UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

Lec 2/Pre-Mid First Sem

Philosophy What is SELF?
Comes from Greek words: ● Socrates as the first thinker in Western
● Philo - loving history emphasized the full power of
● Sophia - knowledge/wisdom reason on the human self:
Knowledge ● Pag ginamit ang reasoning we are going
● stays in the mind only to answer the ff questions:
Wisdom ○ who we are?;
● knowledge plus practice ○ who we should be?; and
Various Philosophical Perspectives ○ who we will become?
Various - different Perspective- pananaw Virtue - a good habit ( we regularly do)
Philosophical Views of Self ● Ex: act of praying,

● philosophy of self seeks to describe Vice- opposite of virtue(bisyo)

essential qualities that constitute a person's ● Ex: pag iinom

uniqueness or essential being.

Ancient Philosophers
Socrates (469-399 BC)
ancient Athenian philosopher /Plato’s teacher
● Dualistic
● Socratic method - Question answer
method
● Apology (Plato)
● Angkop sa Tao (Ferriols, 1992)
● The full power of reason is in the soul
● Nosce te ipsum - (Know thyself)
Plato (c.429-c.347 BC)
Socrates’ Ethos
Greek philosopher/disciple of Socrates/teacher of
● “The goal of life is to know thyself and to
Aristotle/ Academy in Athens
improve our souls through virtuous living”
● The first and best victory is to conquer self.
● The duties of individual is to know thyself
● Conquer- malupig, masakop, macontrol
● He believes that we have soul
● We have to control ourself, our
● To improve our soul we must practice
weaknesses and limitations
virtue
○ Bcs if we know we know to cope
● Unexamined life is not worth living (“Ang
/abanan, that is our best victory
buhay na hindi sinusuri ay hindi buhay
● The essence of knowledge is
● Recollection - reflection , look at yourself
Self-knowledge
● Knowledge of yourself
Self-knowledge (from Charmides)
● practical task in life which consists of
self-examination about what one is really
doing in life
● acknowledging the limit

Changeable- papalit, transient - temporary,

Soul- hindi magbabago
Pilgrim - journey, traveler
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
Lec 2/Pre-Mid First Sem
Self-knowledge (from Phaedo)
● process of self-recognition
● the real self is the soul (self-reflection and
purification)
● Self-control is knowing oneself
Appetite- craving, kagustuhan, desire
Physical appetite- bodily cravings
● Ex: food, water, sexual desires
Spirit (passion) basic emotions, love anger
Reason - in the mind, magisip ng malalim
● Ano ba tlga ang totooo in the world
Aristotle
Student of plato
● The body and soul are not two separate
elements but they are simply one
● The soul is simply the form of the body and
the soul is not capable of existing without
the body
● Without the body, the soul cannot exist,
the soul dies along with the body
● Rational being - we have the ability to
think, decide and reason out
● Suggest that rational nature of the self is to
lead a good, flourishing
● A change in the body, produces change
in the soul
3 Kinds of Soul by Aristotle
Vegetative Soul
● Includes the physical body that can grow
● For the plant reproduction & growth
Sentient Soul
● includes the sensual desires, feelings &
emotions
● For animals mobility & sensation
● Sentient- senses, sensual desires
Rational Soul
● What makes a man human
● Includes intellect that makes man know &
understand
● For humans thought and reflectionn
Medieval Philosophers
● karamihan injected religious principles
St. Augustine (354-430)
doctor of church ( expert in the field not literally
means doctor )
● known as St. Augustine of Hippo
● Bishop of Hippo in North Africa in 396;
writings (Confession and City of God)
● His mother (Monica) is catholic and his
father is atheist
● Monica prays that his husband & son will
change
● After months augustine wish to enter the
seminary
“You have made us for You, for our heart is
restless, for they rest in You, late that I have
love You”.
● Ginawa tayo ni god para sakanya
● Self – “Man is rational, immortal and
earthly soul using a body”
○ The soul uses a body
● Self – “ I am doubting, therefore I am”
○ Nagdududa, therefore he is
existing
Self (The Confession)
● individual identity (idea of the self);
self-presentation to self-realization
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
Lec 2/Pre-Mid First Sem
Self (happiness and completeness) John Locke (1632-1704)
● omnipotent (having ultimate power and ● English philosopher ( England )
influence) and omniscient (knowing ● founder of empiricism & political
everything) liberalism.
● Self is identical with consciousness and
consciousness is accessible empirically
(Azeri, 2011)
● The identity of the self depends on the
consciousness of the person
Empiricism
● the theory that all knowledge is derived
from sense-experience (phenomenalism
human knowledge is founded on the
Intellect-responsible for appetite
realities)
Faith comes from our reason, we are not sure bout
Tabula rasa (empty/ blank tablet)
it ,yet we believe in it
● having no innate ideas
St Thomas Aquinas
Human Understanding (1690)
● Man is composed of matter & form
● he argued that all knowledge is derived
● Matter- common stuff that makes up
from sense-experience
everything of the universe
Consciousness
● Form - the essence of a substance or thing
● element that accompanies all acts of
that makes it as it is
thinking including the act of recollection.
Modern Day Philosophers
David Hume (1711-1776)
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian.
● French philosopher
● rejected the possibility of certainty in
● mathematician & man of science.
knowledge. “Skepticism”
● he developed the use of coordinates to
● reject the notion of identity over time
locate a point in two or three dimensions.
● reject idea that there are no persons that
● Skepticism – the theory that certain
continue to exist over time (impression)
knowledge is impossible
● “ All ideas are ultimately derived from
● He concluded that everything was open
impression. Hence, the idea of persisting
to doubt except conscious experience
self is ultimately derived from impression
and existence as necessary condition:
but, no impression is a persisting thing.
● “Cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I Am)
● Therefore, there cannot be any persisting
○ Nagiisip ako, therefore i am alive
idea of self.”
● Self is thinking not sensing.
Notable works:
● independent principles, especially mind
● A treatise of human nature (1739-40)
and matter (Cartesian dualism)
● History of England (1754-62)
Dualism (body and mind or soul)
● a theory or system of thought that regards
a domain of reality in terms of two
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
Lec 2/Pre-Mid First Sem
David Hume
● Self is constant, persisting & stable thing.
● All Knowledge is derived from impressions
which are transient and non-persisting
variable thing therefore, there is no self.
Transient - lasts only a short time or is constantly
changing.
● Self is a bundle of impression/ perception
of others (individual impression)
The bundle of impression
● is just a collection of variable and
interrupted part.
Identity
● is just a union created in the imagination
“ When the mind receives a series of
uninterrupted impression that are similar
● it assumes that the only thing that is
changing is time, and not the impression
themselves.
● The mind then infers mistakenly that this
underlying series of impression is itself, a
persisting individual thing such as identity”
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
German philosopher
central figure in modern philosopher(metaphysic).
● argued that the human mind creates the
structure of human experience that reason
is source of morality
● aesthetics arises from a faculty
disinterested judgment
● space and time are forms of human
sensibility
● the world is independent of humanity’s
concepts of it.
Critique of pure reason (1781)
● he attempted to explain the relationship
between reason and human experience.
● He argued that our experiences are
structured by necessary features of our
minds
● he countered Hume’s skeptical empiricism
● by arguing that any affirmation or denial
regarding the ultimate nature of reality
(noumenon) makes no sense.
Metaphysics
● deals with the first principles of things,
including abstract concepts
● such as being, knowing, substance,
cause, identity, time, and space.
Kant’s Metaphysics of the Self (Selbst)
● Wittgenstein claims that the self or subject
doesn’t belong to the world, but it is a limit
of the world.
● Self is individuated as
○ “I” (thinking) (whole man = body +
soul); and
○ “Am” (object of inner sense and
soul)
Kant’s discussion on phenomena and noumena
● he states that without the possibility of a
corresponding intuition, a concept has no
sense, and is entirely empty of content;
● that without empirical intuitions concepts
have no objective validity at all, but are
rather a mere play
Limits of our cognition:
● “We have no cognition of our selves as we
are in ourselves;
● We have no knowledge of any facts
about ourselves outside of how we
appear.”
Contemporary Philosophers
Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976)
British philosopher
Cartesian dualism (ghost in the machine)
● The Concept of Mind (1949) – disagree on
Descartes’ dualism
Logical behaviorism
● focused on creating conceptual clarity,
not on developing techniques to
condition and manipulate human
behavior
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
Lec 2/Pre-Mid First Sem
Self (“ghost in the machine”)
● thought to be spiritual, immaterial ghost
rattling around inside the physical body,
conflicts directly with our everyday
experience, revealing itself to be a
conceptually flawed and confused notion
that needs to be revised
Eliminative materialism (eliminativism)
● radical claim that our ordinary,
common-sense understanding of mind is
deeply wrong
● that some or all of the mental state
posited by common-sense do not actually
exist.

● Ryle believes that the mind is a concept

that expresses the entire system of
thoughts, emotions, actions, and so on
that make up the human self.
Category mistake
● happens when we think of the self as
existing apart from certain observable
behaviors,
● a purely mental entity existing in time but
not space.
● refers to a type of informal fallacy in which
things that belong to one grouping are
mistakenly placed in another.

● Ryle claims that the self is best understood

as a pattern of behavior, the tendency or
disposition for a person to behave in a
certain way in certain circumstances
(human behavior).
Paul Churcland (born on October 21, 1942)
Canadian philosopher
neurophilosophy and philosophy of mind
● The self is the brain (mental state = brain
state)
Physicalism
● philosophical view that all aspect of the
universe are composed of matter and
energy and can be fully explained by
physical law
Philosophy of mind
● studies the nature of the mind
Folk psychology
● human capacity to explain and predict
the behavior and mental state of other
people
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
Lec 2/Pre-Mid First Sem