UNDERSTANDING

THE SELF
GEC1000
 THE SELF
FROM VARIOUS Philosophy

PERSPECTIVE
THE SELF FROM
PHILOSOPHICAL
PERSPECTIVE
Philosophy

• from Greek, by way of Latin, philosophia, “love of

wisdom”

• the rational, abstract, and methodical consideration

of reality as a whole or of fundamental dimensions
of human existence and experience.
THE SELF
ACCORDING TO
PHILOSOPHER
 1.Socrates
2.Plato
Breakout 3.Descartes
Rooms 4.Hume
5.Kant
 1 . S o c ra t e s

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1. Plato

h t t p s : / / w w w. y o u t u b e . c o m / w a t c h ? v = b g e 5 E U L 8 9 B E & t = 3
36s

Breakout
1. Descartes

h t t p s : / / w w w. y o u t u b e . c o m / w a t c h ? v = B 0 v V Vy 4 d F u A & t = 4
s

Rooms 1. Hume

h t t p s : / / w w w. y o u t u b e . c o m / w a t c h ? v = q D h i d R r _ P W s & t = 1
86s

1 . Ka n t

h t t p s : / / w w w. y o u t u b e . c o m / w a t c h ? v = r N t r w t y J x b 0 & t = 2 8
2s
THE SELF
ACCORDING TO
PHILOSOPHER
Socrates

• Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher considered to be the forerunner of

Western philosophy.

• His method of questioning, famously known as the “Socratic Method

• Plato was considered to be his greatest student. In fact, it was Plato who wrote his
philosophy

• Socrates was fully convinced that philosophy must obtain practical results for the
greater wellbeing of society. And for Socrates, the very first step towards the
realization of this goal is the acquisition of wisdom through “knowing one’s Self ”.

• Ultimate wisdom comes from knowing oneself

But what does Socrates actually mean by
soul?
• Frederick Copleston, a famous historian of philosophy, who believes that when Socrates
speaks of the soul, the philosopher refers to a “thinking and willing subject ”.

• The soul for Socrates is the intellectual and moral personality of humans. So, when
Socrates said that the soul is the essence of the human person, he meant that it is the
essence of humans to think and will. The soul or the self for Socrates is the responsible
agent in knowing and acting rightly or wrongly.

• We need to take care of our soul to attain the “Good Life”. The Good Life is attained
through the acquisition of knowledge, wisdom, and virtue.

• The true self, for Socrates, is one that is lived in accordance with knowledge, wisdom,
and virtue. The true self is the virtuous self.
Plato
• Plato’s concept of the self can be gleaned from his notion of the soul.

• He contends that the true self of the human person is the “rational soul”, conceives
of the self as a knower. The self is practically constructed based on his reflections
on the nature of the rational soul as the highest form of cognition.

• The human person is a dichotomy of body and soul. The body is the material and
destructible part of the human person, while the soul is the immaterial and
indestructible part.

• The soul, conceived of as self, has three parts, namely, 1) the rational soul, 2) the
spiritual soul, and 3) the appetitive soul.
Plato
• The rational soul is in the head, enables the human person to think, reflect, analyze,
and do other cognitive functions.

• The spiritual soul is in the chest, enables the person to experience happiness, joy,
sadness, abomination, anger, and other feelings.

• The appetitive soul is in the abdomen. This is the part of the soul that drives the
human person to experience physical pain, hunger, thirst, and other physical wants.

• The rational soul as the true self, therefore, must at all times control the spiritual
and appetitive soul.
Descartes
• Descartes’s concept of the self revolves around the idea of mind -body dualism. For
Descartes, a human person is composed of two parts, namely, a material body and a
non-material mind.

• The mind, or the soul, is superior to the body for it is in the mind that “mental
states” occur.

• Descartes argues that the mind or soul is an immaterial, nonextended substance

that thinks (res cogitans). By “thinking ” Descartes means being conscious of oneself
and the object of its thinking. Thus, for Descartes, the mind as the true self of
humans is a thinking thing.
Descartes
• Descartes is convinced that he can be certain that he exists because if he doubts,
there must be a thinking mind that does the doubting. Thus, Descartes famously
say: “I think, therefore, I am”.

• The senses can be deceived, physical objects, including bodies, are properly
perceived only by the intellect. Indeed, the mind is the only thing that one can be
certain of.

• The mind and body are completely distinct and that they are independent from each
other. Although they are completely distinct from each other, Descartes argues that
the mind and body are in some sense unified.

• The mind causes certain changes in the body and the body in the mind.
Hume
• There is no such thing as a “self”.

• Philosophers understood the soul as a substance, a material or immaterial,

whose existence is independent on anything else.

• For Hume, if we possess this substance, then we must have an “impression” of

it. However, for Hume, we do not, and cannot, have an impression of such idea.
For Hume, therefore, the term soul, mind, or self is one of those meaningless
words that we utter.

• So, for Hume, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and the rest of the philosophers of
the self were arguing only about “words” simply because neither of them knows
exactly what a soul, mind, or self is. They don’t experience it concretely in the
first place, according to Hume.
Hume
• Hume neither affirms nor denies the idea of the self. It’s just that for Hume,
talking about it simply doesn’t make sense.

• As John Locke argues, ideas come from sensation and re flection. Hume calls it
impression. Hence, it must be noted that when Hume used the term “impression”, he
means “idea”. When we say “impression” in Hume, this includes both sensation and
reflection in Locke.

• It is important to note that in relations of ideas, the truth can be established without
empirical evidence

• Hume’s theory of knowledge centers on the idea of “matters of fact”, that facts
exist in reality simply because we experience them. This explains why Hume
was an empiricist.
Hume
• If we look inside ourselves, we cannot find an impression (that is, an idea)
of a “self” as a substance. In other words, we cannot experience the self
concretely. Hence, for Hume, we have no reason to suppose that we are
“selves” or “mind”, or “souls”.

• For Hume, the idea of the self is simply an idea and there is no guarantee
that it exists in reality. It is natural to talk about it because we exist,
because we are accustomed to it, but to suppose that there is within us an
unchanging substance called the “self” is an illusion.
Kant
• The human person has a two -fold nature, 1) homo noumenon and 2) homo
phaenomenon

• Therefore, everything that exists has two natures, namely: 1) the non -
empirical part (noumenon or essence) and 2) the empirical part
(phaenomenon)

• The homo noumenon for Kant is the godlike self of the human person which
comprises the psychological state and intellect, while the homo
phaenomenon is the merely human self or, simply, the physical self.

• Kant says that the the noumenal self has two aspects, namely, 1) free
choice and 2) will
Kant
• “free choice” is understood as the capacity of the self to act without being
determined to do so by any external material forces, “will” is the capacity of
the self to set forth unconditionally binding moral laws.

• The noumenal self is the human person’s real self. It is indeed the person’s
true self. It is our duty to attain perfection by actualizing this godlike
noumenal self.

• And according to Kant, we can attain perfection or we can actualize our

godlike self by developing ourselves into moral persons, which can be done
by obeying the command of the categorical imperative.
 THE SELF Sociology,

FROM VARIOUS
Anthropology,

Psychology

PERSPECTIVE East vs West

Sociology

Anthropology

Psychology

Eastern vs Western
Sociology
a social science that
studies human
societies, their
interactions, and the
processes that preserve
and change them.
 It examine the dynamics of
constituent parts of societies
such as institutions,
Sociology communities, populations, and
gender, racial, or age groups.
Sociology also studies
 it also studies
• social status or stratification,
• social movements,
Sociology
• social change, as well as
societal disorder in the form of
crime, deviance, and revolution
 it also studies
• social status or stratification,
• social movements,
Sociology
• social change, as well as
societal disorder in the form of
crime, deviance, and revolution
ANTHROPOLOGY
“the science of humanity”
Anthropology

studies human beings in aspects ranging from the

biology and evolutionary history of Homo sapiens to
the features of society and culture that decisively
distinguish humans from other animal species .
Branches
• Physical anthropology

• Cultural anthropology (or

ethnology), social anthropology,

• Linguistic anthropology, and

• Psychological anthropology
PSYCHOLOGY
EASTERN VS
WESTERN
THOUGHTS
 Sociology

Anthropology

Groups Psychology (A)

Psychology (B)

Eastern vs Western
 The self as a product of modern
society among other constructions

Sociology
George Herbert Mead and the self
 The Self and person in
contemporary anthropology
Anthropology
The self embedded in
culture
 1. The Self in Cognitive Construction
(William James), the Me-Self;I-Self

2. Global vs Differentiated models

PSYCHOLOGY 3. Real and Ideal Self Concepts

 4. Multiple vs Unified selves

5. True vs False Selves

PSYCHOLOGY 6. The self as Proactive and

Agentic
 Individualistic vs Collective Self

The social Construction of the Self

in Western Thought
EASTERN VS
The self as embedded in
WESTERN relationships and through spiritual
development in Confucian
thought
 1. PPT PRESENTATION (concise)

2. Handouts (Comprehensive with

WHAT TO reference)
PREPARE PER
3. Recorded Discussion and
GROUP Presentation