LESSON 1

UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

THE SELF FROM VARIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES

 Why is it essential to understand the self?

 “Madali maging tao, mahirap magpakatao.”
 “Our names signify us.”
 How would you characterize your self?
 What makes you stand out from the rest?
 How has your self transformed itself?
 How is your self connected to your body?
 How is your self related to other selves?
 What will happen to your self after you die?
 Were you able to answer the questions above with ease?
 Why ?
 Which question did you find easiest to answer?
 Which ones are difficult to answer?

Greeks
Aphrodite, Zeus, Hera, Apollon, Ares, Hephaistos, Demeter, Hermes, Athena,
Artemis, Dionysos, Poseidon.

SOCRATES AND PLATO

 Socrates
 First philosopher who engaged in a systematic way of questioning the self.
 The true task of a philosopher is to know oneself.
 The unexamined life is not worth living
 The worst that can happen to anyone: To live but die inside.
 Every man is composed of body and soul.
 All individuals have an imperfect, impermanent body, while maintain that
there is also a soul that is perfect and permanent.

Plato
 Socrate’s student
 Supported the dual nature.
 He added that there are three components of the soul.
Rational Soul
Spirited Soul
Appetitive Soul

THREE COMPONENTS OF SOUL:

 Rational Soul : Reason and intellect that govern the affairs of the human
person.
 Spirited Soul : in charge of emotions
 Appetitive Soul : in charge of base desires, like eating, drinking, sleeping
and having sexual intercourse.
Rational Soul + Spirited Soul
+ Appetitive Soul =
Just and Virtuous Soul

Augustine
 Follows the ancient view of Plato and infusing in with the newfound
doctrine of Christianity.
1. Aspect of man that dwells the world, that is imperfect; and
2. Aspect of man that is capable of reaching immortality.
Thomas Aquinas
 Man is composed of matter and form.
  Matter or hyle in Greek – body
 Form or morphe – essence of substance

If we are talking about cells,

Animal Man

The soul is what animates the body, it what makes us humans.

Rene Descartes
 Father of Modern Philosophy
 One should only believe that which can pass the test of doubt.
 The only thing that one cannot doubt is the existence of the self. For even if
one doubst oneself, that only proves that there is a doubting self, a thing that
thinks and therefore, that cannot be doubted.
 Cogito ergo sum or In think therefore, I am.
Self is also a combination of two distinct entities:
1. Cogito – mind
2. Extenza or extension – body

“ But what then, am I? A thinking thing. It has been said. But what is a thinking
thing? It is a thing that doubts, understand, (conceives), affirms, denies, will,
refuses; that imagines also, and perceives.”

David Hume
 Empiricism – knowledge that can only be possible if it is sensed and
experienced.
 Self is nothing but a bundle of impressions.
 Self is a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeeded each
other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and
movement.
 Immanuel Kant
 Self is an actively engaged intelligence in man that synthesizes all
knowledge and experience.

Gilbert Ryle
 Denying blatantly the concept of an internal, non-physical self. – what
matter is the behaviors that a person manifests in his day-to-day life.

Merleau-Ponty
 The living body. His thoughts, emotions, and experiences are all in one.