[Understanding the Self

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The Self from Various Perspective

Module 1-2 The Self from various perspective

At the end of this module, you are expected t0:

1. Know the meaning of philosophy
2. Identify different philosophers and their contributions
3. Discuss and explain the answer to the famous question “Who am I?”

PHILOSOPHY
Comes from two Greek words philos which means “love” and sophia which
means “wisdom” In essence it can be translated to love of knowledge of
passion for learning. It is the investigation of normal and fundamental issues.
Concerning matters, for example, presence, information, values, reason,
psyche, and dialect. The term was likely instituted by Pythagoras (c. 570–
495 BCE). Philosophical strategies incorporate addressing, basic dialog,
judicious contention, and deliberate introduction. Exemplary philosophical
inquiries include: Is it conceivable to know anything and to demonstrate it?
What is generally genuine? Scholars likewise posture a more handy and solid
inquiries, for example, Is there a most ideal approach to live? Is it better to be
simply or shameful (in the event that one can escape with it)? Do people have
through and through freedom?

Generally, philosophy deals with the rationality employed by individuals in

learning. Starting from the Ancient Greek savant Aristotle to the nineteenth
century philosophers, who tried to explore and understand the rationality
employed in understanding and learning things. Aristotle looked into regular
reasoning in discovering and learning. Aristotle employed stargazing,
pharmaceutical, and material science. Another is, Newton's 1687
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy later ended up named a book
of material science.

In the nineteenth century, the development of current research, methods of

inquiry has evolved. Different approaches to inquiry by different colleges
drove scholarly rationality and different orders to professionalize and
practice the continuous search for learning. In the cutting edge period, a few
examinations that were customarily part of logic wound up particular
scholarly approaches including brain science, humanism, phonetics, and
financial matters.

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PHILOSOPHERS>
Augustine (354—430 C.E.)

St. Augustine is a fourth century scholar whose notable theory implanted

Christian teaching with Neoplatonism. He is well known for being a
matchless Catholic scholar and for his freethinker commitments to Western
logic. He contends that doubters have no reason for asserting to realize that
there is no learning. In a proof for presence like one later made acclaimed by
René Descartes, Augustine says, "[Even] If I am mixed up, I am." He is the
primary Western savant to elevate what has come to be called "the
contention by relationship" against solipsism: there are bodies outside to
mine that carry on as I act and that seem, by all accounts, to be supported as
mine is sustained; along these lines, by similarity, I am defended in trusting
that these bodies have a comparable mental life to mine. Augustine trusts
motivation to be an extraordinarily human psychological limit that
appreciates deductive facts and sensible need. Furthermore, Augustine
receives a subjective perspective of time and says that time is nothing in all
actuality except for exists just in the human personality's worry of the real
world. He trusts that time isn't vast in light of the fact that God "made" it.
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Sigmund Freud (1856—1939)

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was a physiologist,

medical doctor, psychologist and influential thinker of the early twentieth
century. Working initially in close collaboration with Joseph Breuer, Freud
elaborated the theory that the mind is a complex energy-system, the
structural investigation of which is the proper province of psychology. He
articulated and refined the concepts of the unconscious, infantile sexuality
and repression, and he proposed a tripartite account of the mind’s
structure—all as part of a radically new conceptual and therapeutic frame of
reference for the understanding of human psychological development and
the treatment of abnormal mental conditions. Notwithstanding the multiple
manifestations of psychoanalysis as it exists today, it can in almost all
fundamental respects be traced directly back to Freud’s original work.

David Hume (1711—1776)

"Hume is our Politics, Hume is our Trade, Hume is our Philosophy, Hume is
our Religion." This announcement by nineteenth century thinker James
Hutchison Stirling mirrors the novel position in scholarly idea held by
Scottish rationalist David Hume. Some portion of Hume's distinction and
significance owes to his strikingly wary way to deal with a scope of
philosophical subjects. In epistemology, he doubted basic ideas of individual
character, and contended that there is no lasting "self" that proceeds after
some time. He expelled standard records of causality and contended that our
originations of cause-impact relations are grounded in propensities for
considering, instead of in the impression of causal powers in the outer world
itself. He protected the incredulous position that human reason is
characteristically conflicting, and it is just through normally imparted
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 convictions that we can explore our way through basic life. In the reasoning
of religion, he contended that it is irrational to trust declarations of asserted
extraordinary occasions, and he implies, likewise, that we should dismiss
religions that are established on supernatural occurrence declarations.
Against the basic conviction of the time that God's presence could be
demonstrated through a plan or causal contention, Hume offered convincing
reactions of standard mystical evidences. He likewise propelled speculations
on the source of prominent religious convictions, establishing such thoughts
in human brain research instead of in sound contention or heavenly
disclosure. The bigger point of his scrutinize was to unravel reasoning from
religion and along these lines enable theory to seek after its own closures
without normal over-expansion or mental debasement. In moral hypothesis,
against the basic view that God assumes an essential part in the creation and
support of good qualities, he offered one of the principal simply common
good speculations, which grounded profound quality in the satisfying and
helpful outcomes that outcome from our activities.

Plato (427—347 B.C.E.)

Plato is one of the world's best known and most broadly read and examined
thinkers. He was the understudy of Socrates and the educator of Aristotle, and he
wrote amidst the fourth century B.C.E. in antiquated Greece. In spite of the fact
that affected basically by Socrates, to the degree that Socrates is generally the
fundamental character in huge numbers of Plato's compositions, he was likewise
impacted by Heraclitus, Parmenides, and the Pythagoreans There are changing
degrees of debate over which of Plato's works are legitimate, and in what arrange
they were composed, because of their vestige and the way of their safeguarding
through time. In any case, his soonest works are by and large viewed as the most
solid of the old sources on Socrates, and the character Socrates that we know
through these compositions is thought to be one of the best of the old scholars.
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John Locke (1632—1704)

John Locke was among the most famous philosophers and political
theorists of the 17th century. He is often regarded as the founder of a school
of thought known as British Empiricism, and he made foundational
contributions to modern theories of limited, liberal government. He was also
influential in the areas of theology, religious toleration, and educational
theory. In his most important work, the Essay Concerning Human
Understanding, Locke set out to offer an analysis of the human mind and its
acquisition of knowledge. He offered an empiricist theory according to which
we acquire ideas through our experience of the world. The mind is then able
to examine, compare, and combine these ideas in numerous different ways.
Knowledge consists of a special kind of relationship between different ideas.
Locke’s emphasis on the philosophical examination of the human mind as a
preliminary to the philosophical investigation of the world and its contents
represented a new approach to philosophy, one which quickly gained a
number of converts, especially in Great Britain. In addition to this broader
project, the Essay contains a series of more focused discussions on important,
and widely divergent, philosophical themes. In politics, Locke is best known
as a proponent of limited government. He uses a theory of natural rights to
argue that governments have obligations to their citizens, have only limited
powers over their citizens, and can ultimately be overthrown by citizens
under certain circumstances. He also provided powerful arguments in favor
of religious toleration. This article attempts to give a broad overview of all
key areas of Locke’s thought.

René Descartes (1596—1650)

René Descartes is frequently credited with being the "Father of Modern

Philosophy." This title is defended due both to his break with the customary
Scholastic-Aristotelian theory predominant at his opportunity and to his
advancement and advancement of the new, unthinking sciences. His major

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break with Scholastic logic was twofold. To begin with, Descartes believed
that the Scholastics' technique was inclined to question given their
dependence on sensation as the hotspot for all information. Second, he
needed to supplant their last causal model of logical clarification with the
more current, robotic model.

Descartes endeavored to address the previous issue by means of his

technique for question. His essential technique was to consider false any
conviction that falls prey to even the smallest uncertainty. This "hyperbolic
uncertainty" at that point serves to make room for what Descartes considers
to be an unbiased look for reality. This clearing of his beforehand held
convictions at that point puts him at an epistemological ground-zero. From
here Descartes embarks to discover something that lies past all uncertainty.
He in the end finds that "I exist" is difficult to question and is, in this way,
sure beyond a shadow of a doubt. It is starting here that Descartes continues
to show God's presence and that God can't be a swindler. This, thus, serves to
settle the assurance of everything that is plainly and particularly
comprehended and gives the epistemological establishment Descartes set out
to discover.

TWO PHILOSOPHERS WHO ANSWER "WHO AM I?"

The savant Rene Descartes proposed that our psyche and considerations are
our actual character. A personality, he called a "spirit". The savant John Locke
contended that passing musings are not predictable and change after some
time. They can't be our personality since character is something that must be
steady after some time. He proposed that what makes a man himself is an
insignificant measure of memory that must stay steady for the duration of his
life. For instance, I am myself and not another on the grounds that I was
myself as a little youngster, as an adolescent and as a grown-up. He named
this consistency of memory, "equality of cognizance".

Yet in addition, Lock's proposal isn't adequate since extremely youthful

children don't have a self-memory. The refinement amongst "myself" and
"other" creates after some time. Besides, the majority of us have no
recollections preceding a particular age (typically before the age of two
years) yet it is a foolish to assert that the infant I was and the grown-up I am
today are not a similar individual. So brain or memory can't be our actual
personality, and this is where western rationality stalled out.
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<Figure 1. Philosophy >

References and Supplementary Materials

Online Supplementary Reading Materials

1. <Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy >; < http://www.iep.utm.edu>; <May 10,2018>
2. <Learning Mind>;<https://www.learning-mind.com >; <May 10,2018>

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