UNDERSTANDING THE SELF IN PHILOSOPHICAL
SOCRATES: AN UNEXAMINED LIFE IS NOT
PERSPECTIVE
PHILOSOPHY
 derived from the Greek words “Philos”
and “Sophia” which literally means
“Love for Wisdom”.
 It is the study of acquiring knowledge
through rational thinking and inquiries
that involves in answering questions
regarding the nature and existence of
man and the world we live in.
 As such, it is imperative to look into the
various explanations from different
philosophers their notion of what the
“Self” its nature and how it is formed in
order to have a better picture on how
people develop their behaviors, attitude
and actions and to be able to identify
and understand who we are and how
we came to be.
PHILOSOPHY
 called the mother of all disciplines
because all fields of study began as
philosophical discourses. Ancient
philosophers attempted to explain
natural and social phenomena, coming
up to their own definitions of how the
world works and what factors
contribute to such phenomena. It was
also inevitable to come up with various
conceptions of what it means to be
human, - and the different definitions of
the self.
 In the context of Philosophy, the SELF
refers to the condition of identity that
makes one subject of experience
distinct from all others. It is sometimes
understood as the unified being
essentially connected to consciousness,
awareness and agency (rational choice).
 Various philosophers introduced
specific characteristics and meanings of
self, which over time transformed from
pure abstractions to explanations that
hold scientific proofs.
1.
WORTH LIVING
 He was the first philosopher who
engaged in the systematic questioning
about the self. According to him, a
philosopher’s task is to “know thyself”
through the process of Introspection
because “The unexamined life is not
worth living.” Knowing of oneself is
through the use of Socratic Method -
the dialogue between the soul and
itself.
 Socrates believe that the answer to our
pursuit in knowing ourselves lies in our
own abilities and wisdom, and that the
only way for us to understand ourselves
is through internal questioning or
introspection. This method of
questioning oneself, where the person
assumes the role of both the teacher
and the student is known to the world
as the Socratic
 Method or Socratic Conversation.
Examining one’s self is the most
important task one can undertake, for it
alone will give us the knowledge
necessary to answer the question ‘how
should I live my life’. He posited that
“Once we know ourselves, we may
learn how to care for ourselves, but
otherwise we never shall.” Thus,
through self-knowledge, we will
discover our true nature.
 Socrates famously maintained that our
true self is our soul.
 Socrates also posited that possession of
knowledge is a virtue and that
ignorance is a depravity, that a person’s
acceptance of ignorance is the
beginning of acquisition of knowledge.
So, one must first have the humility to
acknowledge one’s ignorance so as to
be able to know what he is lacking and
what he needs to know.
 He believed that MOST MEN WERE NOT
REALLY FULLY AWARE OF WHO THEY
WERE and the virtues that they were
supposed to attain in order to preserve
their SOULS for the afterlife. The worst
that can happen to anyone is to live but
 die inside. By continuously asking and
evaluating who we are we as a person
will also be able to understand our
strengths and weaknesses, the things
that we like and dislike, how we want
people to treat us and how we want
ourselves to be treated, so by knowing
these things we can act in accordance
to what we know we are and live our
lives following our knowledge of
ourselves.
 Man is composed of two important
aspects of his personhood. All
individuals have an imperfect,
impermanent aspect, the body, while
maintaining that there is also a soul that
is perfect and permanent.
2. PLATO: THE MEASURE OF A MAN IS WHAT
HE DOES WITH POWER
 Plato is a student of Socrates who
supported the idea of the dualistic
nature of man – body and soul. He
attested that the man is a soul using a
body. The body connotes man’s
material, sensible world while the soul,
on the contrary, connotes the ideal
world that exists apart from the body.
 The IDEAL WORLD (Intelligible world) is
the true world of reality. The SENSIBLE
WORLD (World of Matter) is a world of
becoming; it is a world of constant
change. Plato views the superiority of
the human soul over the human body.
Hence, the real man for Plato is his soul
and not his body.
 Like most other ancient philosophers,
Plato maintains a virtue-based
eudemonistic conception of ethics.
 That is to say, happiness or well-being
(eudaimonia) is the highest aim of
moral thought and conduct, and the
 virtues (aretê: ‘excellence’) are the
requisite skills and dispositions needed
to attain it.
Justice in the human person can only be
attained IF THE THREE PARTS OF THE SOUL ARE
WORKING HARMONIOUSLY WITH ONE
ANOTHER (the Republic). To know more about
the three parts of the soul, take a look at this
picture.
In the Phaedrus, Plato (through his mouthpiece,
Socrates) shares the allegory of the chariot to
explain the tripartite nature of the human soul
or psyche.
The chariot is pulled by two winged horses, one
mortal and the other immortal. The mortal
horse is deformed and obstinate. Plato
describes the horse as a “crooked lumbering
animal, put together anyhow…of a dark color,
with grey eyes and blood-red complexion; the
mate of insolence and pride, shageared and
deaf, hardly yielding to whip and spur.”
The immortal horse, on the other hand, is noble
and game, “upright and cleanly made…his color
is white, and his eyes dark; he is a lover of
honor and modesty and temperance, and the
follower of true glory; he needs no touch of the
whip, but is guided by word and admonition
only.”
The chariot, charioteer, and white and dark
horses symbolize the soul, and its three main
components. The
Charioteer represents man’s Reason, the dark
horse his appetites, and the white horse his
spiritedness.
APPETITIVE PART
 part of the soul that drives man to
experience thirst, hunger, and other
physical wants. It is the seat of physical
pleasures.
 It seeks power, wealth, and even sexual
satisfaction.
 It is located in the stomach.
SPIRITUAL PART
 part of the soul that makes man assert
abomination and anger. It is the seat of
emotions (i.e. anger, fear, hatred,
jealousy).
 It is located in the chest.
RATIONAL PART
 it is the seat of reasoning. It is the
rational part of the soul that enables
man to think, to reflect,
 to draw conclusions, and to analyze.
 This part of the soul is located in the
head. For Plato this part of the soul is
the most important and the highest. It
naturally desires to acquire knowledge
and wisdom.
 It is this part that rules over the other
parts and not to be overruled. It is this
part that specifically distinguishes man
from the brutes. Man can control his
appetite and self- assertion of spirit
through reason.
3. ARISTOTLE: MAN IS A RATIONAL ANIMAL
 Aristotle's philosophical speculation of
self exists as a process of hylomorphism
in which self holds two realms of
existence the physical realm which is
the human body substance holding tight
to the body substance physical
functions, however, not of necessity
quantumly constant, and, the
metaphysical realm, which for Aristotle
existed as the entelechy vital force, or,
soul, of the self's ability to actually exist
itself.
 He denied the world of Forms and said
the form exists within the object. The
soul exists only in the body. When the
body dies, the soul dies with it. For
Aristotle the body and soul are in a
STATE OF UNITY.
 The BODY is MATTER to the soul and
the SOUL is the FORM to the body.
Body and soul therefore, are
inseparable. They constitute man as a
whole.
 He believed that man is a RATIONAL
ANIMAL. RATIONAL SOUL – exists only
in man. The rational soul ranks the
highest of all kinds of souls. Besides, it is
capable of thinking, reasoning and
willing.
 The self is "soul" force pro formed into
a conscious awareness of itself
developing, of necessity, multitudes of
qualities of metaphysical mental
awareness. Physically the self assumes
earthly reality practical and pragmatic
earthly reality functions such as sense
experience, which sense experience,
lacking conscious awareness (not yet
discovering self/soul), form into sense
perceptions, sense impressions, and
sense opinions of earthly reality, which,
not of self/soul necessity, tell truth.
 Psychologically and intellectually
earthly reality self-moves into
cognitive/self/soul psychological
 disequilibrium and psychological
dissatisfaction. Only human Mind Life
(soul) absolutely, of necessity, innately
"a priori" knows truth.
 Physical earthly reality never knows
truth because of the multitudes of
sense perceptions, sense impressions,
sense opinions of earthly reality that
never agree. Metaphysical human Mind
Life (soul), of self/soul existence
necessity,
absolutely everlastingly knows truth.
 Aristotle also believed that there are 3
kinds of souls.
4. RENE DESCARTES: I THINK THEREFORE I AM
 French Philosopher known to be the
father of modern philosophy because of
his radical use of systematic and early
scientific method to aid his ideas and
assumptions.
 Though his works were often compared
or said to be similar to the concept of
St. Augustine which could be traced
back to the works of Plato, what his
ideas sets him apart is on his belief in
modern dualism or the existence of
body and mind and it’s implication to
one’s existence were presented with
the evidences from experiments as well
as philosophical reasoning.
 He also known to be the proponent of
the “Methodical Doubt” which simply
meant of a continuous process of
questioning what we perceive and
accepting the fact that doubting, asking
questions are a part of ones’ existence.
As such he has defined the roles of the
mind and body to the notion of one’s
existence and sense of self.
 Descartes is known for the statement
“Cogito Ergo Sum” which means in
English as “I think therefore I am”.
 According to him a person is comprised
of mind and body, the body that
perceives from the different senses and
the mind that thinks and question or
doubt what the body has experienced.
“I am a thinking thing. . . A thing that
doubts, understands, affirms, denies,
wills, refuses, imagines, perceives.”
 For him, the body and its perceptions
cannot fully be trusted or can easily be
deceived, for instance there are times
that we feel that a dream is real before
actually waking up or having different
perception of size based on an objects
distance from the viewer.
 Descartes explained that because we
cannot always trust our senses and in
turn what we perceive as who we are or
the essence of our existence, we as a
rational being should focus on the mind
and explained that the more, we think
and doubt what we perceived from our
senses and the answer that came from
such thinking or doubting leads to
better understanding of ourselves.
 He also implies that being in a constant
doubt regarding one’s existence is proof
that a person actually exists.
SUBSTANCE
 according to him, is something that
could exist independently. The mind
and soul can exist without the body.
 Establishing the distinction of soul from
the body can make people believe in
the afterlife and soul’s immortality.
THE SELF IS A THINKING THING
 The thinking self is the soul. It is the
non-material, immortal, conscious
being, independent of the physical laws
of the universe.
  While the physical body is the material,
mortal, non-thinking entity and fully
governed by the physical laws of
nature.
5. JOHN LOCKE: MAN IS BORN WITH A BLANK
SLATE
 John Locke is an English Philosopher,
Physician
 He is considered to be the father of
Classical liberalism some of his works on
this subject matter paved the way to
several revolutions to fight the absolute
powers of monarchs and rulers of his
time that led to the development of
governance, politics and economic
system that we now know.
 His work on the self is most represented
by the concept “Tabula Rasa” which
means a Blank Slate. He believed that
the experiences and perceptions of a
person is important in the
establishment of who that person can
become.
 John Locke does not disregard the
experiences of the person in the
identification and establishment of who
we are as a person.
 He stated that a person is born with
knowing nothing and that is susceptible
to stimulation and accumulation of
learning from the experiences, failures,
references, and observations of the
person.
 According to the Memory Theory of the
Self, Locke posited that
CONSCIOUSNESS- is what defines one’s
SELF. X is the same person as Y if and
only if X shares at least one experiential
memory with Y.
 The person today is the same person as
yesterday through the memories he has
of the past. The accumulated
experiences of the person yesterday.
 Considering this, the process of the
mind to absorb information and
accumulate knowledge may imply that
as a person to be able to be whom we
want to be, with the right stimulations,
enough experiences, as well as
awareness that by primarily knowing
nothing will enable one to be open to
any kind of learning and does not limit
any possibilities for growth implies that
the opportunity for one person to
develop to anything he wants to be is
limited only to the environment,
experiences, and the choices of the
person.
6. DAVID HUME: THE SELF IS A BUNDLE OF
PERCEPTION
 The Scottish Philosopher David Hume,
focused his work in the field of
Empiricism, Skepticism, and naturalism.
Being an Empiricist.
 Believes in concrete evidences and
observable experiences that meld a
person, his notion on the self
contradicts to the ideas of the
philosophers before him which said that
at the notion of self, one’s identity and
behavior does not exceed the physical
realm and that the “Self“ is only the
accumulation of different impressions.
 Hume argues that our concept of the
self is a result of our natural habit of
attributing unified existence to any
collection of associated parts. “For my
part, when I enter most intimately into
what I call myself, I always stumble on
some particular perception or other, of
heat or cold, light or shade, love or
hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can
catch myself at any time without a
perception, and never can observe
anything but the perception” (Treatise,
1.4.6.3)
 David Hume is one of Scotland’s
greatest philosophers. His claim to
greatness lies in his appreciation of
ordinary experience, his descriptions of
consciousness and his humane, tolerant
approach to religious disputes.

7. IMMANUEL KANT: HUMANS HAVE INNER
AND OUTER SELVES
 Immanuel Kant, a German Philosopher
that is known for his works on
Empiricism and Rationalism.
 Kant responded to Hume’s work by
trying to establish that the collection of
impressions and different contents is
what it only takes to define
 a person.
 Kant argued that the awareness of
different emotions that we have,
impressions and behavior is only a part
of our self.
 He said that to fully understand who we
are, a certain level of consciousness or
sense that uses our intuition which
synthesizes all the experiences,
impressions and perceptions of
ourselves will pave the way to define
and know
 who we really are.
 Kant argued that the sense called
“Transcendental Apperception” is an
essence of our consciousness that
provides basis for understanding and
establishing the notion of “self” by
synthesizing one’s accumulation of
experiences, intuition and imagination
goes. Which means that this idea goes
beyond what we experience but still
able to become aware of.
 With that in mind and following the
idea of Kant about Self, we can say that
we are not only an object that perceives
and reacts to whatever it is that we are
experiencing, we also have the
capabilities to understand beyond those
experiences and be able to think and
have a clear identification who we are
and establish a sense of self that is
unique and distinct from others.
 For Kant, the Metaphysical Self explores
the nature of being existence with no
basis in reality. He further related that
human have inner and outer self.
 The INNER SELF includes rational
reasoning and psychological state.
 The OUTER SELF includes the body and
physical mind where representation
occurs.
8. GILBERT RYLE: THE SELF IS A COLLECTION OF
BEHAVIOR
 Gilbert Ryle with his behavioristic
approach to self, said that self is the
behavior presented by the person, his
notion of dualism is that the behavior
that we show, emotions and actions are
the reflection of our mind and as such is
the manifestation of who we are.
 Ryle does not believe that the mind and
body,
 For Ryle, The SELF is NOT AN ENTITY
THAT ONE CAN LOCATE and analyze but
simply a CONVENIENT
 NAME that people use to refer to all the
behaviors that people make. What truly
matters is the BEHAVIOR that a person
MANIFESTS in his day-to-day life.
 To him, once we encounter others, their
perceptions of what we do, how we act,
and the way we behave will then result
to the understanding of other people
and establishing of who we are.
 His explanation of self is further
exemplified in his “ghost in the
machine” view. This view said the man
is a complex machine with different
functioning parts, and the intelligence,
and other characteristics or behavior of
man is represented by the ghost in the
said machine.
 Ryle is saying that the things that we
do, how we behave and react and all
other components like the way we talk,
walk, and look is generally who we are
as a person.