursuit of Goodness Bring Happiness
• Socratic Method: Question and Answer;
Leads Students to think for Themselves

An unexamined life is not worth living

 PLATO
Tripartite Soul
• The Rational part desires to exert reason and attain rational
decisions (RULING CLASS)

• The Spirited part desires supreme honor

(MILITARY CLASS)

• The Appetite part of the soul desires bodily pleasures such

as food, drink, sex, etc. (COMMONER)
 ARISTOTLE
• Contributed the foundation of both symbolic logic and scientific
thinking

• The best way to gain knowledge was through “natural

philosophy,” which is what we would now call science.

• Happiness, which is dependent in an individual’s virtues, is the

central purpose of human life and a goal in itself.

“Happiness depends in ourselves”

 ST. AUGUSTINE
• An important figure in the development of Western Christianity

• His philosophy of man brings together wisdom of the Greek philosophy and
the divine truths contained in the scripture.

• The absolute and immutable is the Living God, the Creator of the entire
universe.

• To love God means to love one’s fellowmen, and to love one’s fellowmen
means never to do any harm to another.

“Do unto others, what you want others do unto you”

 RENE DESCARTES
• The Self is defined as a subject that thinks.

• The self that has full competence in the powers of human

reason.

• Having distanced the self from all sources of truth from

authority and tradition, the self can only find its truth and
authenticity within its own capacity to think.

“The fact that I am doubting, cannot be anymore open to doubt”

 JOHN LOCKE
• Personal identity is a matter of psychological continuity.
• Personal identity (or the self) is founded on consciousness.

• Identity over time is fixed by awareness of the past.

• Locke posits an “empty” mind, a tabula rasa, which is shaped

by experience, and sensations and reflections being the two
sources of all our ideas.

“Our concept of personal identity must derive from inner experience”

 DAVID HUME
• He rejects the notion of identity over time.
• There are no “persons” that continue to exist over time, there
are merely impressions.
Challenge: Try to think about your “self.”

• According to Hume, you cannot.

• Or, when you do, the only things you are thinking about are
individual impressions or perceptions of your self.

“The self is a bundle of impression”

 IMMANUEL KANT
• Consciousness is the central feature of the self.

• The consciousness is divided into:

1. Internal Self - composed of psychological states and informed

decisions; remembering our own state, how can we combine the new and old
ideas with our mind

2. External Self - made up of ourselves and the physical world where the
representation of objects
 The child is the
father of a man.
--Sigmund Freud
 SIGMUND FREUD
• The self continues from childhood to adulthood
• Personality is determined by childhood experiences
• Personality is largely unconscious

Structure of the Self

• Id: animalistic self; pleasure principle
• Ego: executive self; reality principle
• Superego: conscience; morality principle
I made it, and so I am.
 GILBERT RYLE
• Rejects the theory that mental states are separable from physical states.

• He concluded that adequate descriptions of human behavior need never

refer to anything but the operations of human bodies
• His form of Philosophical Behaviorism (the belief that all mental phenomena
can be explained by reference to publicly observable behavior) became a
standard view for several decades.
• He argued that philosophers do not need a "hidden" principle to explain the
supra-mechanical capacities of humans, because the workings of the mind
are not distinct from the actions of the body, but are one and the same.
 MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY

• His work is commonly associated with the philosophical movement called

existentialism and its intention to begin with an analysis of the concrete
experiences, perceptions, and difficulties, of human existence.

• Consciousness, the world, and the human body as a perceiving thing are
intricately intertwined and mutually "engaged”.

• Our perception of the self is a collection of our perceptions of our outside

world.