Joshua S.

Geronimo
Concept Check week 2 Understanding the self

Socrates - According to Socrates, the sense of the self reveals the essence of man and the
logic on which man thinks. According to Socrates, man is a product of his thoughts. Socrates
questioned how we value what others say without comprehending the idea of separate thought.

Plato - Plato, at particularly in many of his dialogues, felt that the actual self of humans is
the reason or intellect that creates their soul and is distinct from their body.

St. Augustine - As Augustine develops a conception of God that would come to dominate
Western thought, he also develops a new concept of individual identity: the self. This identity is
attained by a two-step process: self-presentation, followed by self-realization.

Rene Descartes - Descartes contends that the self may be understood appropriately as either
a mind or a human person, and that the self's qualities vary accordingly. For example, the self is
viewed simple as a mind, but the self is considered composite as a human person.

John Locke - Personal identity, according to John Locke, is an issue of psychological

continuity. He believed that personal identity (or the self) was built on awareness (by
recollection), rather than the substance of the soul or the body.

David Hume - According to Hume, the self is "that to which our various impressions and
ideas are supposed to have a reference... If any impression gives rise to the idea of self, that
impression must invariably continue the same throughout the whole course of our lives, because
self is supposed to exist after that manner."

Immanuel Kant - He believes that we all have an inner and outside self that combine to
make our consciousness. Our psychological condition and rational mind make up our inner self.
Our senses and the physical environment are part of our outward self.

Sigmund Freud - Sigmund Freud felt that if you have a strong sense of self (ego), you may
grasp your own wants as well as the constraints imposed by society. You may move freely
through life if you have a strong sense of self.
Gilbert Ryle - Ryle argued that self originates from conduct rather than the mind, arguing
that the mind does not exist and hence cannot be the seat of self. We are all merely a collection
of behaviors induced by the physical functioning of the body.

Paul Churchland - Instead of dualism, Churchland believes in materialism, or the concept

that nothing exists but matter. This suggests that the physical brain, not the mind, exists while
addressing the mind. Furthermore, our sense of self is generated by the physical brain.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty - Maurice Merleau-Ponty considered the physical body to be an

integral component of the subjective self. This idea contradicts both rationality and empiricism.
Rationalism holds that knowledge and self are founded on reason and mental perception rather
than bodily senses and experience.