WEEK 2: THE SELF ACCORDING TO PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy
Philosophy is defined as the study of knowledge or wisdom from its Latin roots, philo (love) and
sophia (wisdom). This field is also considered as “The Queen of All Sciences” because every
scientific discipline has philosophical foundations.
Various thinkers for centuries tried to explain the natural causes of everything that exist
specifically the inquiry on the self pre-occupied these philosophers in the history. The Greek
philosophers were the ones who seriously questioned myths and moved away from them in
attempting to understand reality by exercising the art of questioning that satisfies their curiosity,
including the questions about self. The following lecture will present the different philosophical
perspectives and views about self.

Socrates
A philosopher from Athens, Greece and said to have the greatest influence on European thought.
According to the history he was not able to write any of his teachings and life’s account instead,
he is known from the writings of his student Plato who became one of the greatest philosophers
of his time. Socrates had a unique style of asking questions called Socratic Method.
Socratic Method or dialectic method involves the search for the correct/proper definition of a
thing. In this method, Socrates did not lecture, he instead would ask questions and engage the
person in a discussion. He would begin by acting as if he did not know anything and would get
the other person to clarify their ideas and resolve logical inconsistencies (Price, 2000).
The foundation of Socrates philosophy was the Delphic Oracle’s that command to “Know
Thyself”. Here, Socrates would like to emphasize that knowing or understanding oneself should
be more than the physical self, or the body.
According to Socrates, self is dichotomous which means composed of two things: The physical
realm or the one that is changeable, temporal, and imperfect. The best example of the physical
realm is the physical world. The physical world is consisting of anything we sense – see, smell,
feel, hear, and taste. It is always changing and deteriorating. The ideal realm is the one that is
imperfect and unchanging, eternal, and immortal. This includes the intellectual essences of the
universe like the concept of beauty, truth, and goodness. Moreover, the ideal realm is also present
in the physical world. One may define someone as beautiful or truthful, but their definition is limited
and imperfect for it is always relative and subjective. It is only the ideal forms themselves that are
perfect, unchanging, and eternal.
For Socrates, a human is composed of body and soul, the first belongs to the physical realm
because it changed, it is imperfect, and it dies, and the latter belongs to ideal realm for it survives
the death. Socrates also used the term soul to identify self.
The self, according to Socrates is the immortal and unified entity that is consistent over time. For
example, a human being remains the same person during their childhood to adulthood given the
fact that they undergone developmental changes throughout their lifespan.
Plato
A student of Socrates, who introduced the idea of a three part soul/self that is composed of
reason, physical appetite and spirit or passion.
The Reason enables human to think deeply, make wise choices and achieve a true
understanding of eternal truths. Plato also called this as divine essence.
The physical Appetite is the basic biological needs of human being such as hunger, thirst,
and sexual desire.
And the spirit or passion is the basic emotions of human being such as love, anger,
ambition, aggressiveness and empathy.
These three elements of the self works in every individual inconsistently. According to Plato, it is
always the responsibility of the reason to organize, control, and reestablish harmonious
relationship between these three elements.
Plato also illustrated his view of the soul/self in “Phaedrus” in his metaphor: the soul is like a
winged chariot drawn by two powerful horses: a white horse, representing Spirit, and a black
horse, embodying appetite. The charioteer is reason, whose task is to guide the chariot to the
eternal realm by controlling the two independent-minded horses. Those charioteers who are
successful in setting a true course and ensuring that the two steeds work together in harmonious
unity achieve true wisdom and banquet with the gods. However, those charioteers who are unable
to control their horses and keep their chariot on track are destined to experience personal,
intellectual, and spiritual failure.

St. Augustine
He is considered as the last of the great ancient philosophers whose ideas were greatly Platonic.
In melding philosophy and religious beliefs together, Augustine has been characterized as
Christianity’s first theologian.
Like Plato, Augustine believed that the physical body is different from the immortal soul. Early in
his philosophical development he described body as “snare” or “cage” of the soul and said that
the body is a “slave” of the soul he even characterized that “the soul makes war with the body”.
Later on he came to view the body as “spouse” of the soul, with both attached to one another by
a “natural appetite.” He concluded, “That the body is united with the soul, so that man may be
entire and complete, is a fact we recognize on the evidence of our own nature.”
According to St. Augustine, the human nature is composed of two realms:
1. God as the source of all reality and truth. Through mystical experience, man is capable of
knowing eternal truths. This is made possible through the existence of the one eternal truth which
is God. He further added that without God as the source of all truth, man could never understand
eternal truth. This relationship with God means that those who know most about God will come
closest to understanding the true nature of the world.
2. The sinfulness of man. The cause of sin or evil is an act of mans’ freewill. Moral goodness can
only be achieved through the grace of God. He also stated that real happiness can only be
found in God. For God is love and he created humans for them to also love. Problems arise
because of the objects humans choose to love. Disordered love results when man loves the wrong
things which he believes will give him happiness. Furthermore, he said that if man loves God first
and everything else to a lesser degree, then all will fall into its rightful place.

Rene Descartes
A French philosopher, mathematician, and considered the founder of modern philosophy.
Descartes, famous principle the “cogito, ergo sum—“I think, therefore I exist” established his
philosophical views on “true knowledge” and concept of self.
He explained that in order to gain true knowledge, one must doubt everything even own existence.
Doubting makes someone aware that they are thinking being thus, they exist. The essence of
existing as a human identity is the possibility of being aware of our selves: being self-conscious
in this way is integral to having a personal identity. Conversely, it would be impossible to be self-
conscious if we did not have a personal identity of which to be conscious. In other words, the
essence of self is being a thinking thing.
The self is a dynamic entity that engages in metal operations – thinking, reasoning, and
perceiving processes. In addition to this, self-identity is dependent on the awareness in engaging
with those mental operations.
He declared that the essential self or the self as the thinking entity is radically different from the
physical body. The thinking self or soul is a non-material, immortal, conscious being, independent
of the physical laws of the universe while the physical body is a material, mortal, non-thinking
entity, fully governed by the physical laws of nature.
He also maintained that the soul and the body are independent of one another and each can exist
and function without the other. In cases in which people are sleeping or comatose, their bodies
continue to function even though their minds are not thinking, much like the mechanisms of a
clock. He identified the physical self as part of nature, governed by the physical laws of the
universe, and available to scientific analysis and experimentation, and the conscious self (mind,
soul) is a part of the spiritual realm, independent of the physical laws of the universe, governed
only by the laws of reason and God’s will. And because it exists outside of the natural world of
cause-and-effect, the conscious self is able to exercise free will in the choices it makes.

John Locke
An English philosopher and physician and famous in his concept of “Tabula Rasa” or Blank Slate
that assumes the nurture side of human development.
The self, according to Locke is consciousness. In his essay entitled On Personal Identity (from
his most famous work, Essay Concerning Human Understanding) he discussed the reflective
analysis of how an individual may experience the self in everyday living.
He provided the following key points:
 1. To discover the nature of personal identity, it is important to find out what it means to
be a person.
2. A person is a thinking, intelligent being who has the abilities to reason and to reflect.
3. A person is also someone who considers them self to be the same thing in different
times and different places.
4. Consciousness as being aware that we are thinking— always accompanies thinking
and is an essential part of the thinking process.
5. Consciousness makes possible our belief that we are the same identity in different times
and different places.
Although Locke and Descartes believed that a person or the self is a thinking intelligent being
who has the abilities to reflect and to reason, Locke was not convinced with the assumptions of
Plato, St. Augustine and Descartes that the individual self necessarily exists in a single soul or
substance. For Locke, personal identity and the soul or substance in which the personal identity
is situated are two very different things. The bottom line of his theory on self is that self is not tied
to any particular body or substance. It only exists in other times and places because of the
memory of those experiences.

David Hume
He was a Scottish philosopher and also an empiricist. His claim about self is quite controversial
because he assumed that there is no self! In his essay entitled, “On Personal Identity” (1739) he
said that, if we carefully examine the contents of [our] experience, we find that there are only two
distinct entities, "impressions" and "ideas".
Impressions are the basic sensations of our experience, the elemental data of our minds: pain,
pleasure, heat, cold, happiness, grief, fear, exhilaration, and so on.
On the other hand, ideas are copies of impressions that include thoughts and images that are
built up from our primary impressions through a variety of relationships, but because they are
derivative copies of impressions, they are once removed from reality.
Hume considered that the self does not exist because all of the experiences that a person may
have are just perceptions and this includes the perception of self. None of these perceptions
resemble a unified and permanent self-identity that exists over time.
He further added that there are instances that an individual is limited in experiencing their
perception like in sleeping. Similarly, when someone died all empirical senses end and according
to him, it makes no sense to believe that self exists in other forms. As an empiricist, Hume provide
an honest description and analysis of his own experience, within which there is no self to be found.
Hume explained that the self that is being experienced by an individual is nothing but a kind of
fictional self. Human created an imaginary creature which is not real. “Fictional self” is created to
unify the mental events and introduce order into an individual lives, but this “self” has no real
existence.
Sigmund Freud
A well-known Australian psychologist and considered as the Father and Founder of
Psychoanalysis. His influence in Psychology and therapy is dominant and popular in the 20th to
21st century. The dualistic view of self by Freud involves the conscious self and unconscious
self.
The conscious self is governed by reality principle. Here, the self is rational, practical, and
appropriate to the social environment. The conscious self has the task of controlling the constant
pressures of the unconscious self, as its primitive impulses continually seek for immediate
discharge.
The unconscious self is governed by pleasure principle. It is the self that is aggressive,
destructive, unrealistic and instinctual. Both of Freud’s self needs immediate gratification and
reduction of tensions to optimal levels and the goal of every individual is to make unconscious
conscious. Freud proposed how mind works, he called this as provinces or structures of the
mind. By illustrating the tip of the iceberg which according to him represents conscious awareness
which characterizes the person in dealing with the external world. The observable behavior,
however, is further controlled by the workings of the subconscious/unconscious mind.
Subconscious serves as the repository of past experiences, repressed memories, fantasies, and
urges. The three levels of the mind are:
1. Id. This is primarily based on the pleasure principle. It demands immediate satisfaction
and is not hindered by societal expectations.
2. Ego. The structure that is primarily based on the reality principle. This mediates
between the impulses of the id and restraints of the superego.
3. Superego. This is primarily dependent on learning the difference between right and
wrong, thus it is called moral principle. Morality of actions is largely dependent on
childhood upbringing particularly on rewards and punishments.
According to Freud, there are two kinds of instinct that drive individual behavior – the eros or the
life instinct and the thanatos of the death instinct. The energy of eros is called libido and includes
urges necessary for individual and species survival like thrist, hunger, and sex.in cases that
human behaior is directed towards destruction in the form of aggression and violence, such are
the manifestations of Thanatos.

Gilbert Ryle
A British analytical philosopher. He was an important figure in the field of Linguistic Analysis which
focused on the solving of philosophical puzzles through an analysis of language.
According to Ryle, 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.
He opposed the notable ideas of the previous philosophers and even claimed that those were
results of confused conceptual thinking he termed, category mistake. The category mistake
happens when we speak about the self as something independent of the physical body: a purely
mental entity existing in time but not space
Immanuel Kant
A German Philosopher who made great contribution to the fields of metaphysics, epistemology,
and ethics. Kant is widely regarded as the greatest philosopher of the modern period.
Kant maintained that an individual self makes the experience of the world comprehensible
because it is responsible for synthesizing the discreet data of sense experience into a meaningful
whole.
It is the self that makes consciousness for the person to make sense of everything. It is the one
that help every individual gain insight and knowledge. If the self, failed to do this synthesizing
function, there would be a chaotic and insignificant collection of sensations.
Additionally, the self is the product of reason, a regulative principle because the self regulates
experience by making unified experience possible and unlike Hume, Kant’s self is not the object
of consciousness, but it makes the consciousness understandable and unique.
Transcendental apperception happens when people do not experience self directly, instead as a
unity of all impressions that are organized by the mind through perceptions. Kant concluded that
all objects of knowledge, which includes the self, are phenomenal. That the true nature of things
is altogether unknown and unknowable (Price, 2000).
For Kant, the kingdom of God is within man. God is manifested in people’s lives therefore it is
man’s duty to move towards perfection. Kant emphasized that people should always see duty as
a divine command (Price, 2000).

Paul and Patricia Churchland

An American philosopher interested in the fields of philosophy of mind, philosophy of science,
cognitive neurobiology, epistemology, and perception.
Churchlands’ central argument is that the concepts and theoretical vocabulary that people use
to think about the selves— using such terms as belief, desire, fear, sensation, pain, joy— actually
misrepresent the reality of minds and selves. He claims that the self is a product of brain activity.
The behavior of the self can be attributed to the neuropharmacological states, the neural activity
in specialized anatomical areas.
Neurophilosopy was coined by Patricia Churchland, the modern scientific inquiry looks into the
application of neurology to age-old problems in philosophy. The philosophy of neuroscience is
the study of the philosophy of science, neuroscience, and psychology. It aims to explore the
relevance of neurolinguistic experiments/studies to the philosophy of the mind.
Patricia Churchland claimed that man’s brain is responsible for the identity known as self. The
biochemical properties of the brain according to this philosophy of neuroscience is really
responsible for man’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
Paul Churchland is one of the many philosophers and psychologists that viewed the self from a
materialistic point of view, contending that in the final analysis mental states are identical with,
reducible to, or explainable in terms of physical brain states. This assumption was made due to
the physiological processes of the body that directly affecting the mental state of the person. The
advent of sophisticated technology and scientific research gives hope to understand the
connection between the physical body and the mind/brain relationship that integrated in the self.
Being an eliminative materialist, he believes that there is a need to develop a new vocabulary and
conceptual framework that is grounded in neuroscience. This new framework will be a more
accurate reflection of the human mind and self.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty
A French philosopher and phenomenologist. He took a very different approach to the self and
the mind/body “problem.” According to him, the division between the “mind” and the “body” is a
product of confused thinking. The self is experienced as a unity in which the mental and physical
are seamlessly woven together. This unity is the primary experience of selves and begin to doubt
it when an individual use their minds to concoct abstract notions of a separate mind and body.
Developed the concept of self-subject and contended that perceptions occur existentially. Thus,
the consciousness, the world, and the human body are all interconnected as they mutually
perceive the world.
According to him, the world and the sense of self are emergent phenomena in the ongoing
process of man’s becoming. Phenomenology provides a direct description of the human
experience which serves to guide man’s conscious actions. He further added that, the world is a
field of perception, and human consciousness assigns meaning to the world. Thus man cannot
separate himself from his perceptions of the world.
Perception is not purely the result of sensations nor it is purely interpretations. Rather
consciousness is a process that includes sensing as well as interpreting/reasoning.