Vigel Ann F.

Villenas
BSED-Science 1

GEC02-UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

(The Philosophical Self)
PHILOSOPHER CONCEPT ABOUT THE SELF
1. Socrates “Know thyself”- the true self is the virtuous self which is lived in
accordance with knowledge, wisdom and virtue.
2. Plato A human's soul consists of three parts: Reason (the ability to make wise
decisions and understand the self), Physical Appetite (the basic
instinctual needs), and Spirit (the basic emotions). The body is inhibited
from being a determiner, a knower, and a thinker.
3. Aristotle As Aristotle points out, it is the rational nature of the self to live a good,
prosperous, and fulfilling life.
He proposed 4 concepts which give way to understand any
being: material cause (any being is corporeal, possessed, or made up of
physical materials), formal cause (shape refers to the form of the being),
efficient cause (brings about the presence of
another being) and final cause (gives
a way to understand the self)
4. St. Augustine INTROCEPTION leads to knowing oneself, and knowing God is the key
to knowing oneself.
5. Descartes “I think therefore I am”, it revolves around the idea of mind-body dualism.
6. Locke In his view, all experiences are capable of being analyzed. Known also
for his concept of 'Tabula Rasa,' which refers to the mind as a blank
sheet that gathers its contents from life's experiences.
7. Hume In Hume's view, the mind is nothing more than a collection of perceptions
that are unified by certain relationships. A person's consciousness does
not consist of a simple and individual impression that they can call their
self.
8. Kant Human beings possess a "faculty" called rational will that allows them to
act according to their own principles.
9. Ryle Ryle's concept of the human self is based on the principle that "I act,
therefore I am." In other words, the self is the same as bodily actions. A
person's mind encompasses all aspects of their behavior, their thinking
system, and their emotions.
10. Merleau-Ponty In his Phenomenology of Perception, he argues that the mind and the
body are interconnected and cannot be separated.
11. Churchland Eliminative materialism contradicts people's common-sense
understanding of the mind and the existence of certain classes of mental
states that most people believe in.
2. Complete the following matrix.