Classical Greek Athenian philosopher (c. 470 - 399 BC) (Died: 399 BC, Athens Cause of Death: Execution by forced suicide by poisoning Spouse: Xanthippe , Myrto Parents: Sophroniscus, Phaenarete Children: Sophroniscus, Lamprocles, Menexenus {Gocrates was an ancient Greek pilosoaher consideredt be te forerunner af mestrn philosophy e wasn particu, a scholar, cache andphiosopher whe infvenced countess of hnkrstveughoxk generations His method of uostonngfemsty known asthe "Socratic Method he groundwork for western ystems lgith parla an piosophy in gonera So, how does Socrates view the self the key to understanding Socrates's concept of the self is through the philosopher's take on the "Sout" But Socrates's concept of the soul should not viewed from the vantage point of Christianity, that is, a religious conception of the soul. its important to note that the ancient Greeks lived long before the existence of Christianity so that for them, the concept of the soul did not have the same religious connotations that it has for us today. Ancient Greek philosopher ‘* Born: 427 BC, Athens, Greece * Died: 347 BC, Athens, Greece + Parents: Perictione, Ariston of Athens ‘© Written: Republic, Symposium, Definitions ato's concept of the self can be gleaned from his notion of the soul. This is because, and it must be noted from the outset, we cannot find in Plato a full articulation of the concept of the "self ‘So how does Plato conceive of the souls as the true self of humans? The body and the soul can be separated in fact, Plato believes that the soul is just residing the bady temporarily. Thus, in Plato's concept of the self, we have the idea that when the human persons dies, the soul departs from the body leaving the latter to decompose. And because the soul is immaterial and indestructible, it cannot die, itis eternal, According to Plato, the soul, conceived of as self, has three parts, namely: 1L The rational sout- soul located in the head. being located in the head, the rational soul enables the human person so think, reflect, analyze, and do other cognitive functions. 2.The spiritual sout- on the other hand, is located in the chest. it enables the person to experience happiness, joy, sadness, abomination, anger, and other emotional feelings. 3.The rational soul- is superior to the spiritual soul and appetitive soul as it serves as their moral and rational guide.Early Christian theologian, philosopher and Church Father ‘+ Born: November 13, 354, Thagaste ‘+ Died: August 28, 430, Hippo Regius ‘* Parents: Saint Monica, Patricius * Children: Adeodatus Written: The City of God ‘Sk. avgustine believed that the self existed in two parts: the body and the soul. The body existed physically in the world and was subject to physical needs and desires. The soul, on the other hand, was the seat of consciousness and connected to God. The soul could be purified by turning towards God, and, in so doing, it could assert its rightful role as master of the body. More specifically, Augustine saw the human mind as a kind of crude copy of the Trinity. Augustine thought that the three-part nature of God shaped human cognition. For instance, one part of this triad would be objects external to the self; a second part would be the mental process of recognizing the object; the third would be the volition or intentionality that causes this recognition, Man's self awareness of his own cognitive abilities is vital to Augustine's theory of the self. It is because the self has a "memory of itself"—or, in other words, is aware of its own existence apart from the body and other subjects—that it qualifies, in Augustine's view, as an "image of God." The mind must "remember" itself, or shake off its connection to the physical world, to reestablish its vital connection to God. French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist (1596-1650) ‘* Born: March 31, 1596, Descartes, France * Died: February 11, 1650, Stockholm, Sweden ‘+ Cause of Death: Respiratory infection ‘+ Parents: Jaime Descartes, Jeanne Brochard * Children: Francine Descartes ‘+ Education: University of Poitiers, Leiden University, University of Franeker ‘+ Important works: The Thirteenth Floor ‘+ Written: Meditations on First Philosophy, Discourse on the Method, Principles of Philosophy ‘Rene Decartes concept of the self revolves around the idea of mind-body dualism. For Descartes, a human ‘person is composed of two parts, namely, a material body and a non-material mind It must be noted that Descartes's idea of the "mind" is not different from the idea of the "soul" understood in antiquity, for instance, Plato's concept of the soul. For Descartes, the mind, or the soul, is superior to the body for it is in the mind that "mental states" occur. This is because for Descartes, the mental states, such as thinking. imagining, and analyzing, rather than the physical states of the body, such as pain, hunger, and thirst , are fundamental to our life as persons. In words, for Descartes, it is the mind that makes us humans. Thus, for Descartes, the "mind" is the "real self™ But how does Descartes view the soul as the true self of humans and how does it differ from the body? On the one hand, Descartes's understanding of the body as a material entity consists in extension (res extenza). In fact, according to Descartes, all things in the material world can be understood and explained in terms of size, shape, and motion. Hence, to be a "body" for Descartes is 1L.to have size and shape 2.t0 endure, and 3.to be movable and changeableFrench phenomenological philosopher * Born: March 14, 1908, Rochefort, France * Died: May 3, 1961, Paris, France * Parents: Bernard Merleau-Ponty * Children: Marianne Merleau-Ponty * Education: University of Paris * Written: Phenomenology of Perception Mbaurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception introduces its inquiry with a critique of ‘the “classical prejudices” of empiricism and intellectualism. Merleau-Ponty rejects the empiricist understanding of sensation, with its correlative “constancy hypothesis”, and the role empiricism grants to association and the projection of memory for treating the basic units of sensation as determinate atoms rather than as meaningful wholes. These wholes include ambiguities, indeterminacies, and contextual relations that defy explanation in terms of the causal action of determinate things. intellectualism aims to provide an alternative to empiricism by introducing judgment or attention as mental activities that synthesize experience from the sensory givens, yet it adopts empiricism’s starting point in dispersed, atomic sensations. Both approaches are guilty of reading the results of perception (the objective world) back into perceptual experience, thereby falsifying perception’s characteristic structure: the spontaneous organization or configuration of perceived phenomena themselves, with their indeterminacies and ambiguities, and the dynamic character of perception as an historical process involving development and transformation. By treating perception as a causal process of transmission or a cognitive judgment, empiricism and intellectualism deny any meaningful configuration to the perceived as such and treat all values and meanings as projections, leaving no basis in perception itself for distinguishing the true from the illusory. English philosopher and physician (1632-1704) + John Locke FRS was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism". Wikipedia ‘+ Born: August 29, 1632, Wrington, England ‘+ Died: 1704, High Laver, United kingdom ‘* Parents: John Locke, Agnes KeeneEducation: Christ Church, Oxford ‘+ Written: Two Treatises of Government, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding John Locke speaks of personal identity and survival of consciousness after death. A criterion of personal identity through time is given. Such a criterion specifies, insofar as that is possible, the necessary and sufficient conditions for the survival of persons. John Locke holds that personal identity is a matter of psychological continuity. He considered personal identity (or the self) to be founded on consciousness (viz, memory], and not on the substance of either the soul or the body.Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis * Born: May 6, 1856, Pfibor, Czech Republic * Died: September 23, 1939, Hampstead, United Kingdom * Cause of Death: Mouth cancer + Height: 5'8" (172m) * Spouse: Martha Bernays (m. 1886-1939) * Parents: Jacob Freud, Amalia Freud * Children: Anna Freud, Mathilde, Jean-Martin Freud, Anna, Oliver, Ernst, Sophie * Education: University of Vienna * Written: The interpretation of Dreams, Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud believed that if you have a strong sense of self (ego), you're capable of understanding your own needs and also intuiting the limits that society puts on you. If you have a strong sense of self, you can move freely through life. You won't have any problem recognizing your internal repression and you'll be satisfied and fulfilled in your day-to-day life. We should start by saying that many of the foundational psychoanalytic ideas aren’t valid anymore. Concepts like penis envy or feminine hysteria are obsolete. Nevertheless, psychoanalysis has managed to stay relevant by embracing new ideas and adapting to modern times, Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian Born: May 7, 1711, Edinburgh, Scotland Died: August 25, 1776, Edinburgh, Scotland Parents: Katherine Falconer, Joseph Hume, 10th of Ninewells Education: University of Edinburgh Written: A Treatise of Human Nature, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, The History of England, Of the Balance of Trade ‘Davia Hume's concept of the self does not onty differ but runs counter to Descartes's and the other philosophers ofthe self, ‘such as Plato and Aristotle. This is because, for Hume, there is no such things as a "self" For Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and other philosophers who engaged this issue, the term or mind refers to things or substance which is supposed to be invariably the same through time. So, these philosophers understood the soulasa substance. And as we may already know, a substance is understood in traditional metaphysics as anything, material or immaterial, whose existence is independent on anything else. So, for these thinkers, the soul or minds the seat forall our mental states, such as thinking, analyzing, imagining, and the like, This means that the", that’s, "the self is the same all thorough one's lifetime. One may chance physically or emotionally, but the "I or “self remains the same. ‘Now, for Hume, if we posses this substance, then we must havean "impression oft. However, for Hume, we do not, and cannot, haveand impressions of such idea,, For Hume, therefore, the term soul, mind, or self is one of those meaningless words that we utter So, for Hume, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and the rest of the philosophers ofthe self were arguing only about "words" simply because neither of them knows exactly what a soul, mind, or selfis. They dont experience it concretely in the first place, according to Hume.German philosopher (1724-1804) * Born: April 22, 1724, Kénigsberg, * Died: 1804, Konigsberg * Parents: Johann Georg Kant ‘* Education: University of K6nigsberg ‘* Written: Critique of Pure Reason, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Critique of Judgment, Critique of Practical Reason. and so on... Emmanuel Kant. So, how does he view the self? According to Kant, the human person has a two- fold nature, namely L.homo noumenon and 2:homo phenomenon On the hand, the term noumenon, which is derived from Kant's epistemology, refers to the essence of things. For kant, the noumenon is the thing-in-itself (das Ding an sich). According to Kant, the noumenon cannot be known because, as the essence of things, it is beyond experience. For example, as Kant would have us believe, we cannot know the "tableness’ of the table, or that which makes a table really" a table". Later on, Hegel argues that there is no such thing as "thing-in-itself” or the "tablesness" of the table. For Hegel, what reason knows is all there is to know. On the other hand, the term phenomenon, according to Kent, refers to the things as it appears to the ‘observer. In other words, the phenomenon is the empirical part of a thing, It is indeed that part of a things that can be experienced by humans. The hardness, texture, color, and shape of table are all that we can know about the table. For Kant, they are phenomenon aspects of the table. British philosopher Born: August 19, 1900, Brighton, England Died: October 6, 1976, Whitby, United Kingdom Education: The Queen's College, Oxford © Written: The Concept of Mind Gitvert ryte betieves that the self is fundamentally defined by our actions. Because the body exists in the physical world alongside other physical things, itis possible to make observations and measurements to characterize the body's behavior. the mind, on the other hand, does not reside in our material world, and 50 the same kinds of observations and measurements cannot be made of under any circumstances. As a result, only through physical and mechanical interactions, which are supposedly dictated controlled by the mind, could any two brains expects to have affect on one another-which is to say , on one could ever have direct knowledge of another's mind. This statement may be related to my personality, as seen by the way i interact with the individuals in my immediate environment. As result of this concept, | now have a greater grasp of my own personality. Based on my actions, I'm now able to discern what kind of person | am. Moreover, they have had a huge impact on my self-awareness since they allow me to have adequate information to properly grasp myself. It demonstrated to me that our actions may also serve as a manner of defining our identities. The way we act or behave may tell a great deal about our personalities. Since | am always true to myself, this attitude is one that | embrace since | feel that my actions may be the most accurate reflection of who | am. "Plastic" does not describe me in the sense that if there is anything | don't like, | always tell people the truth rather than pretend to enjoy it. Others may come to the conclusion that my actions are indicative of my personality. Depending on how | interact with them, they may be able to determine what kind of person | am in general.