Philosophy
God is always geared towards the
 The word Philosophy is derived from
the Greek words.
 Philos- means love and Sophia- means
wisdom.
 Thus, Philosophy means love of wisdom
 Is a particular set of ideas about
knowledge, truth, the nature and
meaning of life.
 How we choose to spend our lives
contribute to the development of
identity and self-understanding.
 The nature of the self is a topic of
interest among philosophers (from the
ancient time to contemporary period)
and each have their own views.
Socrates
 An unexamined life is not worth living
 The Father of Ancient Philosophy
 One of mankind’s greatest teachers,
was born in Athens circa 469 B.C.
 The 1st Philosopher who ever engaged
in a systematic questioning about the
self
 Man is composed of body and soul
(Dualism)
 Body as impermanent aspect and Soul
as perfect and permanent
Plato
 The soul is immortal
 Socrates’s Student
 3 components of the soul:
a) Rational Soul – Reason and Intellect
b) Spirited Soul – Emotions
c) Appetitive Soul – Desires
 *When this ideal state is attained, then
the human person’s soul becomes just
and virtuous
 “Good actions give strength to
ourselves and inspire good actions in
others”
St. Augustine
 Only some divinity can show man what
is true
 From medieval period
 followed the ancient view of Plato
regarding the self
 Man as bifurcated nature:
a) The body is bound to die on
earth
b) The soul is to anticipate living
eternally in a realm of spiritual
bliss in
c) communion with God
 The human person being a creation of
good.
 The self is known only through
knowing God.
 “All knowledge leads to God”
Thomas Aquinas
 The soul is what animates the body; It is
what makes us humans
 most eminent 13th century scholar and
stalwart of the medieval philosophy
 adapting the ideas of Aristotle i.e. man
is a composite of body and soul
 Man is composed 2 parts:
a) matter (hyle gk.) – common stuff
that makes up everything in the
universe
b) form (morphe gk.) – essence of a
substance or thing. What makes
a human person a human person
is his soul, his essence. The soul
animates the body. It is what
makes us humans.
 “It is what makes it what it is.”
Rene Descartes
 “I think therefore, I am”
 Father of Modern Philosophy
 rationalist (reason is the sole source of
knowledge)
 “The only thing that one cannot doubt
is the existence of the self, for even if
one doubts oneself, that only proves
there is a doubting self, a thing that
thinks and therefore, that cannot be
doubted.”
 Thus, “cogito ergo sum” I think
therefore I exist.
 Man is a combination of 2 distinct
entities:
a) Cogito – the mind
b) Extenza – the extension of the
mind which is the body
 The body is nothing else but a
machine that attached to the
mind. The human person has it
but it is not what makes man a
man, it is the mind.
 Thus, man is a thinking thing –a
thing that doubts, understands
(conceives), affirms, denies,
wills, refuses; that imagines
also, and perceives.
David Hume
 The self is the bundle theory of mind
 Scottish Philosopher
  empiricist (experience is the sole source
of knowledge)
 The self is a bundle of impressions from
experiences.
 2 categories of experience:
a) Impressions – the basic objects of
our experience or sensation. The
core of our thoughts.
b) Ideas – copies of impressions.
Thus, man as a unified self is simply
a combination of all experiences
with a particular person
 "All knowledge is derived from human
senses”
 “A wise man therefore, proportions his
belief to the evidence”
Immanuel Kant
 Respect for Self
 According to Kant, the intellect as well
as the psychological state of being is
what we call as the inner self while the
outer self is made of the senses and the
physical self.
 Largely, the object of the inner self is
the “soul” while the outer self is
directed to the “body”
 Man is the only creature who governs
and directs himself and his actions
a. Should not be used as a tool
b. Should be treated equally
 Moreover, He argued the idea of David
Hume
 For Him, the things that men perceive
around them are not just randomly
infused into the human person without
an organizing principle that regulates
the relationship of all these impressions
and i.e. the apparatuses of the mind
 The apparatuses of the mind goes with
the “self” because without the self, one
cannot organize the different
impressions that one gets in relations to
his existence
 Thus, intelligence in man synthesizes all
knowledge and experience
 “All our knowledge begins with the
senses, proceeds then to the
understanding, and ends with reason.
There is nothing higher than reason” -
Critique of pure reason.
Gilbert Ryle
 The self is the way people behave
 British Philosopher of the mind and
behavior
 He denied the concept of internal, non-
physical self
 What truly matters is the behaviour that
a person manifests in his day-to-day life
 “I discover that there are other minds in
understanding what other people say
and do”
 Ryle believed that mental phenomena
are explained by observing public
behavior.
 “I Act, therefore I am”
Paul Churchland
 The Self is the Brain
 The self is inseparable from the brain
and the physiology of the body
 All we have is the brain and so, if the
brain is gone, there is no self
 The physical brain and not the
imaginary mind, gives us our sense of
self
 The mind does not really exist
Merleau-Ponty
 The Self is Embodied Subjectivity
 A phenomenologist -man and body are
intertwined that they cannot be
separated from one another
 man as conscious being is always aware
of himself and thus an embodied
experience– the living body, his
thoughts, emotions, and experiences
are all one
 “Physical body is important part of the
self” - “There is a harmony between
what is aim at and what is given,
between intention and performance”.
 “ Consciousness is primarily not matter
of “ I think that” , but of “I can” .
 Hence in this argument , it shows how
action required in the formation of self
perception as well as self-concept.
Social Sciences
The Self in Contemporary Literature
 the self is defined by the following
characteristics:
a. Separate – the self is distinct and
unique from others.
b. Self-contained and Independent –
its distinctness allows it to be self-
contained and independent with its
own thoughts, characteristics, and
volition.
c. Consistency – it means that a
particular self’s traits,
characteristics, tendencies, and
potentialities are more or less the
same
 d. Unitary – it is the center of all
experiences and thoughts that run
through a certain person
e. Private – each person sorts out
information, feeling and emotions,
and thought processes within the
self. This whole process is never
accessible to anyone
SOCIAL CONTRUCTIONIST PERSPECTIVE
 to understand the vibrant relationship
between the self and external reality.
 Social Constructivists argue that the self
is always in participation with social life
and its identity subjected to influences
here and there.
The self in Anthropological Discussion
 Marcel Mauss – French Anthropologist -
every self has 2 faces:
1. Moi (me) – refers to a person’s
sense of who he is, his body, his
basic identity, and his biological
essence.
 Moi is a person’s basic identity
2. Personne (Person) – it is composed
of social concepts of what I means
to be who he is.
 it means to live in a particular
institution, a particular family,
a particular religion, a capabilities that makes who
particular nationality, and how
to behave in given expectations
and influences from others.
The self in Sociological Discussion
 George Herbert Mead (American
Philosopher, Sociologist, Psychologist)
Lev Vygotsky (Russian Psychologist and
known for his sociocultural
development)
 believe that the development
of human person is with the
use of Language Acquisition
and Social Interactions
 human mind as something that
is made, constituted through
language as experienced in the
external world and as
encountered in dialogs with
others.
 The self in Families - Human Persons
learn the ways of living and therefore
their selfhood by being in a family.
Without a family, biologically and
sociologically, a person may not even
survive or become a human person.
 The self and Gender - Our gender partly
determines how we see ourselves in the
world whereas everyone has its own
gender ROLE - the Gender has to be
personally discovered and asserted and
not dictated by culture and the society.
Psychology
 “Who am I?” I am who I am. If you are
who you are, then who are you that
makes you who you are?
 “The SELF is the sense of personal
identity and of who we are as
individuals” (Jhangiani and Tarry 2014)
 William James He was an American
philosopher, historian, and
psychologist, and the first educator to
offer a psychology.
The self has 2 aspects:
1. “I” self
 refers to the self that knows
who he or she is
 is the thinking, acting, and
feeling self
 reflects the soul of a person or
what is now thought of as the
mind and is called the pure
ego.
2. “me” self
 is the physical characteristics
as well as psychological
you are
 The empirical self
 refers to describing the
person’s personal experiences
and further divided into sub
categories:
a. Material self
b. Social Self
c. Spiritual Self
Carl Rogers
 He was an American psychologist and
among the founders of the humanistic
approach in Psychology.
 Used the same terms:
a. I – as the one who acts and
decides
b. Me – is what you think or feel
about yourself as an object
Concepts of Identity and self-concept
 Identity – is composed of personal
characteristics, social roles, and
responsibilities, as well as affiliations
that define who one is
 Self-concept – is what basically comes
to your mind when you are asked about
 who you are “The totality of the
individual’s thoughts and feelings
having reference to himself as an
object”
 2 different experiences of self-concept:
a. Existential self – the sense of
being separate and distinct from
others and the awareness of the
constancy of the self “The
private self or your internal
standards and private thoughts
and feelings.
b. Categorical self – tends to focus
on his or her own visible
characteristics “The public self or
your public image commonly
geared toward having a good
presentation of yourself to
others”
c. Self-image - Your self-image is
what you see in yourself.
 It does not necessarily
have to reflect reality.
Indeed a person with an
eating disorder may be
thin but have a self-
image of being fat.
d. Self-awareness
 actual – who you are at
the moment
 ideal – who you like to
be
 ought – who you think
you should be
e. Self-esteem – it is our own
positive or negative perception
or evaluation of ourselves
High Self Esteem:
1. Have a positive view of ourselves.
2. Confidence in our own abilities
3. Self-acceptance
4. Not worrying excessively about what
others think
5. Optimism
Low Self-Esteem:
1. Have a negative view of ourselves.
2. Lack of confidence
3. Wanting to be/look like someone else
4. Always worrying what others might
think
5. Pessimism
Self -esteem building habits:
1. Reward Yourself
2. Stop comparing yourself to others
3. Laugh more
4. Take care of yourself
5. Do something for someone
6. Keep a diary for all the good things you
notice about yourself
“Theories that affect self-esteem”
Social Comparison Theory
 by comparing aspects of ourselves with
other people, it affects our self esteem
 2 types of comparison:
a. downward social comparison –
we create positive self-concept
by comparing ourselves with
those who are WORSE off than
us “(HIGH SELF-ESTEEM)”
b. upward social comparison –
comparing ourselves with those
who are BETTER off than us
“(LOW SELF-ESTEEM)”
Self-evaluation Theory
 it states that we can feel THREATENED
when someone out-performs us,
especially when that person is close to
us
 3 ways of reaction:
a. to distance ourselves
b. to reconsider some aspects or skills
in which you were outperformed
c. to strengthen our resolve to
improve that certain aspect of
ourselves
Real vs. Ideal Self
 In psychology, the real self and the ideal
self are terms used to describe
personality domains.
 The real self is who we actually are. It is
how we think, how we feel, look, and
act. The real self can be seen by others,
but because we have no way of truly
knowing how others view us, the real
self is our self-image.
 The ideal self, on the other hand, is how
we want to be. It is an idealized image
that we have developed over time,
based on what we have learned and
experienced.
Multiple versus Unified Self
 David Lester- is a British-American
psychologist, suicidologist, and emeritus
professor of psychology at Stockton
University
 The construction of multiple selves
varies across different roles and
relationships
  Multiple Self (multiple persona) -it
refers to the different ways that
individuals interact with the different
situations and circumstances in their
lives.
 Coping with different selves constitutes
a formidable task among adolescents
 These challenges contribute heavily to
the young person’s struggle for unified
self

True vs.False

 Donald Winnicott - was an English

paediatrician and psychoanalyst who
was especially influential in the field of
object relations theory and
developmental psychology
 The true self is the core of you who are,
the original you, unshaped by
upbringing or society. This is the state
you were born in and it is a state that
still exists inside you.
 Your false self can also be called your
adapted self. This is the parts of you
that have altered behaviour, repressed
feelings and pushed your needs aside
to fit in with others.