UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

The Self from Various Perspective

PHILOSOPHY Comes from two Greek words philos which means “love” and sophia which
means “wisdom” In essence it can be translated to love of knowledge or passion for learning. It
is the investigation of normal and fundamental issues. The term was likely instituted by
Pythagoras (c. 570– 495 BCE). Philosophical strategies incorporate addressing basic dialog,
judicious contention, and deliberate introduction.

PHILOSOPHERS
Augustine (354—430 C.E.)
 St. Augustine is a fourth century philosopher whose groundbreaking philosophy
infused Christian doctrine with Neoplatonism.
 He is a famous Catholic theologian known for his agnostic contributions to
Western philosophy. He argues that skeptics have no basis for claiming to know
that there is no knowledge.
 In a proof for existence similar to one later made famous by René Descartes,
Augustine says, “[Even] If I am mistaken, I am.”
 He is the first Western philosopher to promote what has come to be called "the
argument by analogy”:

“There are bodies external to mine that behave as I behave, and that appear to
be nourished as mine is nourished; so, by analogy, I am justified in believing that
these bodies have a similar mental life to mine”

Additionally, Augustine adopts a subjective view of time and says that time is
nothing in reality but exists as a reality only in the human mind.

Sigmund Freud (1856—1939)

 Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was a physiologist, medical doctor,
psychologist and influential thinker of the early twentieth century.
 He articulated and refined the concepts of the unconscious, infantile sexuality
and repression, and he proposed a tripartite account of the mind’s structure—all
as part of a radically new conceptual and therapeutic frame of reference for the
understanding of human psychological development and the treatment of
abnormal mental conditions.
David Hume (1711—1776)
 A Scottish philosopher who is famous because off his bold skeptical approach to
a range of philosophical subjects.
 He questioned basic beliefs of personal identity and argued that there is no
permanent “self” that continues over time.
 He dismissed standard accounts of causality and argued that our idea of cause-
effect relations is grounded in habits of thinking, rather than in the perception of
causal forces in the external world itself.
 He defended the skeptical position that human reason is inherently
contradictory, and it is only through naturally instilled beliefs that we can
navigate our way through common life.

David Hume (1711—1776) - Philosophy of Religion

 He argued that it is unreasonable to believe testimonies of alleged miraculous
events, and he hints that we should reject religions that are founded on miracle
testimonies. He is against the common belief of the time that God’s existence
could be proven through a design or causal argument.
 He also advanced theories on the origin of popular religious beliefs, grounding
such notions in the psychology of human psychology rather than in rational
argument or divine revelation. The larger aim of his critique was to separate
philosophy from religion and thus allow philosophy to pursue its own ends
without rational over-extension or psychological corruption.

Plato (427—347 B.C.E.)

 Plato is one of the world's best known and most widely read and studied
philosophers.
 He was the student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, and he wrote in the
middle of the fourth century B.C.E. in ancient Greece.
 Though influenced primarily by Socrates, to the extent that Socrates is usually
the main character in many of Plato's writings, he was also influenced by
Heraclitus, Parmenides, and the Pythagoreans.
 There are varying degrees of controversy over which of Plato's works are
authentic, and in what order they were written, due to their antiquity and the
manner of their preservation through time. Nonetheless, his earliest works are
generally regarded as the most reliable of the ancient sources on Socrates, and
 the character Socrates that we know through these writings is one of the
greatest of the ancient philosophers.

John Locke (1632—1704)

 John Locke was among the most famous philosophers and political theorists of
the 17th century. He was also influential in the areas of theology, religious
toleration, and educational theory.
 Founder of a school of thought known as British Empiricism.
 Essay Concerning Human Understanding
 Locke set out to offer an analysis of the human mind and its acquisition of
knowledge. He offered an empiricist theory according to which we acquire ideas
through our experience of the world. The mind is then able to examine,
compare, and combine these ideas in numerous different ways.
 In addition to this broader project, the Essay contains a series on important, and
widely divergent, philosophical themes.
 In politics, Locke is best known as a proponent of limited government. He uses a
theory of natural rights to argue that governments have obligations to their
citizens, have only limited powers over their citizens, and can ultimately be
overthrown by citizens under certain circumstances.

René Descartes (1596—1650)

 René Descartes is often credited with being the “Father of Modern Philosophy.”

His fundamental break with Scholastic philosophy was twofold:

1. Descartes thought that the Scholastics’ method was prone to doubt given
their reliance on sensation as the source for all knowledge.
2. He wanted to replace their final causal model of scientific explanation
with the more modern, mechanistic model.

References Online Supplementary Reading Materials

 http://www.iep.utm.edu
 https://www.learningimind.com