Lesson 2:

The Self According To

Philosophy
Philosophy

Philosophy is defined as the study of knowledge or wisdom from its Greek 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 preoccupied 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.
Socrates
Pre-Socratics, group of early Greek philosophers, most of whom were
born before Socrates, whose attention to questions about the origin and
nature of the physical world has led to their being called cosmologists or
naturalists.
Unlike the Pre-Socratics, Socrates was more concerned with another
subject, the problem of the self.
He was the first philosopher who ever engaged in systematic questioning about the self.
To Socrates, and this has become his life-long mission, the true task of the philosopher is to know
oneself.
“The Unexamined life is not worth living.”
Socratic Method - the method of inquiry and instruction consisting of a series of questionings the
object of which is to elicit a clear and consistent expression of something supposed to be implicitly
known by all rational beings.
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 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.
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.
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
Three components of the soul:
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 Appetite is the basic biological needs of human being such as hunger, thirst, and sexual
desire.
And the Spirit 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.
Rene Descartes
A French philosopher, mathematician, and considered the Father of Modern
Philosophy.
Descartes, famous principle the “cogito, ergo sum “I think, therefore I am”
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 self is being a thinking thing.
The self is a dynamic entity that engages in mental operations – thinking, reasoning, and perceiving
processes. In addition to this, self-identity is dependent on the awareness in engaging with those mental
operations.
The Self then for Descartes is also a combination of two distinct entities, the cogito, the thing that
thinks, which is the mind, and the extenza or extension of the mind which is the body.
The body is nothing else but a machine that is attached to the mind. The human person has it but it is
not what makes man a man. If at all, that is the mind.
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.
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.
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.
Tabula Rasa - the mind in its hypothetical primary blank or empty state before
receiving outside impressions.
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 themself 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.
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.