LEARNING TASK ASSESSMENT:

1. Textual analysis. Choose ONLY two (2)

of the following passages and explain the

passage. (15 points)

“Look into the depths of your own soul and learn first to know yourself, then you will understand
why this illness was bound to come upon you, perhaps you will thenceforth avoid falling ill.”

- Sigmund Freud, Character and Culture

EXPLANATION:

To be able to become one with yourself is to comprehend who you actually are; deep under the
surface of your soul lay all of these hues of you, and when you reach to a moment when you
meet all of you, you will understand yourself.

“And what more am I? I look for aid to the imagination. [But how mistakenly!] I am not the
assemblage of limbs we call the human body; I am not subtle penetrating air distributed
throughout all these members; I am not a wind, a fire, a vapor, a breath or anything at all that I
can imagine. I am supposing all these things to be nothing. Yet I find, while so doing, that I am still
assured that I am still something.”

- Rene Descartes, Mediations on First Philosophy

EXPLANATION:

Descartes, as I've come to know him from reading his philosophies, comes out with this line, I
think with the idea of him not considering himself as part of anything, but regardless of what he
thought, he recognized that he still counted on something, that everyone of us still matters in
some way.

2. Discussion. Answer each of the following questions. (5 points each)

a. Compare and contrast the elements of the mind according to Plato and the

life of St. Augustine.

ANSWER:

Plato, on the other hand, views the intellect to be the most superior of all the elements. This
element is referred to by him as the nous, which means self-awareness. The nous is the
superpower that governs one's own affairs. It makes decisions, analyzes situations, makes
recommendations, and logically manages both the appetitive and spirited aspects of the psyche.
While in the eyes of St. Augustine, man's ultimate purpose is happiness. Men can only find true
and eternal satisfaction in God, which is made possible by his study of the truth and divine
wisdom. God, in other words. The entire and true philosophy is Christianity. It is the actual God's
whole revelation. Without God, human humans are doomed to fail.

b. Differentiate the concepts of the self according to Descartes and that of Locke.

ANSWER:

Descartes believed that the ego was a separate entity from the physical body and its sense
organs. This is known as the "ghost-in-the-machine" concept, because Descartes' demonstration
of self is not based on external perceptual input. His famous assertion, "cogito ergo sum," is
rather his evidence of self... As a result of my thinking, I am. The self, according to Locke, is made
up of consciousness, which is made up of our perceptions of the world. Although I believe Hume
said that, the self is a "bundle of senses."
c. For Hume, what is it that make “your” perceptions inaccessible to “me” and vice versa?

ANSWER:

There is no logic capable of showing the existence of a "you" at all, let alone perceptions that you
might be having, according to David Hume.

The existence of any genuine being can only be demonstrated through matter-of-fact reasoning,
which is based entirely on the cause-and-effect relationship, according to Hume. Only experience
can reveal that relationship, and experience is only helpful because of nature's regularity.

Because we can only know the uniformity of nature by experience, the whole reductio collapses
into vicious circularity, indicating that no path of reasoning can assist us discover the truth value
for any statement asserted about a fact.

d. What are some of the criticisms that have been brought against Freud and psychoanalysis?

ANSWER:

Freud’s view of the human psyche has never been at a loss for critics. Most intelligent people
who have studied Freud’s writings and dismiss his views fall into three camps. First Camp: they
reject his views as being determined by his particular society and his own obsessions; Freud
treated middle-class Jewish women and men in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna. Thus, Freud derived his
claims about the psychological constitution of the entire human race from observations of a very,
very small sample. Second Camp: Freud’s claims about the psyche aren’t scientific because they
are not falsifiable. Freud is using a model of psychological faculties (as Kant did) but these
faculties aren’t the kind of thing you can see on a CAT scan. Any serious scientific theory needs
evidence that is testable and psychoanalysis just doesn’t meet this requirement. Third Camp:
Freud was a charlatan or delusional. He made up his theories based on next to nothing; his
famous case studies are for the most part fictional. He was more of a con man than a therapist.
3. Key terms. List some terminologies associated with each philosopher. Briefly define or
describe each term. (21+4 points)

PHILOSOPHER KEY TERMS DEFINITION

Socrates “The unexamined life is not Socrates (/ˈsɒkrətiːz/;

worth living.” Ancient Greek: Σωκράτης
Sōkrátēs [sɔːkrátɛːs]; c.
470–399 BC) was a Greek
philosopher from
Athens who is credited as a
founder of Western
philosophy and the first
moral philosopher of the
Western ethical tradition of
thought.

Augustine “The self is an immortal soul Augustine of Hippo, also

that exist over time”
known as Saint Augustine,
was a theologian,
philosopher, and the bishop
of Hippo Regius in Numidia,
Roman North Africa.

Descartes “I think therefore I am” French philosopher and

mathematician; developed
dualistic theory of mind
and matter; introduced the
use of coordinates to locate
a point in two or three
dimensions (1596-1650)
synonyms: Rene Descartes.

Hume “There is no self”
Kant “our rationality unifies and
makes sense the perceptions
we have in our experiences
and make sensible ideas about
ourselves and the world.”
Freud “Look into the depths of your
own soul and learn first to
know yourself, then you will
understand why this illness
was bound to come upon you,
perhaps you will thenceforth
avoid falling ill.”
example of: mathematician.
a person skilled in
mathematics.
Scottish philosopher whose
sceptical philosophy
restricted human
knowledge to that which
can be perceived by the
senses (1711-1776)
synonyms: David Hume.
example of: philosopher. a
specialist in philosophy.
Immanuel Kant was a
German philosopher and
one of the central
Enlightenment thinkers.
Kant's comprehensive and
systematic works in
epistemology, metaphysics,
ethics, and aesthetics have
made him one of the most
influential figures in modern
Western philosophy.
Sigmund Freud was an
Austrian neurologist and
the founder of
psychoanalysis, a clinical
method for treating
psychopathology through
dialogue between a patient
and a psychoanalyst. Freud
was born to Galician Jewish

Merleau-Ponty “Whether it’s a question of my
body, the natural world, the
past, birth or death, the
question is always to know
how I can be open to
phenomena that transcend
me and that, nevertheless,
only exist to the extent that I
take them up and live them.”
parents in the Moravian
town of Freiberg, in the
Austrian Empire.
Maurice Jean Jacques
Merleau-Ponty was a
French phenomenological
philosopher, strongly
influenced by Edmund
Husserl and Martin
Heidegger. The constitution
of meaning in human
experience was his main
interest and he wrote on
perception, art, politics,
religion, psychology,
psychoanalysis, language,
nature, and history.