Name: REAH JEAN M.

SAJORGA
Course and Section: BSCE - 1A

1. Create your own definition of the self and identify who is the
philosopher nearer to your definition.

What exactly am I? This is a question we all ask ourselves, and many of us like
answering it. Is it my DNA that determines my identity, or am I the result of how I
was raised? Can I make a change, and how much can I make? Is it possible for me to
have more than one identity? Since its inception, philosophy has dealt with these
concerns, which are central to how we make decisions and interact with the world
around us. For me, the definition of self is I am the person who I think I am. That's it.
To have a separate cognitive process is to have a self. We do not have a self when we
are born. We become our genuine selves as we live. It is determined by the
perspectives we develop. What we find enjoyable. We build our self by reflecting on
our thoughts and activities and forming an opinion about them. The self is formed
when we reflect on our ideas and activities and create an opinion about them. The
self is a collection of thoughts, ideas, beliefs, fantasies, memories, ambitions, fears,
judgments, qualities, and all other mental processes centered on you, on who you
are as a person, as an individual, as a human. The self is a narrative that tells the tale
of who you are. This is a tale that our brain tells itself about the self, about the "I"
that is me. It's an illusion: it's not what it appears to be. I have a flexible and adaptive
side to me. After generating those many tales about oneself, one strives to "be true"
to the good and correct self, the "actual me," the genuine self, and to make the bad
self disappear.
I conclude that my definition of self is more similar to philosopher Aristotle's
statement that the soul of a human being is the form or structure of the human body
or the human matter, the functional organization through which human beings are
able to perform their characteristic activities of life, including growth. Every human
being has a soul, yet it cannot exist apart from the body in which it lives.
2. Summarize in your own words what is self-according to the
philosopher.

Socrates

Socrates described the self as the self that is ready to govern over the self. It comes
with character flaws such as justice, love, and intellect.According to Socrates, we
cannot truly know ourselves until we have virtue. He also discusses what we should
study in order to avoid living a life of ignorance. His beliefs demonstrate that if one
has knowledge inside themselves, there is nothing to envy in others. According to
Socrates, self-knowledge leads to excellent judgments in actions of controlling both
others and ourselves. Indeed, Socrates recommended that individuals seek the
genuine value of their lives, which could only be accomplished via rigorous analysis
and rational inquiry of human existence, its objectives, and value. Socrates
emphasized the value of pleasure, self-actualization, and achieving goals without
causing harm to oneself or others. A life is not worth living if a person cannot achieve
inner satisfaction or earn value. As a result, one should learn the worth of life and
inner pleasure through studying and scrutinizing one's own life, the world around
him/her, and his/her own internal world. Life became more purposeful and fruitful
as a result of this. Life would be meaningless and futile otherwise.

Plato

He distinguishes between a few ideal selves, in my opinion. One basic concept is that
the ideal self, like a philosopher, should be reasonable and clever, pursuing
knowledge. Basically. The intellect, soul, and hunger, according to him, comprise the
self. Desires, both good and unpleasant, have been linked to the hunger. This must
be done with caution. The spirit is what pushes us to act ("courage"), but the mind is
what is reasonable ("wisdom"). He believes that the mind should take precedence
over the spirit and the appetite. And each component must carry out its allocated
role. The ideal self or individual is one in which the mind dominates over the spirit
and hunger. Throughout history, the notion of "self" has been described and
analyzed by a plethora of philosophers, researchers, and even professors. These
folks are critical in getting this understanding because they can explain how
knowledge of this notion influences the world and how people view themselves and
their final interactions with others.
Aristotle

According to Aristotle, the soul is the form of a body, and to have a human self is to
have a human body. As a result, he doesn't appear to grasp what it's like to live
without a body. Aristotle also believes that our ideas, desires, memories, and
emotions are derived from the soul. As a result, he feels that an unconscious person
does not exist. He, in particular, does not think that reason can drive a person's
passions or other mental life. For his side, Aristotle believed that the human being is
a composite of body and soul, and that the soul cannot be separated from the body.
Aristotle's philosophy of self was built on hylomorphism, which holds that the soul of
a human being is the form or structure of the human body or human matter, i.e., the
functional organization through which human beings are able to perform their
characteristic life activities such as growth, nutrition, reproduction, perception,
imagination, desire, and thinking.

Saint Augustine's

Unlike some current notions of the self, Augustine regards the self as capable of
engaging in a relationship with God. He considers the ego to be fundamentally
oriented to God in two ways: self-presentation and self-realization.Augustine's
personal life experience led him to the understanding that we were created in our
innermost selves for God, and that nothing less than God can complete the human
soul. In addition, the self, according to Augustine, is defined by its thirst for God.
Augustine defined the self existentially in this way. Augustine likewise saw humanity
as being in a fight between Good and Evil. Their decisions are a representation of
that conflict and are molded by it.

St. Thomas Aquinas,

The mind only knows itself in a second-order act that reflects on a first-order act
directed toward extra mental things, according to Aquinas' idea of "indirect" self-
knowledge. Aquinas' theory of self-knowledge begins with the assertion that all of
our self-knowledge is based on our experience of the world around us. He disputes a
widespread belief at the time, namely that the mind is "always on," never resting,
and is unconsciously self-aware in the background. Aquinas contends that our
consciousness of self is instead prompted and formed by our interactions with items
in our surroundings. He imagines the mind as an undefined mental "putty" that
acquires shape when triggered in learning something. The mind is black and formless
by itself, but while acting, it is "lighted up" from inside and perceives itself involved
in that act. In other words, when I crave a cup of mid-afternoon coffee, I'm conscious
not just of the coffee itself, but also of myself as the one desiring it. As a result,
according to Aquinas, we never meet ourselves as separate brains or selves, but
rather as actors interacting with our surroundings. That's why the titles we give
ourselves—"gardener," "patient person," or "coffee lover"—are always derived from
what we do, feel, or think about other things.

Rene Descartes

According to Descartes, the self is an intrinsic notion that cannot be logically

challenged since there is thinking going on and it has to originate from someplace.
All knowledge should be constructed on the foundation of thinking (and the fact that
we can think). Descartes recognized that the use of the bodily senses is the
beginning point for the creation of the notion of the self. In other words, a person's
perspective of the physical environment allows him to form an opinion about
himself. Nonetheless, Descartes recognizes the limitations of this intellectual
framework, which is founded on physical sense experience of the human body. He
used the issue produced by mad people making contradicting comments about a
certain physical phenomena as an illustration. Moreover, he enhanced his case by
employing common sense after providing the justification for using the senses. He
stated that it is impossible to contradict the truth of his testimony that he was
holding a pen and paper. As a result of discovering a means to confirm his thoughts,
the philosopher developed a way to uncover truth and significance in life. He was
able to do all of this by the use of his bodily senses and common sense.

John Locke

That is, within that "self." Our self-awareness of our own existence and, as a result,
our own existence. Is based purely on our consciousness of our history and present,
rather than on the simple presence of a supernatural spiritually constituted being, ie.
soul. As a result, he is indicating (my interpretation). The spiritual life energy that
appears at conception or birth. Has no identity or consciousness of its own existence
and must be developed and maintained via our life experiences. In fact, Locke
defines personal identification as "the sameness of a rational being" and says that
the self is "a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and may
perceive itself as itself, the same thinking being, in different times and places"
(Locke). One has the same personal identity as long as one is the same self, the same
rational being. According to this argument, every change in the self reflects a change
in personal identity, and any change in personal identity suggests that the self has
changed.

David Hume

According to Hume, the self is merely a collection of perceptions, like links in a chain.
According to Hume, our notion of the self originates from our inherent desire to
assign unified existence to any collection of linked elements. This is a natural belief,
yet it is not supported by logic. Looking for an unified self outside those senses,
according to David Hume, is like to looking for a chain away from the links that
comprise it. Hume argued that our sense of self derives from our natural desire to
assign unified existence to any group of linked elements. The discussion revolves
around Hume's understanding of the self as a collection of perceptions. It will be
demonstrated that such an explanation can preserve the self's identity as an
incomplete identity. It will be argued that there must be a distinction between self
and person-hood, as both are different yet interrelated characteristics of the
individual. These two elements correlate to the separate subjects of the Treatise's
first two books and are consistent with Hume's own division of the subject indicated
in Book One.

Sigmund Freud

Freud perceived "the self" to have numerous levels. He divided the human mind into
three categories: conscious, unconscious, and unconscious. Consciousness: whatever
we are aware of or the thoughts that are currently occupying our attention. Re-
conscious: Everything that we are aware of or capable of entering consciousness,
everything that can be recovered from memory, is classified as re-conscious.
Sigmund Freud felt that if you have a strong sense of self (ego), you can grasp your
own demands as well as the constraints that society imposes on you. You can move
freely through life if you have a strong sense of self. You'll have no trouble
identifying your internal suppression, and you'll be content and contented in your
daily life. Furthermore, the actions in front of the mirror assist her in strengthening
her sense of bodily self. She does not have a definite idea of her physical appearance
at this stage. Overall, Sigmund Freud is concerned with the physiological feelings of a
person whose identity has not yet been fully constituted. They are necessary for
articulating the notion of self, which is an important aspect of personality. One of the
elements that can be detected is this. It is critical for comprehending Freud's
theories and perspectives on the construction of a person's inner world.

Jean Paul- Sartre

Thus, Sartre advocates considering the ego as a unity created by awareness. In other
words, he supplements Hume's conception of the self as a collection of perceptions
with an account of the self's unity. This ego unity is the outcome of deliberate action.
Jean-Paul Sartre takes a different stance, claiming that we are solely responsible for
what happens next and that our essence is totally what we make of ourselves.
Because we have the ability to choose, we are the only ones who can accept
responsibility for not just our own acts, but also those of humanity. Sartre is
regarded as a humanist. In other words, he emphasizes the dignity of the human
race in terms of its ability to exercise free choice. This is crucial to Sartre's self-
definition. He also considers this in the context of the entire race.
Emmanuel Kant

He believes that we all have an inner and exterior self that combine to make our
consciousness. Our psychological condition and rational mind make up our inner self.
Our senses and the physical environment are part of our outward self. There is
perceptional while discussing the inner self. However, Kant makes one exception in
this section, notably the handling of the self in itself. He is obviously stating that the
empirical self is the self's appearance in and of itself. This paragraph serves as the
foundation for Kant explanations on the relationship between appearances and
things in and of themselves. Their perspective is that, while we do not know things
as they are, we do know them as they look to us. In other words, we are aware the
appearances of things in their own right

Gilbert Ryle

Ryle argued that the self emerges through actions. We're all just a collection of
behaviors induced by the physical workings of the body. He is, in my opinion,
correct. Because evidence is preserved in the form of memories, experience shapes
perspective. It is your perception that shapes your world. When examined in this
light, the idealistic division of mind and body appears rather strange, and this is
precisely Ryle's point: he contends that the central principles of "official doctrine"
are unsound and contradict the entire body of what we know about minds when we
are not speculating about them. In other words, while the majority of people accept
mind/body dualism as a basic principle, we behave and speak in a quite different
way in practice. This "ghost in the machine" dualism (Ryle's key metaphor), in which
the "self" is considered to be a spiritual, immaterial ghost rattling around inside the
physical body, contradicts our everyday experience, exposing it to be a
philosophically faulty and muddled conception that has to be changed.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

The physical body, according to Maurice Merleau-Ponty, is a fundamental

component of the subjective self. This idea contradicts rationalism and empiricism.
Rationalism holds that reason and mental perception, rather than bodily senses and
experience, are the foundations of knowledge and self. Merleau-Ponty, on the other
hand, establishes a much deeper relationship between the ego and the universe in
his philosophical discourse. "Inside and exterior are connected," he argues in
Phenomenology of Perception. "The world is entirely within me, and I am entirely
outside of myself." This is definitely a difficult point of view to acquire. How precisely
can the world – with all of its diverse items and sentient individuals – be inside?
What exactly does it mean to be inside? It may be claimed that the universe is
formed by one's thinking, seeing mind and is therefore constantly inside our
consciousness, as it were, which is not a solipsistic perspective (positing that only
one's own mind exists) because we can still maintain the existence of other self.