LESSON 1
culture gets under the skin” (Anderson-
ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
CULTURE
-customary beliefs, social forms and material
traits of a racial, religious, or social group.
TABULA RASA BY JOHN LOCKE
 Implication is that at birth all
individuals are basically the same in
their potential for character
development and that their adult
personalities are exclusively the
products of their postnatal experiences,
which differ from culture to culture
 Human children are biologically ill-
equipped to survive without culture
URIE BRONFENBRENNER
 He divided the environment into five
levels. The microsystem is the most
influential, has the closest relationship
to the person, and is one where direct
contact occurs. The mesosystem consists
of interactions between a person’s
Microsystems
 This theory help teacher look into a
very child’s environmental system in
order to understand more about the
characteristics and needs of each child.
THOMAS CSORDAS (1999,143)
 “If embodiment is an existential
condition in which the body is the
subjective source or inter subjective
ground of experience, then studies
under the rubric of embodiment are
not about the body per se. Instead they
are about culture and experience
insofar as these can be understood
from the standpoint of bodily being in
the world”
 Embodiment is often defined as “how
Fye 2012,16)
 TV networks contribute in shaping our
beliefs, political ideologies and
viewpoints thereby creation an
individual among us.
 Television influences the language,
tradition, beliefs, knowledge and even
personalities.
 The print media is also shaping us in
many different ways.
 Radio also is a big influence
 Icons that serve as an example and
thus became an object of emulation
 Our religion, tradition, and superstition
impose a degree of influence on our
being
 Our history, story, mythology and
literature give us our identity
CLIFFORD GEERTZ (1929-2006)
 American anthropologist
 Provide an understanding and
acknowledgement of “thick
description” that exists within cultures;
understanding other peoples
understandings of things.
 THICK DESCRIPTION is an
anthropological method of explaining
with as much detail as possible the
reason behind human actions.
 CULTURE is “an historically
transmitted pattern of meanings
embodied in symbols, a system of
inherited conceptions expressed in
symbolic forms by means of which men
communicate, perpetuate, and
develop their knowledge and their
attitude toward life” (GEERYS 1973)
 He believes that culture is not
something that occurs in the head of
humans;
  “Culture is public, because meaning is”
(GEERTZ 1973)
 Dress or costume is a reality that has
meaning to the one who wears them.
 Teenagers wear their clothes because it
has symbolic meaning to them, the
meaning is the reality that defines
them
PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
SELF
 A person’s essential being that
distinguishes them from others,
especially considered as the object of
introspection or reflexive action
 Set of someone’s characteristics, such as
personality and ability, that are not
physical and make that person
different from other people
PREMISE:
-personality of normal adults and kids is
composed of a group of subselves or parts
WILLIAM JAMES
 Self is the essence of a person: his
thoughts, feelings and actions,
experiences, beliefs, values, principle
and relationship
 “ME” Self refers to the aspect of
someone that come from that person’s
experiences
 “I” Self classified as the thinking self
 The Me-self and I-self creates one
cohesive self
Material Self
 Consists of things that belong to us or
that we belong to. Things like family,
clothe, our bodu, and money are some
of what makes up our material selves
SOCIAL SELF
 This is the self in a given social situation
 For James, people change how they act
depending on the social situation that
they are in
 People had as many social selves as
many as the social situations they
participate in
SPIRITUAL SELF
 Our subjective and most intimate self
 One’s personality, core values, and
conscience that do not typically change
throughout their lifetime
 More concrete or permanent that the
other two selves
PURE EGO
 Most puzzling aspect of the self
 Sub category of the self that is capable
of recognizing its own thoughts
 Self that synthesizes its thinking and
brings all thoughts together
 James’ concept of the Me-self and I-self
facilitates self-reflection thereby
minimizing bias
 For CARL ROGERS the real self and
ideal self are terms used to describe
personality domains
REAL SELF
 Real self is who we actually are
 How we think, how we feel, look and
act
 Can be seen by others, but because we
have no way of truly knowing how
others view us, the real is our self-
image.
IDEAL SELF
  How we want to be
 Idealized image that we have
developed over time, base on
what we have learned and
experience
 Could include components of
what our parents have taught
us, what we admire in others,
what re society promotes, and
what we think is in our best
interest
DONALD WOODS WINNICOT
 For Winnicot the self is very important
part of mental and emotional well-
being which plays a vital role in
creativity
 People were born without a clearly
developed self and had to search for
authentic sense of self as they grew
TRUE SELF
 Real self, authentic self, original self and
vulnerable self
 Rooted from early infancy in the
experience of being alive
 Baby creates the experience of a sense
of reality, a sense that life is worth
living
FALSE SELF
 Also known as fake self, ideal self,
perfect self, superficial self, and pseudo
self
MULTIPLE SELF
 Self that resides in the dimension of the
mental and cultural and is not really
reducible to the physical and biological
 3 DOMAINS
1. Experiential self-theatre of
consciousness and the first person
felt experience of being. Includes
the felt of consistency. Part of you
that disappears
2. Private self-consciousness system-
called narrator or interpreter
because is the portion of your being
that verbally narrates what us
happening and why and tries to
make sense of what is going on.
Also includes reportable self-
concept and explicit beliefs and
values
3. Public self or persons-refers to
the public image that you attempt
to project others, which in turn
interacts with how people actually
see you
UNIFIED SELF
 Self that consists of unified consciousness
of acts of experiencing
 It is present when, for the current acts
of experiencing that one is doing,
consciousness of one act of experiencing
PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES
“The only true wisdom is knowing you
know nothing”- SOCRATES
“Human behavior flows from three main
sources: desire, emotion and knowledge”
–PLATO
TRIPARTITE SOUL
 Rational part desires to exert reason
and attain rational decisions (RULING
CLASS)
 Spirited part desires supreme honor
(MILITARY CLASS)
 The appetite part of the soul that
desires bodily pleasure such as food,
drink, sex, etc (COMMONER)
“All human actions have one or more of
these seven causes: chance, nature,
compulsion, habit, reason, passion,
desire” –ARISTOTLE
 Contributed the foundation of both
symbolic logic and scientific
thinking
 Best way to gain knowledge was
through “natural science” which is
what we would call now SCIENCE
 Happiness depends in ourselves
“The truth is like a lion. You don’t have
to defend it. Let it loose. It will defend
itself.”- ST. AUGUSTINE
 Important figure in the development of
western Christianity
 Brings together wisdom of Greek
philosophy and the divine truths
contained in the scripture
 Absolute and immutable is the living
god, creator of the entire universe
 “Do unto others, what you want others
do unto you”
“Dubito ergo cogito, cogito sergo sum” (I
doubt therefore I think, I think therefore
I am) –RENE DESCARTES
 The Self is define as a subject that
thinks
 The Self that has full competence in the
powers of human reason
 Having distanced from the self from all
sources of truth from authority and
tradition, the self can only find its truth
and authenticity within its won
capacity to think.
“No man’s knowledge here can go
beyond his experience” –JOHN LOCKE
 Personal identity is a matter of
psychological continuity
 Personal identity is founded on
consciousness
 Identify over time is fixed by
awareness of the past
 Locke posits an “empty” mind, a
tabula rasa, which is shape by
experience
“A wise man proportions his belief to
evidence”-DAVID HUME
 Rejects the notion of identity over time
 There are no persons that continue to
exists over time
 According to Hume, you cannot
 Or when you do the only things you are
thinking about are individual
impressions or perceptions of yourself
“To be is to do”-IMMANUEL KANT
 Consciousness is the central feature of
the self
 It is divided into :
1. Internal self-composed of
psychological state and informed
decisions; remembering our own
state, how can we combine the
new and old ideas with our mind
2. External self-ourselves and
physical world where the
representation of the objects
“The child is the father of a man”-
SIGMUND FRAUD
 Self continues from childhood to
adulthood
 Personality is determined by childhood
experiences
 Personality is largely unconscious
 Structure of the Self
1. Id: animalistic self, pleasure
principle
2. Ego: executive self, reality principle
 3. Superego: conscience, morality
principle
“I made it, and so I am” –GILBERT RYLE
 Reject the theory that mental states
are separable from physical state
 Adequate description of human
behavior need never refer to anything
but the operations of human bodies
 His form of Philosophical Behaviorism
(the belief that all mental phenomena
can be explained by reference to
publicly observable behavior) became
a standard view for several decades
 Philosophers do not need a “hidden”
principle to explain the supra
mechanical capacities of human
“We know not through our intellect but
through our experience”-MAURICE
MERLEAU PONTY
 Existentialism and its intention to begin
with an analysis of the concrete
experiences, perceptions, and
difficulties, of human existence
 Consciousness, the world, and the
human body as a perceiving thing are
intricately intertwined and mutually
engaged
 Our perception of the self is a collection
of our perceptions of our outside world
LESSON 2
SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
Self as product of modern society :
Modernization – delocalized self – free to seek
to own identity; free from customary
constraints
SELF AS A NECESSARY FICTION
 Self: sum of individual’s action,
thoughts, and feelings (FRIEDRICH
AND NIETZSCHE)
 Self as a representation
POST MODERN VIEW OF SELF
 Self is narrative, a text written and
rewritten manifestations: information
technology dislocates the self , self is
digitalized in cyberspace. Global
migration produces multicultural
identities
 Post modern selves are “pluralized” self
SELF AS ARTISTIC CREATION
 Self is not discovered, it is made
through the socialization process
 Individual is active, strategizing agent
that negotiates for the definition of
himself
SELF CREATION AND COLLECTIVE
INDETITY
 Memories play significant role in
creating the self and identity
 Self is formed within “imagined
communities”
 Self creation along cultural lines must
be done in maximum cultural
recognition
SELF CREATION AND THE STRUGGLE
FOR CULTURAL IDENTITY
 Challenge of self identity amidst
recognition of racial and ethnic
identities
BEYOND SELF CREATION
 Search for self identity is a product of
modern society but this is complicated
by the socio cultural sensibilities of
postmodernity
  Self constantly lives in this paradox
MEAD AND THE SOCIAL SELF
 He is well known for his theory of social
self which is based on the central
argument that the self is a social
emergent
GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
 Social conception of the self entails that
individual selves are the products of
social interaction and not the logical or
biological preconditions of that
interaction
 It is not initially there at birth, but arises
in the process of social experience and
activity
 Mind arises out of the social act of
communication
 According to Mead there are 3
activities through which the self is
developed:
1. Language-allows individual to
take on the roles of the other and
allows people to respond to his or
her own gestures in terms of the
symbolized attitudes of others
2. Play –individuals take on the roles
of other people and pretend to be
those other people in order to
express the expectations of
significant other. This process of role
playing is key to the generation of
self consciousness and to the
general development of the self
3. Game-individuals is required to
internalize the roles of all others
who are involved with him or her in
the game and must comprehend
the rules of the game
 Mead is also known for his concept of
“I” and “me”
 According to mead the self has two
sides
 The “me” represents the expectation
and attitudes of others
- Organized set of attitudes of others
that the individual assumes
- Socialized aspect of the individual
- Represents the learned behavior,
attitudes, and expectations of
others and the society
- Considered a phase of self that is in
the past
- Has been developed by the
knowledge of society and social
interactions that the individual has
gained
 The “I” can be considered the present
and future phase of the self
- Represents the individuals identity
based on response to “me”
- Allows the individual to still express
creativity and individualism and
understand when to possibly bend
and stretch the rules that govern
social interactions
- Existence in community comes
before individual consciousness
- One must participate in the
different social positions within
society
 Self is the joining point between the
individual and the society.
Communication is the link that allows
the interaction to occur
THE SELF: I AND ME
I: spontaneous, driving force that fosters all that
is novel, unpredictable, and unorganized in the
self
ME: objectives of the self; the image self seen
when one takes role of the other
LESSON 5
EASTERN AND WESTERN THOUGHTS
CONFIUCIANISM’S ORIGINS AND during Warring States era (479-221
BELIEFS BCE). Mohism originates in the
teachings of Mo Di , or “Mozi” from
 Confucius was a Chinese philosopher whom it takes its name
who lived from 551-479 B.C who wished
to be an advisor to a noble FA-JIA OR LEGALISM
 Taught and emphasized the
 One of six classical school thought in
importance of “correct behaviors”, an
Chinese philosophy that developed
art known as li
during the Warring States period
 He traveled from region to region with
 Ignoring morality or questions on how
a small group of students
society ideally function, they examine
CONFUCIAN BELIEFS contemporary government,
emphasizing a realistic consolidation of
 Confucianism is an ethnic religion the wealth and power of autocrat and
because it focuses primarily on works state, with the goal of achieving
 He believe that any perception about increased order, security and stability
the after life was beyond human
BUDDHISM
comprehension
 He also rejected the idea of “sin” but  Indian religion and dharma that
viewed mistakes as an opportunity to encompasses a variety of traditions,
do better than next time beliefs, and spiritual practices
 Ultimate goal is to be perfect and largely based on teachings
moral attributed to Buddha
 2 major extant branches of
DAOISM’S (TAOISM) ORIGIN AND
Buddhism are generally recognized
BELIEFS
by scholars
1. Theravada (Pali: School of
 Founder is believe to be Lao-Tse who is
elders)
rumored to have lived from 604-531
2. Mahayana (Sanskrit: The Great
BCE
Vehicle)
 He could be mythical, or mixture of
many different political leaders NOBLE EIGHTFOLD PATH
 Searching for a way to avoid constant
warfare and feuding during his lifetime 1. THE RIGHT VIEW
 Combination of psychology and 2. THE RIGHT INTENTION
philosophy 3. THE RIGHT SPEECH
 Be like water- flow smoothly around 4. THE RIGHT ACTION
obstacles rather than bumping against 5. THE RIGHT LIVELIHOOD
them. Adapt yourself to the shape of 6. THE RIGHT EFFORT
the channel and you won’t get stuck 7. THE RIGHT MINDFULNESS
8. THE RIGHT CONCENTRATION
MOHISM
INDIVIDUALISTIC SELF (THE WESTERN
 Influential, philosophical, social, and THOUGHT)
religious movement that flourished
  Individual identifies primarily within
the self, with the needs of individual
being satisfied before those of the
group. Looking after and taking care
of one self, being sufficient, guarantees
the well-being of the group
 Each individual is acting on his or her
own, making their own choices and to
the extent they interact with the rest of
the group
 Independence and self reliance are
greatly stressed and valued. People
tend to distance themselves
psychologically and emotionally from
each other.
 Individualistic doers are self assured
and very independent people. They are
quiet and realistic, very rational,
extremely matter of fact people
THE COLLECTIVE SELF (EASTERN
THOUGHT)
 Collectivism views the group as the
primary entity, with the individuals lost
along the way
 Survival and success of the group
ensures the well being of the individual,
so that by considering the needs and
feelings of others, one protects oneself.
 Harmony and interdependence of
group members are stressed and
valued
 It sees the group as the important
element, and individuals are just
member of the group. The group has its
own values different from individual
vales
WEAKNESSES
 Both collectivist and individualistic
cultures have their failings. Individualist
culture are susceptible to loneliness and
collectivist culture can have a strong
fear of rejection.
TRAITS OF INDIVIDUALISM (WESTERN
THOUGHT)
 “I” identity
 Individual goals, initiative and
achievement
 Individual rights are seen as being the
most important
 Independence is valued
 Relying or being dependent on others is
seen as shameful
 People are encourage to do things on
their own
TRAITS OF COLLECTIVISM (EASTERN
THOUGHTS)
 Each person is encouraged to be an
active player in the society
 The rights of families, communities, and
collective supersede those of the
individual
 Unity, brotherhood and selflessness
 Working with others and cooperating is
the norm
 As a community, family or nation more
than as an individual