EMPOWER

People say that the secret to success is to “know yourself”. Do you

agree? Have you ever asked yourself the question, “Do I really know
myself?” Some of you may have found the activity on the previous page
quite easy, but surely, many of you found it tough to look for the finest
words to describe yourself. Some of you may have encountered instances
wherein you underestimate yourself either because you are afraid to get embarrassed or you have
absolutely no idea of what you are capable of doing. Why do you think this happens?? The answer is
simple: because you do not truly know yourself.
Indeed, it is necessary to know yourself. But how do you go about it, right? This lesson
explores the philosophies of the self, which breaks into several key theories about human existence
that have been a heated debate throughout history and are still being argued about up until now.
In an effort to answer the countless inquiries about the self, the greatest thinkers, known as the
philosophers, have immersed themselves in search for knowledge about the nature of being human.
Questions like, “What does it mean to be a person?” or “Who am I?” or “Do I really matter?” or
“How do I know that I will continue to be me in the future?” have engaged key thinkers to address
these matters of existence to help us understand the different views about the self.

Most of what we know about Socrates come from the

accounts of people’s writings long after his death. He was born
in Athens around 469 B.C. Some say he followed his father’s
trade as a stone mason and has even served in the Athenian
army at some point in his life. Granting that his ideas earned
him many followers in Athens, he has also upset a lot of people
with his philosophical inquiries. He was brought to trial in 399
B.C. under charges of corrupting the youth of the city. He was
found guilty and sentenced to death by drinking hemlock poison.
What was Socrates’ philosophy? Why did the Athenian city-state
consider him dangerous?
https://www.google.com.ph/searchrlz=1C1CHBD_enPH767PH767&biw=151 7&bih= 735&tbm =I
sch&s=1&ei=wu_dWoG9I4WF8gX546CICQ&q=socrates+image+png&oq=socrates+image+png
Socrates was often in the position of an examiner —
&gs_l=psy-ab.3...43962.44541.0.44692.6.5.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..6.0.0...0.
EiJG2sc_yBQ#imgrc=CUtfElr26zbmmM:
a questioner. He constantly looks for imperfections in the ideas
of others, which is actually the heart of his philosophy. Socrates knows that he knows nothing, more
importantly, he knows that he knows nothing, while everyone else is under the flawed
impression that they know something (Vlastos & Graham, 1971).
Do you realize the danger in this?
The highest form of human excellence, according to Socrates, is to question oneself and others
(Maxwell, 2013). In truth, Socrates is simply establishing a higher standard of truth, which must be
logically consistent and not contradicting itself. This is Socrates’ dangerous idea. Instead of being
satisfied with an answer that sounds pretty good, Socrates asserts that one should examine more
closely the things we call ‘true,’ considering that there are vast concepts that are not easily defined.
To Socrates, man has to look at himself to understand his long-standing mission, to “Know Yourself.”
For him, “an unexamined life is not worth living” (Vlastos & Graham, 1971). Basically, the most horrible
thing that can happen to anybody is to “live but die inside” (Alata, et. Al 2018). Therefore, to

Understanding the Self Unit 1: The Self from Various Disciplinal Perspectives
preserve our souls for the afterlife, we must be fully aware of who we are and the virtues
that come with its attainment.
He also believed that an individual’s personhood is composed of the body and soul. The soul, for
him, is immortal. For this reason, he insisted that death is not the end of existence. Rather, it is
simply the separation of the soul from the body.
Socrates also raised the point that just because something seems true does not mean it is true
(Rowe, 2007). He further noted that, in reality, many people believe things that are not true.
Hence, Socrates made a distinction between knowledge and belief. The former being always and
universally true while the latter is only true in certain circumstances.
What made Socrates a menace was the fact that even matters of faith fall short of his
standard of truth since every religion in the world is full of contradictions. By undermining religion,
Socrates is essentially questioning the foundation of his society. So the Athenians made the worst
decision they could have made—they took him and turned him into a martyr (Anagnostopoulos, 2006).

What happened to Socrates dismayed his friends and

followers. Plato, Socrates’ student, got mad at the plight of his
master, enough to write tons of books about him, making sure that
his dangerous ideas lived on.
Plato sustained the idea that man is composed of a dual nature
of body and soul. According to the Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, Plato believed that the soul is immortal and separated
from the body. However, he took it to a higher level, claiming that
the soul was eternal. According to Plato, the soul does not exist
with the body. Instead, it exists prior to being joined to the body.
Resembling the idea of reincarnation, Plato ascertained that the soul
lives within a body and upon death, the soul moves onto another
https://www.google.com.ph/search?rlz=1C1CHBD_enPH767PH767&biw=20 49&
bih=993&tbm=isch&sa=1 &ei=FT3eWr_wL8W28QXNzrGQAw&q=plato+image +png
&oq =plato +image+png&gs_l=psy-ab.3...18871.20970. 0.21275.12.10.0.
0.0.0.396.1094.0j1j2j1.4.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..8.2.402...0j0i67k1j0i8i30k1j0i
body afterwards. Building on this belief, Plato called the body the
prison of the soul.
30k1.0.PzmucX 2fCdA #imgrc=fjRW67Yx0ctOJM:

In his dialogue, “The Republic” (Santas, 2010), Plato argued that the human soul or the
psyche is divided into three parts labelled as appetitive, spirited, and rational. For justice in the
human person to be attained, these parts of the soul should be in tune with one another.
Imagine this, there are three things in front of you: a moist, warm piece of chocolate cake, a
slice of your self-baked but half-burnt pie, and your favorite fruit. Which one would you end up
selecting to eat?
Plato’s theory tells us that if we are left with our own instincts to decide what is good for us,
then we are most likely to choose based on our desires (appetitive soul) to satisfy our needs in ways
that are easier and more likeable for all of us. We are also likely to choose based on our mood or
emotions (spirited soul) that have to be kept in control at all times to prevent causing us problems.
Lastly, we also choose based on logic and intellect (rational soul), choosing the healthy one for us.
When these three work in with each other, then the tendency to be enslaved by our own false
opinions is lesser and the human soul becomes just and virtuous through our capability of making
rational decisions, capable of breaking free of opinions, scrutinizing misleading sensory perceptions
and discovering true knowledge (Shoefield, 2006).

Understanding the Self Unit 1: The Self from Various Disciplinal Perspectives
 Like Plato, he also asserted that the soul is immortal. However,
he believed that the soul AND the body make up a human. He does
not believe that the soul jumps from one body to another. Instead,
one person is made up of one body and one soul.
Augustine’s view of the human person states that the body is
that imperfect aspect of man that is bound to perish on earth,
which incessantly longs to be in communion with the spiritual realm
of the Divine God. The soul, on the other hand, is “capable of
reaching immortality by staying after death in an eternal realm with
the all-transcendent God (Mennel, 1994). The purpose, therefore, of
every human person is to attain this spiritual union with God by living
his life according to virtues.
https://www.google.com.ph/search rlz=1C1CHBD_enPH767PH767&tbm=isch&
q=augustine+picture&chips=q:augustine+picture,online_chips:saint+augustine&sa=
X&ved=0ahUKEwjmt-3k89LaAhVHE7wKHS4WAWoQ4lYIKigD&biw=1020&b
ih=886&dpr=0.67#imgrc=W-e2NTjZVx6DFM:

Thomas Aquinas, in his theory of self-knowledge, claimed that all

our experiences about the world around us determine our
self-knowledge. He argues that our experiences greatly shape our
awareness of ourselves — the more experience we have, the more
we get to know ourselves. Answering the question, ’Who am I?’ can
only be unraveled from the inside by me, the one asking the
question. Such question can be resolved by reasoning taken from
life encounters as evidences. For Aquinas, our being is not composed
of isolated minds or selves, rather, we are agents interacting with
the environment (Torrell, 2005). Note that answering the said
question requires becoming more aware of ourselves as we engage
with real-life experiences. This is Aquinas’ deeper sense of self.
https://www.google.com.ph/search?q=thomas+aquinas+sense+of+self&rlz=1
C1CHBD_enP H767PH767&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahU KEwjDopXe-
gNPaAhVIjLwKHdKUBXQQ_AUICigB&biw=1020&bih=886#imgrc=XR5oMjcNe_p42M

Rene Descartes is known to be the “Father of Modern

Philosophy” and one of the most famous dualistic thinkers of all
time (Rozemond, 1998). Dualism is the concept that reality or ex-
istence is divided into two parts: the mind and the physical body.
According to dualism, the mind is somehow separate from the
physical attributes of the body. The body is nothing but a part
attached to the mind, while the mind is part of the unseen crea-
tion. Literally speaking, if a human skull is opened-up, one can
use his senses to find out something about the human brain, but
can never find anything about the mind. Descartes asserted that
one cannot rely on his senses because they are sometimes
misleading. https://www.google.com.ph/search?q=rene+descartes&rlz=1C1CHBD_enPH767PH767&sour
ce=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwij3OqdjNPaAhVS6bwKHag1AlcQ_AUICigB&biw=10
20&bih=886#imgrc=dsaEkoWFv13JjM:

Understanding the Self Unit 1: The Self from Various Disciplinal Perspectives
 He further believed that the mind is the seat of our consciousness. Because it houses our
drives, intellect, passion and understanding, it gives us our identity and our sense of self. In short,
all that we really are comes from the mind. As Descartes puts it, “I think, therefore I am” (“ Cogito,
ergo, sum” in Latin). He argued that the only thing that cannot be doubted is the existence of the
self, as man himself was the one doing the doubting in the first place. One thing should be clear
by now, we exist, because we think; we think therefore we exist. In the Second Meditation, he
explored on the idea that he is “nothing but a thinking thing that doubts, understands, affirms,
denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions” (Skirry, 2005; Flage &
Bonnen, 2014).

Identity has been defined in so many ways but for philosophers,

identity means being one thing and not another. It is what makes you
“you” and me “me”. John Locke believed that our identity is tied with
our consciousness, which to him, is the perception of what passes in
a man's own mind (Anstey, 2011). In other words, it comprises our
memories.
Was there ever a time that you asked yourself, “Am I still the
person I once was?” To answer this, Locke used his principle of
individuation, the idea that a person keeps the same identity over
time. For instance, would we be a different person if we lost an arm
or a leg? Locke’s answer was simple: Of course, not! To Locke, our
https://www.google.com.ph/search?q=john+locke&rlz=1C1CHBD_enPH

identity is not defined by our physical being. Whether we grow taller, 767PH767&source=ln ms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwisuIyer9X aAh-
WFl5QKHZDzBlIQ_AUICigB&biw=906&bih=853&dpr=0.75#imgrc=pQiwfyETVhFjdM:

lose hair, go blind or get a face lift, our memories are still the same. Therefore, Locke simply tells
us that our memories give us our identity (Ayers, 1993).

David Hume is known for his lack of self theory. He held to

empiricism, the theory that all knowledge is derived from human senses.
Basically, he believes that it is only through our physical experiences
using our sense of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell
that we know what we know.
To understand his lack of self beliefs, Hume made a clear
distinction between impressions (everything that originate from our
senses) and ideas (which are just faint images of thinking and
reasoning based on impressions) in his Essay Concerning Human
https://www.google.com.ph/search?rlz=1C1CHBD_enPH767PH767&bi
Understanding (Source: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). For
instance, our sense of touch tells us that a sea urchin is spiny and
w=906&bih=853&tbm= isch&sa=1&ei=_X_gWp_cHoSA8wX49alY&q=david+hu
me+png&oq=david+hume+png&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0l5j0i67k1j0l4.19 22
86 .192807.0.192989.4.4.0.0.0.0.204.204.2-1.1.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-

therefore, sharp. This is an impression and is wild because it is

a product of our direct experience with the world. From this impression, we form the idea that it is
dangerous to the touch. The concept of ‘dangerous’ is difficult to define completely since it cannot
be seen, touched or tasted — it is just an idea. Hume also argued that these impressions are the
changing, shifting elements of our existence and because of this, our personal identity cannot
persist through time. In short, we perceive a sense of self depending on how our mind put

Understanding the Self Unit 1: The Self from Various Disciplinal Perspectives
impressions together and makes sense of them as ’me.’
To Hume, the idea of the self that we make is a bunch of physical impressions. He argued in
his bundle theory, the assertion that the properties we can sense are the only real parts of an
object (Larsen & Buss, 2013). If an orange fruit is round and orange in color, the theory holds that if
we remove all the properties of an orange, the idea of the orange vanishes and we are left with
nothing. In the same manner, Hume emphasized that if a human is stripped off of all his/her
physical properties, the idea of the human also disappears. Therefore, our sense of self is simply a
combination of all the impressions that we have, that, once removed, leave us with a complete lack
of self.

Several philosophers during Immanuel Kant's time take into

account empiricism as the only path to true knowledge, which
asserts that knowledge is only attained through the senses. In
other words, ’To see is to believe!’ Hence, if something cannot be
seen, tasted, touched, heard, or physically experienced, it might as
well be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!
Then again, many of Kant's supporters advocated rationalism, a
theory which states that reason is the foundation of all knowledge,
rather than experience. Say for example, while watching a 3D movie,
your eyes tell you that a dinosaur is about to jump out of a screen.
However, your rational mind lets you know that it is not! Therefore,
seeing is not believing — reasoning is!
httpshttps://ph.images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=immanuel+kant&fr=yfp- In the middle of this heated debate on self-knowledge and
t&imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fs.fixquotes.com%2Ffiles%2Fauthor%2Fimmanuel-
kant_G1w32.jpg#id=2&iurl=http%3A%2F%2Fs.fixquotes.com%2Ffiles%2Fauthor%
2Fimmanuel-kant_G1w32.jpg&action=click perception between empiricism vs. rationalism was Kant, who
believed that we all have an inner and an outer self which together, form our consciousness.
The inner self is comprised of our psychological state and our rational intellect. The outer
self includes our sense and the physical world (Carver & Scheier, 2014). To Kant, both of these
theories are incomplete when it comes to the self. When speaking of the inner self, there is
apperception, which is how we mentally assimilate a new idea into old ones. Basically, it is how we
make sense of new things. Consider Person A to be the owner of a 180-lb. dog. For him, his dog
is huge so whenever he meets an 80-lb. dog (or any other weight less than his dog’s, for that
matter), he does not consider it to be big. On the other hand, to a person who spends all day with
a small breed dog like a Chihuahua, the same 80-lb dog would seem immense. With this, Person A’s
rational thoughts on ‘big’ are based on the already formed apperception of his big dog, while the
other person’s is based on undersized canines. According to Kant, neither is right nor wrong — the
idea of ‘big’ is just based on internal reasoning that cannot be experienced through senses.
As a fragment of the outer self, Kant argued about a mental imagery based on past
sensations and experiences called representation, which occurs through our senses. Let us say that
you are a person who is not into cold places. You have never been to Alaska but based on the
photos you found online and your personal experiences with snow even in other places in the past,
you already have imagined what Alaska would feel like. This representation of cold for you is
enough to keep you from going to Alaska. As per Kant, empiricists who only rely on the sensory
world and representation miss the mark on self by negating the effects of apperception.

Understanding the Self Unit 1: The Self from Various Disciplinal Perspectives
 Conversely, rationalists who cancel out representation miss by just as much. It is through these
that Kant believed that the inner and outer self combine to give us our consciousness instead of
self being one or the other.

While many philosophers support, “I think, therefore I am,” Gilbert

Ryle in a way said, “I act, therefore I am!” Ryle unravels the separation
between the mind and the body by claiming that it is our behaviors and
actions that give us our sense of self. In other words, we are all just a
bundle of behaviors that if someone thinks she is beautiful, it is
because she acts beautifully. If someone thinks he is intelligent, it is
because he acts intelligently.
Ryle tells us that those who think that the mind exists separately
from the body are committing a category mistake, an error in logic in
which one category of something is presented as belonging to another
category (Hofstadter, 1951). This concept is best explained below:
“One day a girl visited a college campus. After seeing the buildings,
https://www.google.com.ph/search?rlz=1C1CHBD_e n PH76 7PH7
67&biw=1821&bih=882&tbm=isch&sa =1&ei=By7iWrCnHcOT8 wX5-
qFI&q=gilbert+ryle &oq =gilbert+ryle&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i67k1l 3j0l7. 56965.

teachers, students, and dorms, she looked at the tour guide and
58 393.0.58573.12.8.0.0.0.0.341.482.0j 1j0j1.2.0.... 0… 1c.1.64. psy-
ab..10.2.481....0.Zoajkk6 y0Us#imgrc =U8XEv_RFVaQ3mM:

sweetly asked, ‘This is all nice, but when do I get to see the university?'
With this question, the girl committed a category mistake. Rather than realizing everything she saw
made up the university, she thought it existed as a separate category.”
To Ryle, the idea that “there is something called ‘mind’ over and above a person’s behavioral
dispositions” is questionable. He argued that the mind does not exist and therefore cannot be the
seat of self. In other words, we neither get our sense of self from the mind nor from the body,
but from our behaviors in our day-to-day activities.

When it comes to discussing the mind, many Western philosophers

held to dualism, which asserts that the mind and the body are
separate. In other words, we all have a physical brain, but we also
have a separate mind. Because the mind is the seat of our
consciousness, it is what gives us our identity.
But Paul Churchland, a modern-day philosopher, believed otherwise.
Instead of dualism, he holds to the belief that the physical brain is
where we get our sense of self. This is known as eliminative
materialism, the belief that nothing but matter exists (Churchland, 1981).
In short, if it cannot be recognized by our senses, then it is simply a
fairy tale. Therefore, since the mind cannot be experienced by our
senses, then it does not really exist. For him, it is the physical brain
https://www.google.com.ph/searchq=paul+churchland&rlz=

and not the imaginary mind that gives us our sense of self. 1C1CHBD_enPH767PH767&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi
Ju63p0d_aAhXDpJQKHUz4DwgQ_AUICigB&biw=1821&bih=882#imgrc=H8o
nDFclLg5A7M:

To prove this, Churchland points out that if the mind is the seat of
the self, how can personalities be altered by physical injuries or brain trauma? Using this
argument, he claims that the physical brain is the origin of the ‘self’ and that the belief in the mind
is rather unnecessary.

Understanding the Self Unit 1: The Self from Various Disciplinal Perspectives
 -
Maurice Merleau-Ponty believed the physical body to be an
important part of what makes up the subjective self (Carbone,
2004).
Subjectivity, or subject is something that has being (Zahavi,
2005; Clark, 1997). It is defined as a real thing that can take real
action and cause real effects. In short, it exists. However, he ar-
gued that this concept contradicts with rationalism and empiri-
cism.
Rationalism asserts that reason and mental perception, rather
than physical senses and experience, are the basis of knowledge
and self (Alloa, 2017). Merleau-Ponty believed that the mind is the
seat of our consciousness (Barbaras, 2014). The body is just a shell
and it is the subject behind what it means to be human. On the
https://www.google.com/search?q=MERLEAU+PONTY&rlz=1C1CHBD_enPH767PH767
&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwibx-nE4cHbAhWKXLwKHbQEAfoQ_AUI
CigB&biw=715&bih=615#imgrc=THdUgT-sm0C9GM:
other hand, empiricism is the belief that our physical senses are
our only source of knowledge. If the source of knowledge cannot be seen, touched, heard, tasted,
etc., it really cannot be trusted. While the rationalists would say, ‘I think, therefore I am,” Empiri-
cists would say, “I sense, therefore I am!.”
Merleau-Ponty disagreed with these concepts. Rather than seeing and perceiving the mind and
the body as two separate entities, Merleau-Ponty argued that they are interconnected. They both
are our seat of knowledge, and they both give us our sense of self. Like love and marriage, you
cannot have one without the other! In other words, the self and perception are encompassed in a
physical body. The physical body is part of the self — the body is not a prison house of self, rather,
it is the subject that embodies self.
.

Understanding the Self Unit 1: The Self from Various Disciplinal Perspectives