© MODULE PART 1: peFinine THE SELF: PERSONAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVES ON SELF AND IDENTITYUNIT 2: CONCEPT AND NATURE OF SELF: WHO AMI? Our names represent who we are. Our names signify us. However, the name is not the person itself no matter how intimately bound it is with the bearer. Itis only a signifier. Self is thought to be more than the name. Self is something that a person perennially molds, shapes, and develops. The self is not static, "Gutcomes 1. Define the nature, concept, and meaning of the self 2. Discuss the nature of the self from your own point of view, At the end of this unit, you will be able to: 3. Use the conceptualization and representation of the self from various disciplines, and perspectives LESSON PROPER The Philosophical view of Self: Various Philosophers Socrates: Know Yourself He is principally concerned with man. He was the first philosopher who engages in systematic questioning about the self. “Every man is composed of body and soul.” — i . dualism [Man is composed of two important aspects of his personhood] Therefore, all individuals have an imperfect, impermanent aspect to him, and the body, while maintaining that there is also a soul that is perfect and permanent. [Platonic] He considers man from the point of view of his inner life. The famous life of Socrates tells each man to bring his inner seff to light. A bad man is not virtuous through ignorance. The core of Socratic ethics is the concept of virtue and knowledge. Virtue is the deepest and most basic propensity [strong natural tendency to do something] ofman. Knowing one's own virtue is necessary and can be leared. Since virtue is innate in the mind and self-knowledge is the source of all wisdom, an individual may gain possession of oneself and be one’s own master through knowledge. “An Buhay na dai pinaghurop-huropan mayo nin pakinabang.” - Socrates Plato: The Ideal Self, perfect self Plato claimed in his dialogues that Socrates affirmed that the unexamined life is not worth living. With this, he basically took off from his master and supported the idea that man is dual in nature. He added that there are components of the soul: a] rational soul; b] spiritual soul; and c] appetitive soul. The republic - he emphasizes that justice in the human person can only be attained if the three parts of the soul are working harmoniously with one another. The rational soul forged/ copied by reason and intellect that govern the affairs of the human person; the spiritual soul which in charge of emotions: and appetitive soul in charge of base desires. Therefore, when this ideal state is attained, the human person’s soul becomes just and virtues. To make it simple, a man was omniscient before he came to be born into this world. In practical terms, this means that man in this life should imitate his former self; he should live a life of virtue in which true human perfection exists. “Love in fact is one of the links between the sensible and the etemal world.” - Plato Rene Descartes: Cogito, ergo sum/ | think, therefore | am He conceived of the human person as having a body and a mind. He claims that there is so much that we should doubt since much of what we think and believe is not infallible, they may tum out to be false. Rene thought that the only thing that one cannot doubt is the existence of the self, for even if one doubts oneself, that only proves that there is a doubting self, a thing that thinks and therefore, that cannot be doubted.The self then for Rene is also a combination of two distinct entities, the COGITO, the thing that thinks, which is the mind, and the EXTENZA of the mind, which is the body, ie. like a machine that is attached to the mind The human person has the body but it is not what makes a man a man. If at all that is the mind. Descartes: says: “What then am I? A thinking thing, that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses; that imagines also and perceives. To sum, although the mind and the body are independent of each other and serve their own function, man must use his own mind and thinking abiliies to investigate, analyze, experiment, and develop himseft David Hume: the self is the bundle theory of mind He is an empiricist who believes that one can know only through the senses and experiences. Example: Ana knows that Lenard is a man not because she has seen his soul. Ana knows Lenard just like her because she sees him, hears him, and touches him. Hume posits that self is nothing else but a bundle of impressions. What are impressions? For Hume, they can all be categorized into two: impressions and ideas. The first one is the basic objects of our experience or sensation. So, it forms the core of our thoughts. Example: when one touches fire, the hotness sensation is an impression which is the direct experience. On the contrary, Ideas are copies of our impressions. Because of this, they are not as lively and clear as our impressions. Example: the feeling of being in love for the first time that is an idea. According to Hume, the self is a bundle or collection of various perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement. Thus, the selfis simply a collection of all experiences with a particular being. Immanuel Kant: respect for self Every man is thus an end in himself and should never be treated merely as a means — as per the order of the Creator and the natural order of things.To Kant, there is necessarily a mind that organizes the impressions that men get from the external world, Time and Space are ideas that one cannot find in the world but built-in our human mind. Kant calls these the apparatuses of the mind Along with the different apparatuses of the mind goes the self. Without the self, ‘one cannot organize the different impressions that one gets in relation to his own existence. Thus, the self is not just what gives one his personality. It is also the seat of knowledge acquisition for all human persons. Gilbert Ryle: The mind-Body dichotomy For Ryle, what truly matters is the behavior that a person manifests in his day-to- day life. For him, looking for and trying to understand the self as it really exists is like visiting your friends" university and looking for the “university.” Ryle says that self is not an entity one can locate and analyze but simply the convenient name that people use to refer to all the behaviors that people make. Merleau Ponty: Phenomenologist He insisted that body and mind are so intertwined from one another. One cannot find any experience that is not an embodied experience. All experience is embodied ‘One's body is his opening toward his existence to the world. Because men are in the world. For him, the Cartesian problem is nothing but plain misunderstanding. The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and experiences are all one. The Christian or Biblical view of Self The Holy Bible “God created man in His image; in the divine image He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them, saying, ,Be fertile and multiply; fil the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds in the air, and all the living things that move on the earth.” Gen. 1:24-28 Thus, it is appropriate to think of the self as the ‘multi-bejeweled crown of creation -the many gems thereof representing and radiating the glorious facets of man'sseff that include the physical, intellectual, moral, religious, social, political, economic, emotional, sentient, aesthetic, sensual, and sexual aspects. Augustine: Love and justice as the foundation of the individual self Augustine’s view of the human person reflects the entire: spirit of the medieval world when it comes to man. He combined the platonic ideas into Christianity perspective. Augustine agreed that man is of a bifurcated/ dual nature. An aspect of man dwells in the world and is imperfect and continuously years to be with the Divine and the other is capable of reaching immortality The body is bound to die on earth and the soul is to anticipate living eternally in communion with God. He believes that a virtuous life is the dynamism of love. Loving God means loving one's fellowmen; and loving one's fellowmen denotes never doing any harm to another. “An sakong puso dai matutuninong sagkod na Ika mapasapuso ko.” - Augustine Thomas Aquinas: Angelic doctor Adapting some ideas from Aristotle, Aquinas said that indeed, man is composed of two parts: matter and form. Matter/ hyle refers to the common stuff that makes up everything in the universe. Forms/ morphe refers to the essence of the substance of things. It is what makes it what it is. In the case of the human person, the body of the human person is something that he shares even with animals. What makes a human person a human person is his essence. Like Aristotle, the soul is what animates the body; it is what makes us humans. The Psychological View of Self Sigmund Freud: Psychoanalytic theory of selfHe asserts that the human psyche [personality] is structured into 3 parts. These structures — ID [internal desires], EGO [reality], and SUPEREGO [conscience] ~ all develop at different stages in a persons” life. Freud also argues that the development of an individual can be divided into distinct stages characterized by sexual drives. As the person grows, certain areas become sources of pleasure, frustration, or both. Freudian stages of psychosexual development: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. Erik Erikson: Psychosocial stages of self-development He primarily concemed with how both psychological and social factors affect the development of individuals. He formulated 8 major stages of development, each posing a unique developmental task and simultaneously presenting the individual with a crisis that s/he must overcome [see chart] ACTIVITY 1 Write an essay about anything that you wish to submit about yourself. You may use these following suggested topics a. Meas! see me b. How other people see me c. How | would like other people to see meACTIVITY 2 In your own words, state what ‘self’ is for each of the following philosophers. After doing so, explain how your concept of self is compatible with how they conceived of the “self”. Socrates: Plato: Augustine: Aquinas Descartes: . Hume: Kant: Ryle Merleau Ponty: Sigmund Freud