ST.

AUGUSTINE

• Christian philosopher and bishop of Hippo in Northern

Africa.
• Augustine's synthesis of Platonic and Christian concepts
was a major influence in the development of medieval
Christian doctrine and Western philosophy.
 He is a Neoplatonist - were heavily influenced both by Plato
and by the Platonic tradition, a modern term used to designate
a tradition of philosophy that arose in the third century C.E. and
persisted until shortly after the closing of the Platonic Academy
in Athens in c.e. 529.
 He is a Theologian - a term derived from the Greek theos (God) and logos (study of) — the study
of God.
• The focal point of his work is on how God and his teachings affects various aspects in life.
• He believes that our notion of ourselves and our ideas of existence come from a higher form of sense in
which bodily senses may not perceive or understand, and the more one doubts and question his life
means that, that person is living.
• Dualistic view of Self: He viewed the physical body to die and the nonphysical body, the soul to live
eternally in transcendent realm of spiritual bliss.
• The goal of every person is to attain this communion and bliss with the Divine by living his life on earth
in virtue.
SIGMUND FREUD

• Austrian neurologist best known for developing the theories and techniques
of psychoanalysis
 Psychoanalysis - a method of explaining and treating mental and
emotional problems by having the patient talk about dreams, feelings,
memories, etc. It intention is to look at the unconscious of the person to
reveal its suppressed ideas and thoughts that may have caused the
emotional problem.
• He believed that man has different constructs or make up of personality
that interacts with each other and along with his concept of the different
levels of consciousness provides an idea how a person develops a sense of
self.
• Structural model of the mind:
 Id-it's attention is on satisfaction of one's needs and self-gratification. It is
driven by the pleasure principle.
 Superego-the conscience of one's personality. It has the inclination to
uphold justice and do what is morally right and socially acceptable actions.
 Ego-it is the mediator between id and superego. It operates within the boundaries of reality;
primary function is to maintain the impulses of the Id to an acceptable degree.
• Levels of Consciousness:
 Conscious -is where minority of our memories are being stored. -the memories stored in the
conscious are easier to be tapped or accessed.
 Pre-conscious -the middle part of the entirety of our consciousness. -the memories stored in
pre-conscious can still be accessed but with a little difficulty.
 Unconscious -this area is where majority of our memories since childhood are deeply stored.
 -it is very difficult to tap the memories in the unconscious that it would need a trained professional
and several special techniques in order to make some memories resurface.
GILBERT RYLE

• Analytic Philosopher
• He mounted an attack against Cartesian mind-body dualism ans supposed
a behaviorist theory of mind.
 He is a Behaviorist – advocates focusing on public events – the behaviors
of people – while ignoring private events – the thought of people.
Behaviorism contends that public behaviors as such can be described
scientifically without recourse to either internal psychological events or to
hypothetical constructs like thoughts or beliefs.
• The self exemplified in his “ghost in the machine” view.
- The man is a complex machine with different functioning parts (body),
- And the intelligence, and other characteristics or behavior of man is
represented by the ghost (mind/soul) in the said machine.
• The things that we do, how we behave and react and all other components
like the way we talk, walk and look is generally who we are as a person.

RENÉ DESCARTES

• Father of modern philosophy.

• A mathematician and a scientist,
• A leader in the seventeeth- century scientific revolution.
• He is the proponent of the Methodical Doubt, which simply meant of a
continuous process of questioning what we perceive and accepting the fact
that doubting, asking questions are a part of one’s existence.
• He believed that starting point for existence, "Cognito Ergo Sum" or "I
think therefor I am" which summarizes that a person is comprised of mind
and body, the body perceives from the different senses and the mind thinks
and question or doubt what the body has experienced.
• He explained that we cannot always trust our sense and in turn what we
perceive as who we are or the essence of our existence, we as a rational
being should focus on the mind.
• He implies that being in a constant doubt regarding.

IMMANUEL KANT

• German philosopher during the Enlightenment era of the late 18th

century.
Enlightenment era – a philosophical movement of the 18th century that
stressed the belief that science and logic give people more knowledge and
understanding than tradition and religion. It rejects the traditional social,
religious and political ideas and an emphasis on rationalism (the belief that
reason and experience and not emotions or religious beliefs should be the
basis for your actions, opinions, etc.)
• He responsed to Hume’s ideas about the self.
• He said that impressions and behavior is only part of our self and
that there is a certain level of conscious self that uses our intuition which
synthesizes all the experiences, impressions and perceptions of ourselves
which will pave the way to define and know who we really are.
• He said that through Transcendental Apperception which is an
essence of our consciousness, provides basis for understanding and
 establishing the notion of self by synthesizing one’s accumulation of experiences, intuition and
imagination goes. This idea goes beyond what we experience but still able to become aware of.
MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY

• French philosopher whose thinking was influenced by Husserl.

• He is known for his work on existentialism and phenomenology.
 Existentialism - a philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines
but centering on analysis of individual existence in unfathomable universe
and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for
acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or what is
wrong or good or bad.
 Phenomenology A philosophical approach that attempts to give a direct
description of our experience as it is in itself, without taking into account its
psychological origins or causal explanations
• Phenomenological of Perception -follows the gestalt ideation where the
whole is greater than the sum of its parts in which the unity of the function of
the mind and body.
 Gestalt - something that is made of many parts and yet is somehow more
than or different from the combination of its parts.
• Phenomenological of Perception is divided into three (3) division:
 The body - it both receives the experiences as well as integrates such experiences in the different
perception.
 The Perceived World - are the accumulation of the perception as integrated by the experiences
of the body.
 The People and the World -enable one to not only be able to integrate the other objects in the
world but also to be able to experience the cultural aspect and relate to others.
DAVID HUME

• Scottish philosopher whose skeptical examinations or region,

etrics, and history were to make him a controversial eighteenth-century
figure.
• Being an Empiricist, he believes that one's identity and behavior
does not exceed the physical realm and that the "Self” is only the
accumulation of different impressions
 Impressions- 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. These impressions are
"lively" and "vivid."
 Ideas- Ideas are copies of impressions, and as a result they are
less "lively" and "vivid." Ideas 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.
• For him, there is no permanent self. The experiences composed of impressions creates the ideas and
knowledge of ourselves. And that impressions being impermanent can change.
• That one change occurred the same phenomenon of will happen to one's idea of who he is and what he
can do.
• That one change occurred the same phenomenon of will happen to one's idea of who he is and what he
can do. He reiterated that when he was saying that there should be no permanent concept of the self, he
means that people tend to see themselves differently from time to time.
 JOHN LOCKE

• British philosopher physician who laid the groundwork for an empiricist

approach to philosophical questions.
 He is an Empiricista - person who practice of basing ideas and theories
on testing and experience.
• He theorized that the mind is a Tabula Rasa, a blank slate on which
experience writes.
• He regarded experiences and sense of the person in the identification and
establishment of who we are as a person.
• He believes that a person is born with knowing nothing and that is
susceptible to stimulation and accumulation of learning from the
experiences, failures, references, and observations of the person.

PAUL CHURCHLAND

• Canadian philosopher known for his studies in neurophilosophy and

the philosophy of mind.
• Focused on the ideas that people should improve the association
and use of words in identifying the self.
• He believes that by the movements of our brain, we can have better
understanding of man.
• Understanding the different neural pathways, how they work, and
what implications are those movements are to people, will we not only have
proof that there is a measurable classification on one's behavior it can also
be said that the constant movement of the brain can be the basis of who the
person is.
• This notion is his statement, "The Brain as the Self”.
• His main philosophy built the "eliminative materialism" opposes
that people's common sense understanding of the mind is false and that
most of the mental states that people subscribe to, in turn, do not actually
exist, this idea also applies on the understanding of behavior and emotions.
• This lead to his idea of __________, 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.
PLATO

• Greek philosopher, student of Socrates and a teacher of Aristotle.

• His writings explored justice, beauty and equality, and also
contained discussions in aesthetics, political philosophy, theology,
cosmology, epistemology and the philosophy of language
• For Plato and Socrates, the self was synonymous with the soul.
Every human being, they believed, possessed an immortal soul that
survived the physical body.
• 3 PARTS OF THE SOUL/SELF
 Physical Appetite/ Appetitive Soul - Our basic biological needs
such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire.
 Spirit or Passion/Spirited Soul - Our basic emotions such as love,
anger, ambition, aggressiveness, and empathy.
  Reason/Rational Soul - Our divine essence that enables us to think deeply, make wise
choices, and achieve a true understanding of eternal truths.
SOCRATES

• He is a Greek Philosopher and the main source of

Western thought
• He is often called the father of Western philosophy.
• His Socratic Method or Socratic Conversation
laid the groundwork of Western Systems of Logic and
Philosophy
• Dualism of Reality: material realm (changeable,
transient and imperfect) and immaterial realm
(unchanging, eternal and immortal)
• Self is an immortal soul.
• Happiness - goal of man. Direct our behavior to act
towards or wroid things that could have negative
repercussions in our lives.
• He said that for one to attain happiness he must
know himself his likes and dislikes and strengths and
weaknesses which can only be done through Socratic
Methodor Socratic Conversation.
• In this process the conversation is happening inside the person where the person assumes the role of
the teacher whois asking his student, himself.