UNDERSTANDING THE
SELF
Joyce SA. Ladines
Instructional Objectives
After learning this unit, you should be able to:
• Explain why it is essential to understand the self
• Describe and discuss the different notions of the self from points of
view of the various philosophers across time and place;
• Compare and contrast how the self has been represented in different
philosophical schools; and
• Examine one`s self against the different views of self that were
discussed in class.
Today's Discussion
Defining the self: Personal
and Developmental Perspectives on Self
and Identity
Lesson 1
The Self from Various
Philosophical Perspective
The history of philosophy is
replete with men and women
who inquired into the
fundamental nature of the self.
Socrates
Socrates
Prior the Socrates,the Greek thinkers, sometimes
collectively called the Pre-Socratics to denote that
some of them preceded Socrates while others existed
around Socrates's time as well, preoccupied
themselves with the question of the primary
substratum, arché
that explains the multiplicity of
things in the world.
Socrates
“ The unexamined life is not worth
living.”
Socrates
• man=body+soul
• individual= imperfect/
permanent+perfect&permanament
Plato
Plato
• Plato is a dualist.
• Man is composed of body and soul.
• Soul exist before birth and after
death.
Plato
• Soul or mind attains knowledge of
the forms, as opposed to the senses.
• According to Plato, soul is composed
of three parts.
Plato
Three components of the soul
1. The rational soul
2. the spirited soul
3. the appetitive soul
Augustine
Augustine
• The human person reflects the entire spirit of the
medieval world when it comes to man.
• Man is of bifurcated nature
• The body is bound to die on earth and the soul is
to anticipate living eternally in a realm of spiritual
bliss in communion with God
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
• Most eminent thirteenth century
scholar and stalwartof the medieval
philosophy.
• Indeed, man is composed of two
parts; matter and form
Thomas Aquinas
• M a t t e r, o r H y l e r e f e r s t o t h e
“common stuff that makes up
everything in the universe.”
Rene Descartes
Rene Descartes
• Father of modern philosophy
• The Meditations of First Philosophy
• “ if something is so clear and lucid as
not to be doubted, thats the only time
one should believe.
Rene Descartes
• The only thing that one cannot doubt is the
existence of the self
• “Cogito Ergo Sum” , “I think therefore, I am.”
• The body is nothing else but a machine that is
attached to the mind.
David Hume
David Hume
• One can know only what comes from the senses
and experiences.
• Argues that the self is nothing like what his
predecessors thought of it.
• Empiricism
• Men can only attain kwoledge by experiencing.
David Hume
• The self is nothing else but a bundle of
impressions.
• Impressions and Ideas
• S e l f i s “ a b u n d l e o r c o l l e c t i o n o f d i f fe re n t
perceptions, which succeed each other with an
inconceivable rapidity, and are in perpetual flux
and movement.”
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
• Thinking the “self” as a mere combinationof
impressions was problematic .
• There is necessarily a mind that organizes
thee impressions that men can get from the
external world.
• “ aparatus of mind”
Immanuel Kant
• Without the self , one cannot organize the
different impressions that one gets in
relation to his own existence.
• the self is not only personality but also the
seat of knowledge.
Gilbert Ryle
Gilbert Ryle
• Solves the mind-body dichotomy
• Looking for and trying to understand a self as it really
exists is like visiting your friend’s university and looking
for the “university”.
• The "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
Merleau-Ponty
• Asserts that the mind-body bifurcation that has been
going on for a long time is a futile endeavor and an
invalid reason.
• Mind and body a so intertwined that they cannot be
separated from one another.
• T h e l iv i n g b o dy , h i s t h o u g h t s , e m o t i o n s , a n d
experiences are all one.
Merleau-Ponty
• “ one’s body is his opening towards his existence to the
world”.
Thank You!
