Andrea S.

Andres August 25, 2022

BSFT 1/Block 1

1. SOCRATES
- Socrates was the first thinker to focus on the full power of reason on
the human self: who we are, who we should be, and who we will
become. For ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, the self is
synonymous with the soul.
2. PLATO
- Plato believed that the self is synonymous with the soul. Plato’s
philosophy of the self can be explained as a process of self-knowledge
and purification of the soul. The self consists of three-parts: reason,
spirit or passion, and physical appetite.
3. ST. AUGUSTINE
- St. Augustine integrated the ideas of Plato and Christianity. He
developed a more unified perspective on the body and soul. The soul is
what governs and defines the human person or the self. The soul is an
important element of man.
4. DESCARTES
- The phrase “I think therefore I am” is the keystone of Descartes’
concept of self. For him, the act of thinking about the self – of being
self-conscious – is in itself proof that there is reason. For Descartes,
the essence of the self – a thinking entity that doubts, understands,
analyzes, questions, and reasons.
5. DAVID HUME
- Hume suggests that if people carefully examine their sense experience
through the process of introspection, they will discover that there is no
self. According to Hume, what people experience is just a bundle or
collection of different perception, impressions, sensations, ideas,
thoughts, and images. The idea of personal identity is a result of
imagination.
6. EMMANUEL KANT
- According to Kant, it is the self that makes experiencing an intelligible
world possible because it is the self that is actively organizing and
synthesizing all of our thoughts and perceptions. In other words, the
self constructs its own reality creating a world that is familiar and
predictable. Through our rationality, the self transcends sense
experience
7. GILBERT RYLE
- THE SELF IS THE WAY PEOPLE BEHAVE. The self is best
understood as a pattern of behavior, the tendency or disposition for a
person to behave in a certain way in certain circumstances. Ryle’s
concept of the human self thus provided the philosophical principle, “I
act therefore I am.” In short, the self is the same as bodily behavior.
8. MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY
- THE SELF IS EMBODIED SUBJECTIVITY. All knowledge of our
selves and our world is based on subjective experience. The self can
never be truly objectified or known in a completely objective sort of
way.