GE 1

UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

MODULE 1: THE SELF FROM VARIOUS PERSPECTIVES

Objectives:
1. Explain why is it essential to understand the self
2. Describe and discuss the notions of the self from points-of-view of various philosophers
across time and place
3. Examine one’s self against the different views of self that were discussed in class

Overview
Before we even had to be in a formal institution of learning, among the many things that we
were first taught as kids is to articulate and write our names. We were taught to respond to
them because our names represent who we are. But our name is only a signifier. The self is
thought to be something else than the name. The self is something that a person
perennially molds, shapes and develops.

● The spotlight effect is the phenomenon in which people tend to believe they are
being noticed more than they really are.

I. Philosophical view of the Self

1. Socrates
● “Know Thyself”
● “The unexamined life is not worth living”
● Dualism- there are two aspects of personhood: body and soul

2. Plato: The Ideal Self; the Perfect Self

3 components of the soul:
● Rational soul- reason and intellect
● Spirited soul- in charge of emotions
● Appetitive soul- in charge of basic desires
● We should regain our former self

3. St. Augustine: Love and Justice as the Foundation of the Self

● Man is bifurcated in nature
● He believes that a virtuous life is a dynamism of love

4. Rene Descartes: “Cogito Ergo Sum”

● “I think therefore, I am”
● He could not doubt that he exists, as he is the one doubting in the first place”

5. David Hume: The Self is the Bundle Theory of Mind

● Empiricism- is the school of thought that espouses the idea that knowledge can only be
possible if it is sensed and experienced.
● The self is nothing but a bundle of impressions
● Experiences:
1. Impressions- basic objects of our experience or sensation
2. Ideas- copies of impressions
● “The self is a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with
an inconceivable rapidity, and are in perpetual flux and movement”

II. Psychological View of the Self

● Sigmund Freud- Father of Psychoanalysis

● “Psyche” - personality
● 3 parts of the Psyche/Personality:
1. Id- pleasure
2. Ego- reality
3. Superego- morality

The Psychosexual stages of Development:

1.ORAL- birth to 1 year

-mouth
-fixation
-oral fixated personality
2. ANAL- 2 to 3 years
-anus
-anal retentive
-anal expulsive personality
3. PHALLIC- 3 to 6 years
-genitals
- Oedipus complex
-Electra complex
4. LATENCY- 6 to 12
-Pre occupied with school, play, and peers
5. GENITAL- 12 until adulthood
-gratification from sexual relationship

III. THE CHRISTIAN/BIBLICAL VIEW

● The Bible
● “God created mankind in His own image, in his divine image He created him; male
and female he created them, “Be fertile and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.
Have dominion over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living
creature that moves on the ground.”
-Genesis 1:27-28