PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE

PHILOSOPHERS
1. Socrates 7. Immanuel Kant
2. Plato 8. Sigmund Freud
3. St.Augustine 9. Gilbert Ryle
4. Rene Descartes 10. Paul Churchland
5. JohnLocke 11. Merleau - Ponty
6. David Hume
Philosopher School of Thought Contention Key Ideas

Socrates is known as the Father of (Western)

Philosophy. He was credited for making the
foundation for modern Western philosophy.

He postulated that the goal for human existence is to

“know thyself” and improve the quality of one’s soul
by living a life of virtue. In relation to that, he
SOCRATES

maintained that knowledge is essential in order to live

Dualism is the concept that our mind is a life of virtue which would consequently lead to
more than just our brain. It postulates happiness.
Dualism that the physical body and the soul are
two different entities or are two The only way to which an individual achieves the
different aspects of the self. “know thyself” contention is through the Socratic
method. It is a method that is used to seek
understanding with regards to truth and clarity. It is
done through a continuous dialogue between the soul
and body (the two separate entities of the self). In
other words, it is done in a question and answer
format.
Evil is performed by an individual whenever, there is
not enough knowledge. Therefore, evil exist because
of ignorance.
Philosopher School of Thought Contention Key Ideas
(Mind and Body) There’s the body, which is material, mortal
and “moved”. Then there’s the soul, which is ideal, immortal
and “unmoved”.

ž lato defined soul as the core essence of living being, but

P
argued its having a distinct existence. *For example – A knife
has a soul, the act of cutting would be that soul, because
“cutting” is the essence of what it is to be a knife.
Plato introduced a three-part soul namely: reason
(responsible for cognition), physical appetite (biological needs
Dualism is the concept that our mind
PLATO

and physiological responses), spirit or passion (basic emotions

is more than just our brain. It like love, and anger). The three parts are in a continuous
Dualism postulates that the physical body and process of balancing each needs and drives. It could be in
the soul are two different entities or harmony or could be in conflict.
are two different aspects of the self.
Happiness is achieved once reason takes control over the
spirit and the appetite. Thus, achieving harmony.
When there is an imbalance between the three or when
reason is not in control, then it will be the source of
psychological disorders or for a person to have maladaptive
behaviors.
Fž or Plato, the SELF emerges as one (the individual) utilizes
that ideas which had been well thought of and utilizes one's
senses to recognize the truth.
Philosopher School of Thought Contention Key Ideas

He integrated the views of Plato and with

Christianity.

He postulated that individuals have immortal souls

that are in a constant striving for a union with God
by the means of faith and reason.
St. Augustine

His idea of good and evil is that: doing good is the

default behavior. It is just a matter of whether one
chooses a lesser good. This occurs when one
Neoplatonists are majorly chooses to allow passions and desires rule the
Dualism/ Neoplatonism
influenced by Plato soul, which tend toward things of this world.

Similar with Plato, he maintains that reason should

rule one’s soul.

St. Augustine believed that the SELF emerges as

one utilizes his faculty of free will to not deviate
from the right order or oppose himself to the will
of God, but become submissive to it.
Philosopher School of Thought Contention Key Ideas
“I think therefore I am”. This goes to show that the
ability of an individual to think makes that individual
exist.

The self that exist is a product of the ability to think.

Rene Descartes

Rene Descartes posited that The Self emerges since

This view postulates that reason and the human mind has principles or a priori knowledge,
the thinking process is the ultimate independent of experience.
source of human knowledge. It gives
The self is conscious when that individual has the
Rationalism importance to intellect and deductive
aptitude to use thinking abilities, analyze,
reasoning. It was associated with the
experiment, and develop well formulated arguments
incorporation of mathematical
and conclusions.
methods into philosophy.
He also maintains that if one reflect thoughtfully, one
can see that one have clear ideas of both oneself as a
thinking entity and oneself as a physical body

Subscribed to the idea of Plato and Augustine

regarding the existence of God and that the self
strives for the unity with God.
Philosopher School of Thought Contention
John Locke
This view states that experience is
the principal source of all
knowledge and being attuned to
Empiricism
these experiences would enable
individuals to understand and
navigate their worlds better.
Key Ideas
Tabula rasa. This means that human beings are blank
slates. This goes to show that experience make up an
individual’s self. (The Self emerges through
experiences.)
Sensations and perceptions are essential factors in
uncovering the self. Sensations refers to the objective
elements such as sound, sight, etc. while perception
is the subjective interpretation of these sensations.
Being aware and attuned by these sensations and
perceptions or the holistic experience is key to the
formation of the self.
Philosopher School of Thought Contention
David Hume
This view states that experience is
the principal source of all
knowledge and being attuned to
Empiricism
these experiences would enable
individuals to understand and
navigate their worlds better.
Key Ideas
Hume believed that the entire contents of the mind
were drawn from experience alone.
The self cannot be directly known, he argued, because it
is an idea or concept, which can only be known through
the impressions or perceptions serving as the basis for
the concept.
Experience has 2 contents: Impressions and ideas.
Impressions are basic sensations of experiences (e.g.
pain, happiness, fear, etc). Ideas are copies of
impressions.
In his own words self is a” system of different
perceptions or different experiences, which are linked
together by the relation of cause and effect, and which
mutually produce, destroy, influence, and modify each
other
The SELF emerges as one accumulates recurring
experiences as such that these experiences had been
internalized and became part of one’s personhood.
Philosopher School of Thought Contention Key Ideas

Kant argues that the self is Transcendental which

functions to unite all appearances into one experience.
The contents of consciousness must have causal
connections to be unified.
Immanuel Kant

This view postulates that reason and

the thinking process is the ultimate In his own words “When we are conscious of ourselves
source of human knowledge. It gives as subject, we are conscious of ourselves as the single
Rationalism importance to intellect and deductive common subject of a number of representations."
reasoning. It was associated with the
incorporation of mathematical
methods into philosophy.
He also emphasized the use of knowledge to attain
one’s self.

With Kant’s philosophical perspective, the SELF

emerges as a crystallized knowledge of one’s self and
other’s based on one’s recurring observations.
Philosopher School of Thought Contention Key Ideas

The Concept of Mind - The workings of the mind are

not an independent mechanism that governs the
workings of the body. The workings of the mind are
not distinct from the actions of the body; they are
rather a way of explaining the actions of the body.
Gilbert Ryle

This view is a psychological school

of thought that postulates that all
behaviors are acquired through
conditioning. It emphasizes the
Behaviorism
importance of observable events He maintained that there is no hidden entity so
which refers to behaviors of called the “mind” inside the so called “body”.
people and discounting their
inner thoughts.

The SELF emerges as human behaviors unfold as it

reflects one’s innate Self-conception; it emerges as
one manifests behaviors descriptive of inner
dreams, hopes, aspirations and wishes.
Philosopher School of Thought Contention Key Ideas

Eliminative materialism – the ordinary folk

psychology of the mind is wrong.

It is the physical brain and not the imaginary mind

Paul Churchland

that give individuals a sense of self. The self is a

This view states that everything is
product of the activity of the human brain.
physical and that there is nothing
over and above the physical. This is
also closely related to eliminative If the mind cannot be experienced by the senses,
Physicalism materialism which contends that then the mind does not exist.
matter is the most basic substance
in nature and some mental states
produced by common sense are Physical things can be accounted by hard sciences
non existent. such as biology, Chemistry, Physics, etc.

THE SELF emerges not as something that is

theoretically founded, but as data innervated,
since THE SELF cannot be a product of imagination
and opinions but of empirical observation.
Philosopher School of Thought Contention Key Ideas

The "self" is understood as being embedded in

and supported by the "field of experience
Merleau-Ponty

A person’s consciousness, his/her world, and

This view states that all knowledge
his/her human body are entwined and are
of one self is based on the
mutually interdependent.
phenomenon of experience. It
Phenomenology discounts psychological factors or
causal explanations. Its goal is to
give meaning to the experience in Mind cannot be only identified by just self-
itself. knowledge, more importantly it is dependent
on the harmonious relationship of the
structures and actions of the human world.

THE SELF emerges as one perceives in the

world, as he looks at the world through one’s
body which is involved in one’s existence.
Philosopher School of Thought Contention Key Ideas

id, ego, and superego

The id’s goal is to pursue pleasure and satisfy

the biological drives. The ego’s goal is to find
safe and socially acceptable ways of satisfying
Sigmund Freud

the id’s desires and to negotiate between the

id’s wants and the superego’s prohibitions. The
This view maintains that the self is superego’s goal is to apply the moral values
divided into the unconscious, and standards.
Psychodynamic preconscious, and conscious. With
the unconscious operating the most The goal is for the ego to dominate the totality
part of the self. of the self so as to achieve balance and
harmony between pleasure and morality.

Believed that human behavior was propelled

by the drive to find pleasurable experiences.
He described this as a sexual nature and he
believed that this was the foundation of every
human development.
He postulated that each human behavior was
motivated by seeking pleasure.
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