Understanding the Self

Understanding the self

• Designed to help students understand the nature of

identity including factors that influence and shape
personal identity.

• Conceptualized to aid undergraduate students develop a

more critical and reflective attitude in exploring the issies
and concerns of the self and identity for a better and
proper way of understanding one’s self.

• Emphasizes the integration of personal daily experiences

of the students with their learning experiences inside the
classroom to encourage them to improve themselves for
a better quality of life.
 Name and Self

• as kids we were taught to • a name is not the person

articulate and write our itself no matter how
name intimately bound it is with
• our names represent who the bearer
we are • it is only a signifier
• death cannot even stop • the SELF is something
this bond between the that a person perennially
person and her name molds, shapes and
develops
THE
SELF
from Various

Philosophical
Lecture 1 in
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
Perspectives
Prepared by Ms. Justine
Ceriales
 PHILOSOPH
Y
-study of the fundamental nature of
knowledge, reality, and existence,
especially in an academic discipline.
-a particular theory that someone
has about how to live or how to deal
with a particular situation.
 PHILOSOPH
Y
-academic discipline concerned with
investigating the nature of significance of
ordinary and scientific beliefs
- investigates the
concepts legitimacy
by rational of argument
concerning their
relationships as well as implications
reality, knowledge, moral, judgment,
etc.
 Much of
philosophy concerns
with the fundamental
nature of self.
 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.
 The following are discussions of
different perspective and
standing of s the self according
under- to
s
prime movers.
its From philosophers of
the ancient times to the contemporary
period.
 THE PRE-
Th SOCRA TICS
Pre-Socratics (Thales,
Pythagoras,
e Parmenides, Heraclitus
Empedocles, etc.) were , with
concerned questions such as
answering
• what is the world really made up of?
• why is the world the way it is?
• what explains the changes that happen
around us?
 THE PRE-
SOCRATICS
• arché origin or source/the “soul”/the
primal
- matter
• the soul’s movement is the
ultimate
arché of all other movement
• arché has no origin outside itself
and cannot be destroyed
• explains the multiplicity of things in the
world
DO YOU AGREE THAT THERE
IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE
BODY AND THE SOUL?

DO YOU THINK YOU

HAVE BOTH?

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE

BETWWEEN THE TWO?
 SOCRATE
S
• concerned with the problem of the self
• “the true task of the philosopher is
to know oneself”
• “the unexamined life is not
worth living”
• underwent a trial for ‘corrupting
the minds of the youth’
• succeeded people think
made who they about
are
 SOCRATE
S
• ‘the worst thing that
can happen to anyone
is to live but die inside’
• “every person is
dualistic”
 SOCRATE
S
• man = body + soul
• individual =
imperfect/permanent
(body)
+ perfect &
permanent
(soul)
 PLAT
O
• 3 components to the soul
rational soul – reason & intellect to
govern affairs
spirited soul – emotions should be
kept at bay
appetitive soul – base desires (food,
drink, sleep, sexual needs,
etc.)
• when these are attained, the human
person’s soul becomes just &
WHAT HAPPENS TO A
PERSON WHOSE
3 COMPONENTS
OF THE SOUL
ARE
IMBALANCED?
 (ST.)
•
AUGUSTINE
‘spirit of man’ in medieval philosophy
• following view of Plato but adds
Christianit
y
• man is of a (imperfect
bifurcated )

• nature
other part is capable of
• reaching
part of immortality
man dwells in the
• world
body – anddiesyearns to be
on earth; with
soul the eternally
– lives
Divine
in spiritual bliss with “God” (#lifegoalz)
DO YOU BELIEVE IN
THE CONCEPT OF THE
SOUL COMING TO
HEAVEN AFTER DEATH?
WHAT MAKES US
PEOPLE DIFFERENT
FROM ANIMALS?
 (ST) THOMAS
• AQUINAS
man = matter + form
• matter (hyle) – “common stuff
that makes up everything in the
universe”
• form (morphe) – “essence of a substance
or thing”;
• the body(what makes
of the it what
human it is) to
similar
animals/objects,
is but what makes
human is his essence a
• “the soul is what makes us
humans”
MODERN
PHILOSOPHY
 Rene
DESCARTES
• Father of Modern Philosophy
• human person = 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
 Rene
•
DESCAR TES
“I think, therefore I am”
• 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.”
DO YOU AGREE WITH
THE STATEMENTS ABOUT THE
SELF (body & soul)
SO FAR?

WHAT SEEMS TO BE
QUESTIONNABLE IN
THEIR
CONJECTURES?
 David
• disagrees HUME
with the all the other
aforementioned philosophers
• “one can only know what comes from the
senses & experiences” (he is an empiricist)
• “the self is not an entity 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
• “the selfHUME
is nothing but a bundle
of impressions and ideas”
• impression –
- basic objects of our
experience/sensation
- forms the core of our
thoughts
• idea –
- copies of impressions
- not as “real” as
impressions
 David
HUME
• self = a collection of different
perceptions which rapidly succeed each
other
• self = in a perpetual flux and
movement
• we to believe that there is a
want , coherent self, soul, mind,
unified
etc.
but ~~actually~~ it is all just a
combination of experiences.
 Immanuel
KANT
• agree with HUME that everything
s with perception/sensation of
starts
impressions
• there is MIND that regulates
a these
• impression
“time, space, etc. are ideas that one
s
cannot find in the world, but is built in
our minds
• “apparatus of the mind”
 Immanuel
KANT
• the self organizes different impressions
that one gets in relation to his own
existence
• we active intelligence
need to all knowledge and
synthesize
• experience
the self is not only personality but also
the seat of knowledge
HOW DO YOU FEEL
ABOUT THE
DISCUSSION SO
FAR?
 Gilbert
RYLE
• denies the internal, non-physical self
• “what truly matters is the behavior that
a person manifests in his day-to-day
life.”
• looking for the self is like entering LU
and looking for the “university”
(explain!)
 Gilbert
RYLE
• the self is not an entity one can locate
and analyze but simply the convenient
name that we use to refer to the
behaviors that we make
 MERLEAU-
• PONTY who says the mind-
a phenomenologist
body bifurcation is an invalid problem
• mind and body are inseparable
• “one’s body is his opening toward
his existence to the world”
• the living body, his thoughts, emotions,
and experiences are all one.
 MERLEAU-
PONTY
• if you hate this subject, Merleau-
Ponty understands you.
ANY
QUESTIONS?