RAFAEL PATAL

GE-112A

PHILOSOPHERS CONTRIBUTIONS/EXPLANATION OF
UNDERSTANDING SELF
1.SOCRATES According to Socrates “an unexamined life is not
worth living” it means that to truly lived you have
to examined your life, know your weaknesses and
strength, awaken your full potential and conquer
your fear and challenges. He also states that our
soul is the always wants to gain knowledge and
achieve perfection, and the “Reason” is the way
to achieve that. He also states that our bodily
needs and luxury things are the walls of
attaining wisdom. For him being virtuous and
knowing yourself is having a meaningful and
happy life that can only be achieve by separating
our body from the soul that is known as “soul-
searching”.
2.PLATO According to Plato there are three elements of
ourselves that have a dynamic relationship with
each other. These elements are characterized as
rational soul, spirited soul and appetitive soul
that sometimes in conflict. He also states that the
“Reason” is the one that organize and balance
the three elements of ourselves. He also states
that happiness can only be acquired if our
“reason” is the one that is in touch with our
Spirits and Appetites.
3.ARISTOTLE He states that the purpose of our self is to live a
happy and fulfilling life. He states that soul
cannot exist without a body. He believed that
every living thing has a soul on it. He also
introduced the three kinds of soul that is
characterized as vegetable, sentient and rational.
Vegetative is the physical body, Sentient is the
sensual desires, feeling and emotions and
Rational is what makes a man human.
4.AUGUSTINE According to St. Augustine the humans are
created to do good and we can only understand
our self if we know or worship God. He states
that knowing God is also knowing our true Self.
5.DESCARTES He states that being able to think about our Self
or just to be self-conscious is a proof that there is
Self. He created the 2 distinct entities that is
compose of Cogito(mind) and Extenza (body).
6.LOCKE He states that our human mind is empty or in
 blank state in the first moment that we are born.
He also states that our self is being sharpen by
our experience. According to him the self is
consciousness, it means that having about
knowledge about our self as a person is also
knowing our self.
7.HUME He states that there is no self. According to him
Self is only a result of imagination. He also states
that Self is just a perception or be precise it is just
a product of our imagination.
8.KANT According to him Self is not just a personality or
an identity but it is the seat of knowledge for all
human persons. He also states that our Self is
also the one that creates our own world reality
that we want.
9.RYLE According to him our behavior and the way that
we act is our Self.
10.CHURCHLAND He states that if there was no brain there is also
no Self, and that is because our brain is
inseparable to our human body. According to him
it is not the mind but the brain is the one that
gives us the sense of Self.
11.MERLEAU-PONTY According to him all of our knowledge about our
selves and the world is based on subjective
experience, and we cannot truly analyze Self by
objective sort of way. It means that to him , Self
can be analyze by our personal feelings and
opinions.