Lesson 1: Philosophical

Views of the Self

 Saint Augustine
•Integrated Platonic Ideas with the tenets of
Christianity.
•Believes in dualism
•The body is bound to die on earth and the soul is
anticipated to live eternally in communion with God.
•The goal of every human person is to unite with God
by living his life on earth in virtue.
 Rene Descartes
•Founder of modern Philosophy
•Believes in Dualism
•Self: A Thinking Thing
•“Cogito ergo sum or I think, therefore I am”.
•SELF is a combination of two distinct entities: the
COGITO or the thing that thinks which is the mind
and the EXTENZA or extension of the mind which
is the body.
 Immanuel Kant
•Believes that everything starts with perception and
sensation of impressions.
•The self is the one that actively organizes all of your
sensations and thoughts into a picture that makes
sense to you.
•Without self, our experience would be unknowable, a
chaotic collection of sensations without coherence
and significance.
 Gilbert Ryle
• The self is how you behave.
•Denied blatantly the concept of an internal, non-
physical self.
• What truly matters is the behaviors that a person
manifests in his day-to-day life.
•The self is defined in terms of behavior that is
presented to the world.
Thank you 