Our names represent who we are.

Human beings attach names that are meaningful to

people because names are supposed to designate us in
the world

However, a name is not the person itself, it is a

signifier. The self is thought to be something else than
the name.

The self is something that a person perennially

The Self from Various Philosophical molds, shapes, and develop. It is not static, it is plastic.
Perspectives
The challenge is for a person to discover him/herself
C1

Socrates and Plato

Pre-Socratic thinkers

Thales, Pythagoras,

The Inquiry of the Self Parmenides, Heraclitus,

and Empedocles were
concerned with explaining
what the world is really
made up of, why the world
is so, and what explains
the changes that they
observed around them
Socrates
more concerned with the
problem of the self
he was the 1st philosopher who
engaged in a systematic
questioning about the self
to him, the true task of the
philosopher is to know oneself;
the worst thing that can happen
to men is to live, but to die inside
man is composed of body
(imperfect) and soul (perfect) *essence
Augustine and
Thomas Aquinas
Augustine
following the view of Plato
and infusing the doctrine of
Christianity, he believed that
man is divine in 2 parts:
imperfect yearns to be with
the Divine and capable of
reaching immortality
body is bound to die on earth
and soul is to anticipate
living eternally with God
Plato
supported the idea of his master but he added that
there are three components of the soul
in his magnum opus “The Republic,” justice in human
person can be achieved if the three parts of the soul
are working harmoniously: rational soul (reason
and intellect), spirited soul (in charge of emotion),
and appetitive soul (based on desires such as eating
and rest)
when this ideal is attained, the human person’s soul
becomes just and virtuous
Thomas Aquinas
adopted some ideas from Aristotle
man is composed of two parts: matter and from
matter is common for all (eg. body), form is
the essence of a substance or thing (eg. soul,
character)
the soul is what animates the body; it is what
makes us humans
 Rene Descartes
Father of modern Philosophy
constant search for knowledge
and continuous search for self
he claims that there is so much
that we should doubt. Since
much of what we think and
believe are not infallible
(faultless), they may turn out to
be false
cogito ergo sum “I think
therefore, I am”
Immanuel Kant
Kant recognizes the accuracy of Hume’s
account (sensation and perception of
impressions) but he thinks that the things
man perceive around him are not just
randomly infused but are organized
instead (eg. time and space)
without the self, one cannot organize the
different impressions that one gets in
relation to his existence
he suggests that intelligence in man
synthesizes all knowledge and experience
self is not just a personality, but a seat of
knowledge and acquisition for all persons
David Hume
Scottish philosopher, empiricist
(observing and experimenting), has a very
unique way of looking at man
one can know only what comes from the
senses and experiences
men can attain knowledge by experiencing
experiences may be categorized into two:
impressions (these are vivid and can be
felt by the senses, can be experienced) and
ideas (imagination)
what one thinks is a unified self is simply
a combination of all experiences of the
person
Gilbert Ryle
denied the concept of an
internal, non physical self
for him, what truly matters is
the behavior that one
manifests in his day to day life
self is not an entity one can
locate and analyze, but simply
the convenient name people
use to refer to all behaviors
that people make
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
unlike Ryle who denies the
self, Merleau-Ponty said that
the mind and body are
intertwined and cannot be
separated

he also dismissed the

Cartesian dualism (mind
and body), for him the living
body, his thoughts, emotions,
and experiences are all one