UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

Name: James Walter V. Ragragio Year & Section: BSMT 1B

1. Socrates – He said that our inner being or soul's state is the one to determine the quality of life
we have. Meaning our soul is our one true self.
• I agree because true self can be determined by our inner being.

2. Plato - he said that true self is an intellectual entity that constitutes our soul and exists separately
from our body.
• I somehow believe in his definition. You have to think carefully to determine your true
self.

3. St. Augustine - He believed we cannot gain inner peace without discovering God's love for us. We
can achieve it through self- presentation and later on will be self-realization.
• As a believer of God. It is true. How can we find our true self if we don't believe in him?
We must have inner peace and faith in order to discover our true self.

4. Rene Descartes- From his excerpt, since he is tied to dualism, he believed that the seat of our
consciousness is our ethereal mind which gives us our own identity and sense of self.
• If I were to simplify his definition into one word. It would be "thought". He has a point.
Why? We cannot get our own identity based on what we see or hear from other things
and people. Self can be discovered through our own senses.

5. David Hume- The concept of self for him is through experience. It is a constant bundle of
perceptions.
• Self can really change or improve through time based on what we do or our experiences
in life.

6. Immanuel Kant- He stated that our consciousness was formed by a combined inner and outer
self. Outer self is composed of senses and physical world while inner self includes our
psychological state.
• It is to live by rational faculties. We must have intuition in order to have full concept or
knowledge about ourselves.

7. Gilbert Ryle - For him, the physical workings of our body cause our bundles of behavior. Mind
can't be the seat of self since it doesn't exist for him.
• Self is how we behave as a person.
 8. Maurice Merleau-Ponty - Though his concept is different from rationalism and empiricism, he
believed that self is an embodied subjectivity since according to her, what makes up our subjective
self is our physical body that is an essential part.
• His definition is too deep for me to compare it to my own definition of self. But to compare
or relate it, our embodied existence is important and has its own meaning.

Overall, these people have their own definition of self. In my own understanding, the true
meaning of self is having our own personality that we identify as. Where we do not care of what others
think of us because we are not born to please others. It is only a reflection of our own consciousness.