ASSESSMENT

In your own words, state what “self” is for each of the following philosophers.
Your answers must be in the space provided.

1. Socrates

According to Socrates, One's true self is not to be identified with what we own, with our
social status, our reputation, or even with our body. Instead, Socrates famously
maintained that our true self is our soul.

2. Plato

Based on the discussion, Plato believes that humans are made up of three materials –
the body, the mind, and the soul. He also believes that the soul is distinct from the body,
and it is indestructible and eternal. Plato’s belief about the distinction of body, mind, and
soul gave rise to the belief that when a person dies, the soul remains unaffected and
leaves the body. The body decomposes, but the soul will exist eternally. This is similar
to the Christian belief that humans have a body, spirit, and soul. In addition, Plato also
believes that the soul is what makes us unique, and it gives us our identity.

3. Augustine

Based on our discussion, Augustine's sense of self is his relation to God, both in his
recognition of God's love and his response to it—achieved through self-presentation,
then self-realization. Augustine believed one could not achieve inner peace without
finding God's love.

4. Descartes

Descartes believed the mind is the seat of our consciousness. Because it houses our
drives, intellect, and passions, it gives us our identity and our sense of self.
5. Hume

According to Hume, as human beings we tend to think of ourselves as selves—who are

stable entities that exist over time but no matter how closely we examine our own
experiences, we never observe anything beyond a series of transient feelings,
sensations, and impressions. David Hume suggests that the self is just a bundle of
perceptions, like links in a chain. To look for a unifying self beyond those perceptions is
like looking for a chain apart from the links that constitute it.

6. Kant

According to Kant, both of these theories are incomplete when it comes to the self.
According to him, we all have an inner and an outer self which together form our
consciousness. The inner self is composed of our psychological state and our rational
intellect. The outer self includes our senses and the physical world.

7. Ryle

The self is the way people behave”. The self is basically our behavior. This concept
provided the philosophical principle, “I act therefore I am”. In short, the self is the same
as bodily behavior.

8. Ponty
Maurice Merleau-Ponty believed the physical body to be an important part of what
makes up the subjective self. Merleau-Ponty wrote Phenomenology of Perception. This
work asserts that self and perception are encompassed in a physical body. The physical
body is part of self.