CHAPTER 1 - PHILOSOPHICAL SELF

The Self from Various Perspectives

∙ Philosophy - “Love for wisdom”

∙ Answer questions regarding the nature of and existence of man and the world. ∙
(Socrates, Plato, St. Augustine, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Hume, Freud, Ryle,
Churhland, Monty-Ponty).
∙ All to answer the basic question, who are you?

Socrates (Greek)
• We only know Socrates because his illustrious students (from Plato to Aristotle)
spoke eloquently and generously about his knowledge, wit, wisdom and intellect.
• Socrates left no known writings, his highly regarded student Plato though, wrote
extensively about Socrates.
• “gnothi seuton”= “know thyself.”
• If you know who you are, all basic issues and difficulties in life would be gone in a simple
snap of a finger.
• If you know who you are, then everything would be clearer and simpler. One could
now act according to his own self-definition without any doubt and
self-contradiction.
• “Socratic method” or the art of questioning.
• His simple technique of asking basic questions such as “who am I?”, “what is the purpose
of my life?”, “what am I doing here?”, “what is justice”?
• Possession of knowledge is a virtue and that ignorance is a vice, that a person’s
acceptance of ignorance is a source or a springboard for the acquisition of knowledge
later on. • One must first have the humility to acknowledge one’s ignorance so as to get
or acquire knowledge.
• Answers will always be subjective.
• There is really no right or wrong answers to the questions posited; thus, the quality and
quantity of answers are dependent on the respective person.
• Historically, he is known as the first martyr of education, knowledge and
philosophy. For lighting up the minds of his students, he was literally charged with
corruption of minors. • Socrates is even considered to be so ugly, that only his own
mother could love.

(-Now there is no historical documents that Socrates as a person really existed. -Some
would even claim that Plato in positing his own new and radical ideas (in his era),
spoke through the character of Socrates in his many known writings and documents.)

Plato (Greek)
∙ He is the acknowledged author of the groundbreaking book “The Republic” which
became the bedrock of democracy as we now know it today.
∙ This book talks about justice, balance, equality, how best to rule and how to prepare for
ruling. It talks about statecraft, how to run a country, how to govern with the best
interest of people at heart.
∙ Believes in the division of body and soul.
Appetitive Soul🡪 needs and wants that are to be satisfied
Spirited Soul🡪 courageous part of the person; one who wants to do something or
right the wrongs
 Rational Soul🡪 “the conscious mind”; decides, plans, and thinks.
∙ Plato made the philosophical allegory of the cave.
∙ Slaves born as such inside a cave facing only the shadows of men, will never have
knowledge that there is another set of men representing or creating their respective
shadows.

(-Father of the Academe)

St. Augustine (Africa)
∙ Follows the notion that everything is better if we devote ourselves to God
∙ The Roman Catholic Church had written tons of papers about St. Augustine, in fact the
concept of modern church is predicated on his writings. St. Augustine is even credited
with the invention of the idea of “original sin.”
∙ He even developed the concept of the church being the city of god. That a city governed
by the church is a city governed by god.
∙ The physical body is bound to die on earth while the soul is to anticipate living
eternally in communion with God.
∙ He was a doctor of the church; hence majority of his musing were predicated on the
church and its position in society and its importance in everyday living.
∙ By extension, this is the very basis of kings and royalty, having their coronation
presided by church to symbolically proclaim that their rule is mandated by god.
∙ Even the appointment of university presidents has their own investiture. As if such
covenant were decreed by god.
∙ On hindsight, this was the birth of the church meddling on the affairs of men, of the
introduction of theocracy. That when one obeys and submit to the church, one is obeying
god. ∙ In simplified form, his own philosophy posits that love of knowledge brings
happiness and that only knowledge could bring man true happiness.
∙ By extension, contemporary Filipinos want their children educated to have a better slice
of life, because by extension, if one wants to improve the quality of one’s life, nothing
is more certain than by attaining education and in a bigger picture, education is
equated by knowledge.

(-Philosophically, this was already debunked by modern philosophers, but in his days
and the subsequent dark ages, the notion of “original sin” was a big deal.
-He even developed the concept of the church being the city of god. That a city governed by
the church is a city governed by god. By extension, this is the very basis of kings and royalty,
having their coronation presided by church to symbolically proclaim that their rule is
mandated by god. Even the appointment of university presidents has their own investiture.
As if such covenant were decreed by god.)

Rene Descartes (French)

• He is best known for quoting “cogito ergo sum”, or “I think therefore, I am”. • With all the
ground breaking advances of computers, with computer being able to do a trillion
computations by a second, they still fall short in comparison to the greatest computer of all,
the human brain.
• Just as no animal would be musing about the purpose of his life, only humans have the
audacity and impertinence of trying to figure out the meaning of his life and is actually
self-aware of his own existence.
• Only humans have the hubris of musing such irreverent questions on existence and
purpose of life. And only humans have satisfied itself with his own answers to his own
 musings. • Humans, are self-aware, they are conscious and being such proves their own
placement in the universe. Humans create their own reality and they are the masters of
their own universe. • Filipinos have a unique word of “diskarte” denoting finding a way or
making things possible. Such a word is a derivative of the surname of Descartes.

(-the fact that you are self-aware, you exists!)

John Locke (English)
∙ Father of liberalism
∙ Coming from an era where proper decorum, conservative thinking and compliance
to a collective imposition of the known authority, John Locke posited liberalism
not just from physical bondage but from psychological and spiritual bondage as
well.
∙ John Locke’s profession was that of a country lawyer and he even had a degree in
medicine, fortunately for the field of philosophy, the mark of John Locke was in
advancing the idea of empiricism (which is no wonder, since he is by profession, a
lawyer).
∙ The other remarkable contribution of this country lawyer was the notion of “tabula
rasa.” This concept posits that everyone started as a blank slate, and the content is
provided by experiences and by what one could prove, as collected by life
experiences.

David Hume (Scott)

∙ This is an irony because, he espoused three (3) notable contention in
philosophy: ⮚ Empiricism
⮚ Skepticism
⮚ Naturalism
∙ He promoted empiricism by basing his knowledge and philosophy on evidences,
knowing and proving are two different things. And in life, it is not what you know, but
rather what you can prove.
∙ One can only know through senses and experience.
∙ David Hume was a known atheist and as such, he believed in the natural cycle of life.
Everything is governed by reason, by rationality and as such, there is a natural order of
things. ∙ There is no permanent “self”
∙ The self is a collection of a person’s different impressions and perceptions

Immanuel Kant (German)

• He posited the idea that there is a connection between reason and experience. That in
order to have solid rationality, one must have a variety of experience and exposure.
• He further contended that there is a correlation between experience and rationality.
You cannot have one without the other.
• He subscribes to the idea of metaphysics, that which is beyond matter.
• He also subscribes to the idea that pure reason is one of the prime sources of morality.
That what is right, that what is moral, is best explained via reason and rationality.

(Impressions are not independent islands but rather interconnected)

Sigmund Freud (Austrian)

• Father of Psychoanalysis
• Predicated on sex and aggression with the unconscious mind as the
platform. • Present self or personality is great ly shaped by the person’s
 past experiences. • Utilized introspection as a tool
• Unconscious, preconscious, conscious
⮚ Id-pleasure principle
⮚ Ego- reality principle
⮚ Superego- morality principle
Gilbert Ryle (British)

• “Ghost in the machine” view.

• The main concept of Gilbert Ryle is that there is a relationship between the body and the
mind. Conversely, the body affects the mind and the mind affects the body. There is a
body and mind dualism.
• The self is affected by the mind and by the body.
• Self is taken as a whole, with body and mind combination.
• The self is an integrated whole made up of different parts and systems.
• He also posited the maxim “I am therefore I am”
• By extension, things take a life of their own. In his contemporary times, every machine
assumes a life of its own – more than what it was intended for.

(It’s like touring in a university; after seeing the classroom, the educational system,
students, and etc. you ask where the “university” is.

Ghost in the machine= man is a complex machine with different functioning

parts, other characteristics of man (e.g. intelligence) is represented by the
ghost.)

Paul Churchland (Canadian)

• According to Churchland, Folk Psychology will eventually be discredited by scientific
inquiry. • Indigenous notions, theories, concepts and ideas will be supplanted by
scientific method. • The “self” is defined by the movements of the brain.
• The world could be wrong; most people could be wrong and even the mind could also be
wrong. In short, everyone and everything could be fallible. There is no such thing as
infallibility.
• The main philosophy of Churchland is predicated on “eliminative materialism”. Principally,
eliminative materialism contention is that people’s common sense understanding of the
mind is false and that most of the mental states that people subscribe to, in turn, do not
actually exist.
• More importantly, Churchland postulated that the mind and body are separate. They are
not related. The physical body cannot influence the mind and the same is also true for the
mind, the mind cannot influence body.

(no coherent neural basis will be found for many everyday psychological concepts such
as belief or desire, since they are poorly defined. Rather, they argue that psychological
concepts of behavior and experience should be judged by how well they reduce to the
biological level.)
EXAMPLES OF COMMON SENSE
THINKING:
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (French)
• He articulated the idea of existentialism. It is predicated on the premise that man
gives meaning to his own life.
• Happiness and sadness are dependent on the individual and his perception of his on
reality. • Consciousness and perception are related to one another.
• Proponent of descriptive psychology, this by extension - places the current
interpretation of reality dependent on the perception, consciousness and appreciation
of an individual. • Phenomenology of Perception:
⮚ The Body-receives and integrate experiences
⮚ The Perceived World-accumulation of perception as integrated by the experiences
of the body
⮚ People in the World- experience the cultural aspect and relate with others

CHAPTER 2 - SOCIAL SELF

The Self in the Lens of Society and Culture

A. The Self
-It is often defined by the following characteristics:
1. Separate – it is distinct from other selves, it is always unique and has in its own identity
2. Self-contained – it is distinctive with its own thoughts, characteristics and volition and
does not require any other self to exist.
3. Independent – it is consistent and unitary
4. Private – it means isolated from the external world. (feelings, emotions, private thoughts)

B. The Self and Culture

-According to Mauss, every self has two faces: personne and moi.
• Moi refers to a person’s sense of who he is, his body, and his basic identity
• Personne is composed of social concepts of what it means to be who he is. And
what it means to live in a particular institution, family, religion, nationality, and
how he behave given the expectations and influences from others.
C. George Herbart Mead and the Social Self
-Mead was considered as the father of American pragmatism
-He rejected the notion of the biological determination of the self.

“An individual already has an established self from the moment he was born”
(Biological Determination)
VS
“A person with regards to who they are develops from one’s social interaction with other people.”

Meaning – The self is established through the construction and reconstruction of the idea of
who we are as a person during the process of social experience.

-The “I” and “ME” components according to Mead

o “I” – is the reaction of the individual to the attitude of others; active part of
yourself; response of “ME” in the present
o “ME” – are characteristics, behavior, and or actions done by a person that follows
the “generalized others”; internalization of roles; past

-Mead’s Three Role –playing Stages of Self Development

o Stage 1 Preparatory Stage (Birth – 2 years old)
- The infant simply imitates the actions and behaviors of other people
that an infant interacts with
o Stage 2 Play Stage (2-6 years Old)
- This is where children begins to interact with others with which certain
rules apply, these rules often time does not adhere to any set or standards
but rather are rules that are set by the children themselves. This also where
they practice real life situations through pretend play and is the on-set of
consciousness.
- The development of the self in this stage occurs through the preliminary
experiences that serves as practice for the child.
o Stage 3 Game Stage (6-9 years Old)
- Characterized by the ability of the children to reorganize the rules of the
game and be able to identify their roles of the others that is playing with
them.
- They learn the implications of their actions as well as the understanding or
taking into account how one can take into account the view point of the
society on the attitudes and actions.

-Mead - … the establishment of the sense of self, socialization is a lifetime endeavor, and the
people one interacts with will change throughout a person’s life in consideration to the
social environment one belongs to like school, home, work. And such interactions will
concretize the identity and sense of self.

-The idea of “self” may be based on the general attitudes and behaviors of other people
or the individuality of the person that manifests as a response to those attitudes and
behaviors of others.

CHAPTER 3 – ANTHROPOLOGICAL SELF

To know one’s self- Benjamin Franklin

Anthropology
-It is a systematic exploration of human biological and cultural diversity.
- Studies the human species and it’s immediate ancestors.

Sub-Discipline of Anthropology
A. Cultural Anthropology
-Study of human society and culture which describes analyzes, interprets and explains
social and cultural similarities and differences
o Ethnography (based of field work)
o Ethnology (based on cross-cultural comparison)
B. Archeological Anthropology
-Reconstructs, describes and interprets human behavior and cultural patterns through
material remains.
C. Biological Anthropology
-Focuses on these special interest, human evolution as revealed by fossil, human
genetics, human growth and development, human biological plasticity and the
biology, evolution, behavior and social life monkeys, apes and other nonhuman
primates.
D. Linguistic Anthropology
-Its social and cultural context across space and over time.

II. The Self embedded in the culture

Culture- is defined as the customary behavior and beliefs that are passed on through
enculturation (Kottak, 2008)
- It is a social process that is learned and passes from generation to the next. - It depends
on images, which have a specific significance and incentive for individuals who share a
culture.
- Culture oblige people, yet the activities of people can change culture.
How is the “SELF” shaped in the lens of Anthropology?

Conformity- A change in behavior or belief as the result of real or imagined group pressure.
Obedience- Acting in accord with a direct order or command.
• Compliance to an explicit command.
Compliance- Conformity that involves publicly acting in accord with an implied or explicit
request while privately disagreeing.
Acceptance- Conformity that involves both acting and believing in accord with social
pressure. Why do we conform? Because…
• Normative Influence- Conformity based on a person’s desire to fulfill others’ expectations,
often to gain acceptance.
• Salient when we are in public.
• Informational Influence- Conformity occurring when people accept evidence about
 reality provided by other people.
• Salient when we feel incompetent & when task is difficult.
• Concern for social image produces normative influence.
• The desire to be correct produces informational influence.

Spotlights & Illusions

Spotlight effect
• The belief that others are paying more attention to one’s appearance and behavior than
they really are.
Illusion of transparency
• The illusion that our concealed emotion are “leak out” and can be easily read by others.
Furthermore…
Social surroundings affect our self-awareness- When we feel “Out-of-place” or O.P.
Self-interest colors our social judgment- We tend to blame other people for something bad
or credit ourselves for something good.
Self-concern motivates our social behavior- We agonize our self-appearance to make
a good impression.
Social relationships help define our self- My relationship with my mom vs. with my friends.

What contributes to our concept of self?

Dev. of the Social Self

1. THE ROLES WE PLAY
• Whether we are a college student, parent, or salesperson our sense of role affects the
way we see our self.
• leader, officer, kapatid, bestfriend
2. SOCIAL COMPARISONS
• Social Comparison– Evaluating one’s abilities and opinions by comparing oneself with
others. • Smart or dull?, rich or poor?, Good looking or kind?
3. SUCCESS & FAILURE
• Our daily experiences of success and failure gives us a sense of social self.
• What would you feel if you get a high score in math?
4. OTHER PEOPLE’S JUDGMENTS
• What people think well of us, it helps us think well of ourselves.
• Looking-glass self= tendency to use others as a mirror for perceiving
ourselves. 5. THE CULTURE
• In Cultural psych, self and culture are seen as mutually constitutive.
• Culture and self-construct each other!
• Culture transforms us and then we transform the culture

Self & Culture

• Individualism– The concept of giving priority to one’s own goals over group goals &
defining one’s identity in terms of attributes rather than group identifications.
-Can result to independent self (identity as unique individual).
• Collectivism– Giving priority to the goals of one’s group and defining one’s identity
accordingly. -Can result to interdependent self (identity in relation to others).
GROWING INDIVIDUALISM
• “The Me Generation”.
⮚ Even parents are now concerned with the uniqueness of their children’s
name. CULTURE & COGNITION
• Asian thinking (more collectivist) vs. Western thinking (more individualist).
CULTURE & SELF-ESTEEM

• Self-esteem– overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth.

• Americans tend to have high self-esteem with disengaged emotions– feeling effective,
superior and proud. (Kitayama & Markus, 2000)
• Asians tend to have high self-esteem with positive social engagement– feeling close,
friendly, & respectful. (Kitayama & Markus, 2000)
CHAPTER 4 - PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF

Abstractions of the self

• The self is the sense of personal identity and who we are as individuals (Jhangiani &
Tarry, 2014).
• Distinction between “I” and “Me” (James, 1890)
– “I” = the thinking, acting, and feeling self
– ”Me” = physical characteristics as well as psychological capabilities that makes
who you are
• Distinction between “I” and “Me” (Rogers, 1959)
– “I” = the one acts and decides
– ”Me” = what you think about yourself as an object
• Related to constructs such as identity and self-concept

(Context: there are various definitions of the self within and outside the field of
PSYCHOLOGY Self-concept= Your idea of yourself)

The self and it selves

• SELF- reference by an individual to the same individual person
• I-Knower
• ME- The person that is known

MAIN CONCEPTS OF THE SELF (James)

A. ME-SELF- phenomenal self, experienced self, self-known
B. I-SELF- self-thought or the self-knower
THREE CATEGORIES OF UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
1. Constituents
2. Feelings and emotions
3. Self-seeking and self-preservation
SUB CATEGORIES OF SELF
1. Material self
2. Social self
 3. Spiritual self

Conception of self
• THREE SIDES OF UNDERSTANDING THE SELF (Rogers)
1. The Perceived Self-
self-worth
2. The Real Self
(self-image)
3. The Ideal Self (how
the person
would like to be)

Abstractions of the self

• Self-concept
• Self-knowledge
• Self esteem
• Social Self

People are not passive

receivers, they
actively shape and affect
how they see,
think, and feel about things or objects.
Multiplicity of the self

• The self has two subsystems (Rogers):

(1) the self-concept- which includes all those aspects of one's identity that are
perceived in awareness
>Different from organismic self
(2) the ideal self- our view of our self as we would like it to be or what we would
aspire to be. • Once formed, the self-concept tends to resist change, and gaps between it
and the ideal self result in incongruence and various levels of psychopathology.
• People are aware of both their self-concept and their ideal self, although awareness need
not be accurate.
• For example, people may have an inflated view of their ideal self but only a vague sense of
their self-concept.
• Rogers saw people as having experiences on three levels of awareness.
Levels of Awareness
• (1) those that are symbolized below the threshold of awareness and are ignored, denied,
or not allowed into the self-concept;
• (2) those that are consistent with the self-concept and thus are accurately symbolized and
freely admitted to the self-structure.
– >Any experience not consistent with the self-concept even positive
experiences—will be distorted or denied.
• (3) those that are distorted are reshaped to fit it into an existing self-concept.

THE STORY OF EAGLE

He never knew that he could fly because he grew up with chicks
*His actualization tendency is different from his Self Actualization (My wings are different
but I know that I am a chicken– so I could not fly)
*He always wanted to fly (Ideal self) but he knows that chickens could not fly
(self-concept) *Chicken friends tell him he’s different but denies it because he
thinks he’s really a chicken

Perceived Self-Control

Self-Efficacy
-A sense that one is competent & effective.
-How competent we feel on the task.
-Given challenging tasks, people who imagine themselves as hardworking and successful
outperform those who imagine themselves as failures (Ruvolo & Markus, 1992).

High self-efficacy means high self-esteem?

You can have a high self-efficacy but low self-esteem.
E.g. you might feel that you are really good at chess, but feel that your not important
because the sport is not so relevant.
A. Locus of Control
• Locus of control-- The extent to which people perceive outcomes as internally
controllable by their own efforts or as externally controlled by chance or outside
forces.
• “Swerte lang”, “Na-malas ako!”
• “The Law of Attraction”
• “Kasi magaling ako”
• “Because I practiced well”

Abstractions of the self

-Theories generally see the self and identity as mental constructs created and re-created in
memory. -current researches suggest that the frontal lobe is the specific are of the brain
associated with processes concerning the self.
 (Theories generally see the self and identity as mental constructs created and re-created in memory.)

Symbolic interactionism (Mead, 1934)

• Suggests that the self is created and developed through human interaction (Hogg &
Vaughan, 2010).
• 1. We do not create ourselves out of nothing. Society helped in creating the foundations
of who we are.
• 2. We need others as reference points of our identity. We need others to reinforce our
identity (e.g., social media interactions).
• 3. What we think as important to us may also have been influenced by what is important
in our social or historical context (e.g., education)

(-Maybe education is important to you because you grew up in an environment that values
education)

Doing Together What We Would Not Do Alone

• Deindividuation- Loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension; occurs in group
situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad.
• High social arousal + diffused responsibility = Deindividuation

(When high levels of social arousal combine with diffused responsibility, people may
abandon their normal restraints and lose their sense of individuality.)
Doing Together What We Would Not Do Alone
• Group Size
– Has the power to arouse and render individuals unidentifiable.
• Physical Anonymity
– Being anonymous makes one less self-conscious, more group-conscious, and more
responsive to cues present in the situation

(whether negative (Military uniforms) or positive (nurses’ uniforms).)

Diminished Self-Awareness
• Diminished self-consciousness tend to disconnect behavior from attitudes.
• Unself-conscious, deindividuated people are less restrained, less self-regulated, more
likely to act without thinking about their own values, and more responsive to the
situation.

Concept of unified and multiple self

• FREUD (id,ego, superego)
• GERGEN (multiple/flexible self)- many potential selves
TRUE SELF- simple being, authentic experience of being alive, real self
FAKE SELF- defense facade