Understanding

the Self (UTS)

The Self from Various Perspectives

Philosophy
(Socrates, Plato, St. Augustine, Descartes, Locke,
Hume, Kant, Hume, Freud, Ryle, Churchland,
Monty-Ponty).
All to answer the basic question: who are
you?
Philosophy offers a ton of philosophers
offering a ton of perspective with just
about any topic. But for this endeavor, some
selected philosophers were collected who directly
talked about the self. Philosophically,
discussion of the self is a basic search for
meaning and purpose in life. Determination,
rationalization, and identification of self; sets the
direction from which an individual travel to fulfill
his identified purpose in life. Inability to define
oneself leads to a lot of contradiction in life later
on, hence, it is one of the many imperative of life
to know oneself right away and to go on with the
business of leading a life charted by oneself.
 Socrates (Greek)
 Now there is no historical documents that Socrates as a person really
existed. We only know Socrates because his illustrious students
(from Plato to Aristotle) spoke eloquently and generously about his
knowledge, wit, wisdom and intellect. Socrates left no known
writings, his highly regarded student Plato though, wrote extensively
about Socrates. Some would even claim that Plato in positing his
own new and radical ideas (in his era), spoke through the character of
Socrates in his many known writings and documents.
 Socrates however, tells us to “ know thyself”. In Greek, it is
“Gnothi Seauton”. Socrates posits that if you know who you are, all
basic issues and difficulties in life would be gone in a simple snap of
a finger. If you know who you are, then everything would be clearer
and simpler. One could now act according to his own self-definition
without any doubt and self-contradiction.
 His simple technique of asking basic questions such
as “who am I?”, “what is the purpose of my life?”,
“what am I doing here?”, “what is justice” were all
questions predicated on the fact that humans must
be able to define these simple things so as to move
forward and act accordingly based on what is the
definition of the said individual.
 Socrates also posited that possession of knowledge is
a virtue and that ignorance is a vice, that a person’s
acceptance of ignorance is a source or a springboard
for the acquisition of knowledge later on. So, one
must first have the humility to acknowledge one’s
ignorance so as to get or acquire knowledge.
 Answers will always be subjective and there
is really no right or wrong answers to the
questions posited by Socrates, the quality
and quantity of answers is dependent on the
respective person answering these basic
premises and his subsequent actions is best
understood on how he defined himself.
 Thus, the constant reminder of “know
thyself”.
 Historically, he is known as the first martyr
of education, knowledge and philosophy.
For lighting up the minds of his students, he
was literally charged with corruption of
minors. Socrates is even considered to be so
ugly, that only his own mother could love.
 He was made to choose between
exile and/or death via the intake
of hemlock. Socrates choose the
later, thus earning him the
unofficial consideration as the first
martyr for the elusive fight against
ignorance and bigotry.
Plato (Greek)
He is the acknowledged author of the
groundbreaking book “The Republic” and this
book became the bedrock of democracy as we now
know it today. This book talks about justice,
balance, equality, how best to rule and how to
prepare for ruling. It talks about statecraft, how to
run a country, how to govern with the best interest
of people at heart.

In this book, there is a character named Socrates,

and thus, the world now knew about a teacher
that goes by the name of Socrates. The confusion
of modern scholars is whether Plato was just
parroting Socrates in his writings or Plato was
positing new concepts, ideas and notions via the
character of Socrates.
 Plato made the philosophical allegory of the
cave. Slaves born as such inside a cave
facing only the shadows of men, will never
have knowledge that there is another set of
men representing or creating their
respective shadows. That when a chained
slave escapes and learned that shadows are
just mere representatives of their captors.
If this escapee returns and tell his former
slave buddies that what they are seeing
and hearing inside their cave is nowhere
near to what is actually a reality, they
would doubt him, in fact - they would even
doubt his own very existence.
 Plato also contended that man has a soul and
that there is more to man than his worldly
body. The soul here symbolically represents
the self. Plato is also the founder of a school
that he called the “academe” which is the
precursor of all the words that the word
academic brings.
 Such is the brilliance of Plato and such is the
reason that he is included in this manuscript.
  The Roman Catholic Church have
written tons of papers about St.
Augustine, in fact the concept of
modern church is predicated on
St. Augustine his writings. St. Augustine is even
credited with the invention of the
(Numidia, idea of “original sin”.
Roman Philosophically, this was already
debunked by modern
Province of philosophers, but in his days and
the subsequent dark ages, the
Africa) notion of “original sin” was a big
deal.
St. Augustine  He was a doctor of the church; hence
majority of his musing were predicated on
(Numidia, the church and its position in society and its
importance in everyday living. He even
Roman developed the concept of the church being
the city of god. That a city governed by the
Province of church is a city governed by god. By
extension, this is the very basis of kings and
Africa) royalty, having their coronation presided by
church to symbolically proclaim that their
rule is mandated by god. Even the
appointment of university presidents has
their own investiture. As if such covenant
were decreed by god.
St. Augustine (Numidia, Roman Province of Africa)

 On hindsight, this was the birth of the church

meddling on the affairs of men, of the
introduction of theocracy. That when one
obeys and submit to the church, one is
obeying god.
 In simplified form, his own philosophy posits
that love of knowledge brings happiness and
that only knowledge could bring man true
happiness.
St. Augustine
(Numidia,  By extension, contemporary Filipinos
want their children educated to have
Roman a better slice of life, because by
Province of extension, if one wants to improve
the quality of one’s life, nothing is
Africa) more certain than by attaining
education and in a bigger picture,
education is equated by knowledge.
Rene Descartes (French)

 He is best known for quoting “cogito ergo sum”, or in

English translation “I think therefor I am”.
 With all the groundbreaking advances of computers,
with computer being able to do a trillion computations
by a second, they still fall short in comparison to the
greatest computer of all, the human brain. More than
the computations, memories, and capabilities for
practical daily purposes. No computer is ever self-
aware of its own existence. Just as no animal would be
musing about the purpose of his life, only humans
have the audacity and impertinence of trying to figure
out the meaning of his life and is actually self aware of
his own existence.
Rene Descartes (French)

 Only humans have the hubris of

musing such irreverent questions
on existence and purpose of life.
And only humans have satisfied
itself with his own answers to his
own musings.
 Humans, are self-aware, they are
conscious and being such proves
their own placement in the
universe. Humans create their
own reality and they are the
masters of their own universe.
Rene Descartes (French)

 Western philosophy is largely based on the

writings of Descartes. If you have heard of the
saying that man is a rational animal, one is
actually positing the contention of Rene Descartes.
As a further tribute, Filipinos have a unique word
of “diskarte” denoting finding a way or making
things possible. Such a word is a derivative of the
surname of Descartes.
John Locke (English)

 He is considered to be the father of liberalism. Coming from an era

where proper decorum, conservative thinking and compliance to a
collective imposition of the known authority, John Locke posited
liberalism not just from physical bondage but from psychological and
spiritual bondage as well.
 John Locke’s profession was that of a country lawyer and he even had a
degree in medicine, fortunately for the field of philosophy, the mark of
John Locke was in advancing the idea of empiricism (which is no
wonder, since he is by profession, a lawyer).
 The other remarkable contribution of this country lawyer was the
notion of “tabula rasa”. This concept posits that everyone started as a
blank slate, and the content is provided by experiences and by what one
could prove, as collected by life experiences.
David Hume (Scott)

The origin of David Hume is that of a nobility. The irony of David Hume was that
though he came from nobility, he had no palpable source of income and has no
learned profession. He was raised by a single mother and as work, to keep his
physical requirements met, David Hume worked as a merchant assistant.

This is an irony because, he espoused three (3) notable contention in philosophy;

empiricism, skepticism and naturalism. He promoted empiricism by basing his
knowledge and philosophy on evidences, knowing and proving are two different
things. And in life, it is not what you know, but rather what you can prove.

David Hume was a known atheist and as such, he believed in the natural cycle of
life. Everything is governed by reason, by rationality and as such, there is a
natural order of things.
  As a young scholar, he already displayed a flair
for studies at a very young age. His most
notable contribution for philosophy is his
authorship of the book entitled “Critique of Pure
Immanuel Reason”.

Kant
 In this book, he posited the idea that there is a
connection between reason and experience.
That in order to have solid rationality, one must
(German) have a variety of experience and exposure. He
further contended that there is a correlation
between experience and rationality. You cannot
have one without the other.
 Immanuel Kant subscribe to the idea of
metaphysics, that which is beyond matter, he
also subscribes to the idea that pure reason is
one of the prime source of morality. That what
is right, that what is moral, is best explained via
reason and rationality.
  Just as the sock-eyed salmons of
Alaska, of changing their habitable
water from fresh water to salt water
Sigmund and then back again to fresh water,
man tend to do a lot of things just

Freud to have sex. Principally, the main

contribution of Freud is predicated
on sex and aggression with the
(Austrian) unconscious mind as the platform.
He also talked about defense
mechanism and postulated the
psychosexual stages.
 
 Contextually, the prevailing mores and culture prior to the
psychoanalytic theory of Freud was based on conservatism
and rooted on the traditional views and perspective based
on the doctrine of puritanism of the church. With his
postulation on the unconscious mind with emphasis on sex
and aggression, the contemporary sectors during his era
were scandalized and denounced him as a hoax. But he
started the ball rolling for the renaissance of psychology,
after Freud, his disciples carried the torch and advance
varying and disparate take on self and personality.
 The main contribution of Sigmund Freud in the field of
studying the self is his theory of psychoanalysis. In its
simplest form, psychoanalysis is about studying man via
his unconscious mind and his unconscious mind is
principally predicated on sex.
 Ninety percent (90%) of the time, man is unaware of
his behavior and often, his behavior is to feed the
libido, residing in the id. According to the theory of
psychoanalysis, every individual is composed of the
superego, ego and the id. It is the main function of
the superego and the ego to regulate and control the
id.
 Accordingly, man and his unconscious mind is
affected by Oedipus complex, penis envy and
castration anxiety. By and large, man’s behavior is
an interplay of sexual energies and endeavor, all to
facilitate the attainment or near attainment of sexual
gratification because of sexual excitation.
Sigmund Freud

Eventually, Sigmund Freud

experimented on his own children and
based on his observations and
conclusions, his theories were
derivatives of his study on his children.

Freud eventually, became addicted to

cocaine and his demise was officially
credited to his acquisition of cancer of
the mouth.
Gilbert Ryle (British)

 The father of Gilbert Ryle is a medical doctor who

passed on his own love of books to his children, the
siblings of Ryle eventually, also became eminent
scholars in their own respective fields.
 The main concept of Gilbert Ryle is that there is a
relationship between the body and the mind.
Conversely, the body affects the mind and the mind
affects the body. There is a body and mind dualism.
The self is affected by the mind and by the body. The
self is a combination of the mind and the body. While
the focus of other philosopher is veered towards the
separation of the mind and body, for this British
philosopher – self is taken as a whole, with body and
mind combination.
Gilbe Gilbert Ryle rt Ryle (British)
Gilbert Ryle also posited the maxim “I
am therefor I am” and more
importantly, he also posited the concept
of ghost in the machine. By extension,
things take a life of their own. In his
contemporary times, every machine
assumes a life of its own – more than
what it was intended for.
  According to Churchland, Folk Psychology will
eventually be discredited by scientific inquiry.
Paul Indigenous notions, theories, concepts and ideas
will be supplanted by scientific method.

Churchland  The main philosophy of Churhland is predicated on

“eliminative materialism”. Principally, eliminative
(Canadian) materialism contention is that people’s common
sense understanding of the mind is false and that
most of the mental states that people subscribe to,
in turn, do not actually exist. The world could be
wrong; most people could be wrong and even the
mind could also be wrong. In short, everyone and
everything could be fallible. There is no such thing
as infallibility.
  
Five examples of
common sense
thinking
Heavy clouds lead to Not all the time.
rain.
•Five examples of Rich people are happy Not all rich people are
common sense people. happy.
thinking People with glasses Even dumb people
•  are intelligent people. wear glasses.
Harvard students are Not all Harvard
intelligent. students are
intelligent.
  More importantly,
Churchland postulated that
the mind and body are
Churchland separate. They are not
related. The physical body
cannot influence the mind
and the same is also true for
the mind, the mind cannot
influence body.
 
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (French)

 The main articulation of the self-philosophy of

Merleau-Ponty is existentialism. Very briefly,
existentialism is predicated on the premise that
man gives meaning to his own life. Happiness and
sadness are dependent on the individual and his
perception of his on reality. Consciousness and
perception are related to one another.
 Merleau-Ponty is also a proponent of descriptive
psychology, this by extension - places the current
interpretation of reality dependent on the
perception, consciousness and appreciation of an
individual.
 Matrix of Philosophers related to the concept of the Self

Socrates (Greek) Died by drinking of hemlock Had a chance to go to exile Charged with corruption of minors Know thyself

Plato (Greek) Student of Socrates Wrote the republic Founded the academe Man has a soul

St. Augustine (Numidia, Love of knowledge brings happiness Made the doctrine of original sin Developed the concept of the church as the Doctor of the church
Roman province of Africa) city of god

Rene Descartes (French) Cogito ergo sum Western philosophy was largely based Had an ambition as a military officer Father of modern rationalism philosophy
on his writings

John Locke (English) empiricism Father of liberalism Was a country lawyer and obtained a degree Tabula rasa
in bachelor of medicine

David Hume (Scott) Empiricism, skepticism, and atheist Raised by a single mother, worked as a Although of noble ancestry, had no source
naturalism merchant assistant of income and no learned profession

Immanuel Kant (German) Metaphysics, beyond matter. Relationship between reason and Young scholar, aptitude for study at an early Critique of Pure Reason
Reason is the source of morality. experience age

Sigmund Freud (Prussian) Died of cancer of the mouth Addicted to cocaine Subjected his own children to psychoanalysis Oedipus complex, penis envy, castration
anxiety

Gilbert Ryle (British) Ghost in the machine, concept of Father was a doctor who passed on to Brothers were also considered to be eminent Body and mind dualism
the mind, I act therefore I am his children his vast collection of books scholars

Paul Churchland (Canadian) Eliminative materialism Wife is also a noted philosopher (Patricia Folk psychology will eventually be discredited The self as a brain, mind and body are
Churchland) by a scientific inquiry/method separate from one another and they are not
related

Maurice Merleau-Ponty Existentialism, consciousness and Proponent of descriptive psychology Father died at his very young age Perception influence one’s understanding
(French) perceiving are correlated