Philosophy of self

 Socrates

-When we turn our gaze inward in search of selfknowledge, Socrates thought we would
soon discover our true nature. And contrary to the opinion of the masses, one's
true self, according to Socrates, is not to be identified with what we own, with our social
status, our reputation, or even with our body

https://academyofideas.com/2013/04/the-ideas-of-socrates/

-Socrates believed that the “self” exists in two parts.

One part is the physical, tangible aspect of us. This is the part that is
mortal and can be/is constantly changing. Earth also belongs to this physical realm
that our bodies belong in, because just as us in terms of physicality, the Earth is
constantly being modified.

The second part is the soul, which he believed to be immortal. The soul is
the part that is unvarying across all realms (it is unchanging while it is attached to
your body and thus in the physical realm, but is also unmodified once you die and
your soul leaves the body to travel to the ideal realm).

To expand on this slightly, Socrates believed that when we are in the physical realm,
we are alive and our body and soul are attached, therefore making both parts of our “self”
present in the physical realm. When we die however, our body stays in the physical realm
while our soul travels to the ideal realm, therefore making our soul immortal.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-self-according-to-Socrates

 Plato

-One simple idea is that the ideal self should be like a philosopher, rational and
wise, seeking knowledge. Basically. He says that the self contains the mind, the
spirit and the appetite. The appetite is likened to desires, booth good and bad.

https://www.quora.com/How-does-Plato-define-the-word-self

-the soul as the core essence of a living being.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_self

 St. Augustine
 -Augustine's sense of self is his relation to God, both in his recognition of God's
love and his response to it—achieved through self-presentation, then self-
realization. Augustine believed one could not achieve inner peace without
finding God's love.

https://www.enotes.com/homework.../what-self-according-augustine-378193

-Augustine believed that humans were made in the image and likeness of God and
that our rational minds were the image of the Holy Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit.

He thought that everything in the material world has its place in the natural order of
things, and acts in accordance with its nature.

Unlike inanimate things, animals perceive and react to the sensible world, but they
still have no knowledge or desires not tied to their senses.

But humans have an inner knowledge that animals lack.

So he believed that we have a higher sense that, because it is beyond the bodily
senses, can pass judgement on them in a way impossible to animals because we have an
immaterial mind, and he believed that that mind is aware of itself, and it recognizes that its
own existence and knowledge is good. By thinking, and being award of its thoughts, and
loving its existence and activity, the human mind mirrors the three functions of the persons
of the Christian Trinity, the Father, the Son who is the Word/Thought of the Father, and the
Holy Spirit who is Spirit of the Father and the Son.

https://www.quora.com/How-did-St-Augustine-define-self

 Thomas Aquinas

-Aquinas begins his theory of self-knowledge from the claim that all our self-knowledge is
dependent on our experience of the world around us. He rejects a view that was popular at the
time, i.e., that the mind is “always on,” never sleeping, subconsciously self-aware in the
background. Instead, Aquinas argues, our awareness of ourselves is triggered and shaped by
our experiences of objects in our environment. He pictures the mind as as a sort of
undetermined mental “putty” that takes shape when it is activated in knowing something. By
itself, the mind is dark and formless; but in the moment of acting, it is “lit up” to itself from the
inside and sees itself engaged in that act. In other words, when I long for a cup of mid-afternoon
coffee, I’m not just aware of the coffee, but of myself as the one wanting it. So for Aquinas, we
don’t encounter ourselves as isolated minds or selves, but rather always as agents interacting
with our environment. That’s why the labels we apply to ourselves—“a gardener,” “a patient
person,” or “a coffee-lover”—are always taken from what we do or feel or think toward other
things.

http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2014/01/thomas-aquinas-toward-a-deeper-sense-of-self/
  Rene Descartes

-(1596), “I think, therefore I am.”

-After establishing the reasons behind his radical skepticism, Descartes goes on to ask himself what
he can know. In other words, what new foundations can he replace the old ones with? He quickly realizes that it is
subjective knowledge about his self that is most reliable, and embarks on an intellectual journey to establish a
firmer understanding of this.
He begins with an argument known commonly as the Cogito. He comes to understand that if he is capable of
doubting – which is precisely what he is doing – then he must exist. He may doubt everything else, may be deceived
about the existence of all other things, but he must necessarily exist. Cogito ergo sum – I think therefore I am. Now,
it’s important to note that Descartes does not actually phrase his conclusion in this exact manner in the Meditations. It
was only later that he came to use the famous latin sentence to describe his findings. In fact, his phrasing in the
meditations might be preferable, in that he does not structure his thought process in the manner of a syllogism (a
premise followed by a conclusion). The reason for this is simple; the statement “I think therefore I am” is an
incomplete argument. There is a missing second premise; “all thinking things exist”. Thus, “cogito ergo sum” might
actually be doubted in some way. However, Descartes responds to this by claiming that the Cogito is not, in fact, a
syllogism (a stance that is strengthened by the fact that, as said, he does not present it as such in the Meditations).
The conclusion is reached through an intuitive leap, rather than a reasoned examination of two premises. It is, after
all, absurd to say that something can think and yet not exist at the same time.
After establishing the fact of his existence, Decartes goes on to ask himself what he is. He eventually comes to
describe himself as a thinking thing. But what is a thinking thing? The easiest way to understand Decartes’ thoughts
here is to look at his ideas regarding substance, the essence of a substance, and the modes of a substance. A
substance is defined as something that is capable of existing independently of all things besides the sustaining power
of God (which Decartes believes is necessary for anything to exist). Let’s look at the mind in terms of these. Clearly,
the mind can be viewed as a substance, since we can see it existing independently (let’s not worry about chemicals
in the brain for the nonce). What is its essence, though? Well, according to Decartes, the essence of mind is thought,
which he describes in terms of doubting, affirming, judging, etc. This makes sense – a mind can be seen as
something that is defined by thought. The modes of the mind, then, are the various ways of thinking I just mentioned
(doubting, affirming, and so on and so forth).
So, Decartes has established that he is a thing that thinks, and he has achieved at least a sketchy idea of what that
means. He then starts to consider material objects in an attempt to understand his mind even better, choosing to do
this by examining a piece of wax. At first, the wax is hard and solid, smelling slightly of flowers and tasting slightly of
honey. It makes a sound when he taps it with his finger. However, when it’s brought close to a flame it starts to melt,
changing in shape and size, losing all taste and smell, and it no longer makes a noise when he hits it (as it has
softened). And yet, even though his senses are perceiving something owning entirely different properties to those the
wax had earlier, he is still conscious of it as a piece of wax. The same piece of wax, even. His senses do not tell him
this, so he reasons that the way he really perceives the wax is through his mind. What does he perceive it as? An
extended substance that is flexible and changeable*. This tells him something important about the relationship
between his mind and the external world, and it also tells him that his senses are only of limited value. Naturally,
without his senses he would not be aware of the wax at all, but without a judging mind he would only have a very
muddled understanding of it.

One of the conclusions that Descartes draws from his examination of the wax is that he can never know anything
better than his own mind. This is because, whenever he comes to understand something about a material thing, such
as its size or shape, he is also becoming aware of the ability of his mind to perceive and understand that property.
Whenever he learns about material objects, then, he learns about his mind. But he can learn things about his mind
without learning anything new about the material world. Therefore, his mind is more readily known to him than
anything else. There is, however, one problem with this. What he learns about his mind when examining the
properties of an object – his ability to perceive said properties – is in fact a property of his mind. However, Descartes
himself regards properties as being immaterial – it is the essence of a thing that truly matters. So it would seem that
his conclusion here is not entirely solid.

This, then, is what Descartes views as the “self”; a thinking thing, as outlined above. There are some further
weaknesses to his arguments, but these deal mostly with particulars and I don’t want to deal with them too
throroughly here. Suffice it to say that while his main points are mostly sound, not all of his conclusions should be
taken at face value (this can of course be said of virtually everything, especially when one is dealing with philosophy).
To fully appreciate Descartes’ views on the self, however, an understanding of his thoughts on dualism – another
topic he adresses in theMeditations- is neccessary. I’ll be looking at these shortly.
*Extended: something that occupies space. Flexible and changeable: something that can take on different shapes
and sizes.

https://poignantboy.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/descartes-concept-of-self/

 John Locke

-According to Locke, personal identity (the self) "depends on consciousness,

not on substance" nor on the soul. We are the same person to the extent that we
are conscious of the past and future thoughts and actions in the same way as we
are conscious of present thoughts and actions.

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHBF_enPH837PH837&ei=1jRdXdyaEIzh-
AaNq4ToDg&q=philosophy+of+self+according+to+john+loclk&oq=philosophy+of+self+accor
ding+to+john+loclk&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i13.4652.6158..6420...0.0..0.100.901.9j1......0....1..gws-
wiz.......0.YCcPz8swtd0&ved=0ahUKEwjc3em795PkAhWMMN4KHY0VAe0Q4dUDCAo&ua
ct=5

-Locke begins “Of Identity and Diversity” by first getting clear on the principle of
individuation, and by setting out what some have called the place-time-kind principle—
which stipulates that no two things of the same kind can be in the same place at the same
time, and no individual can be in two different places at the same time

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-personal-identity/

 David Hume

-Hume has no reason to believe in a self, Thus, his theory is the 'no-self' theory
of theself. Hume: The self is perpetually identical and omnipresent. Common
perception of the self can, in reality, be rationalized as a collection of constant,
omnipresent instances of selves.

www.thatmarcusfamily.org/philosophy/Course.../15-Andrew_Hume.pdf

-Hume in his theory has put forward the premise of understanding the ‘impression’
and ‘identity’ we have of ourselves before we dwell into the questions of ‘the self’. According
to Hume, as human beings we tend to think of ourselves as selves—who are stable entities
that exist over time but no matter how closely we examine our own experiences, we never
observe anything beyond a series of transient feelings, sensations, and impressions.
Hume mention’s that we cannot observe ourselves, or what we are, in a unified manner.
There is no holistic impression of the “self” that ties our individual impressions together
which goes on to explain that we are never directly aware of ourselves but only of what we
are experiencing at a particular moment. He explains that even though the relations
between our ideas, feelings and so on and so forth can be traced through time by memory,
there is no real evidence of any core that connects them in pure totality.

In this light, David Hume suggests that the self is just a bundle of perceptions, like links in a
chain. To look for a unifying self beyond those perceptions is like looking for a chain apart
from the links that constitute it. Hume argues that our concept of the self is a result of our
natural habit of attributing unified existence to any collection of associated parts. This belief
is natural, but there is no logical support for it.The concept of self is however a highly
contested topic and in my opinion there are numerous unresolved problems in Hume’s
philosophy of ‘the self’.

Sushrija Sakshi Upadhyaya, MA Criminology and Justice & Master of Social Work, Tata Institute of
Social Sciences, Mumbai (2019)

Hume abandoned the concept of the self and of the soul. His impression of what we might
call the self is our constant shifting impressions of the world we live in which disappears
when we sleep.

Hume doesn’t deny that there is something there that creates the illusion of identity and
self, but he refuses to give it any permanence like an organ or property that rattles around in
our body or brain. In this way he is abandoning Descartes foundations of dualism and
sought to shake the beliefs of the theists to the ground. He did such a good job of that he
propelled Immanuel Kant into Kant’s attempts to find a better foundation for reason.

David Hume is one of the most important European philosophers. A must study.

Mason Kelsey, former Computer Programmer but now Retired

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-self-according-to-David-Hume

 Immanuel Kant

- For Kant, knowledge of the self is knowledge of the self as appearance as all human
knowledge is knowledge of appearances. Kant's theory differs from that of Descartes,
who insists on knowledge of the self in itself, since Kant requires both understanding and
sensibility for knowledge.
 “.... as regards inner sense, that by means or which we intuit ourselves only as we are
inwardly affected by ourselves; in other words, that, so far as inner intuition is concerned,
we know our own subject only as appearance, not as it is in itself.”

It is Kant s ultimate theory that appearances are not the appearances of things in
themselves, but appearances are just appearances. However, in this passage Kant is
making one exception, namely the treatment of self in itself. He is clearly saying that the
empirical self is the appearance of the self in itself.

https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3616&context=theses

- idea of the self as a “transcendental unifying principle of consciousness” is certainly

not “conscious” in the traditional sense. But neither is it hidden from reflective awareness, if we
know where to look for it. This transcendental self (or ego) is not to be found as an
entity in consciousness—it is the dynamic organizing principle that makes consciousness
possible. One problem with this view of the self is that there is nothing personal about it.
As an abstract organizing principle, it appears to be difficult to distinguish one transcendental
self from another. As a result, Kant identifies another self the empirical self (or ego), which
includes all of those particular aspects of our selves that make us uniquely different people:
bodies, memories, personalities, ways of thinking, emotional patterns, and so on. The obvious
problem is that this model of consciousness leaves us with two selves, leading to some
disquieting questions: How do these two selves relate to one another? Is one self more primary or
fundamental than the other? Which self is our “true” self, our identity, our soul? Are we
condemned to be metaphysical schizophrenics? Kant tries mightily to answer these troubling and
enigmatic questions, but it’s a very difficult challenge.

https://revelpreview.pearson.com/epubs/pearson_chaffee/OPS/xhtml/ch03_sec_08.xhtml

 Sigmund Freud

- Sigmund Freud has claimed that both the conscious self and the
unconscious selfexist. According to Freud, the unconscious self is the causal
explanation for the conscious self.

https://sites.google.com/site/sirhcsemaj1/philosophy/sigmund-freud

- Sigmund Freud’s* view of the self leads to an analogous dualistic view of the self,
though the contours and content of his ideas are very different from Kant’s. Freud is not, strictly
speaking, a philosopher, but his views on the nature of the self have had a far-reaching impact on
philosophical thinking, as well as virtually every other discipline in the humanities and social
sciences. Naturally, his most dominant influence has been in the fields of psychology and
psychoanalysis. Freud’s view of the self was multitiered, divided among the conscious,
preconscious, and unconscious. He explains his psychological model in the following passage
from his An Outline of Psychoanalysis.

According to Freud, these two levels of human functioning—the conscious and

the unconscious—differ radically both in their content and in the rules and logic that govern
them. The unconscious contains basic instinctual drives including sexuality, aggressiveness, and
self-destruction; traumatic memories; unfulfilled wishes and childhood fantasies; thoughts and
feelings that would be considered socially taboo. The unconscious level is characterized by the
most primitive level of human motivation and human functioning. At this level, the most basic
instinctual drives seek immediate gratification or discharge. Unheedful of the demands and
restrictions of reality, the naked impulses at this level are governed solely by the “pleasure
principle.”
Our unconscious self embodies a mode of operation that precedes the development of all other
forms of our mental functioning. It includes throughout our lives the primitive rock-bottom
activities, the primal strivings on which all human functioning is ultimately based. Our
unconscious self operates at a prelogical and prerational level. And though it exists and
influences us throughout our lives, it is not directly observable and its existence can only be
inferred from such phenomena as neurotic symptoms, dreams, and “slips of the tongue.”

https://revelpreview.pearson.com/epubs/pearson_chaffee/OPS/xhtml/ch03_sec_08.xhtml

 Gilbert Ryle

- Gilbert Ryle authored The Concept of Mind. ... Arguing that the mind does not
exist and therefore can't be the seat of self, Ryle believed that selfcomes from
behavior. We're all just a bundle of behaviors caused by the physical workings of
the body.

https://study.com/academy/lesson/self-behavior-according-to-gilbert-ryle.html

-In philosophy one of the chief advocates of this view is Gilbert Ryle*, a British
philosopher whose book, The Concept of Mind, had a dramatic impact on Western thought.
Ryle’s behaviorism was a different sort from that of psychology. He thought of his approach as
a logical behaviorism, focused on creating conceptual clarity, not on developing techniques to
condition and manipulate human behavior.
Ryle begins his book by launching a devastating attack on “Descartes’ myth,” characterizing it as
the “official doctrine” that has insidiously penetrated the consciousness of academics,
professionals, and average citizens alike. According to Ryle, it’s high time that this destructive
myth of dualism is debunked once and for all, and replaced with a clearer conceptual and
linguistic understanding of the true nature of the self.
The official doctrine, according to Ryle, is derived from the influential thinking of Rene
Descartes and contends that every human being has both a physical body and a non-physical
mind which are ordinarily “harnessed together” while we are alive. However, after the death of
the body, our minds may continue to exist and function. This “dualistic” conception of the mind
and body is analogous to the dualism of Socrates and Plato who viewed the self as being
comprised of a mortal body and an immortal soul, and is also similar to the neo-Platonist views
of St. Augustine and other Christian philosophers in the Middle Ages. According to Ryle, this
dualistic “official doctrine” has become the dominant model in academic disciplines like
psychology, in many religions, and in our popular culture.

According to Ryle, the practical implications of this doctrine are profound and far-reaching.
Human bodies are in space and are subject to the mechanical laws which govern all other bodies
in space and are accessible to external observers. But minds are not in space, their operations are
not subject to mechanical laws, and the processes of the mind are not accessible to other
people—it’s career is private. Only I am able to perceive and experience the states and processes
of my own mind. In Ryles words: “A person therefore lives through two collateral histories, one
consisting of what happens in and to his body, and other consisting of what happens in and to his
mind. The first is public, the second private.”

https://revelpreview.pearson.com/epubs/pearson_chaffee/OPS/xhtml/ch03_sec_09.xhtml

 Paul Montgomery Churchland

- Disagreeing with this is Paul Churchland, a modern-day philosopher who

studies the brain. Rather than dualism, Churchland holds to materialism, the
belief that nothing but matter exists. When discussing the mind, this means that
the physical brain, and not the mind, exists.

https://study.com/.../the-self-as-the-brain-according-to-paul-churchland.html

- In contrast to these dualistic theories, reductive materialism, more often called

“the identity theory,” holds that mental states are physical states of the brain. ...
Eliminative materialism is the philosophical theory held by Churchland. He argues that
the position is supported by advances in the neurosciences.

https://www.enotes.com/topics/paul-m-churchland

 Maurice Merleau-Ponty
 - Maurice Merleau-Ponty believed the physical body to be an important part of
what makes up the subjectiveself. This concept stands in contradiction to
rationalism and empiricism. Rationalism asserts that reason and mental
perception, rather than physical senses and experience, are the basis of
knowledge and self.

https://study.com/.../merleau-ponty-the-self-as-embodied-subjectivity.html

- Speaking of body, we refer here to the embodiment of one's subjectivity and

consciousness, including also one's sexuality. The body refers to the overall physical
form of the human person. ... Education is the process of developing man, man
theembodied subject.

https://prezi.com/m/.../the-human-person-an-embodied-subjectivity-in-its/