St.

Rita’s College of Balingasag

Balingasag, Misamis Oriental
HIGHER EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
MODULE 1

Subject Code: GE-1

Course Title: Understanding the Self
Credit Units: 3 units
Course Description:

Learning Outcomes:
LO 1 – Discuss the different representations and conceptualizations of the self from various
disciplinal perspectives
LO 2 - Compare and contrast how the self has been represented across disciplines and perspectives
LO 3 – Examine the different influences, factors and forces that shape the self
LO 4 – Demonstrate critical and reflective thought in analyzing the development of one’s self and
identify by developing a theory of the self

Course Outline:
Week 1-2: Understanding Self l Philosophical Perspective on Self
Week 3-4: Sociological Perspective of the Self l Anthropological Perspective of the Self Thought
Week 5-6: Psychological Perspective of the Self l The Self in Western and Oriental/Eastern
Week 7-8: Unpacking the Self
Week 9: Manage Caring for the Self

Grading System:

See Revised Handbook

Topic
Philosophical Perspective on Self
Learning Objectives
At the end of this module, the students are expected to;
i. Discuss the different representations and conceptualizations of the self from various
disciplinal perspectives
ii. Compare and contrast how the self has been represented across disciplines and
perspectives
iii. Examine the different influences, factors and forces that shape the self
iv. Demonstrate critical and reflective thought in analyzing the development of one’s self
and identify by developing a theory of the self
Introduction

Knowing oneself is critical to being an effective team member as well as being successful in life,
work, and relationships. Your personal identity influences everything you do, and it changes
and evolves over time.

The purpose of this module is to help you deepen your understanding and appreciation for who
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you are as a person. You will explore how you see yourself through the lenses of personal
identity, your skills and talents, roles, values, personal core, and how you meet your
psychological needs. You will also examine how you respond to the pressures of changes and
transitions in your life.

You will have an opportunity to examine how your personal identity has been shaped by a
variety of people and experiences. You will also have opportunities to think about and discuss
your values, interests, hopes for the future, as well as, your strengths and challenges. You will
learn about how your psychological needs are the primary source that motivates and drives
your behavior. You will also learn critical knowledge about change and how important it is in
today’s workplace to be adaptive and to embrace change as a personal and professional growth
experience.

Time Allotment: 15 hours (1 week)

Core/Related Values and Biblical Passage
Core/Related Values: Service – Courage

Biblical Passage: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends”
John 15:13

Learning Content
Philosophy
Philosophy is derived from the Greek words “Philos” and “Sophia” which literally means
“Love for Wisdom”. It is the study of acquiring knowledge through rational thinking and inquiries
that involves in answering questions regarding the nature and existence of man and the world we
live in. As such, it is imperative to look into the various explanations from different philosophers
their notion of what the “Self” its nature and how it is formed in order to have a better picture on
how people develop their behaviors, attitude and actions and to be able to identify and understand
who we are and how we came to be.

Nature vs. Nurture

Nature differs from Nurture, since in Nature, a person develops his/her characteristics
biologically (something that has developed starting from the birth of the child), while in Nurture,
a person develops his/her characteristics through the external factors, such as the environment
and the society (family, friends, relatives, etc.).

Identity vs. Self

Identity, also, differs from Self, as what the readings say, Identities are “qualities, characteristics,
beliefs, opinions, etc., that make a person unique from others.” These is what is distinguishable
by others, or what they perceive to us through our actions. Self, on the other had, is the “person
of himself/herself,” meaning, it is what the others didn’t see in you, because this is personal
character; this is what makes up a person.

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Dimensionalities of the Self/Identity

There are 4 different dimensionalities of self, namely social factor, environmental factor,
hereditary factor, and person-volition factor. Social factors are the factors in the development of
a person which includes all the person around us, like our family members, relatives, friends,
teachers or professors, and even strangers, that might create an impression to you or affects your
actions and thoughts in life. Environmental factors are the factors in the development of a
person that includes the environmental structure, events, and such, which might give an impact
on how a person could grow in all the aspects of his/her life. Hereditary factors are the factors in
the development of the person that includes biological changes and events, such as growth in
height, puberty (growing of pubic hair, deeper voices for male, broadening of hips and start of
menstruation for female, etc.) that usually affects the physical characteristics of a person. Lastly,
the Person-volition factors are the inclination of a person creates a social construct which sets
him apart to others.

What does Philosophy tell about you?

Socrates
Socrates’ work was never published, we were only able to know who Socrates is and his
works because of his illustrious students spoke generously and in detail about his knowledge, wit,
wisdom and intellect. His student Plato for example included Socrates in some of his work as a
pivotal character. He could be considered as the first martyr of education, knowledge and
philosophy. For lighting up the minds of his students, he was literally charged with corruption of
minors. He was made to choose between exile and death via the intake of hemlock. Socrates chose
the latter, thus dying as a martyr that fights against ignorance and narrow-mindedness. The
philosophy of Socrates underlies in the importance of the notion “knowing oneself” for him, men’s
goal in life is to obtain happiness and such goal motivates us to act towards or avoid things that
could have negative repercussions in our lives. As such, by fully knowing oneself a person will be
able to achieve happiness. Socrates also posited that possession of knowledge is a virtue and that
ignorance is a depravity, that a person’s acceptance of ignorance is the beginning of acquisition of
knowledge. So, one must first have the humility to acknowledge one’s ignorance so as to be able to
know what he is lacking and what he needs to know. Socrates believe that the answer to our
pursuit in knowing ourselves lies in our own abilities and wisdom, and that the only way for us to
understand ourselves is through internal questioning or introspection. This method of questioning
oneself, where the person assumes the role of both the teacher and the student is known to the
world as the Socratic Method or Socratic Conversation. By continuously asking and evaluating
who we are we as a person will also be able to understand our strengths and weaknesses, the
things that we like and dislike, how we want people to treat us and how we want ourselves to be
treated, so by knowing these things we can act in accordance to what we know we are and live our
lives following our knowledge of ourselves.

Plato

One of the most prominent thinkers of his time, Plato included in his work the learnings and ideas
shared to him by his teacher Socrates. He wrote several literature that tackles politics, human
nature, and established the idea of virtue and intelligence. Plato is historically known to be the
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father of the academy a place where learning and sharing of knowledge happens, that later became
one of the pillars and basis of what schools and education is now in the present.

Plato generally followed his teacher and the idea of knowing thyself although from his works such
with the notable ones’ such as the allegory of the cave, the apology, and his work on a perfect
government and societal system, “the Republic” where he said that the world can only be led by a
Philosopher king, a person who is virtuous as well as intelligent. According to Plato, a person who
is a follower of truth and wisdom will not be tempted by vices and will always be just. Plato also
believed in the division of a person’s body and soul which forms the person as a whole aside from
the material things and that could be observed and associated with a person, Plato presented the
idea the ones’ soul is divided into 3 different parts that has different views leading to different
behaviors, these parts of the soul are known as the Appetitive, Spirited, and Rational Soul.

Plato’s 3 parts of the soul Appetitive Soul –Plato’s idea of the appetitive soul is the part of the
person that is driven by desire and need to satisfy oneself. This satisfaction both involves physical
needs and pleasures and desires. As long as the person find an object or situation good or
satisfying, the Appetitive soul can drive the person to lean towards those objects and situations.
Spirited Soul – this part of the soul can be attributed to the couragous part of a person, one who
wants to do something or to right the wrongs that they observe. Spirited soul are very
competititive and is very active, his competitiveness drives one to expect positive results and
winning. Rational Soul – The last part of the soul could be said is the driver of our lives, this is the
part that thinks and plan for the future “the conscious mind” it decides what to do, when to do it
and the possible results one could have depending on their actions.

St. Augustine

A Saint and a Philosopher of the church, St. Augustine follows the idea that God
encompasses us all, that everything will be better if we are with God. His work’s focal point is on
how God and his teachings affects various aspects in life, he follows the belief that everything is
better if we devote ourselves in mending our relationship with God. His idea of a man and how to
understand who we are as a person is related to our understanding of who we are and how we
question ourselves, though St. Augustine also relates our existence to God being modeled in his
likeness though being alive means that we are still far from God and has yet to be truly with him.
St. Augustine also rejected the doubtfulness of the academy in which one cannot or should not
accept ideas from others. He emphasized that we may not be able to give our agreement to
everything other people tell us but we can still agree to those who we, from our own perception,
think is right or wrong based from our perception.

He believes that our notion of ourselves and our idea of existence comes from a higher form
of sense in which bodily senses may not perceive or understand, and the more one doubts and
question his life means that, that person is actually living. St. Augustine while integrating the
teaching of the church in his philosophy and establishing our sense of self with God which we
cannot achieve with our bodies since the limitation of our senses in truly understanding the
essence of our existence and role in the world is limited. So people is in need to establish their
relationship with god through being virtuous, but at the same time, to be able to stand by on what
we think is true, who we think we are that are from our own understanding and solely defined by
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us alone although people may say differently, by continuously questioning and finding the truth
will we be able to find the best answer to who we are and what our role is in the world. Descartes
Rene Descartes is a French Philosopher known to be the father of modern philosophy because of
his radical use of systematic and early scientific method to aid his ideas and assumptions. Though
his works were often compared or said to be similar to the concept of St. Augustine which could be
traced back to the works of Plato, what his ideas sets him apart is on his belief in modern dualism
or the existence of body and mind and it’s implication to one’s existence were presented with the
evidences from experiments as well as philosophical reasoning, he also known to be the proponent
of the “Methodical Doubt” which simply meant of a continuous process of questioning what we
perceive and accepting the fact that doubting, asking questions are a part of ones’ existence. As
such he has defined the roles of the mind and body to the notion of one’s existence and sense of
self. Descartes is known for the statement “Cogito Ergo Sum” which means in English as “I think
therefore I am”. According to him a person is comprised of mind and body, the body that perceives
from the different senses and the mind that thinks and question or doubt what the body has
experienced. For him, the body and its perceptions cannot fully be trusted or can easily be
deceived, For instance there are times that we feel that a dream is real before actually waking up or
having different perception of size based on an objects distance from the viewer. Descartes
explained that because we cannot always trust our senses and in turn what we perceive as who we
are or the essence of our existence, we as a rational being should focus on the mind and explained
that the more we think and doubt what we perceived from our senses and the answer that came
from such thinking or doubting leads to better understanding of ourselves. He also implies that
being in a constant doubt regarding one’s existence is proof that a person actually exist.

Locke

John Locke is an English Philosopher, Physician, He is considered to be the father of Classical

liberalism some of his works on this subject matter paved the way to several revolutions to fight
the absolute powers of monarchs and rulers of his time that led to the development of governance,
politics and economic system that we now know. His work on the self is most represented by the
concept “Tabula Rasa” which means a Blank Slate. He believed that the experiences and
perceptions of a person is important in the establishment of who that person can become. Unlike
what the other Philosophers view on human experiences and senses, John Locke does not
disregard the experiences of the person in the identification and establishment of who we are as a
person. He stated that a person is born with knowing nothing and that is susceptible to stimulation
and accumulation of learning from the experiences, failures, references, and observations of the
person. Considering this, the process of the mind to absorb information and accumulate knowledge
may imply that as a person to be able to be whom we want to be, with the right stimulations,
enough experiences, as well as awareness that by primarily knowing nothing will enable one to be
open to any kind of learning and does not limit any possibilities for growth implies that the
opportunity for one person to develop to anything he wants to be is limited only to the
environment, experiences, and the choices of the person.

Hume

The Scottish Philosopher David Hume, focused his work in the field of Empiricism,

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Skepticism, and naturalism. Being an Empiricist which believes in concrete evidences and
observable experiences that meld a person, his notion on the self contradicts to the ideas of the
philosophers before him which said that at the notion of self, one’s identity and behaviour does
not exceed the physical realm and that the “Self” is only the accumulation of different impressions.
According to him, there is no permanent “self”, that since our impressions of things based from
our experiences and from such impressions we can create our ideas and knowledge which leads to
the argument that since our impression and ideas change, it may improve or totally be replaced
means that one change occurred the same phenomenon of will happen to ones idea of who he is
and what he can do.

That is the idea that Hume reiterated when saying that there should be no permanent
concept of the self. He said when a person is asked the question “who you are? “That person tends
to answer different impressions such as good, happy, optimistic, contented, sad, etc. generally they
apply to who you are now but at the same time these characteristics might change from time to
time. If the neighbour you knew your entire life to be happy and have a positive outlook suddenly
looked sad and discontented can we say that the person you seeing is not your neighbour
anymore?

Kant

Immanuel Kant, a German Philosopher that is known for his works on Empiricism and
Rationalism. Kant responded to Hume’s work by trying to establish that the collection of
impressions and different contents is what it only takes to define a person. Kant argued that the
awareness of different emotions that we have, impressions and behaviour is only a part of our self.
He said that to fully understand who we are, a certain level of consciousness or sense that uses our
intuition which synthesizes all the experiences, impressions and perceptions of ourselves will pave
the way to define and know who we really are. Kant argued that the sense called “Transcendental
Apperception” is anessence of our consciousness that provides basis for understanding and
establishing the notion of “self” by synthesizing one’s accumulation of experiences, intuition and
imagination goes. Which means that this idea goes beyond what we experience but still able to
become aware of. For example the idea of time and space, we may not be able to observe the
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movement of time and the vastness of space but we are still capable of understanding their
concept based from what we can observe as their representation. With that in mind and following
the idea of Kant about Self, we can say that we are not only an object that perceives and reacts to
whatever it is that we are experiencing, we also have the capabilities to understand beyond those
experiences and be able to think and have a clear identification who we are and establish a sense of
self that is unique and distinct from others.

Freud

Sigmund Freud, an Austrian Psychologist and Physician, he is also known as the father of
psychoanalysis and is known for his work on human nature and the unconscious. Freud believed
that man has different constructs of personality that interacts with each other and along with his
concept of the different levels of consciousness provides an idea how a person develops a sense of
self.

Aspects of Personality ID - also known as the child aspect of a person,

The ID’s attention is on satisfaction of one’s needs and self-gratification. It is driven by the
pleasure principle.

SUPEREGO- is the conscience of the one’s personality, Superego has the inclination to uphold
justice and do what is morally right and socially acceptable actions.The superego is involved in the
notion of right or wrong that is imparted to us by our parents or people that tool care for us during
childhood.

EGO - Sometimes known as the Police or the mediator between id and superego. It operates within
the boundaries of reality, primary function is to maintain the impulses of the ID to an acceptable
degree. Freud also introduced the idea that the accumulation of the experiences of a person helps
build his personality although such information are not stored in a single area where we can access
them at any time. He introduced the levels of consciousness, The Conscious where minority of our
memories are being stored and the memories that are in the conscious is easier to be tapped or
accessed.

The other one is the Pre-conscious, the middle part of the entirety of our consciousness, the
memories stored in this area can still be accessed but with a little difficulty. And the last one is the
Unconscious, this area is where majority of our memories since childhood are deeply stored. It is
very difficult to tap the memories in the unconscious, it would need a trained professional and
several special techniques in order to make some memories resurface. Freud believed that we are a
by-product of our experiences in the past. And that are actions are driven by the idea of resisting
or avoiding pain, and are molded from our need for pleasure or being happy.

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What does Science tell about you?

Natural and social sciences encompass a number of disciplines that have deliberated on and
explained the concet and nature of the self.

 Biological/Physiological Sciences
 Neurophilosophy (attributed to Paul and Patricia Churchland) is concerned with the
association of the brain and the mind.
 Psychoneuroimmunology describes the shaping of the self as similar to how the
human immune system functions.

 Social Sciences
 Psychology defined as the study of human behavior, sees the self as a theoretical
construct.
 Psychoanalysis (proposed by Sigmund Freud) focuses on the “unconscious” as a core
element of the self.
 Behaviorism maintains that the study of behavior should be made from an
observable and measurable perspective.
 Social Cognitive Theory considers behavior as a function of the environment
and internal attributes.
 Humanistic Perspective draws its assumptions from the observed criticisms of
psychoanalysis and behaviorism. It believes that every individual has the ability to reach
self-actualization and transcendence, and that each person is inherently good or possesses
something that is good.
 Sociology is the study of the collective behavior of people within the society and
focuses on social problems encountered by individuals.
 Anthropology is the study of human beings and their ancestors through time and
space and in relation to physical character, environmental and social relations, and culture.
 Political Science (PolSci) is concerned with the participation of individuals in
establishing a government and making politicl choices.
 Economics describes and analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of
goods and services.
Learning Evaluation
Teaching – Learning Activities
Words That Describe Me
Circle the words that describe you. Add additional words.

Adaptive Self-Aware Tolerant

Dependable Intelligent Fearless
Compassionate Hard Worker Capable with Hands
Respectful Calm Humble
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Energetic Eccentric Clever
Creative Confidant Thoughtful
Complex Realistic Cautious
Balanced Cooperative Shy
Quiet Attentive Picky

Other Words that describe you: ____________________________

____________________________
____________________________

Your Personal Identity

“Who Are You?”

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 A Portrait of Yourself

• The best thing(s) I ever did was (were) _______________________________________

• I wish I could lose my fear of _______________________________________________

• I know I have the talent to _________________________________________________

• I enjoy people who _______________________________________________________

• I admire ________________________________________________________________

• I feel most productive when ________________________________________________

• I am motivated by ________________________________________________________

• I almost never ___________________________________________________________

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• My idea of fun is _________________________________________________________

• Work is exciting when _____________________________________________________

• The best advice I ever got was ______________________________________________

• The thing I value most is ___________________________________________________

• If money were no object, I would ____________________________________________

• It is easy for me to focus on ________________________________________________

• My idea of a perfect life is __________________________________________________

• My best days are _________________________________________________________

• My dream is _____________________________________________________________

• I always wanted to ________________________________________________________

• I look forward to _________________________________________________________

• I spent too much time _____________________________________________________

• The thing my friends like about me is _________________________________________

• When I try to change something _____________________________________________

• In a group I like to ________________________________________________________

• If I ever win a prize it will be for ______________________________________________

List down at least 5 of your traits under each of the categories provided below. Then, identify the
possible sources of these traits by ranking the influence of the different factors.

Traits Factors of Self or Identity

Social Environmental Hereditary Person-Volition
Physical
appearance (e.g
tall, has pointed
nose, stout)

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 1
2
3
4
5
Emotional
expressions (e.g.
warm, cheerful,
irritable)
1
2
3
4
5
Interpersonal
relationship (e.g
caring, friendly,
aloof)
1
2
3
4
5

Assessment

Read the articles and answer the items that follow.

Is there such a thing as the self?

Most of us, when we look in the mirror, have a sense that behind the eyes looking back at us is a
me-ish thing: a self. But this, we are increasingly told, is an illusion. Why? Well, according to
neuroscientists, there is no single place in the brain that generates a self. According to
psychologists, there is no little commander-in-chief in our heads directing our behaviour.
According to philosophers, there is no “Cartesian ego” unifying our consciousness, no unchanging
core of identity that makes us the same person from day to day; there is only an ever-shifting
bundle of thoughts, feelings and memories.

In the last few years, a number of popularising books, bearing titles like The Self Illusion and The Ego
Trick, have set out the neuroscientific/psychological/philosophical case against the self. Much has
been made of clinical cases where the self seems to malfunction spectacularly: like Cotard
syndrome, whose victims believe they do not exist, even though they admit to having a life history;
or “dissociative identity disorder,” where a single body seems to harbour multiple selves, each with
its own name, memory, and voice. Most of us are not afflicted by such exotic disorders. When we
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are told that both science and philosophy have revealed the self to be more fragile and
fragmentary than we thought, we take the news in our stride and go on with our lives.

But perhaps we should be paying closer attention. For example, there is striking evidence (detailed
by the Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow) that each of us has a
“remembering self,” which makes decisions, and an “experiencing self,” which actually does the
living. And when the  remembering self looks back on an experience and decides how enjoyable it
was, it can arrive at an assessment that is quite out of whack from what the experiencing self
actually endured. It is your remembering self that tyrannically resolves to take another family
vacation this summer, even though your voiceless experiencing self was miserable for most of the
last one. Evidently, the subtleties of the self are of practical as well as scholarly interest.
Barry Dainton’s Self and Jennifer Ouellette’s Me, Myself and Why stand out, in different ways, from
the recent crop of books that seek to undermine our sense of self-identity. Dainton, a philosopher
who teaches at the University of Liverpool, is a dissenter from the no-self consensus. He can tell
you exactly what your self really is and how to keep track of it over time, even if it somehow
escapes your body (which he appears to think is possible). Dainton presents a theory of the “core
self,” in all its philosophical purity. In contrast, Ouellette is concerned with the “extended self,” the
sum total of all we turn out to be: genetically, socially, temperamentally, sexually. An American
science journalist, she wants us to understand how genes and environment conspire to make each
of us idiosyncratically singular—indeed, more singular than you might have imagined (as in the
case of a transgender person mentioned by Ouellette who refers to her genitalia as “Schrödinger’s
vagina”). Ouellette goes to heroic lengths to explore her own self, on one occasion even dropping
LSD in an attempt to dismantle it temporarily.
The basic question about the self is: what, in essence, am I? Is my identity rooted in something
physical (my body/brain) or something psychological (my memories/personality)? Normally,
physical and mental go together, so we are not compelled to think of ourselves as primarily one or
the other. But thought experiments can vex our intuitions about personal identity. In An Essay
Concerning Human Understanding (1689), John Locke imagined a prince and a cobbler miraculously
having their memories switched while they sleep: the prince is shocked to find himself waking up
in the body of the cobbler, and the cobbler in the body of the prince. To Locke, it seemed clear the
prince and the cobbler had in effect undergone a body swap, so psychological criteria must be
paramount in personal identity.
A more contemporary thought experiment along these lines involves “teleportation.” Suppose you
want to get to Mars in a hurry. Instead of going in a spaceship, you opt to be beamed there. You
enter a teleportation chamber on Earth, where a complete scan of your body is done, after which
your body is vaporised; then the information is sent at the speed of light to Mars, where a 3D
printer creates a perfect duplicate of your body, right down to the cut on your upper lip you got
from shaving that morning. You walk out of the receiving cubicle on Mars after just a few minutes
of unconsciousness.

Or do you? Is teleportation really a mode of travel? Might it not rather be a mode of death? It
maintains perfect psychological continuity while destroying your original body and brain.

For Derek Parfit, who presented this thought experiment in his 1984 book, Reasons and Persons, this
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type of teleportation is a survivable process. Psychological continuity, Parfit argued, preserves
what matters in personal identity. But not all philosophers agree with this neo-Lockean view.
Thomas Nagel, for one, thinks that the correct criterion for personal identity is physical, not
psychological. The key to your identity, Nagel has suggested, is the physical object that is causally
responsible for the continuing existence of your consciousness: your brain. On this “I am
essentially my brain” view, you cannot survive teleportation of the kind Parfit describes. Once your
brain is vaporised, the lights go out for good. Even an exact physical duplicate of your body and
brain would not be you—although it would certainly believe it was.
So which will it be, the psychological criterion or the physical? Those would seem to be the only
options on the table (unless you’re one of those benighted people who believe in immaterial
souls). But in Self, Dainton stakes out what he takes to be a novel position—and a “very radical”
one, by his own estimation. What is critical to your identity, Dainton claims, has nothing to do with
your psychological make-up. It is your stream of consciousness that matters, regardless of its
contents. That’s what makes you you. As long as “your consciousness flows on without
interruption, you will go on existing”—even if you have massive amnesia, or some evil scientist
replaces your psychology with a duplicate of Steve Coogan’s.

But what if you undergo anaesthesia, or get knocked out, or simply doze off? Dainton is aware that
such interruptions in the stream of consciousness pose a problem for his initial conception, so he
adjusts it a bit. Your self is not your stream of consciousness, which admittedly stops and starts;
rather, it is your “capacity” for consciousness, which is still there even when it is inactive during
dreamless sleep. “According to my account of the self,” Dainton writes, “there is a very real sense in
which we are nothing but potential.” The self, to use his term, is a “C-capacity”—the “C” standing
for “consciousness.”

This seems to be an awfully austere view of the self. Am I really just a naked potential for
consciousness, stripped of all psychological “quiddity,” inherent nature? If so, what makes my self
different from yours? Well, our C-capacities are embodied in different brains. But if C-capacities get
their identities from the brains that realise them, then Dainton’s theory is not so novel after all. It is
merely Nagel’s “I am my brain” position, disguised by some ungainly new terminology. But Dainton
suggests that, given the right circumstances, a single stream of consciousness might be able to
flow from one brain to another—or even from a brain into a computer. All that is required is the
right kind of “bridge” (or perhaps we should say “plumbing,” to avoid mixing our metaphors).

In fairness to Dainton, interesting philosophical propositions often sound like caricatures when
they are ripped out of the context of careful reasoning in which they naturally live. And Dainton’s
reasoning is not just careful, but often clever. It is also fun to follow, thanks to his relaxed and
humorous prose. In a brief volume he ranges over a vast conceptual territory, lucidly presenting
current views of how consciousness fits into the physical world, and speculating with brio on the
fate of the self in a future age of brain-augmentation and virtual reality.

I only wish Dainton’s own conception of the self was not so minimal. As he himself acknowledges,
it leaves untouched the issues about the self raised by contemporary neuroscience and
psychology. It says nothing about the role of the conscious self as the (real or deluded) originator

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of our choices and actions. And, unlike Derek Parfit’s view of the self, it seems to have no
implications for our attitude toward death. If I am in essence nothing but a capacity for
consciousness, how should I feel about the inevitable extinction of this bare capacity, as opposed
to what Philip Larkin called the “lading-list” of contingencies with which it becomes freighted over
the course of my life?

Philosophy alone cannot give us an idea of how weird and extensive that “lading-list” of the self is.
For that, we need science, in all its laboratory-bench messiness. And it is hard to imagine a more
delightful guide to the science of self than Ouellette. In Me, Myself, and Why, she uses all the
devices of contemporary genetics, brain scanning and personality testing to delve deep into the
formation of her own self.

The book opens with the author, who was adopted as a child and never knew her biological
mother, getting a first look as an adult at her faded onion-skin birth certificate, and marvelling at
the unfamiliar name that it bears: “fragments of a self that might have been.” She sends a bit of
her saliva in the mail to a genetic-testing company called 23andMe to get an idea of the DNA she
inherited. This becomes the pretext for an informative account of how genes can fine-tune our
personalities. (People with a long version of a gene that codes for dopamine-receptor molecules,
for example, “tend to score higher on extroversion and novelty-seeking. The longer the gene, the
greater the need for novelty.”) Ouellette explains why people are “surprisingly good” when it
comes to assessing their inner feelings and insecurities, but are much poorer at assessing their
outward traits, like intelligence and attractiveness. Discussing narcissicism, she notes that
celebrities test higher than average for this trait, with female reality TV stars scoring off the chart.

The most entertaining chapter in this very entertaining book concerns the author’s acid trip—
undertaken in a spirit of pure enquiry and ending in psychedelic bathos. She describes the history
of LSD and psilocybin, what little is understood about their temporary fragmenting effect on the
brain, and their positive potential for curing cluster headaches, breaking the hold of alcoholism,
and generally “rebooting” a brain that is caught up in destructive loops. What LSD is no good for is
“mind control,” as the CIA, to its disappointment, discovered during the Cold War when it set up a
string of brothels in San Francisco where prostitutes would slip their johns a tab of acid so agents
could observe its effects through two-way mirrors.

Ouellette treads lightly over philosophical ground, but she does take up the deep question of how
different parts of the brain might collude to generate self-consciousness. A robust sense of self
seems to arise in us by the age of two, when children learn to recognise themselves in the mirror.
Chimpanzees can also do this, and are thus believed to be endowed—afflicted?—with
selfconsciousness; but few if any other species pass the mirror test. Yet even the humble
roundworm C elegans, with its paltry 302 neurons and 2,462 synaptic connections (which scientists
have exhaustively mapped), has a single neuron devoted to distinguishing its body from the rest of
the world. “I think it’s fair to say that C elegans has a very primitive self-representation” comments
the philosopher-neuroscientist Patricia Churchland—indeed, she adds, “a self.”

If the spectrum of selfhood begins with the roundworm, surely it ends with Proust—whose own

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oversubtle explorations of memory and the self are sadly neglected in these two otherwise
estimable books. Moving from Barry Dainton’s philosophical conception of the self—pure, pristine
potential—to the endlessly variegated empirical self traced by Jennifer Ouellette, I was reminded
of Proust’s description (near the beginning of The Guermantes Way) of what it’s like to wake up out of
a leaden slumber. At first, there’s just a glimmer of undefined consciousness; you’re not even a
person. Then gradually, in a sort of resurrection, you recover your thoughts, your memories, your
personality; you become you again. Proust’s narrator likens the awakening process to finding a lost
object. What baffles him is how, “among the millions of human beings one might be,” he unerringly
manages to lay his hands on the very self he was the day before. Puzzling as the self is, that might
be one puzzle too many.

List down three things that you significantly learned from the reading.
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List down three things that are still unclear to you.

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List down three questions that you want to ask about the reading.

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Come up with one philosophical statement of your sense of self. Your Philosophical statement
should encompass the points of view of all the members.

What is your philosophy of the self?

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Identify from which parent you have inherited the following attributes.

Father Mother Both Neither

Height
Weight
Shape of face
Eyes
Nose
Ears
Lips
Color of the Hair
Skin Complexion
Feet size
Body and structure

After accomplishing the above table, answer the following questions:

In terms of you physical features, who do you resemble more – your father or mother? How do
you say so?

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In terms of temperament or disposition (quiet-loud, jolly), who do you take after - father or
mother? Explain your answer.

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______________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Based on your answers to the preceding questions, do you think that when you reach your
dominant parents’ age, you will also be like him or her? Why or why not?

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Rubrics

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 References
Stein & Stein (2011). Ritual. In the Anthropology of religion, magic and witchcraft (pp 77 –
102) .Prentice Hall. Shoemaker, E. (2016). Everything you Need to know about Male and Female
Erogenous Zone. Retrieved from https://greatist.com/play/guide-to-male-female-erogeneous-
zones
Singh, S. (2008). The Concept of Physical Self in Psychology. Retrieved from
https://www.all-about- psychology.com/the-concept-of-physical-self-in-psychology.html/
Tan, M. (2008).Stress and the Filipino. Retrieved from http://pcij.org/stories/stress-and-the-
filipino/
Triandis, H. (1989). The self and social behavior in differing cultural contexts.Psychol. Rev.
96.3.506 -520.

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