The Self from Various Understanding the Self

Philosophical Perspectives Kalayaan C. Triunfante

Do you truly know yourself?
1. How would you characterize yourself?
2. What makes you stand out from the rest? What makes yourself
special?
3. How has your self transformed itself?
4. How is your self connected to your body?
5. How is your self related to other selves?
6. What will happen to your self after you die?
Objectives

Describe and discuss the

different notions of the self
Explain why it is essential to
from the points-of-view of the
understand self;
various philosophers across
time and place;

Compare and contrast how the

Examine one’s self against the
self has been represented in
different views of self that were
the different philosophical
discussed in the class
schools; and
• The Greeks were the ones who
seriously questioned myths and
moved away from them to
understand reality and respond
to perennial questions of
curiosity, including the question
of the self.
 Pre-occupied themselves with
the question of the primary
what is the world really made
substratum, arché that explains
up of?
the multiplicity of the things in
the world.

Thales, Pythagoras,
Parmenides, Heraclitus,
Pre-Socratics Empedocles, etc. were
concerned with answering
why is the world the way it is?

questions such as:

what explains the changes that

happen around us?
Socrates

• Was more concerned with the

problem of the self.
• the true task of the philosopher is
to know self.
• the unexamined life is not worth
living (claimed by Plato)
• underwent a trial for “corrupting
the minds of the youth”
Socrates

• “the worst thing that can happen

to anyone is to live but die inside”
• Every man is composed of body
and soul – this means that every
human person is dualistic.
• man = body (imperfect and
impermanent) + soul (perfect and
permanent)
 Plato

• Socrates’ student, supported the idea that

man is a dual nature of body and soul.
• 3 components of the soul:
• Rational soul – reason and intellect
• Spirited soul – emotions
• Appetitive soul – desires
• When this ideal state is attained, then the
human person’s soul becomes just and
virtuous.
St. Augustine

• “spirit of man” in medieval philosophy

• following view of Plato but adds
Christianity
• Augustine agreed that man is of a
bifurcated nature - that part of man
dwells in the world (imperfect) and
yearns to be with the Divine while the
other part is capable of reaching
immortality
St. Augustine

• The body is bound to die on earth and

the soul is to anticipate living eternally in
a realm of spiritual bliss in communion
with God.
• The goal of every human person is to
attain this communion and bliss with the
Divine by living his life on earth in virtue.
Thomas Aquinas
• He said that, indeed, man is composed of two parts:
matter and form
• Matter (hyle in Greek) refers to the common stuff
that makes up everything in the universe
• Form (morphe in Greek) refers to the essence of a
substance or thing. It is what makes it what it is.
• What makes a human person a human person is his
soul, his essence. To Aquinas, just as in Aristotle, the
soul is what animates the body; it is what makes us
humans.
Rene Descartes
• Father of Modern Philosophy
• Human body = body + mind
• “there is so much that we should
doubt.” If something is so clear and
lucid as not to be doubted, that’s the
only time one should believe.
• The only thing one can’t doubt is
existence of the self.
• “I think, therefore I am” (cogito ergo
sum)
Rene Descartes
• the self = cogito (the thing that
thinks) + extenza (extension of
mind/body)
• the body is a machine attached to
the mind
• it’s the mind that makes the man
• “I am a thinking thing. . . A thing
that doubts, understands, affirms,
denies, wills, refuses, imagines,
perceives.”
David Hume
• He is an empiricist. (Empiricism is the school of
thought that espouses the idea that knowledge
can only be possible if it is sensed and
experienced.) Man can only attain knowledge by
experiencing.
• The self is not an entity over and beyond the
physical body
• You know that other people are humans not
because you have seen their soul, but because
you see them, hear them, feel them etc .
David Hume
• The self is nothing else but a bundle of impressions and
ideas.
• Impressions – are the basic objects of our experience or sensation.
They form the core of our thoughts. (Example: When one touches an
ice cube, the cold sensation is an impression.)
• Ideas – are copies of impressions. (Example: when one imagines the
feeling of being in love for the first time, that still an idea.)
• Self is simply a “bundle or collection of different
perceptions, which succeed each other with an
inconceivable rapidity, and are in perpetual flux and
movement.” In reality, what one thinks as unified self is
simply a combination of all experiences with a particular
person.
Immanuel Kant
• Agrees with Hume account that everything starts
with perception and sensation of impressions.
• There is a mind that regulates these impressions
• Time, space, etc. are ideas that one cannot find in
the world, but is built in our minds. Kant calls
these the apparatuses of the mind.
Immanuel Kant
• Along with the different apparatuses of the mind
goes the “self”. Without the self, one cannot
organize the different impressions that one gets
in relation to his own existence.
• He therefore suggests that the “self” is an actively
engaged intelligence in man that synthesizes all
knowledge and experience.
• The self is not just what gives us personality, it is
also the seat of knowledge acquisition for all
human persons
Gilbert Ryle
Solves the mind-body dichotomy that has been
running for a long time in the history of thought by
denying blatantly the concept of an internal, non-
physical self.

For Ryle, what truly matter is the behaviors that a

person manifests in his day-to-day life.

He suggested that the self is not an entity one can

locate and analyze but simply the convenient
name that people use to refer to all the behaviors
that people make.
 • He says that the mind and body are so
intertwined that they cannot be separated
from one another.
Merleau-Ponty • One cannot find any experience that is not
an embodied experience. All experiences is
embodied. The living body, his thoughts,
emotions, and experiences are all one.
 1. Socrates
2. Plato
In your own words, state
what is the meaning of 3. Augustine
”self” for each of the 4. Descartes
following philosophers.
Explain how your concept of 5. Hume
self is compatible with how 6. Kant
they conceived of the self. 7. Ryle
8. Merleau-Ponty