Lesson 1:

The Self from Various

Philosophical Perspectives
ABSTRACTION
• Socrates and Plato
- Socrates was the first philosopher who ever engaged in a
systematic questioning about the self; the true task of the
philosopher is to know oneself.
- For Socrates, every man is composed of body and soul; all
individuals have an imperfect, impermanent aspect to him,
and the body, while maintaining that there is also a soul
that is perfect and permanent.
- Plato supported the idea that man is a dual nature of body
and soul.
- Plato added that there are three components of the soul:
the rational soul, the spirited soul, and the appetitive soul.
• Augustine and Thomas Aquinas
- Augustine agreed that man is of a bifurcated nature; the body
is bound to die on earth and the soul is to anticipate living
eternally in a realm of spiritual bliss in communion with God.
- The body can only thrive in the imperfect, physical reality that
is the world, whereas the soul can also stay after death in an
eternal realm with the all-transcendent God.
- Aquinas said that indeed, man is composed of two parts:
matter and form. Matter, or hyle in Greek, refers to the
“common stuff that makes up everything in the universe.”
Man’s body is part of this matter. Form, on the other hand, or
morphe in Greek refers to the “essence of a substance or thing.”
- To Aquinas the soul is what animates the body; it is what
makes us humans.
• Rene Descartes
- Conceived of the human person as having a body and a
mind
- The body is nothing else but a machine that is attached to
the mind. The human person has it but it is not what makes
man a man. If at all, that is the mind.
• David Hume
- The self is not an entity over and beyond the physical body.
- Men can only attain knowledge by experiencing.
- Self, according to Hume, is simply “a bundle or collection of
different perceptions, which succeed each other with an
inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and
movement.”
• Immanuel Kant
- Things that men perceive around them are not just
randomly infused into the human person without an
organizing principle that regulates the relationship of all
these impressions.
- There is necessarily a mind that organizes the impressions
that men get from the external world.
- Time and space are ideas that one cannot find in the world,
but is built in our minds; he calls these the apparatuses of
the mind.
- The self is not just what gives one his personality; it is also
the seat of knowledge acquisition for all human persons.
• Gilbert Ryle
- Blatantly denying the concept of an internal, non-physical self;
what truly matters is the behavior that a person manifests in
his day-to-day life.
- “Self” is not an entity one can locate and analyze but simply
the convenient name that people use to refer to all the
behaviors that people make.
• Merleau-Ponty
- The mind and body are so intertwined that they cannot be
separated from one another.
- One cannot find any experience that is not an embodied
experience. All experience is embodied; one’s body is his
opening toward his existence to the world.
- The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and experiences are
all one.
APPLICATION AND ASSESSMENT
In your own words, state what “self” is for each of the
philosophers enumerated below. After doing so, explain how
your concept of “self” is compatible with how they conceived
of the “self.”
1. Socrates
2. Plato
3. Augustine
4. Descartes
5. Hume
6. Kant
7. Ryle
8. Merleau-Ponty
LESSON SUMMARY
- Philosophy is replete with men and women who
inquired into the fundamental nature of the self.
- Socrates was the first philosopher who ever engaged
in a systematic questioning about the self.
- Plato supported the idea that man is a dual nature of
body and soul.
- Augustine agreed that man is of a bifurcated nature.
- Thomas Aquinas said that indeed, man is composed
of two parts: matter and form.
- Rene Descartes conceived of the human person as
having a body and a mind.
- David Hume, the self is not an entity over and beyond
the physical body
- Immanuel Kant, there is necessarily a mind that
organizes the impressions that men get from the
external world
- Gilbert Ryle, “self” is not an entity one can locate and
analyze
- Merleau-Ponty, the living body, his thoughts,
emotions, and experiences are all one