Lesson 1- The Self from Various Philosophical Perspectives

How well do you know yourself? Are you aware of your talents? What about
your strengths? The persistent question, “Who am I?” is rooted in the human need to
understand the basis of the experiences of the self. When people are asked to
explain their understanding of the word, the usual answers are: “It’s who am I.” “It’s
me my essence”. “It’s what makes me unique and different from everyone else.”
For a more meaningful understanding of the self, numerous studies have
been conducted and various approaches have been developed from concepts about
it. Important philosophers from ancient to contemporary times sought to describe the
essential qualities that compose a person’s uniqueness.
The different perspective and views in the self can be best seen and
understood by revisiting its prime movers and identify the most important
assumptions made by philosophers from the ancient time to the contemporary
period.
1. Socrates- was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the
founder of Western philosophy.
 While the Pre-Socratic philosophers were concerned much about what
the world is made up, all these and all that, Socrates was more
concerned on the philosophy that man should know himself.
 His dictum, “Know Thyself”.
 He said that an “Unexamined self is not worth living”.
 During Socrates time most men were not aware of who they were and
the virtues that they were attain in order to preserve their souls for the
afterlife.
 For Socrates to live but to die inside is the worst that can happen to
anyone.
 For Socrates man is dualistic (body and soul). Meaning all individuals
have imperfect and impermanent aspect of him and the body., while
maintaining that there is also a soul that is perfect and permanent.

2. Plato- was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in
Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the
Academy, the first institution of higher learning on the European continent.
 A student of Socrates. He supported the idea that man is a dual nature,
body and soul.
 In addition, he added that there are three components of the soul: the
rational soul, the spirited soul and the appetitive soul. He said that
justice can only be attained when the three parts are working
harmoniously with each other.
Rational soul is the part responsible for reason (logos). Its virtues
include theoretical wisdom (Sophia), understanding (sunesis) and
practical wisdom (phronesis)
Spirited soul is the part of the soul by which we are angry or get into a
temper. In charge with our emotion.
 Appetitive soul is the third and lowest form of soul that governs desires
like eating, drinking, sleeping and having sex.
When these three harmonized then the soul becomes just and virtues.

3. Augustine- also known as Saint Augustine was a theologian and philosopher

of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippi Regius in Numidia, Roman North
Africa.
 Influenced by the ancient view of Socrates and Plato, infused his idea
of man with the new found doctrine of Christianity.
 He agreed that man is bifurcated nature. One aspect of him dwells in
the world and is imperfect and continuously yearns to be with the
Divine and the other is capable of resting immortality.
 His famous line, “My soul is restless until it rests in you”.

4. Thomas Aquinas- was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an
immensely influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of
scholasticism. He is known as the doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, and
Doctor Universalis.
 He is considered the most imminent thirteenth century scholar and
stalwart of medieval philosophy top Augustine’s Christian view.
 He said that man is composed of two parts matter and form.
Matter or “hyle” in Greek refers to the common stuff that makes up
everything in the universe while form “morphe” refers to the essence of
a substance or thing which differentiates us from other animals and
that is our soul which animates the body that makes us human.

5. Rene Descartes- was a French lay Catholic philosopher, scientist and

mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of
modern philosophy and science.
 Father of Modern Philosophy conceived the idea that the human
person is having a body and mind.
 Descartes claimed that the self is a combination of the two distinct
entities, the cogito which refer to the thing that thinks which is the mind,
and the extenza or extension of the mind, the body.
 He views that the body is nothing else but a machine that is attached to
the mind.
 He said that the mind is the thinking thing, that doubts, understands,
affirms, conceives, denies, imagines and perceives.

6. David Hume
 A Scottish philosopher who has a very unique way of looking at man.
 He is an empiricist who argues that one can only know what comes
from the senses and experiences. Empiricism is the school of thought
that espouses the idea that knowledge can only be possible if it is
sensed and experienced. When one imagines the feeling of being in
love
  To Humes, the self is nothing else but a bundle of impressions.
Impressions are the basic objects of our experience or sensation,
which are vivid being products of our direct experience with the world
 For Hume men simply want to believe that there is unified, coherent
self, a soul or mind, just like what other philosophers believe.

7. Immanuel Kant- was a German philosopher and one of the central

Enlightenment thinkers.
 Thinking that the self is only impressions was problematic for Kant. He
recognizes Hume’s account that everything starts with perception and
sensation of impression, however for him the things that men perceive
around them are not just ordinarily infused into the human person
without an organizing principle that regulates the relationships of these
impressions.
 For Kant there is necessarily a mind that organizes the impressions
that men get from the external world.
 Kant suggests that it is an actively engaged intelligence in man that
synthesizes all knowledge and experiences.

8. Gilbert Ryle- was a British philosopher principally known for his critique of
Cartesian dualism.
 Solves the body mind dichotomy by denying the self-concept of an
internal, non-physical self.
 For Ryle what truly matters are the behavior that a person manifests in
his day-to-day life.

9. Merleau-Ponty-
 He says that the mind and body are so intertwined that they cannot be
separated from one another.
 For him, the living body, thoughts, emotions, and experience are all
ones.