TAYABAS WESTERN ACADEMY

Founded 1928
Candelaria, Quezon

Self-Learning Module 1

Instructor GLENDA C. RAYOS No. of Student/s

Department College of Business and Education Course/Year BSBA, BSED,
BSA
Module No. 1 Units 3
Duration 2 weeks Days(Time) MWF (6:30-7:30)
TTHS (6:30-7:30)
(7:30-8:30)

Date Submitted September 4, 2021 Subject Code GEC 2

Description Understanding the Self
Topic Philosophical Concept on the Self

Lesson 1: THE SELF FROM VARIOUS PERSPECTIVES

LEARNING TARGETS:
1. Explain the concept of the Self from various Philosophical concepts.
2. Develop an understanding about the different philosophical orientation about self.
3. Conduct a reflective thought in interpreting the development of oneself in the context
of philosophy.

LESSON PROPER
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 of passion for learning. It is
the investigation of normal and fundamental issues. Concerning matters, for example,
presence, information, values, reason, psyche, and dialect. The term was likely instituted by
Pythagoras (c. 570 – 495 BCE). Philosophical strategies incorporate addressing, basic dialog,
judicious contention, and deliberate introduction. Exemplary philosophical inquiries include:
Is it conceivable to know anything and to demonstrate it? What is generally genuine?
Scholars likewise posture a more handy and solid inquiries, for example, Is there a most ideal
approach to live? Is it better to be simply or shameful (if one can escape with it)? Do people
have through and through freedom?
Generally, philosophy deals with the rationality employed by individuals in learning.
Starting from the Ancient Greek savant Aristotle to the nineteenth century philosophers, who
tried to explore and understand the rationality employed in understanding and learning things.
Aristotle investigated regular reasoning in discovering and learning. Aristotle employed
stargazing, pharmaceutical, and material science. Another is, Newton's 1687 Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy later ended up named a book of material science.
In the nineteenth century, the development of current research, methods of inquiry have
evolved. Different approaches to inquiry by different colleges drove scholarly rationality and
different orders to professionalize and practice the continuous search for learning. In the
cutting-edge period, a few examinations that were customarily part of logic wound up
scholarly approaches including brain science, humanism, phonetics, and financial matters.

The Philosophical View of Self: Various Philosophers

Socrates: Know Yourself

He is principally concerned with man. He was the first philosopher who engages in
systematic questioning about the self. “Every man is composed of body and soul.” – i.e.
dualism [Man is composed of two important aspects of his personhood] Therefore, all
individuals have an imperfect, impermanent aspect to him, and the body, while maintaining
that there is also a soul that is perfect and permanent. [Platonic] He considers man from the
point of view of his inner life. The famous life of Socrates tells each man to bring his inner
self to light. A bad man is not virtuous through ignorance. The core of Socratic ethics is the
concept of virtue and knowledge. Virtue is the deepest and most basic propensity (string
natural tendency to do something) of man. Knowing one’s own virtue is necessary and can be
learned. Since virtue is innate in the mind and self-knowledge is the source of all wisdom, an
individual may gain possession of oneself and be one’s own master through knowledge.

Plato: The Ideal Self, Perfect Self

Plato claimed in his dialogues that Socrates affirmed that the unexamined life is not
worth living. With this, he basically took off from his master and supported the idea that man
is dual in nature. He added that there are components of the soul: a] rational soul; b] spiritual
soul; and c] appetitive soul.
The republic – he emphasizes that justice in the human person can only be attained if the
three parts of the soul are working harmoniously with one another. The rational soul forged/
copied by reason and intellect that govern the affairs of the human person; the spiritual soul
which in charge of emotions; and appetitive soul in charge of base desires.
Therefore, when this ideal state is attained, the human person‟s soul becomes just and
virtues. To make it simple, a man was omniscient before he came to be born into this world.
In practical terms, this means that man in this life should imitate his former self; he should
live a life of virtue in which true human perfection exists.
“Love in fact is one of the links between the sensible and the eternal world.” – Plato

Rene Descartes: Cogito, ergo sum/ I think therefore I am

He conceived of the human person as having a body and a mind. He claims that there
is so much that we should doubt since much of what we think and believe is not infallible,
they may turn out to be false.
Rene thought that the only thing that one cannot doubt is the existence of the self, for even if
one doubts oneself, that only proves that there is a doubting self, a thing that thinks and
therefore, that cannot be doubted.
The self then for Rene is also a combination of two distinct entities, the COGITO, the
thing that thinks, which is the mind, and the EXTENZA of the mind, which is the body, ie.
like a machine that is attached to the mind.
The human person has the body, but it is not what makes a man a man. If at all, that is
the mind. Descartes: says: “What then am I? A thinking thing, that doubts, understands,
affirms, denies, wills, refuses; that imagines also and perceives.
To sum, although the mind and the body are independent of each other and serve their
own function, man must use his own mind and thinking abilities to investigate, analyze,
experiment, and develop himself.

David Hume: The Self is the Bundle Theory of Mind

He is an empiricist who believes that one can know only through the senses and
experiences. Example: Ana knows that Lenard is a man not because she has seen his soul.
Ana knows Lenard just like her because she sees him, hears him, and touches him.
Hume posits that self is nothing else but a bundle of impressions. What are impressions? For
Hume, they can all be categorized into two: impressions and ideas. The first one is the basic
objects of our experience or sensation. So, it forms the core of our thoughts. Example: when
one touches fire, the hotness sensation is an impression which is the direct experience.
On the contrary, Ideas are copies of our impressions. Because of this, they are not as lively
and clear as our impressions. Example: the feeling of being in love for the first time that is an
idea. According to Hume, the self is a bundle or collection of various perceptions, which
succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.
Thus, the self is simply a collection of all experiences with a particular being.

Emmanuel Kant: Respect for Self

Every man is thus an end in himself and should never be treated merely as a means –
as per the order of the Creator and the natural order of things.
To Kant, there is necessarily a mind that organizes the impressions that men get from
the external world. Time and Space are ideas that one cannot find in the world but built-in our
human mind. Kant calls these the apparatuses of the mind.
Along with the different apparatuses of the mind goes the self. Without the self, one cannot
organize the different impressions that one gets in relation to his own existence. Thus, the self
is not just what gives one his personality. It is also the seat of knowledge acquisition for all
human persons.
Gilbert Ryle: The Mind-Body Dichotomy
For Ryle, what truly matters is the behavior that a person manifests in his day-to- day
life. For him, looking for and trying to understand the self as it really exists is like visiting
your friends‟ university and looking for the “university.”
Ryle says that self is not an entity one can locate and analyze but simply the convenient name
that people use to refer to all the behaviors that people make.

Merleau Ponty: Phenomenologist

He insisted that body and mind are so intertwined from one another. One cannot find
any experience that is not an embodied experience. All experience is embodied. One‟s body
is his opening toward his existence to the world. Because men are in the world. For him, the
Cartesian problem is nothing but plain misunderstanding. The living body, his thoughts,
emotions, and experiences are all one.

Augustine: Love and Justice as the foundation of the individual self

Augustine‟s view of the human person reflects the entire spirit of the medieval world
when it comes to man. He combined the platonic ideas into Christianity perspective.
Augustine agreed that man is of a bifurcated/ dual nature. An aspect of man dwells in the
world and is imperfect and continuously years to be with the Divine and the other can reach
immortality. The body is bound to die on earth and the soul is to anticipate living eternally in
communion with God.
He believes that a virtuous life is the dynamism of love. Loving God means loving
one‟s fellowmen; and loving one‟s fellowmen denote never doing any harm to another.

Thomas Aquinas: Angelic Doctor

Adapting some ideas from Aristotle, Aquinas said that indeed, man is composed of
two parts: matter and form. Matter/ hyle refers to the common stuff that makes up everything
in the universe. Forms/ morphe refers to the essence of the substance of things. It is what
makes it what it is.
In the case of the human person, the body of the human person is something that he shares
even with animals. What makes a human person a human person is his essence. Like
Aristotle, the soul is what animates the body; it is what makes us humans.

Sigmund Freud: The Psychoanalytic Theory of Self

He asserts that the human psyche [personality] is structured into 3 parts. These
structures – ID [internal desires], EGO [reality], and SUPEREGO [conscience] – all develop
at different stages in a person’s‟ life.
Freud also argues that the development of an individual can be divided into distinct stages
characterized by sexual drives. As the person grows, certain areas become sources of
pleasure, frustration, or both. Freudian stages of psychosexual development: oral, anal,
phallic, latency, and genital.

Erik Erickson: Psychosocial Stages of Self Development

He primarily concerned with how both psychological and social factors affect the
development of individuals. He formulated 8 major stages of development, each posing a
unique developmental task and simultaneously presenting the individual with a crisis that s/he
must overcome.

ENGAGE
Activity no. 1
Write a short spoken-word poetry about anything that you wish to submit about yourself. You
may use these following suggested topics. (You can have it in Tagalog)
a. Me as I see me
b. How other people see me
c. How I would like other people to see me
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

Activity no. 2
In your own words, state what “self” is for each of the following philosophers.
1. Socrates _____________________________________________________________
2. Plato ________________________________________________________________
3. Agustine _____________________________________________________________
4. Aquinas _____________________________________________________________
5. Descartes ____________________________________________________________
6. Hume _______________________________________________________________
7. Kant ________________________________________________________________
8. Ryle ________________________________________________________________
9. Ponty _______________________________________________________________
10. Freud _______________________________________________________________
EXPLORE
Activity no. 3
This is in regards with activity no. 1, (the spoken word poetry).
Answer the following questions briefly.
1. What problems did you encounter while you were working on this piece? How did
you solve them?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

2. What does this piece (spoken word poetry) reveal about you as a person?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

3. Do you have a goal you would like to set for yourself? What is it?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

4. If someone else is reading that poetry of yours, what might they learn about who you
are?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

5. What things you might want more help with?

_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

EXPLAIN
Activity no. 4
Compare and contrast the philosophies of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
EXTEND/ELABORATE
Draw an object which will symbolizes yourself. Then give a brief explanation why did you
choose that object.

EVALUATE
 Activity no. 5
Write a reflection of the things that you have realized about yourselves during the lesson.
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

Prepared by:

GLENDA C. RAYOS
Instructor