lOMoARcPSD|5711718

Understanding the self

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (Technological University of the Philippines)

StuDocu is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)
 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

PLATO
GREEK PHILOSOPHER

Socrates, (born c. 470 BCE, Athens [Greece]—died 399 BCE, Athens), Greek
philosopher whose way of life, character, and thought exerted a profound influence on
ancient and modern philosophy.
SYNOPSIS
Socrates was born circa 470 BC, in Athens, Greece. We know of his life through
the writings of his students, including Plato and Xenophon. His "Socratic method," laid
the groundwork for Western systems of logic and philosophy. When the political climate
of Greece turned, Socrates was sentenced to death by hemlock poisoning in 399 BC.
He accepted this judgment rather than fleeing into exile.

PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW ABOUT SELF

Socrates believed that philosophy should achieve practical results for the greater
well-being of society. He attempted to establish an ethical system based on human
reason rather than theological doctrine. He pointed out that human choice was
motivated by the desire for happiness. Ultimate wisdom comes from knowing oneself.
The more a person knows, the greater his or her ability to reason and make choices that
will bring true happiness. Socrates believed that this translated into politics with the best
form of government being neither a tyranny nor a democracy. Instead, government

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

worked best when ruled by individuals who had the greatest ability, knowledge, and
virtue and possessed a complete understanding of themselves.

 Know thyself: a moral epistemological and injunction

o 1.1 “An unexamined life not worth living“
o 1.2 Philosophy does not mean, as in the sophists, the acquisition of
knowledge but a way of questioning, to challenge, a form of self-concern.
Know thyself: a moral epistemological and injunction

This assertion, imperative in the form, indicates that man must stand and live according
his nature. Man has to look at himself. To find what? By what means?

These two questions are fundamental.

The what, at first. Indeed, this invitation to introspection must be connected to the
Platonic theory of reminiscence. Everyone, says Socrates, has the knowledge itself, just
remember them. Knowledge is inherent in man, not outside. Wisdom is learning to
recollect.

How, then. This knowledge of oneself can be achieved only through the Socratic
Method, that is to say, the dialogue between the soul and itself, or between a student
and his teacher. Socrates is as often in the role of questioner, as an attendant
emotional. Socrates’ questions because he knows nothing, knows he knows nothing,
has nothing to learn, but it can help its followers to discover the truths they have in
them.

Without this work on yourself, life is worthless according to Socrates:

“An unexamined life is not worth living“

Philosophy does not mean, as in the sophists, the acquisition of knowledge but a way of
questioning, to challenge, a form of self-concern.

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

SOCRATES ON SELF CONFIDENCE

The Socratic path to self-confidence is to have confidence in our own beliefs and
not be swayed by the opinions of others. He believed humans were like sheep, that we
passively follow each other. We assume others, particularly those that lead us, know
what they are talking about – we trust those in authority.
Whilst we may question the bit about trusting those in authority, the bottom line is we
rarely take action and challenge authority. We imagine others must know what they are
talking about and have the skills to deliver – especially if we have lack of self-confidence
in ourselves. There is a pressure to conform, to act within acceptable social norms.
Socrates had the advantage of living in a time when he could readily go up to those in
power and question them – as he questioned everyone. Unfortunately he had the
disadvantage of living at a time and place when those who fell afoul of their Government
for what they said and did were executed (although sadly there are still too many
countries where that is still the case).

Socrates wanted everyone to scrutinize what we believe, he believed everyone has a

duty to reflect on our life:

“An unexamined life is not worth living” If you work out for yourself why you believe (or
not) something – whether it’s in God, your ability to cook a meal or whether a person
likes you – then it gives you confidence to stand up for that belief. If your belief is simply
based on following everyone else (or the opinions and beliefs of parents, peers,
teachers or others) then it’s not so trustworthy.

REFERENCES
https://www.biography.com/people/socrates-9488126
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Socrates

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

https://www.the-philosophy.com/socrates-know-yourself
https://confident1.com/socrates-on-self-confidence

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

PLATO
GREEK PHILOSOPHER

Plato, (born 428/427 BCE, Athens, Greece—died 348/347, Athens),

ancient Greek philosopher, student of Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE), teacher
of Aristotle (384–322 BCE), and founder of the Academy, best known as the author of
philosophical works of unparalleled influence.

SYNOPSIS
Born circa 428 B.C.E., ancient Greek philosopher Plato was a 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. Plato founded the Academy in Athens,
one of the first institutions of higher learning in the Western world. He died in Athens
circa 348 B.C.E.

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW ABOUT SELF

Building on the demonstration by Socrates that those regarded as experts

in ethical matters did not have the understanding necessary for a good human life, Plato
introduced the idea that their mistakes were due to their not engaging properly with
a class of entities he called forms, chief examples of which were Justice, Beauty, and
Equality. Whereas other thinkers—and Plato himself in certain passages—used the
term without any precise technical force, Plato in the course of his career came to
devote specialized attention to these entities. As he conceived them, they were
accessible not to the senses but to the mind alone, and they were the most
important constituents of reality, underlying the existence of the sensible world and
giving it what intelligibility it has. In metaphysics Plato envisioned a systematic, rational
treatment of the forms and their interrelations, starting with the most fundamental
among them (the Good, or the One); in ethics and moral psychology he developed the
view that the good life requires not just a certain kind of knowledge (as Socrates had
suggested) but also habituation to healthy emotional responses and therefore harmony
between the three parts of the soul (according to Plato, reason, spirit, and appetite). His
works also contain discussions in aesthetics, political
philosophy, theology, cosmology, epistemology, and the philosophy of language. His
school fostered research not just in philosophy narrowly conceived but in a wide range
of endeavors that today would be called mathematical or scientific.

SELF-KNOWLEDGE IN PLATO

Rachana Kamtekar
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190226411.003.0003
This chapter explains the differences in content between two kinds of self-knowledge in
Plato and describes the two kinds of inquiry directed at each kind of self-knowledge.
Several early dialogues are concerned with knowledge of a person’s state (is he
knowledgeable or ignorant? good or bad?), which is gained by that person inquiring into
some particular subject matter. Several middle and late dialogues are concerned with
knowledge of one’s capacities (what is one’s nature such that one is able to become
good or bad, and knowledgeable or ignorant, viz., what are one’s capacities to inquire,
desire, anger, and so on? are all of these equally essential to what one is?), determining
the soul’s basic constituents and exploring their behavior in different conditions. Both
kinds of inquiry treat the self that is to be known as capable of being quite different in
reality from the way it appears to itself.

REFERENCES

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plato
https://www.biography.com/people/plato-9442588
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190226411.001.0001/
acprof-

9780190226411-chapter-3

St. Augustine
CHRISTIAN BISHOP AND THEOLOGIAN
AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

Alternative Titles: Aurelius Augustinus, Saint Augustine of Hippo

St. Augustine, also called Saint Augustine of Hippo, original Latin
name Aurelius Augustinus, (born November 13, 354, Tagaste, Numidia [now Souk
Ahras, Algeria]—died August 28, 430, Hippo Regius [now Annaba, Algeria]; feast day
August 28), bishop of Hippo from 396 to 430, one of the Latin Fathers of the Church and
perhaps the most significant Christian thinker after St. Paul. Augustine’s adaptation of
classical thought to Christian teaching created a theological system of great power and
lasting influence. His numerous written works, the most important of which
are Confessions (c. 400) and The City of God (c. 413–426), shaped the practice of
biblical exegesis and helped lay the foundation for much of medieval and modern
Christian thought. In Roman Catholicism he is formally recognized as a doctor of the
church.
Augustine is remarkable for what he did and extraordinary for what he wrote. If none of
his written works had survived, he would still have been a figure to be reckoned with,
but his stature would have been more nearly that of some of his contemporaries.
However, more than five million words of his writings survive, virtually all displaying the
strength and sharpness of his mind (and some limitations of range and learning) and
some possessing the rare power to attract and hold the attention of readers in both his
day and ours. His distinctive theological style shaped Latin Christianity in a way
surpassed only by Scripture itself. His work continues to hold contemporary relevance,
in part because of his membership in a religious group that was dominant in the West in
his time and remains so today.

PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW ABOUT SELF

Augustine on Self-Knowledge and Human Subjectivity

Johannes Brachtendorf
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190226411.003.0007
This chapter explores Augustine’s understanding of the nature of self-knowledge within
his theory of finite subjectivity. It examines the relation of self-knowledge and self-
transcendence in his early Plotinian-influenced thinking and the development of his
conception of the human mind on the model of the divine Trinity. It traces Augustine’s
distinction in De Trinitate of three relational elements of the human mind that compose a
trinitarian structure and his distinction of two levels of the human mind—one reflexive,
the other prereflexive—where a trinitarian structure is found. By highlighting the
distinction between the plane of discursive thinking (se cogitare) and the plane of
intuitive self-awareness (se nosse), this chapter demonstrates that the more
foundational, trinitarian-structured level of prereflexivity (se nosse) accounts for the unity
of consciousness and the identity of the self, while the trinitarian structure on the level of
reflexive thought (se cogitare) depends on moral and intellectual perfection.

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

REFERENCE

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Augustine
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190226411.001.0001/
acprof-9780190226411-chapter-7

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

René Descartes
FRENCH MATHEMATICIAN AND PHILOSOPHER

René Descartes, (born March 31, 1596, La Haye, Touraine, France—died

February 11, 1650, Stockholm, Sweden), French mathematician, scientist, and
philosopher. Because he was one of the first to abandon scholastic Aristotelianism,
because he formulated the first modern version of mind-body dualism, from which
stems the mind-body problem, and because he promoted the development of a new
science grounded in observation and experiment, he has been called the father of
modern philosophy. Applying an original system of methodical doubt, he dismissed
apparent knowledge derived from authority, the senses, and reason and erected new
epistemic foundations on the basis of the intuition that, when he is thinking, he exists;
this he expressed in the dictum “I think, therefore I am” (best known in its Latin
formulation, “Cogito, ergo sum,” though originally written in French, “Je pense, donc je
suis”). He developed a metaphysical dualism that distinguishes radically between mind,
the essence of which is thinking, and matter, the essence of which is extension in three
dimensions. Descartes’s metaphysics is rationalist, based on the postulation of innate
ideas of mind, matter, and God, but his physics and physiology, based on sensory
experience, are mechanistic and empiricist.

PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW ABOUT SELF

Descartes's first major work, Rules for the Direction of the Mind, was written by
1629 but was not published until 1701. The work begins by assuming that man's
knowledge has been limited by the belief that science is determined by the various
objects of experience. The first rule therefore states that all true judgment depends on
reason alone. For example, mathematical truths are valid even without observation and
experiment. The second rule argues that the standard for true knowledge should be the
certainty demanded of mathematical demonstrations. The third rule states that the mind
should be influenced only by what can clearly be observed. The remaining rules are
devoted to the explanation of these ideas or to showing their use in mathematical
problems.
By 1634 Descartes had written The World, in which he supported several theories,
including the idea of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) that Earth is not the center of
the universe but revolves around the sun? Only fragments of the book survive, because
when Descartes heard that a book published by Galileo (1564–1642), which also
supported Copernicus, had been condemned by the Catholic Church, his fear of similar
treatment led him to withdraw his work. In 1634 he also wrote the brief Treatise on
Man, which attempted to explain human physiology (a branch of biology dealing with
organs, tissues, and cells).

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

In 1637 Descartes finished Discourse on Method, which uses a personal account of his
education as an example of the need for a new method of study. Descartes also
presents four rules for reducing any problem to its basics and then constructing
solutions. In 1641 and 1642 Meditations on First Philosophy appeared together with six
sets of objections by other famous thinkers. The Meditations is one of the most famous
books in the history of philosophy. While earlier Descartes works were concerned with
explaining a method of thinking, this work applies that method to the problems of
philosophy, including the convincing of doubters, the existence of the human soul, the
nature of God, and the basis of truth.
The remainder of Descartes's career was spent defending his positions. In 1644 he
published the Principles of Philosophy, which breaks down and expands the arguments
of the earlier Meditations. In 1649 Descartes accepted an invitation from Queen
Christina of Sweden (1626–1689) to become her teacher. During this time he wrote The
Passions of the Soul, which explains passion as a product of physical and chemical
processes. The weather in Sweden caused Descartes's health to suffer, however, and
after a brief illness he died in Stockholm in 1650.

REFERENCE

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rene-Descartes
http://www.notablebiographies.com/De-Du/Descartes-Rene.html

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

John Locke, (born August 29, 1632, Wrington, Somerset, England—died

October 28, 1704, High Laver, Essex), English philosopher whose works lie at the
foundation of modern philosophical empiricism and political liberalism. He was an
inspirer of both the European Enlightenment and the Constitution of the United States.
His philosophical thinking was close to that of the founders of modern science,
especially Robert Boyle, Sir Isaac Newton, and other members of the Royal Society. His
political thought was grounded in the notion of a social contract between citizens and in
the importance of toleration, especially in matters of religion. Much of what he
advocated in the realm of politics was accepted in England after the Glorious
Revolution of 1688–89 and in the United States after the country’s declaration of
independence in 1776.

PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS ABOUT THE SELF

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

Locke holds that personal identity is a matter of psychological continuity. Arguing

against both the Augustinian view of man as originally sinful and the Cartesian position,
which holds that man innately knows basic logical propositions, 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.
Locke creates a third term between the soul and the body, and Locke’s thought may
certainly be meditated by those who, following a scientist ideology, would identify too
quickly the brain with consciousness. For the brain, as the body and as any substance,
may change, while consciousness remains the same. Therefore, personal identity is not
in the brain, but in consciousness. However, Locke’s theory also reveals his debt to
theology and to Apocalyptic “great day”, which in advance excuses any failings of
human justice and therefore humanity’s miserable state. The problem of personal
identity is at the center of discussions about life after death and immortality. In order to
exist after death, there has to be a person after death who is the same person as the
person who died.

REFERENCES
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115296/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Locke

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

David Hume, (born May 7 [April 26, Old Style], 1711, Edinburgh, Scotland—
died August 25, 1776, Edinburgh), Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and
essayist known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism.
Hume conceived of philosophy as the inductive, experimental science of human nature.
Taking the scientific method of the English physicist Sir Isaac Newton as his model and
building on the epistemology of the English philosopher John Locke, Hume tried to
describe how the mind works in acquiring what is called knowledge. He concluded that
no theory of reality is possible; there can be no knowledge of anything beyond
experience. Despite the enduring impact of his theory of knowledge, Hume seems to
have considered himself chiefly as a moralist.
Hume conceived of philosophy as the inductive science of human nature, and he
concluded that humans are creatures more of sensitive and practical sentiment than of
reason. For many philosophers and historians his importance lies in the fact
that Immanuel Kant conceived his critical philosophy in direct reaction to Hume (Kant
said that Hume had awakened him from his “dogmatic slumber”). Hume was one of the
influences that led Auguste Comte, the 19th-century French mathematician and
sociologist, to develop positivism. In Britain Hume’s positive influence is seen in Jeremy
Bentham, the early 19th-century jurist and philosopher, who was moved
to utilitarianism (the moral theory that right conduct should be determined by the
usefulness of its consequences) by Book III of the Treatise, and more extensively
in John Stuart Mill, the philosopher and economist who lived later in the 19th century.
In throwing doubt on the assumption of a necessary link between cause and
effect, Hume was the first philosopher of the post medieval world to reformulate
the skepticism of the ancients. His reformulation, moreover, was carried out in a new
and compelling way. Although he admired Newton, Hume’s subtle undermining of

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

causality called in question the philosophical basis of Newton’s science as a way of

looking at the world, inasmuch as that science rested on the identification of a few
fundamental causal laws that govern the universe. As a result, the positivists of the 19th
century were obliged to wrestle with Hume’s questioning of causality if they were to
succeed in their aim of making science the central framework of human thought.
For much of the 20th century it was Hume’s naturalism rather than his skepticism that
attracted attention, chiefly among analytic philosophers. Hume’s naturalism lies in his
belief that philosophical justification could be rooted only in regularities of the natural
world. The attraction of that contention for analytic philosophers was that it seemed to
provide a solution to the problems arising from the skeptical tradition that Hume himself,
in his other philosophical role, had done so much to reinvigorate.

PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS ABOUT THE SELF

Hume believed that the entire contents of the mind were drawn from experience
alone. The stimulus could be external or internal. In this nexus, Hume describes what
he calls impressions in contrast to ideas. Impressions are vivid perceptions and were
strong and lively. "I comprehend all our sensations, passions, and emotions as they
make their first appearance in the soul. Ideas were images in thinking and reason."
(Flew 1962 p. 176).

For Hume there is no mind or self. The perceptions that one has are only active
when one is conscious. "When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound
sleep, so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist." (Flew 1962,
p.259). Hume appears to be reducing personality and cognition to a machine that may
be turned on and off. Death brings with it the annihilation of the perceptions one has.
Hume argues passions as the determinants of behavior. Hume also appears as a
behaviorist believing that humans learn in the same manner as lower animals; that is
through reward and punishment (Hergenhahn 2005).

Skepticism is the guiding principle in what is no doubt non recognition of

metaphysics in this subject. Hume in the appendix to A Treatise on Human
Nature addresses his conclusions (Hume 1789).

In short there are two principles, which I cannot render consistent; nor is it in
my power to renounce either of them, viz. that all our distinct perceptions are
distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real connexion
among distinct existences.

Hume's method of inquiry begins with his assumption that experience in the form
of impressions cannot give rise to the constancy of a self in which would be constant to

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

give reference to all future experiences. The idea of self is not one any one impression.
It is several ideas and impressions in itself. There is no constant impression that
endures for one's whole life. Different sensations as pleasure and pain, or heat
and cold are in a constant continuum that is invariable and not constant. Hume states,
"It cannot therefore be from any of these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of
self is derived; and consequently there is no such idea" (Hume 1789). It appears the
closest thing that Hume could discuss as the self is similar to watching a film or a play of
one's life. These perceptions themselves are separate from one another and there is no
unifying component as a self to organize such for long-term reference.

Hume further deliberates over a position of identity of an invariable and

uninterrupted existence. Hume confirms there is no primordial substance as to where all
secondary existences of individual existence exist. Everything in our conscious state is
derived from impressions. Objects in the outer world exist as distinct species that are
separable from the secondary qualities in conscious thought. To negate any
demonstration of substance Hume posits an analogy that if life was reduced to below
that of an oyster, does this entity have any one perception as thirst or hunger? The only
thing that would exist is the perception. Adding a higher complex of perception would
not yield any notion of substance that could yield an independent and constant self.
(Hume 1789). Hume's model of the mind simply records data when such is manifestly
conscious. The model abstracts and isolates objects and secondary qualities without
any metaphysics. Unity of experience is one area, which Hume found elusive in his
model and with such denied any configuration of self-reference only perceptions in the
conscious (Hume 1789).

REFERENCES
http://www.powereality.net/hume-kant.htm
https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Hume

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Immanuel Kant, (born April 22, 1724, Königsberg, Prussia [now Kaliningrad,
Russia]—died February 12, 1804, Königsberg), German philosopher
whose comprehensive and systematic work in epistemology(the theory of
knowledge), ethics, and aesthetics greatly influenced all subsequent philosophy,
especially the various schools of Kantianism and idealism.
Kant was one of the foremost thinkers of the Enlightenment and arguably one of
the greatest philosophers of all time. In him were subsumed new trends that had begun
with the rationalism (stressing reason) of René Descartes and the empiricism (stressing
experience) of Francis Bacon. He thus inaugurated a new era in the development of
philosophical thought.

PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS ABOUT THE SELF

Kant's concept of the self is a response to Hume in part. Kant wished to justify a
conviction in physics as a body of universal truth. The other being to insulate religion,

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

especially a belief in immortality and free will (Brooks 2004). In the Inaugural
Dissertation of 1770, Kant corrected earlier problems of a non-material soul having
localization in space. Kant used inner sense to defend the heterogeneity of body and
soul: "bodies are objects of outer sense; souls are objects of inner sense" (Carpenter
2004). In Kant's thought there are two components of the self: 1. inner self 2. Outer self
(Brooks 2004).

There are two kinds of consciousness of self: consciousness of oneself and

one's psychological states in inner sense and consciousness of oneself and
one's states via performing acts of apperception.

Empirical self-consciousness is the term Kant used to describe the inner self.
Transcendental apperception or (TA) is used in two manners by Kant for the term. The
first being a synthetic faculty and a second as theI as subject. One will note that
logically this function would occur in inner sense (Brooks 2004). Kant states that all
representational states are in inner sense include all spatially localized outer objects.
The origin or our representations regardless if they are the product of a priori or outer
objects as modifications of the mind belong to inner sense. Kant presents apperception
as a means to consciousness to one's self. Inner sense is not pure apperception. It is an
awareness of what we are experiencing as we are affected by thought (Brooks 2004).

Brooks cites three types of synthesis. Kant claimed, there are three types of
synthesis required to organize information, namely apprehending in intuition,
reproducing in imagination, and recognizing in concepts (A97-A105), "Synthesis of
apprehension concerns raw perceptual input, synthesis of recognition concerns
concepts, and synthesis of reproduction in imagination allows the mind to go from the
one to the other." (Brooks 2004).

Unity of experience and consciousness are integral to the concept of the self.
Transcendental apperception has function to unite all appearances into one experience.
This is a unity based on causal laws. There is a synthesis according to concepts that
subordinates all to transcendental unity. According to Kant the contents of
consciousness must have causal connections to be unified (Brooks 2004).

Kant argues that in the present progressive one can be aware of oneself by an
act of representing (Kant 1789). Representation is not intuitive but a spontaneous act of
performing or doing things. Man knows that by doing and fulfilling activities that these
impressions cannot be simply sensations resulting from the senses. Representation
fulfills three acts. An act of representing can make one conscious of it's object, itself and
oneself as it's subject; the representational base of consciousness of these three items.
Becoming conscious of our selves is simply an act of representation and nothing more
(Brooks 2004).

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

Kant postulates that there is a plurality of representations that gives rise to our
view of self as a "single common subject." This concept requires a constant undivided
self. This concept is a continuation of global unity that spans many representations, one
does not have to be conscious of the global object but of oneself as subject of all
representations (Kant 1787).

Kant's self has a unity of self-reference, "When we are conscious of ourselves as

subject, we are conscious of ourselves as the single common subject [CPR, A350] of a
number of representations." (Kant 1787). Here Kant confirms that the impressions we
perceive have one single common aim and that is the self as subject of these
experiences.

Kant postulates both senses as empirical but with the object of inner self being
the soul. Transcendental apperception is a priori. Kant maintains the use of intuitive
faculties of intuition and synthesis in inner self where innate material unites the spatially
located objects from the outer self. Here, this permits a downward deductive operation
to act from Kant's theology while preserving an inductive operation from the sense world
of our experience.

REFERENCES
http://www.powereality.net/hume-kant.htm
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Immanuel-Kant

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Sigmund Freud, (born May 6, 1856, Freiberg, Moravia, Austrian Empire [now
Příbor, Czech Republic]—died September 23, 1939, London, England), Austrian
neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis.
Freud may justly be called the most influential intellectual legislator of his age. His
creation of psychoanalysis was at once a theory of the human psyche, a therapy for the
relief of its ills, and an optic for the interpretation of culture and society. Despite
repeated criticisms, attempted refutations, and qualifications of Freud’s work, its spell
remained powerful well after his death and in fields far removed from psychology as it is
narrowly defined. If, as the American sociologist Philip Rieff once contended,
“Psychological man” replaced such earlier notions as political, religious, or economic
man as the 20th century’s dominant self-image, it is in no small measure due to the
power of Freud’s vision and the seeming inexhaustibility of the intellectual legacy he left
behind.

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS ABOUT THE SELF

Freud's single most enduring and important idea was that the human psyche
(personality) has more than one aspect. Freud (1923) saw the psyche structured into
three parts (i.e., tripartite), the id, ego and superego, all developing at different stages in
our lives. These are systems, not parts of the brain, or in any way physical.
According to Freud's model of the psyche, the id is the primitive and instinctual
part of the mind that contains sexual and aggressive drives and hidden memories, the
super-ego operates as a moral conscience, and the ego is the realistic part that
mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego.
Although each part of the personality comprises unique features, they interact to
form a whole, and each part makes a relative contribution to an individual's behavior.
ID, EGO AND SUPER EGO
The ego develops to mediate between the unrealistic id and the external real
world. It is the decision-making component of personality. Ideally, the ego works by
reason, whereas the id is chaotic and unreasonable.
The ego operates according to the reality principle, working out realistic ways of
satisfying the id’s demands, often compromising or postponing satisfaction to avoid
negative consequences of society. The ego considers social realities and norms,
etiquette and rules in deciding how to behave.
Like the id, the ego seeks pleasure (i.e., tension reduction) and avoids pain, but unlike
the id, the ego is concerned with devising a realistic strategy to obtain pleasure. The
ego has no concept of right or wrong; something is good simply if it achieves its end of
satisfying without causing harm to itself or the id.
Often the ego is weak relative to the headstrong id, and the best the ego can do is stay
on, pointing the id in the right direction and claiming some credit at the end as if the
action were its own.
Freud made the analogy of the id being a horse while the ego is the rider. The ego is
'like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse.'
(Freud, 1923, p.15)
If the ego fails in its attempt to use the reality principle, and anxiety is
experienced, unconscious defense mechanisms are employed, to help ward off
unpleasant feelings (i.e., anxiety) or make good things feel better for the individual.
The ego engages in secondary process thinking, which is rational, realistic, and
orientated towards problem-solving. If a plan of action does not work, then it is thought
through again until a solution is found. This is known as reality testing and enables the
person to control their impulses and demonstrate self-control, via mastery of the ego.
An important feature of clinical and social work is to enhance ego functioning and help
the client test reality through assisting the client to think through their options.

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

The id is the primitive and instinctive component of personality. It consists of all

the inherited (i.e., biological) components of personality present at birth, including the
sex (life) instinct – Eros (which contains the libido), and the aggressive (death) instinct -
Thanatos.
The id is the impulsive (and unconscious) part of our psyche which responds directly
and immediately to the instincts. The personality of the newborn child is all id and only
later does it develop an ego and super-ego.
The id remains infantile in its function throughout a person’s life and does not change
with time or experience, as it is not in touch with the external world. The id is not
affected by reality, logic or the everyday world, as it operates within the unconscious
part of the mind.
The id operates on the pleasure principle (Freud, 1920) which is the idea that every
wishful impulse should be satisfied immediately, regardless of the consequences. When
the id achieves its demands, we experience pleasure when it is denied we experience
‘unpleasure’ or tension.
The superego incorporates the values and morals of society which are learned
from one's parents and others. It develops around the age of 3 – 5 during the phallic
stage of psychosexual development.
The superego's function is to control the id's impulses, especially those which society
forbids, such as sex and aggression. It also has the function of persuading the ego to
turn to moralistic goals rather than simply realistic ones and to strive for perfection.
The superego consists of two systems: The conscience and the ideal self. The
conscience can punish the ego through causing feelings of guilt. For example, if the ego
gives in to the id's demands, the superego may make the person feel bad through guilt.
The ideal self (or ego-ideal) is an imaginary picture of how you ought to be, and
represents career aspirations, how to treat other people, and how to behave as a
member of society.
Behavior which falls short of the ideal self may be punished by the superego through
guilt. The super-ego can also reward us through the ideal self when we behave
‘properly’ by making us feel proud.
If a person’s ideal self is too high a standard, then whatever the person does will
represent failure. The ideal self and conscience are largely determined
in childhood from parental values and how you were brought up.

REFERENCES
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sigmund-Freud

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

https://www.simplypsychology.org/psyche.html

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

GILBERT RYLE

Gilbert Ryle was born on Aug. 19, 1900, in Brighton, the son of a prosperous
doctor. He was educated at Brighton College and then entered Queen's College,
Oxford, where he took first honors in two subjects: classical honor moderations and the
school of philosophy, politics, and economics. He was also captain of the Queen's
College Boating Club.
As a result of his brilliant academic work, Ryle was appointed lecturer in 1924
and a year later tutor in philosophy, both appointments at Christ Church, Oxford. In
1940 he was commissioned in the Welsh Guards, serving for the duration of World War
II and ending his military career as a major.
Ryle returned to Oxford to become Waynfleete professor of metaphysical
philosophy, a post he held from 1945 to 1968. In 1947 he inherited from G. E. Moore
the editorship of Mind, the most influential journal of English philosophy.
Early in his philosophical career, Ryle decided that the task of philosophy was
"the detection of the sources in linguistic idioms of recurrent misconceptions and absurd
theories." In his Tanner Lectures, published as Dilemmas (1954), he showed how
certain philosophical impasses could be dissolved by a clearer understanding of the
concepts employed by the apparently contradictory views.

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

In his major work, The Concept of Mind (1949), Ryle mounted a devastating
attack on Cartesian dualism and, in particular, on the view of mind as a separate
substance apart from the body. He caricatured this view as the "myth of the ghost in the
machine" proposed by Descartes. Ryle's own view of mental reality is that it consists in
dispositions to behave in certain ways. He tried to show that mental concepts do not
refer to private, unfinishable events, maintaining against critics that his view was not
identical with behaviorism.
In Plato's Progress (1966) Ryle exhibited an unexpected talent for ingenious
speculation in an attempt to reconstruct the historical genesis of Plato's dialogues. Ryle,
a bachelor, lived most of his life in college rooms. Friends said that "the Common Room
atmosphere fits him like a glove." Quick and formidable in debate, Ryle was also the
writer of clear and witty prose. He took particular delight in exploding pompous views
and in inventing fresh metaphors and vivid aphorisms. Though professing to dislike
erudition and intellectual matters, Ryle was both learned and highly intellectual. He was
said to distrust imagination and its works, but he had a typically British love of
gardening.

PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS ABOUT SELF

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

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

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 Ryle’s 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.”

Analyzed in this fashion, the dualistic division of mind and body seems rather
odd, and this is precisely Ryle’s point: he is contending that the central principles of the
“official doctrine” are unsound and conflict with the whole body of what we know about
minds when we are not speculating about them. In other words, although the majority of
people assume a mind/body dualism as a general theory, on a practical level we act
and speak in a much different fashion. This “ghost in the machine” dualism (Ryle’s
central metaphor) in which the “self” is thought to be a spiritual, immaterial ghost rattling
around inside the physical body, conflicts directly with our everyday experience,
revealing itself to be a conceptually flawed and confused notion that needs to be
revised.

Our conviction that this dualistic separation of mind and body is an accurate
description of our “selves” is expressed in the way we typically describe as “external”
those things and events —including our own bodies—which belong to the physical
world, while the working of our minds are thought to be “internal.” This bifurcated view of
the self in terms of “external” physical bodies and “internal” non-physical bodies are
typically thought to be a metaphor and not a literal description of reality. After all, if the
mind is non-physical and therefore not in space, then it cannot be described as being
spatially inside anything else, or as having things going on spatially inside themselves.
But we frequently forget that these are metaphors and speak as if “outside” physical
events can affect internal mental events, and internal ideas and activities “inside” our
heads can have an impact on our physical bodies and events in the larger physical
world. However, if we do pause to consider how this dualistic model actual works on a
practical level—that is, how precisely our non-physical minds relate to and interact with
our physical bodies—we realize that on a both a literal level and a metaphorical level,
this model really doesn’t make sense. We assume that what our mind wills, the legs,
arms and the tongue execute, and what affects our ears and the eyes has something to
do with what the mind perceives and understands, but we have no idea how or why this
happens. As Ryle observes, the actual transactions between the events of the private
history and those of the public history remain mysterious, since by definition they can
belong to neither series.

“Where” precisely is the mind located in Cartesian dualism? Because the mind is
conceived to be a nonmaterial entity, this question is problematic. People often use
spatial metaphors or images to characterize the mind/soul/spirit: it’s the “inner person”
somehow contained “within” the body. But as Ryle points out, this way of thinking

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

doesn’t make a great deal of conceptual sense. The mind and the body seem
connected in complex and intimate ways that spatial metaphors simply don’t capture.

And to make matters worse, people tend to “forget” that these are metaphors and
instead assume that they are providing an accurate description of the way things are.
But this really doesn’t make conceptual sense. If the mind and body are in reality two
radically different substances, then how precisely do they connect to one another? And
how could we ever discover such a connection? Neither the personal history of the
mind’s experiences nor the public history of the body and its movements can describe
the moment of their intersection. Each realm—mental and physical—is locked within its
own universe, lacking the vocabulary to observe and describe the convergence of these
alien worlds with clarity and precision. As Ryle observes, these transactional events
“can be inspected neither by introspection nor by laboratory experiment. They are
theoretical shuttlecocks which are forever bandied from the physiologist back to the
psychologist and from the psychologist back to the physiologist.” And in Ryle’s mind
(note the commonly used spatial metaphor!) there are even more serious implications of
a dualistic perspective regarding our knowledge of others.
The privileged knowledge that we have of our own mental self means that others are
necessarily excluded from any direct understanding of what we’re thinking or who we
are. Unfortunately, the same logic applies to us: we are prevented from having any
direct knowledge of other minds/selves/spirits. Although we can observe the bodies and
actions of others, we can only make inferences regarding the mind that is producing
these actions. In fact, there is no way we can be ensured that there even are other
minds functioning in ways similar to ours. We observe someone waving and smiling at
us and we say to ourselves: “When I wave and smile, that means I’m happy to see
someone, so that’s what this waving and smiling must mean: the mind inside that body
is happy to see me. And I’m assuming that there is a mind inside that body because the
body is acting like I do, and I’m a mind.” Of course, we can’t really be sure that other
minds exist, or that the movement of their bodies really expresses the meaning that we
are projecting on to it.

Once again: if you’re thinking that this description sounds rather peculiar, this is
exactly Ryle’s point. In our everyday experience, we act and speak as if we have much
more direct knowledge of other minds and what they’re thinking without having to go
through this tortured and artificial reasoning process. We encounter others, experience
the totality of their behavior, and believe that this behavior reveals directly “who” they
are and what they’re thinking. Ryle goes on to analyze how this apparent conflict
between the theory of Cartesian dualism (“the ghost in the machine”) and our everyday
experience of others is actually the result of confused conceptual thinking, a logical
error that he terms a “category mistake.”
In the case of “the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine,” the category-mistake consists
of representing the facts of mental life as if they belonged to one logical type of category
when they actually belong to another. The dogma is therefore a philosopher’s myth.

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

In working to explain the meaning of his idea of Category Mistake made by the
dualistic “dogma of the Ghost in the Machine,” Ryle provides the following example,
imagine that an acquaintance from a distant country come to visit you, eager to see the
University you attend, which you are delighted to share with him. You take him first to
the main administrative building including the President’s office; to several classes that
are in session; the library and student union; athletic facilities including a basketball
game being played, and so on. At the conclusion of your tour, your friend thanks you
and says: That was a very interesting tour: but why didn’t you introduce me to the
University? I saw the administrative offices, several classes in session, the library and
student union, the athletic facilities with a basketball game in process, and other parts
beside: but you didn’t show me the University! You would no doubt endeavor to explain
that “the University” is not another collateral part of the University, some ulterior
counterpart to what he has seen. Instead, the University includes all of the parts of the
University as well as the way in which they are organized. His mistake lay in his
innocent assumption that it was correct to speak as if “the University” stood for an extra
member of the class of which the other parts of the College are members. He was
mistakenly allocating the University to the same category as that to which the
constitutive parts of the University belong.

In the same way that the university is a concept expressing the entire system of
buildings, curricula, faculty, administrators, and so on, Ryle believes that the mind is a
concept that expresses the entire system of thoughts, emotions, actions, and so on that
make up the human self. The category mistake happens when we think of the self as
existing apart from certain observable behaviors, a purely mental entity existing in time
but not space. According to Ryle, this “self” does not really exist, any more than the
“university” or “team-spirit” exist in some special, nonphysical universe.
This is certainly a compelling argument against Cartesian dualism. However, having
made the case for an integrated mind/body perspective on the human self, Ryle then
focuses his attention primarily on human behavior. From his perspective, 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. And this inevitably leads him to the
same difficulties faced by psychologist behaviorists such as John Watson and B. F.
Skinner.

Like the behaviorists before him, Ryle has ended up solving one problem—the
conceptual difficulties of Cartesian dualism—but creating another problem just as
serious. For example, is the experience of “love” equivalent to the tendency to act in a
certain way under certain circumstances? When you say “I am deeply in love with you,”
is that reducible to a series of behavioral tendencies or dispositions: I will share
experiences with you, procreate children, attend you when you are sick, give thoughtful

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

cards and gifts on your birthday, say on a regular basis “I love you,” and so on?
Although your proposed partner may appreciate your detailed commitments, he or she
is unlikely to respond in the passionate, intimate way that you likely hope for. Reducing
the complex richness of our inner life and consciousness to a list of behaviors and
potential behaviors simply doesn’t do the job conceptually for most people.

Ironically, Ryle ends up being his own most incisive critic. He bases his criticism
of Cartesian dualism on the premise that “the central principles of the doctrine are
unsound and conflict with the whole body of what we know about minds when we are
not speculating about them.” But exactly the same criticism can be made of Ryle’s
logical behaviorism: it attempts to define and translate the self and the complex mental/
emotional richness of the life of the mind into a listing of behaviors (and potential
behaviors) that “conflicts with the whole body of what we know about minds when we
are not speculating about them.” As the Australian Philosopher J. J. C. Smart notes,
“There does seem to be, so far as science is concerned, nothing in the world but
complex arrangements of physical constituents. All except for one place:
consciousness.” In the final analysis, despite his devastating critique of Descartes’
dualism, Ryle hasn’t been able to provide a compelling philosophical explanation of
Descartes’ “I think.”
Ryle’s denial of inner selves causes a difficulty analogous to that engendered by
Hume’s denial of a similar entity—namely, that Ryle writes, speaks, and acts as if the
existence of their inner selves is not in doubt. In fact, it’s not clear how a person who
truly believed what behaviorists say they believe would actually function in life. The
philosopher Brand Blanshard (1892–1987) provides a biting analysis of the behaviorists’
denial of consciousness along with their stated belief that the self is the same as bodily
behavior.

REFERENCES
https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/philosophy-and-religion/philosophy-biographies/
gilbert-ryle
https://revelpreview.pearson.com/epubs/pearson_chaffee/OPS/xhtml/
ch03_sec_09.xhtml

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

AUTOBIOGRAPHY
PAUL CHURCHLAND

Paul Churchland (born October 21, 1942) is a philosopher noted for his
studies in neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. He is Professor Emeritus
at the University of California, San Diego, where he held the Valtz Chair of
Philosophy and a joint appointment with the Cognitive Science Faculty and the
Institute for Neural Computation. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of
Pittsburgh in 1969 under the direction of Wilfrid Sellars. Churchland is the
husband of philosopher Patricia Churchland. He is also the father of two children,
Mark and Anne Churchland, both of whom are neuroscientists.

Churchland began his professional career as an instructor at the

University of Pittsburgh in 1969; he also lectured at the University of Toronto
from 1967-69. In 1969, Churchland took a position at the University of Manitoba,
where he would teach for fifteen years: as an assistant professor (1969-74) and
associate professor (1974-79), and then as a full professor from 1979-1984.

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

Professor Churchland joined the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in

1982, staying as a member until 1983. He joined the faculty at the University of
California, San Diego in 1983, serving as Department Chair from 1986-1990.

Churchland has supervised a number of PhD students, including

Matthew J. Brown (now at UT Dallas), P.D. Magnus (now at the University at
Albany), Philip Brey (now at the University of Twenty).

PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS ABOUT SELF

Humans have known since recorded history of the close, intimate relationship
between the mind and the body. The health of our bodies, the things we ingest, and the
experiences we endure—all of these dimensions of our physical self-have a profound
effect on our mental and emotional functioning. Similarly, our emotional states, the way
we think about things, our levels of stress, the optimism (or pessimism) we feel—all of
these dimensions of our mental self-have a dramatic impact on our physical condition.
As an example, just consider how the single word heart is used to display this intimate
connection between the emotional and the physical: heartfelt, heartache, heartsick,
heartened, large-hearted, heartless, lighthearted, hard-hearted, faint-hearted, and
heartbroken.
Modern science is now able to use advanced equipment and sophisticated techniques
to unravel and articulate the complex web of connections that binds consciousness and
body together into an integrated self. In fact, one of the most dynamic areas of scientific
research currently is that devoted to exploring the mind-brain relationship, and the
information being developed is fascinating. Scientists are increasingly able to correlate
specific areas in the brain with areas of mental functioning, both cognitively and
emotionally. Psychotropic drugs are being developed that can influence emotional
states such as depression or extreme social anxiety. Brain scans can reveal physical
abnormalities that are related to personality disorders. And discoveries are being made
in the reverse direction as well, detailing the physical effects of emotional states such as
anxiety, depression, anger, pessimism, and optimism on the health and well-being of
the body. The assumption of this approach is that to fully understand the nature of the
mind we have to fully understand the nature of the brain.

The impressive success of such scientific mind-brain research has encouraged

many to conclude that it is only a matter of time before the mental life of consciousness
is fully explainable in terms of the neurophysiology of the brain. The ultimate goal of
such explorations is to link the self—including all of our thoughts, passions, personality
traits—to the physical wiring and physiological functioning of the brain. Although such
thinkers recognize that achieving such a goal will take time, they are confident that we
will progressively develop ways of describing the mind, consciousness, and human
experience that are physiologically based. The contemporary philosopher Paul
Churchland articulates such a vision in the following essay. He begins by

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

acknowledging that a simple identity formula—mental states = brain states—is a flawed

way in which to conceptualize the relationship between the mind and the brain. Instead,
we need to develop a new, neuroscience-based vocabulary that will enable us to think
and communicate clearly about the mind, consciousness, and human experience. He
refers to this view as eliminative materialism.

Churchland’s central argument is that the concepts and theoretical vocabulary

we use to think about ourselves—using such terms as belief, desire, fear, sensation,
pain, joy—actually misrepresent the reality of minds and selves. All of these concepts
are part of a commonsense “folk psychology” that obscures rather than clarifies the
nature of human experience. Eliminative materialists believe that we need to develop a
new vocabulary and conceptual framework that is grounded in neuroscience and that
will be a more accurate reflection of the human mind and self. Churchland proceeds to
state the arguments that he believes support his position.
Churchland’s point is that the most compelling argument for developing a new
conceptual framework and vocabulary founded on neuroscience is the simple fact that
the current “folk psychology” has done a poor job in accomplishing the main reason for
its existence—explaining and predicting the commonplace phenomena of the human
mind and experience. And in the same way that science replaces outmoded, ineffective,
and limited conceptual frameworks with ones that can explain and predict more
effectively, so the same thing needs to be done in psychology and philosophy of mind.
This new conceptual framework will be based on and will integrate all that we are
learning about how the brain works on a neurological level.

Although he believes strongly in the logic of his position, Churchland recognizes

that many people will resist the argument he is making for a variety of reasons.

Churchland’s ultimate concession that the psychology-based conceptual

framework currently used by most academic disciplines and popular culture may not
end up being completely eradicated and replaced by a neuroscience framework still
operates within his physicalist framework: for those “folk psychology” terms not
eliminated will nevertheless be reducible to neurophysical statements of brain states.

Of course, there are many people who believe that there are fundamental
differences between the life of the mind and neuroscientific descriptions of the brain’s
operation. Many people believe that, no matter how exhaustively scientists are able to
describe the physical conditions for consciousness, this does not mean that the mental
dimensions of the self will ever be reducible to these physical states. Why? Because in
the final analysis, the physical and mental dimensions of the self are qualitatively
different realms, each with its own distinctive vocabulary, logic, and organizing
principles. According to this view, even if scientists were able to map out your complete
brain activity at the moment you were having an original idea or experiencing an
emotional epiphany, that neurobiological description of your brain would provide no clue
as to the nature of your personal experience at that moment. Articulating and

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

communicating the rich texture of those experiences would take a very different
language and logic.

Fascinatingly, it was Socrates who first articulated a coherent critique of the

materialist position in Plato’s dialogue Phaedo, during the period following his trial and
conviction. Socrates ridicules the materialist position, which he attributes to the
philosopher Anaxagoras, which, he says, would explain his decision to remain in Athens
by reference to his “bones and sinews,” rather than the result of the conscious choice of
his mind. With surprisingly good humor he explains that if it was up to his body he would
not have remained in Athens to be executed, but rather “I fancy that these sinews and
bones would have been in the neighborhood of Megara or Boeotia long ago—impelled
by a conviction of what is best! —if I did not think that it was more right and honorable
to submit to whatever my country orders rather than to take to my heels and run away.”
In other words, Socrates is arguing that it is his conscious, rational mind that has
determined his fate, and attempting to use a materialistic framework to explain his
actions makes no sense. “If it were said that without such bones and sinews and all the
rest of them I should not be able to do what I think is right, it would be true. But to say
that it is because of them that I do what I am doing, and not through choice of what is
best—although my actions are controlled by mind—would be a very lax and inaccurate
form of expression.” For Socrates, even if we had a complete description of how the
body (and by extension the brain) worked, we would still be unable to dispense with folk
psychological terms such as choice and belief.

REFERENCES

https://www.poemhunter.com/maurice-merleau-ponty/biography/
https://revelpreview.pearson.com/epubs/pearson_chaffee/OPS/xhtml/ch03_sec_10.xht
ml

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

AUTOBIOGRAPHY
MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (14 March 1908 – 3 May 1961) was a French
phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Karl Marx, Edmund Husserl, and
Martin Heidegger in addition to being closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre (who
later stated he had been "converted" to Marxism by Merleau-Ponty) and Simone de
Beauvoir.

At the core of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy is a sustained argument for the

foundational role that perception plays in understanding the world as well as engaging
with the world. Like the other major phenomenologists, Merleau-Ponty expressed his
philosophical insights in writings on art, literature, linguistics, and politics. He was the
only major phenomenologist of the first half of the twentieth century to engage
extensively with the sciences and especially with descriptive psychology. It is because
of this engagement that his writings have become influential in the recent project of
naturalizing phenomenology, in which phenomenologists use the results of psychology

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

and cognitive science.

Merleau-Ponty emphasized the body as the primary site of knowing the world, a
corrective to the long philosophical tradition of placing consciousness as the source of
knowledge, and his insight that the body and that which it perceived could not be
disentangled from each other. The articulation of the primacy of embodiment led him
away from phenomenology towards what he was to call “indirect ontology” or the
ontology of “the flesh of the world” (la chair du monde), seen in his last incomplete work,
The Visible and Invisible, and his last published essay, “Eye and Mind”.

PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS ABOUT SELF

A generation after Husserl, the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty articulated

the phenomenologist position in a simple declaration: “I live in my body.” By the “lived
body,” Merleau-Ponty means an entity that can never be objectified or known in a
completely objective sort of way, as opposed to the “body as object” of the dualists. For
example, when you first wake up in the morning and experience your gradually
expanding awareness of where you are and how you feel, what are your first thoughts
of the day? Perhaps something along the lines of “Oh no, it’s time to get up, but I’m still
sleepy, but I have an important appointment that I can’t be late for” and so on. Note that
at no point do you doubt that the “I” you refer to is a single integrated entity, a blending
of mental, physical, and emotional structured around a core identity: yourself. It’s only
later, when you’re reading Descartes or discussing the possibility of reincarnation with a
friend that you begin creating ideas such as independent “minds,” “bodies,” “souls,” or,
in the case of Freud, an “unconscious.”
According to Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, if we honestly and accurately examine
our direct and immediate experience of ourselves, these mind-body “problems” fall
away. As Merleau-Ponty explains, “There is not a duality of substances but only the
dialectic of living being in its biological milieu.” In other words, our “living body” is a
natural synthesis of mind and biology, and any attempts to divide them into separate
entities are artificial and nonsensical.

The underlying question is “What aspect of our experience is the most ‘real’?”
From Husserl’s and Merleau-Ponty’s vantage point, it’s the moments of immediate, pre
reflective experience that are the most real. It is the Lebenswelt or “lived world,” which is
the fundamental ground of our being and consciousness. To take another example,
consider your experience when you are in the midst of activities such as dancing,
playing a sport, or performing musically—what is your experience of yourself? Most
likely, you’re completely absorbed in the moment, your mind and body functioning as
one integrated entity. For Merleau-Ponty, this unified experience of your self is the
paradigm or model you should use to understand your nature.

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

Phenomenologists do not assume that there are more “fundamental” levels of

reality beyond that of conscious human experience. Consistent with this ontological
(having to do with the nature of being or existence) commitment is the belief that
explanations for human behavior and experience are not to be sought by appeal to
phenomena that are somehow behind, beneath, or beyond the phenomena of lived
human experience but instead are to be sought within the field of human experience
itself, using terminology and concepts appropriate to this field. And when we examine
ourselves at this fundamental level of direct human experience, we discover that our
mind and body are unified, not separate. It is this primal consciousness, Merleau-Ponty
notes in his book Phenomenology of Perception, that is the foundation for our
perception of the world and our knowledge about it.

For Merleau-Ponty, everything that we are aware of—and can possibly know—is
contained within our own consciousness. It’s impossible for us to get “outside” of our
consciousness because it defines the boundaries of our personal universe. The so-
called real world of objects existing in space and time initially exists only as objects of
my consciousness. Yet in a cognitive sleight-of-hand, we act as if the space-time world
is primary and our immediate consciousness is secondary. This is an inversion of the
way things actually are: It is our consciousness that is primary and the space-time world
that is secondary, existing fundamentally as the object of our consciousness.

Nor is science exempt from condemnation, according to the phenomenologists,

for scientists are guilty of the same flawed thinking as expressed in abstract
philosophical and religious theories. Too often scientists treat their abstract theories as
if they take precedence over the rich and intuitive reality of immediate lived experience.
In cases when the two worlds conflict, scientists automatically assume that the scientific
perspective is correct, and the direct experience of the individual wrong. This is the
difficulty we pointed out with the concept of the unconscious: It was considered by
Freud and many of his followers to be of such supreme authority that no individual’s
contrasting point of view can measure up to the ultimate truth of the unconscious
interpretation. In his Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty makes the crucial
point that these theories couldn’t even exist without the primal reality of lived experience
to serve as their foundation. And then these theories have the arrogance to dismiss this
fundamental reality as somehow secondary or derivative.

As a philosophical theory of knowledge, phenomenology is distinctive in the

sense that its goal is not to explain experience but rather to clarify our understanding of
it. A phenomenologist like Merleau-Ponty sees his aim of describing what he sees and
then assuming that his description will strike a familiar chord with us, stimulating us to
say, “I understand what you’re saying—that makes sense to me!” From this perspective,
the responsibility of philosophy is not to provide explanations but to seek the root and
genesis of meaning, “to reveal the mystery of the world and of reason,” to help us think
and see things more clearly. For example, to develop a clear understanding of your
“being in love,” you need to delay using elaborate psychological theories and instead
begin by describing the phenomena of the experience in a clear, vivid fashion, trying to
uncover the meaning of what you are experiencing. Then you can begin developing

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

concepts and theories to help you make sense of the phenomena of “being in love.” The
danger of using theories prematurely is that you may very well distort your actual
experience, forcing it to conform to someone else’s idea of what “being in love” means
instead of clearly understanding your unique experience. Concepts and theories are
essential for understanding ourselves and our world. It’s simply a question of which
comes first—the concepts and theories or the phenomena of experience that the
concepts and theories are designed to explain. For phenomenologists, it’s essential that
we always begin (and return regularly to) the phenomena of our lived experience.
Otherwise, we run the risk of viewing our experience through conceptual or theoretical
“lenses” that distort rather than clarify. For instance, in providing a phenomenological
analysis of “being in love,” you might begin by describing precisely what your immediate
responses are: physically, emotionally, cognitively. I’m currently in love and,

 I feel . . .
 I think . . .
 My physical response . . .
 I spontaneously . . .

By recording the direct phenomena of our experience, we have the basic data
needed to reveal the complex meaning of this experience and begin to develop a
clearer understanding of what “being in love” is all about, by using concepts and
theories appropriate to the reality of our lived experience.

What exactly is “consciousness”? For Merleau-Ponty it is a dynamic

form responsible for actively structuring our conscious ideas and physical behavior. In
this sense, it is fundamentally different from Hume’s and Locke’s concept of the mind as
a repository for sensations or the behaviorists’ notion of the mind as the sum total of the
reactions to the physical stimuli that an organism receives. Consciousness, for Merleau-
Ponty, is a dimension of our lived body, which is not an object in the world, distinct from
the knowing subject (as in Descartes), but is the subjects’ own point of view on the
world: The body is itself the original knowing subject from which all other forms of
knowledge derive.

REFERENCES

https://www.poemhunter.com/maurice-merleau-ponty/biography/
https://revelpreview.pearson.com/epubs/pearson_chaffee/OPS/xhtml/ch03_sec_11.xht
ml#P7000496877000000000000000000CF3

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

St. Thomas Aquinas, also called Aquinas, Italian San Tommaso
d’Aquino, byname Doctor Angelicus (Latin: “Angelic Doctor”), (born 1224/25,
Roccasecca, near Aquino, Terra di Lavoro, Kingdom of Sicily [Italy]—died March 7,
1274, Fossanova, near Terracina, Latium, Papal States; canonized July 18, 1323; feast
day January 28, formerly March 7), Italian Dominican theologian, the foremost medieval
Scholastic. He developed his own conclusions from Aristotelian premises, notably in
the metaphysics of personality, creation, and Providence. As a theologian he was
responsible in his two masterpieces, the Summa theologiae and the Summa contra
gentiles, for the classical systematization of Latin theology; and as a poet he wrote
some of the most gravely beautiful Eucharistic hymns in the church’s liturgy. His
doctrinal system and the explanations and developments made by his followers are
known as Thomism. Although many modern Roman Catholic theologians do not find St.

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

Thomas altogether congenial, he is nevertheless recognized by the Roman Catholic

Church as its foremost Western philosopher and theologian.

PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS ABOUT SELF

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 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.
But if we “see” ourselves from the inside at the moment of acting, what about the
“problem of self-opacity” mentioned above? Instead of lacking self-knowledge,
shouldn’t we be able to “see” everything about ourselves clearly? Aquinas’s answer is
that just because we experience something doesn’t mean we instantly understand
everything about it—or to use his terminology: experiencing that something
exists doesn’t tell us what it is. (By comparison: If someday I encounter a wallaby, that
won’t make me an expert about wallabies.) Learning about a thing’s nature requires a
long process of gathering evidence and drawing conclusions, and even then we may
never fully understand it. The same applies to the mind. I am absolutely certain, with
an insider’s perspective that no one else can have, of the reality of my experience of
wanting another cup of coffee. But the significance of those experiences—what they
are, what they tell me about myself and the nature of the mind—requires further
experience and reasoning. Am I hooked on caffeine? What is a “desire” and why do
we have desires? These questions can only be answered by reasoning about the
evidence taken from many experiences.
Aquinas, then, would surely approve that we’re not drawn to search online for
answers to the question, “Who am I?” That question can only be answered “from the

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

inside” by me, the one asking the question. At the same time, answering this question
isn’t a matter of withdrawing from the world and turning in on ourselves. It’s a matter of
becoming more aware of ourselves at the moment of engaging with reality, and drawing
conclusions about what our activities towards other things “say” about us. There’s
Aquinas’s “prescription” for a deeper sense of self.

REFERENCES
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Thomas-Aquinas
http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2014/01/thomas-aquinas-toward-a-deeper-sense-of-self/

PHILOSOPHICAL
PERSPECTIVE
OF SELF

“Know ourselves more. Attitude, Belief, Confidence”

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD|5711718

Downloaded by Mary Therese Pagay (theresevv77@gmail.com)