Assignment #1

Complete the table below.

Philosophers Views/Key points on the concept of “Self”

Plato Plato believes that the soul is the self, and that the soul is a separate
entity from the body. He also believes that the soul is only
temporarily housed in the body. As a result, we get the idea in
Plato's concept of the self that when a human person die, the soul
departs from the body, leaving the body to decay. The soul cannot
die since it is ethereal and indestructible.

Plato claims that the soul, which he refers to as one's own self
possesses three parts, namely, the rational soul, the spiritual soul,
and the appetitive soul.

The rational soul, according to Plato, is found in the brain. The

rational soul, which is housed in the head, allows a person to think,
reflect, analyze, and perform other cognitive tasks.

On the other hand, the spiritual soul is kept in the chest. It allows
the human to feel joy, sadness, abomination, rage, and other
emotions.

Finally, the abdomen houses the appetitive soul. This is the part of
the soul that causes bodily discomfort, hunger, thirst, and other
physical desires in humans.

Kant & Descartes The self, according to Immanuel Kant, is what allows us to
experience an intelligible reality since it is the self that actively
organizes and synthesizes all of our thoughts and perceptions. The
self, in the form of consciousness, constructs an ordered and
objective reality that is stable and can be explored scientifically
using conceptual categories, which he refers to as transcendental
deduction of categories. To put it another way, the self constructs
its own reality, actively creating a world that is familiar, predictable,
and, most importantly, mine.

On the other hand, Descartes' definition of self is based on the Latin

phrase Cogito ergo sum, which means "I think therefore I am." For
him, the act of thinking about oneself – of being self-aware – is
proof enough that one exists. He believes that no rational person
 would ever doubt his or her own existence as a conscious, thinking
creature - at least not while we are aware of thinking about
ourselves. The essence of the human self, according to Descartes, is
a thinking creature that doubts, understands, analyses, questions,
and reasons.

Hume Hume proposes that the self is nothing more than a collection of
perceptions, like links in a chain. Seeking for a unified self outside of
such impressions is like looking for a chain without the links that
make it up. Our idea of the self, according to Hume, is the product
of our natural habit to attribute unitary existence to any collection
of associated parts. This belief is natural, however it is unsupported
by logic.

Locke According to Locke, personal identity or the self "depends on

consciousness, not on substance" nor on the soul. We are the same
person to the extent that we are conscious of the past and future
thoughts and actions in the same way as we are conscious of
present thoughts and actions. If consciousness is this "thought"
which "goes along with the substance…which makes the same
person," then personal identity is only founded on the repeated act
of consciousness: "This may show us wherein personal identity
consists: not in the identity of substance, but…in the identity of
consciousness."

Socrates The soul, according to Socrates, is a person's true self. It is because

the soul, according to Socrates, is the seat of knowledge and
ignorance, as well as goodness and badness. The soul, for Socrates,
is the essence of the human being since it is the seat of knowledge
and ignorance, of virtue and vileness. In fact, Socrates claimed that
if we look within for self-knowledge, we will eventually find our true
self. From this perspective, the self is our "inner being."

Aristotle Unlike Plato, Aristotle does not believe that the human person has a
soul apart from the body. The self, or the human person, according
to Aristotle, is a combination of body and spirit, which are
inseparable. Therefore, Aristotle's concept of the self was built in
terms of hylomorphism.
The soul, according to Aristotle, is the "shape" of the human body.
The soul is the basic structure of the human body that permits
humans to undertake human activities such as thinking, willing,
imagining, wanting, and seeing as a "form" of the body.
 While Aristotle believed that the human person is primarily made up
of body and soul, he was led to assume that the soul that animates
the body is the "real self" of humans. However, Aristotle believes
the body to be equally significant as the soul since it serves as the
"matter" to the soul.

St. Agustine Augustine's idea of self is defined by his relationship to God, which
includes both his perception of God's love and his response to it,
which he achieves through self-presentation, and eventually self-
realization. Augustine felt that finding God's love was the only way
to obtain inner peace.