SOCRATES

BIOGRAPHY
He is a Greek Philosopher and considered as the father of Western Philosophy born in Athens
in the year 469 B.C.E. His father is Sophroniscus, a stonemason, and his mother is Phaenarete,
a midwife. Said to have a wife, Xanthippe, and a son, Lamprocles. He was sentenced death
when the Greece political climate turned on 399 B. C.

VIEW ABOUT SELF

Self exists in two forms and there are two realms (physical and ideal realm): (1) the physical,
tangible aspect which is the mortal part that is constantly changing; (2) the soul, believed to
immortal that is unchanging while attached to the body and is varying across all realms. He
believed that while in the physical realm, soul and body are attached making them both pars of
the “self”, but as one dies, the soul travels to ideal realm and the body stays in the physical
realm making the soul immortal.

Ref: Menon, Ankita. 2018. What Is Self According to Socrates. Retrived from
https://www.quora.com/What-is-self-according-to-Socrates/answer/Ankita-Menon-12

https://www.iep.utm.edu/socrates/#H1

Biography.com . Socrates Biography. Retrieved from

https://www.biography.com/people/socrates-9488126
 PLATO

BIOGRAPHY
He is a Greek Philosopher and a student of Plato. He was born on 428 B.C.E. He founded the
Academy on 385 B.C.E. where Aristotle become his pupil. . His writings explored justice, beauty
and equality, and also contained discussions in aesthetics, political philosophy, theology,
cosmology, epistemology and the philosophy of language. His father is Aristone and his mother
is Perictione.When his father died, her mother married her uncle, Pyrilampes, whichis a Greek
politician. He is believed to have four siblings.

VIEW ABOUT SELF

“Human is Essentially his Soul”

True self of human beings is the reason or the intellect that constitutes their soul and that is
separable from their body. He viewed self being comprised by mortal body and immortal soul.
Body is not the real you for self is said to be an eternal soul that is from the world of forms.

To better understand Plato’s idea of the self, it is necessary to understand his divisions of world
– the world of forms and the world of senses. World of Ideas is considered as the world of
perfections where eternal truth resides. The world of senses is considered as the physical world,
in which things in it are not true.

As what have been said, Plato believes that human being is composed of body and soul, BUT
human is essentially his soul that is residing in the world of ideas, while our very existence is the
physical world. Differences among the two are:

• Body – we are inhibited from grasping truths and is regard to be the source of
errors. It prevents us from knowing the reality and through this we are subject to
limitations.
 • Soul – imprisoned in the body, which compared to the body, is immortal.

HUMAN IS ESSENTIALLY OF SOUL – after acquiring the body when given birth, as we die, the
soul returns back to the world of ideas.

Plato’s idea of human being brings with it the division of the soul: reasoning, spirited, and
appetites. This is made of three citizens, the ruler as the head that symbolizes the reasoning,
the soldiers, which are the chests that symbolizes the spirited part, and the workers, being the
stomach, symbolizes the appetites. With these, the society is seen to be an enlarged person.

This is in accordance to his philosophy of living a good life.

The division of soul:

STATE INDIVIDUAL FUNCTION VIRTUE

Rulers Head Rational Wisdom

Soldiers Chest Spirited Courage

Workers Stomach Appetitive Moderation/Temperance

Ref: Sihvola J. (2008) Aristotle on the Individuality of Self. In: Remes P., Sihvola J. (eds)
Ancient Philosophy of the Self. The New Synthese Historical Library (Texts and Studies in
the History of Philosophy), vol 64. Springer, Dordrecht . https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-
4020-8596-3_6

https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Platos-Concept-of-the-Body-and-Soul-PKPMBZYTC
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plato#ref281709

Sioco, Maria Paula and Vinzons, Ignatius. 2016.Introduction to the Philisophy of Human Person.
Quezon City, Philippines. Vibal Group, Inc.
 ARISTOTLE

BIOGRAPHY
He was an Ancient Greek philosopher and scientist who is still considered one of the greatest
thinkers in politics, psychology and ethics. When Aristotle turned 17, he enrolled in Plato’s
Academy. In 338, he began tutoring Alexander the Great. In 335, Aristotle founded his own
school, the Lyceum, in Athens, where he spent most of the rest of his life studying, teaching and
writing. Some of his most notable works include Nichomachean
Ethics, Politics, Metaphysics, Poetics and Prior Analytics.

VIEW ABOUT SELF

“Human Being is always a Composite of Soul and Body”

His philosophy of self was constructed in terms of hylomorphism in which the soul of human
being is the form or structure of human body or human matter that is a functional organization
that makes the ability for human to perform its functions of life. Thus, making the human body a
composite of the soul and body in which the soul cannot be separated from the body.

As a contrast to Plato’s, Aristotle considers a THING to as composed of two co-principles that

he calls FORM and MATTER. Form (act) is a principle which actualizes a thing – making a thing
what it is. Matter (potency) is viewed as the potentiality to receive the form. Both are not
complete realities but a co-principles of the substance, making it impossible for the thing to exist
separately.

With this, he viewed form as the soul and the body as the matter. In which, making a conclusion
that the soul cannot be separated from the body. And this is the difference between his idea and
Plato’s: the soul cannot obtain an independent existence from the body.

Aristotle also divides the function of the soul into three parts:

• Nutrition – function we share with plants

• Sensation – function we share with animals
• Intellection – differentiate us from animals and plants that conceive the idea that as
animating principle, we have a greater function of intellection; defines us as human
beings.

Ref:

Sihvola J. (2008) Aristotle on the Individuality of Self. In: Remes P., Sihvola J. (eds) Ancient
Philosophy of the Self. The New Synthese Historical Library (Texts and Studies in the
History of Philosophy), vol 64. Springer, Dordrecht . https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-
4020-8596-3_6

Sioco, Maria Paula and Vinzons, Ignatius. 2016.Introduction to the Philisophy of Human Person.
Quezon City, Philippines. Vibal Group, Inc.
 AURELIUS AUGUSTINE

BIOGRAPHY
Also known as St. Augustine (Saint Augustine of Hippo) born on Nov. 13, 354 in Tagaste,
Numidia, He is a bishop of Hippo from 396 to 430 and is one of the Latin Fathers of the Church
and most significant thinker after St. Paul. Included in his most important works are the
Confessions and the City of God, He died on August 28,430 in Hippo Regius.

VIEW ABOUT SELF

Self is a soul, a known-unknown, and is an attention as love and knowledge. Self is made
sense with the relationship with God in recognition of God’s love and its response to it that is
achieved through self-presentation to self-realization. Self is the soul, and the knowledge of the
two can help in understanding one another. And in order to make self more sensical, one should
undergo a journey that requires many things. This includes “desire of the good, true, and
beautiful, askesis of sinful desires, a faith which inspires study and not curiosity, growth in
understanding, collecting (cogitate) oneself together, binding (religio) oneself to God, and above
all, the grace to begin and continue.”

Ref: o’Donnel,James.2008. St. Augustine. retrived from

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Augustine

Sweeney, Terrence. 2014. God and the Soul: Augustine on the Journey to True
Selfhood. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/heyj.12166
 THOMAS AQUINAS

BIOGRAPHY
Italian Dominican theologian St. Thomas Aquinas was one of the most influential
medieval thinkers of Scholasticism and the father of the Thomistic school of theology. Born circa
1225 in Roccasecca, Italy. He has eight siblings and was the youngest. His mother is
Theodora, the countess of Teano. He studied at University of Naples and died on March 7,1274
at istercian monastery of Fossanova, near Terracina, Latium, Papal States, Italy.

Some of his major works are of the following: Impugnantes Dei cultum et religionem,
or Against Those Who Assail the Worship of God and Religion, Summa Theologica Summa
Contra Gentiles, On the Heavens, Meteorology, On Generation and Corruption, On the
Soul, Nicomachean Ethics and Metaphysics

VIEW ABOUT SELF

“We don’t encounter ourselves in isolation”

We don’t encounter ourselves as isolated minds or selves, but rather always as agents
interacting with our environment. Our awareness of ourselves is triggered by our experiences of
objects in our environment. From that, he suggested that the label that one gives to himself is
taken from what he feels or thinks towards other things. He pictures the mind as undetermined,
dark and formless but is activated in the moment of the act or in knowing something.
Questioning one’s self is a matter of becoming aware more of ourselves at the moment of
engaging with the reality.

Ref: Therese Scarpelli Cory.2014. Thomas Aquinas – Toward a Deeper Sense of Self.
Retrieved from http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2014/01/thomas-aquinas-toward-a-deeper-sense-
of-self/

Marie-Dominique Chenu. St. Thomas Aquinas. Retrieved from

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Thomas-Aquinas
 DAVID HUME

BIOGRAPHY
He is a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his
philosophical empiricism and skepticism. Born on May 7,1711 and died on August 25,1776 at
Edinburgh, United Kingdom. His parents are Joseph Home and Katherine Falconer. He writes
his most notable work, A Treatise in Human Nature, in 1734 in France.

VIEW ABOUT SELF

“Self is just a bundle of perceptions…”

Self is just a bundle of perceptions like links in a chain. He argues that the concept of self is a
result of our natural habit of attributing unified existence to any collection of associated parts.
There is no mind or self and the perceptions that one has are only active when one is
conscious. The idea of self is not one any impressions, but is several ideas and impressions
itself.

Ref: SparkNotes: David Hume (1711–1776): Themes, Arguments, and Ideas. Retrieved
from https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/hume/themes/
The Bundle Theory of the Self Retrieved from https://www.iep.utm.edu/hume/
Bhakta David Nollmeyer. Hume and Kant: Contrasting Models of the Self. Retrieved from
http://www.powereality.net/hume-kant.html
Tony Williams. 2009. Self. Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/t0nywilliams/self-2125740
 RENE DESCARTES

BIOGRAPHY

Descartes was born on March 31,1596 in France and died on February 11, 1650 in Sweden.
He is a French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher. His father is Joachim and mother id
Jeanne Brochard. He was educated at the Jesuit college of La Flèche in Anjou. His works
include Compendium Musicae (1618), The Word (originally Le Monde,
publishedposthumously in 1664), L'Homme (published posthumously in 1662), Discourse on
the Method (1637), Geometry (1637), Principles of Philosophy (1641) and the Passions of the
Soul (1649).He was regarded as he father of modern Western philiosophy.

VIEW ABOUT SELF

“Cogito, ergo sum” – “I Think, therefore, I Am”

His concept of self is of thought or consciousness it is not the body that gives us the identity but
our consciousness. Self is the most certain thing as one cannot doubt himself unlike other
perceptions that can certainly be doubted.

The gap he made between the mind and soul arises when he proves that the only thing in this
world that cannot be doubted is the thinking self. Beginning from doubting everything that had
previously been considered as knowledge, and senses being the source of that knowledge, is
not reliable. He argued to doubt anything that is delivered by the senses.

In doubting everything, the only thing that we cannot doubt is we doubt. In which, doubting is a
form of thinking. Doubting your own bodily existence because the assumption that you can
doubt everything.

Thinking requires subject. The more that one rejects that he exist, the more he became certain
of his existence. The existence of the soul is more distinct and clear compared to the existence
of the body.

I in the phrase “I think, therefore, I am” does not refer to a man or more specifically, to a rational
animal. It is for the reason that man or the rational animal isa vague concept. I is simply the
THING that THINKS, which is indubitably existing.

Ref:
Poignatboy. 2012. Descartes’Concept of Self. Retrieved from
https://poignantboy.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/descartes-concept-of-self/

Tony Williams. 2009. Self. Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/t0nywilliams/self-

2125740

Sioco, Maria Paula and Vinzons, Ignatius. 2016.Introduction to the Philisophy of Human
Person. Quezon City, Philippines. Vibal Group, Inc
 IMMANUEL KANT

BIOGRAPHY
He is born on April 22, 1724, Königsberg, Prussia [now Kaliningrad, Russia] and died on
February 12, 1804, Königsberg),He is German philosopher whose comprehensive and
systematic work in epistemology(the theory of knowledge), ethics, and aesthetics greatly
influenced all subsequent philosophy, especially the various schools
of Kantianism and idealism. Kant was one of the foremost thinkers of the Enlightenment and
arguably one of the greatest philosophers of all time. In him were subsumed new trends that
had begun with the rationalism (stressing reason) of René Descartes and
the empiricism (stressing experience) of Francis Bacon. He thus inaugurated a new era in the
development of philosophical thought. His most notable work is the The Critique of Pure
Reason.

VIEW ABOUT SELF

“transcendental ego”

Self is the necessary logical subject of any thought, feeling or perception that transcends and is
presupposed by experience. It is the activity of the consciousness; the act of having experiences. Self is
not the bundle of experiences but rather the thread that binds all those experiences.

Ref: https://www.iep.utm.edu/kantmeta/
Bhakta David Nollmeyer. Hume and Kant: Contrasting Models of the Self. Retrieved from
http://www.powereality.net/hume-kant.html
Rohlf, Michael. 2016. Self-Consciousness. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/#SelCon
Immanuel Kant's Metaphysics of the Self. Retrieved from
https://study.com/academy/lesson/immanuel-kants-metaphysics-of-the-self.html
Tony Williams. 2009. Self. Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/t0nywilliams/self-2125740
https://www.imagenesmy.com/imagenes/philosopher-kant-about-self-fb.html
 JOHN LOCKE

BIOGRAPHY

He was born in 1632 in Wrington, England. His father, also named John, was a legal clerk and
served with the Parliamentary forces in the English Civil War. He spent his childhood in West
Country and was sent to Westminster School in London during his teenage years. He is often
regarded as the founder of a school of thought known as British Empiricism, and he made
foundational contributions to modern theories of limited, liberal government. He was also
influential in the areas of theology, religious toleration, and educational theory. His famous
works are An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), and Two Treatises of
Government Due to respiratory ailments, he died on October 28,1704.

VIEW ABOUT SELF

“Self is a conscious thinking thing”

“Self” is a thinking, intelligent being that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as
itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places. In order to be a self, one must be a
thinking thing, and that because “consciousness” always accompanies thinking, the self with
which one personally identifies extends and persists only as far as ones consciousness. Self is
a moral and forensic entity. Additionally, that self is a unified consciousness which is connected
by mental states. “Self is that conscious thinking thing, … which is sensible or conscious of
pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that
consciousness extends.”

Ref: Tony Williams. 2009. Self. Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/t0nywilliams/self-2125740

Lynch, Jacke. Of Identity and Diversity. Retrieved from
https://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/locke227.html
Ryan A. Piccirillo. 2010. The Lockean Memory Theory of Personal Identity: Definition, Objection, Response.
Retrieved from HTTP://WWW.INQUIRIESJOURNAL.COM/ARTICLES/1683/THE-LOCKEAN-MEMORY-
THEORY-OF-PERSONAL-IDENTITY-DEFINITION-OBJECTION-RESPONSE
The Self and Personal Identity: John Locke http://thehappyphilosopher.blogspot.com/2011/10/john-
locke.html
 MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY

BIOGRAPHY
He was born on March 14th 1908, and like many others of his generation, his father was killed
in World War I. He completed his philosophy education at the Ecole Normale Superieure in
1930, and rather rapidly became one of the foremost French philosophers of the period during,
and immediately following World War II, where he also served in the infantry. In 1947, he
published a group of Marxist essays, Humanisme et terreur (“Humanism and Terror”) 955
Merleau-Ponty published more Marxist essays, Les Aventures de la dialectique (“The
Adventures of the Dialectic”). He died on May 4,1961 in Paris.

VIEW ABOUT SELF

“I LIVE IN MY BODY”

There is a unified experience of self that is the paradigm or model one should use to understand his
nature. The physical body is important of what makes up the subjective self. The lived body is an entity
that cannot be objectified or known in a completely objective sort of way. He emphasized that body is
the primary site of knowing the world and it cannot be separated from the environment where it
perceived. Using “I” refers to the single entity that is the combination of the mental, physical, and
emotional structure around the core identity which is the “self”.

Ref: Merleau-Ponty: The Self as Embodied Subjectivity. Retrieved from

https://study.com/academy/lesson/merleau-ponty-the-self-as-embodied-subjectivity.html
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Maurice-Merleau-Ponty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Merleau-Ponty
Merleau-Ponty On Our Primordial Encounter With Otherness. Retrieved from
https://medium.com/@tPhilosophia/merleau-ponty-on-other-selves-and-the-human-world-
68a46836acaa
Barry, Kevin. 2018. https://www.quora.com/How-did-the-following-philosopher-define-the-world-
self-Thomas-Aquinas-Gilbert-Ryle-and-Merleau-Ponty
 PAUL CHURCHLAND

BIOGRAPHY

His full name is Paul Montgomery Churchland, He is a Canadian Philosopher known for the
study of neurophilosophy. He was born on 1942 in Vancouver, Canada. He studied at University
of Columbia and graduated with B.A in philosophy, physics, and mathematics. Churchland is
recognised as Professor Emeritus at the UCSD on February 2017. His wife is Patricia
Churchland who is also a philosopher.

VIEW ABOUT SELF

The physical brain gives the sense of self. Adhering to the ideas of materialism, he asserts that there is
no mind, since it cannot be perceived by the senses. With that, he hold with the eliminative materialism
that states that the folk psychology of the mind is wrong; “It is the physical brain and not the
imaginary mind that makes the self sensical.

Ref: The Self as the Brain According to Paul Churchland.

https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-self-as-the-brain-according-to-paul-churchland.html

Dualism The Self as the Brain According to Paul Churchland

https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-self-as-the-brain-according-to-paul-
churchland.html#transcriptHeader
 GILBERT RYLE

BIOGRAPHY
Gilbert Ryle was a British philosopher. He was a representative of the generation of British
ordinary language philosophers who shared Wittgenstein's approach to philosophical problems,
and is principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase
"the ghost in the machine”.

He was born on Auggust 19,1900 in Brighton, Sussex, England. HE is also the leading figure in
ordinary language movement. He gained first class honors at Queen’s College Oxford and
became a lecturer in Christ Church College in 1924. His works include The Conccept of Mind, In
Dilemmas, Philosophical Arguments , A Rational Animal, Plato’s Progress , and The Thinking of
Thoughts.

VIEW ABOUT SELF

“Self is best understood as pattern of behavior”
The experience of self and other selves involves change and continuity. Self is best understood
as a pattern of behavior, the tendencies or disposition of the person to behave in a certain way
in a certain circumstance.

Ref: Barry, Kevin. 2018. https://www.quora.com/How-did-the-following-philosopher-define-the-

world-self-Thomas-Aquinas-Gilbert-Ryle-and-Merleau-Ponty

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Gilbert Ryle. Retrived from

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gilbert-Ryle