The Philosophical Perspective of Understanding the Self

Prominent philosophers have different views regarding the nature of the self. The
ancient philosophers explained the self from their conceptual understanding of the
world since scientific evidence was hard to obtain due to lack of measures.
Meanwhile, contemporary philosophers have incorporated science to their theories in
the light of the technological advancement they have been exposed to.
 
SOCRATES: AN UNEXAMINED LIFE IS NOT WORTH LIVING
 As what I have understood, each one of us should be conscious of what is good
to be able to have a good life. Don't let ignorance overcome you. If you don't
know such thing, never hesitate to ask for the help of others for you to learn
something new. Our soul strives for wisdom and perfection to achieve exalted
state.
 
PLATO: THE SELF IS A DUAL NATURE OF BODY AND SOUL
 Plato was the student of Socrates who also believed that the self is synonymous
with the soul. Plato elaborated the concept of the soul; specifically, he
introduced the idea of a three-part soul: rational soul, appetitive soul, and
spirited soul.
o (1) Rational is the divine essence that enables us to think deeply, make
wise choices, and achieve a true understanding of eternal truths.
o (2) Appetitive includes our basic biological needs such as hunger, thirst,
and sexual desires.
o (3) Spirited or passion includes basic emotions such as love, anger,
empathy.
 These three basically allow man to live in accordance to his nature,
then he is giving justice in his existence therefore everyone in this
world has a purpose for each one of us should do our part.
 Always remember that good is above God.
 
ARISTOTLE: THE SOUL IS THE ESSENCE OF THE SELF
 He defined man as a rational animal for we have free will and intellect. Only
man in God's creation has the ability to think. So, therefore, we should use our
decisions wisely and this will definitely lead us to self-actualization.
 
ST. AUGUSTINE: THE SELF HAS AN IMMORTAL SOUL
 St. Augustine is regarded as a saint in the Catholic Church. As a religious
philosopher, he contemplated on the nature of man with an emphasis on the
soul as an important element of man. He believed that the soul is what governs
and defines the human person.
 
RENE DESCARTES: I THINK THEREFORE I AM
 Man is a thinking man that has an entity to doubt, understand, analyze,
question, and the most important thing is to reason out that can exist
 independently in the physical body. The Latin phrase "Cogito ergo sum" is the
concept of self by Descartes which means "I think therefore I am."
 Cogito is the thing that thinks, which is the mind. Extenza or extension of the
mind is the body.
 
JOHN LOCKE: THE SELF IS CONSCIOUSNESS
 For Locke, the human mind at birth is tabula rasa or blank slate. The self or
personal identity is constructed primarily from sense experience - specifically,
what people see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. These experiences shape and mold
the self throughout a person's life. For Locke, conscious awareness and
memory of previous experiences are the keys to understanding the self.
 
DAVID HUME: A BUNDLE OR COLLECTION OF DIFFERENT PERCEPTIONS
 Man is a bundle of all sensation and perception. When people will examine
their content of experience what they can see are just impressions and ideas
that result to imagination.
 
IMMANUEL KANT: WE CONSTRUCT THE SELF
 It is the self that is constructing and organizing principles of experiences which
creates a world that is familiar, predictable, and significantly be called as mine.
For example, I myself is the one who's discovering the world for I am the driver
of my life. Nobody will do it for me for it transcends the experience in my mind
as well as the senses of mine.
 The Self, Society and Culture

What is the Self?

Commonly defined by the following characteristic: (Stevens, 1996)
 (1) Separate
o The self is distinct from other selves.
 (2) Self-Contained
o Its distinctness allows it to be self-contained with its own thoughts,
characteristics, and volition. It does not require any other self for it to
exist.
 (3) Independent
o In itself it can exist.
 (4) Consistent
o It has a personality that is enduring and therefore can be expected to
persist for some quite some time.
o It can be studied, described, and measured.
o The self-traits, characteristics, tendencies, and potentialities are more or
less the same.
 (5) Unitary
o It is the center of all experiences and thoughts that run through a certain
person.
o It is the chief of command post in an individual where all processes,
emotions, and thoughts converge.
 (6) Private
o Each person sorts out information, feelings and emotions, and thought
processes within the self. The whole process is never accessible to
anyone but the self.
o Self is isolated from the external world. It lives within its own world.
 
Self
 It is ever-changing and dynamic, allowing external influences to take part in its
shaping. (Social Constructionist Perspective)
o It argues that for a merged view of "the person" and "their social context"
where the boundaries of one cannot easily be separated from the
boundaries of the other.
o The self should not be seen as a static entity that stays constant through
and through. Rather, the self has to be seen as something that is in
unceasing flux. In a constant struggle with external reality and is flexible
in its dealings with society.
 It is always in a participation with social life and its identity subjected to
influences here and there. It is truly complex.
 
The Self and Culture
 "Remaining the same person and turning chameleon by adapting to one's
context seems paradoxical."
  But according to a French Anthropologist Marcel Mauss, this phenomenon can
be explained.
 
Every SELF has two faces:
 (1) Personne -- composed of the social concepts of what it means to be who he
is. -- It has much to do with what it means to live in a particular institution, a
particular family, a particular religion, a particular nationality, and how to
behave given expectations and influences from others.
 (2) Moi -- refers to a person's sense of who he is, his body, and his basic
identity, his biological givenness. It is a person's basic identity.
 
The Self and the Development of the Social World
 Studies indicate that men and women in their growth and development engage
actively in the shaping of the self. The unending terrain of metamorphosis of
the self is mediated by language.
 Language as both publicly a shared and privately utilized symbol system is the
site where the individual and the social make and remake each other.
 Proponents:
o Mead and Vygotsky
 The way that human persons develop is with the use of language
acquisition and interaction with others.
 The way that we process information is normally a form of an
internal dialogue in our head.
 e.g. Those who deliberate about moral dilemmas undergo
internal dialog. "Should I do this or that?" "But if I do this, it
will be like this." "Don't I want the other option?"
 Cognitive and emotional development of a child is always a
mimicry of how it is done in the social world, in the external reality
where he is in.
 They treat human mind as something that is made, constituted
through language as experiences in the external world and as
encountered in dialogs with others.
 
Self in Families
 Sociological perspective struggles to understand the real connection between
the concept of the SELF and the SOCIAL WORLD. In doing so, sociologist focus
on the different institutions and powers at play in the society. Among these,
the most prominent is the FAMILY.
 Human persons learn the ways of living and therefore their selfhood by being
in a family. It is what a family initiates a person to become that serves as the
basis for this person's progress.
 Without a family, biologically and sociologically, a person may not even survive
or become a human person. One is who he is because of his family for the most
part.
 
Gender and the Self
 Another important aspect of the "self" is GENDER.
 Gender is one of those loci of the self that is subject to alteration, change, and
development.
 From the point-of-view of the social sciences and the self, it is important to give
one the leeway to find, express, and live his identity. This forms part of the
selfhood that one cannot just dismiss.
 One maneuvers into the society and identifies himself as who he is by also
taking note of gender identities.
 
Assessment:
 (1) Think of a time when you felt you were your "true self." What made you
think you were truly who you are during this time of your life?
 (2) Following the question above, can you provide a time when you felt you
were not living your "true self?" Why did you have to live a life like that? What
did you do about it?
 The Self as Cognitive Construct

Cognitive Psychology
 concerned with mental processes (as perception, thinking, learning, and
memory) especially with respect to the internal events occurring between
sensing and the expression of behavior.

Cognition
 the mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension. It
includes thinking, knowing, remembering, judging, and problem-solving.
 These are higher level functions of the brain and encompass language,
imagination, perception, and planning.

In Psychology, the self is defined as: “the sense of personal identity and of who we are
as individuals.”

William James (1890)

 “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”
 He conceptualized the Self as
 (1) "I" -- the thinking, acting, and feeling self; and,
 (2) "me" -- the physical characteristics; capabilities.

Carl Rogers (1959) theory of personality:

 “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself as I am, then I can change.”
 Theory of personality:
 "I" is the one who acts and services
 "Me" is what you think or feel about yourself

Identity and Self – Concept

 Composed of personal characteristics, social roles, and responsibilities.
 it is what comes to your mind when asked about who you are.
 it is not fixed in one time frame.

Self-Schema
 Our organized system or collection of knowledge about who we are.
 The self-schema includes your hobbies, family, religion, nationality, interests,
work, course, age, name, etc.
 As you grow and adapt to the changes around you, they also change.
 They actively shape and affect how you see, think, and feel about things.

Psychological Theories see the self and identity as mental constructs, created and
recreated in memory. Current researches point to the frontal lobe of the brain as the
area associated with processes concerning the self.

Sigmund Freud
  “Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth
later in uglier ways.”
 He sees the self and the mind as a result of interaction between the parts:
 Id -- the instinctual part of the mind that contains sexual and aggressive
drives and hidden memories. It is selfish and wishful in nature. Illogical
and fantasy oriented.
 Ego -- the realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and
the superego. Modified by the direct influence of the external world. The
decision-making component of personality.
 Superego -- operates as a moral conscience. Applies the values of society
which are learned from one's parents and others.

Symbolic Interactionism
 GH Mead
 Argues that the self is created and developed through human interaction. We
are social products because:
 1. We do not create ourselves out of nothing.
 2. We need others to affirm and reinforce who we think we are.
 3. What’s important to us is influenced by our social/historical context.

Self-Awareness
1. The private self -- your internal private thoughts and feelings.
2. The public self/image -- geared to having a good presentation of yourself to others.

Self -awareness presents us three other Self-Schema:

1. Actual Self -- Who you are at the moment.
2. Ideal Self -- Who you like to be.
3. Ought to be -- Who you think you should be (responsibilities)

Self-awareness may be positive or negative.

At other times, we may experience loss of individual self-awareness and

accountability in groups. A lot of people attune themselves with the emotions of their
group. Being in a large crowd may lessen our self-control.

Social Comparison
 In this theory we learn about ourselves, the appropriateness of our behaviors,
as well as our status, by comparing ourselves to other people.
 Downward Social Comparison – is a common type of comparing
ourselves to others. We create a positive self-concept by comparing
ourselves with those who are worse than us.
 Upwards Social Comparison – is comparing ourselves with those who are
better than us. It can be motivation for some, but it could also lower your
self-esteem because it shows your weakness.
  These also occur not only in individuals but also in groups.

Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory

 States that we feel threatened when someone out-performs us, or does better
than us. Especially when that person is a close peer/partner/friend.
 We usually act in three (3) ways in these situations:
 1. We distance ourselves from the person.
 2. We reconsider the aspects or skill you were outperformed in.
 3. We try to improve that aspect of ourselves.
 But then, sometimes to increase or maintain self-esteem, some may become
NARCISSISTIC. Meaning: overly high self-esteem, self-admiration, self-
centeredness.
 There is a difference between self-esteem and narcissism. People with high self-
esteem are usually outgoing, adventurous, adaptable in a lot of situations. But
they could also be bullies and experiment on abusive behavior, drugs, alcohol
and etc.

“Each person is an island unto himself, in a very real sense; and he can only build
bridges to other islands if he is first of all willing to be himself and permitted to be
himself.” --- Carl Rojers