The SELF from various Philosopical Perspective

Do you know what is knowledge ? Or do you believe that every human has both body and soul ?

Philosophy is known as the study of basic ideas of knowledge , reality and existence , mainly in academic
discipline that concern investigating the nature of importance of common scientific beliefs.

The ones who are solemnly skeptic about myths and deviate to understand reality and acknowledge
perennial questions are the Greeks or commonly known in history as the PRE- SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHER
like Thales , pythagoras , Parmenides , Heraclitus and Empedocles.

The Socratic Philosophers believed that the “Arche” or the primal matter is the ultimate beginning of all
the other movement , and has no source outside itself and can’t be destroyed which explains the
diversity of the things in the world.

SOCRATES , PLATO , ST. AUGUSTINE and ST. THOMAS AQUINAS , are western philosophers and all of
them had different ideas about what was the true definition of knowledge.

Socrates and Plato are two of the Ancient Greek Philosophers whereas ; Socrates think that philosophy
should only produce good outcome that benefits the society as a whole. To him the true venture of
philosopher is to know oneself. “The unexamined life is not worth living “ s sfamous dictum that he
usually uttered at his trial for corrupting the minds of youth. He also succeed to made people think
about who they are. Lastly he believes that every peron is dualistic , that a man has BODY and SOUL ,
that an individual has an imperfect/permanent body and perfect/permanet soul. PLATO developed the
beliefs that a good life necessities more than just a specific tyep of knowledge. He believes tat the soul
has 3 components Rational soul , Spiritual soul and Appetitive soul. He also said that when these 3
components are attained the persons aoul becomes just and virtous. And if the 3 components are not
attained the souls wpuld be unable to be just nor function.

St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas on the other hand are Philosophers of Medieval Period ,where St.
Augustine follows the vies of Plato but adds christianity to it. He said that man is of bifurcated nature ,
one parts dwells in the world and yearns to be with divine , the other part is capable of reaching
immortality , where the body dies and the aoul live eternally in spiritual bliss with God. St. Thomas
Aquinas was an Italian Dominican Friar and Philosopher , he believes that a man consist of matter and
form. That the body of the human is aimilar to animals but what makes a human is hia essence , where
the soul make us human.

And there are few Modern Philosophers who explained what was the difference between the body and
soul.

One of them is Rene Descartes , he is known as the Father of Modern Philosophy like Socrates ,
Descartes believed in human dualistic but for Descartes Human Dualism is body and mind , where he
refer to as the body is a machine attached to the mind and it’s the mind that makes a man. Next on the
list is David Hume , he is somewhat different from the others philosophers mentioned above because of
he disagree with all of them , he said that ‘one can only know what comes from the senses and
experiences”. He also suggest that the “self is nothing but a bundle of impressions and ideas. Impression
as the basic object of our experience and forms the core our thoughts and Idea as copies of impressions
but not as “real” as impressions. Self as a collection of different perceptions which rapidly succeed each
other and as a perpetual flux and movement. Immanuel Kant agrees with Hume , he said that everything
starts with perception or sensation of impressions – that there is a mind that regulates those
impressions , time and space are ideas that cant find in the world but is built on our minds refer as the
apparatus of mind. Kant also said that Self can organized different impressions that gets in the relation
to his own existence and human need active intelligence to synthesize knowledge or exerience that self
is not only an peraonality but also the “seat of knowledge”. While , Gilbert Ryle denies that the internal ,
non physical self is not an entity one can locate and analyze but simply the convenient name that we use
to refer the behavior human makes. The last Philosopher is a Phenomologist who says that the mind-
body is an invalid problem, that the mind and body are inseparable, that the living body , his thoughts ,
emotions and experiences are all one.

Therefore knowledge has different meant ngs from different people from our History.