you respond to the pressures of transitions and

GECC1 – Understanding the Self challenges in your life.

Module 1 – The Self From Various Philosophical
Perspectives This module provides opportunities to examine
how your personal identity has been shaped by
LEARNING
variety of people and experiences. You will also
OBJECTIVES have opportunities to think and discuss values,
interests, hopes for the future and to gain new
After studying this module, you should be able to:
skills for practical application of the concepts
a. Explain why understanding the self is learned that aim to help them become better and
essential significant individuals of our society.

b. Examine the different factors and forces

that influences shape self and self-
appraisal

c. Synthesize the influence of the factors of

the self through a group assessment

d. Analyze the importance of various

philosophical standpoints to their sense of
self

TOPIC
OUTLINE
1. Self
a. Determinants of Self
2. Self from various perspectives
a. Socrates, Plato, St. Augustine
b. Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant DO YOU TRULY KNOW WHO
c. Ryle, Churchland and Merleau
d. Freud, Erickson, Rogers YOU ARE?

OVERVIEW 1. Among the known character strengths and

weaknesses that you know, come up with
your own life philosophy.
Understanding the Self is an essential course in 2. Cite a certain life experience where you
the General Education Curriculum for tertiary applied your own philosophy in life.
education. Additionally, it is designed to help 3. Try writing your name using your dominant
students understand the nature of identity to be an hand, and vice versa your non dominant
effective team member as well as being hand. Try to explain your observation?
successful in life, work, and relationships. 4. Visit https://bit.ly/3gytyQx , fill up the
information needed and answer the
The purpose of this module is to help you processing questions below
understand and appreciate who you are as a
a. Which part of the form is the easiest to
person. You will learn to explore and appreciate
answer? How about the most difficult?
how you see yourself through the lenses of
b. When filling up the information on the
personal identity, your skills and talents, roles,
form which part did you answer first?
values, personal core, and how you meet your
How do you feel about writing your
psychological needs. You will also examine how information in the form?

Module 1 – The Self from Various Perspectives | Page 1 of 6

 SELF, IDENTITY, and The Philosophical Views of Self
PERSONALITY
The Self is one of the most interesting yet the
The past activities taught us to take our time to
most difficult topics that people talk about. It is the
deepen our understanding of ourselves better than
prime collection of beliefs that we hold ourselves.
anyone else. We may not always have the time to
What are our strength characteristics, and our
incur introspection and connect through our
weaknesses? What situations we like and likely to
deepest thoughts may we always realize that who
avoid. It is a unified being and is essentially
we truly are , is the result of different factors our
connected to our consciousness, and awareness
society expects, norms, biological and socio-
that has almost been reflexive that people mostly
economic conditions. Although as human beings
are unaware of it in our daily lives.
we try to adapt and go with what most people do
Identity is the distinguishing qualities and beliefs there are still times we detach ourselves and go
that make an individual r a group distinct from back to the core of who we really are which makes
others. Self can also refer to the person that our individuality.
someone normally or truly is, or the entirety of an
In trying to understand the different perspectives
individual.
and views of self we can revisit the views of major
Personality originated from the Latin word philosophers from ancient times and identify the
persona, which refers to theatrical mask worn by most important inferences they contributed.
Roman actors in Greek dramas. These actors
Socrates “The unexamined life is not worth living”
wear a mask (persona) to project a false
appearance called role. Psychologists use the A classical Greek philosopher who is highly noted
term personality which refers to something more for his view of self. He is considered man from the
than the role people play. point of view of his inner life. Knowing thyself tells
each man to bring his inner self to light. A bad
LEARNING man is not virtuous through ignorance, the man
ACTIVITY 1 who does not follow the good fails to do so
because he does not recognize it.
Your Personal Identity: Who are you?
Try to reflect on the diagram below and answer the Socrates insisted that an unexamined life is not
question Who are you? And the influences that made worth living and vowed to protect human beings
you who you are from the shallowness of living their lives. An
examined life for Socrates is a life where self-
knowledge and self-dignity is practiced together
with values and integrity. For Socrates, a bad man
is not virtuous through ignorance, the man who
does not follow the good fails to do so because he
does not recognize it and know thyself tells each
man to bring his inner self to light.

The core of his teachings is the concept of virtue

and knowledge. Virtue is the deepest and the most
basic propensity of man, knowing one's virtue is
necessary and can be learned. Virtue is innate in
the mind, and self-knowledge is the source of all
wisdom, an individual may gain possession of one
and be one‘s own master through knowledge.

Module 1 – The Self from Various Perspectives | Page 2 of 6

Socrates also believed that every man is existence and nature of personal identity that are
composed of Body and Soul (which means every clearly false. The strongest statement of this view
man is dualistic). Every individual is composed of is to be found in Terence Penelhum's ―Hume on
an imperfect, impermanent aspect to him (body) Personal Identity.‖ According to Penelhum:
and a perfect and permanent aspect (soul)
What he (Hume) is actually claiming is that we are
Plato constantly making a mistake in referring to a
person from day to day as the same person … or
Plato, the philosopher who was influenced by the in this way to anything that has changed in the
slightest. For, strictly speaking, a changed person
wise teachings of Socrates proposed his own
would be literally another person. A little effort of
philosophy of self. He started the examination of the imagination is enough to indicate just how
oneself to better understand our core which is much chaos would result from adopting Hume's
called Psyche. diagnosis as the source of a prescription and
using a different proper name whenever we
For Plato, the Psyche is composed of 3 elements: noticed the slightest change, even in ourselves.

1. Appetitive – it includes one‘s desires, pleasures, Rene Descartes “I think therefore I am”
physical satisfactions, comforts, etc.
Rene Descartes, the father of modern philosophy.
2. Spirited – the part of psyche which is excited He believed that self is thinking and is distinct from
when given challenges, or fights back when the body. Descartes famous principle ―Cogito,
agitated, or fights for justice when unjust practices Ergo Sum means although the mind and the body
are evident. In a way this is the part of psyche are independent from each other and serve their
which is hot-blooded own function, man must use his own mind and
thinking abilities to investigate, analyze,
3.Mind/ Rational – the most superior part of the
experiment, and develop himself. It revolutionized
elements; it decides, analyses, thinks ahead,
the way we think of ourselves and the world
proposes what is best, and rationally controls the
around us and changed how we evaluate
other 2 elements.
ourselves. Descartes believed that human
Plato emphasized that to be oneself is for these rationality is essential; to evaluate self means
three aspects to work harmoniously with one evaluating our thoughts and actions. Humans
another. need reason to establish a firm foundation for
universal truth and morals. We need reason to
Plato also stated that man was omniscient or all- exist and to continue to survive the generations to
knowing before he came into this world and come by protecting our environment. We need
became separated from the paradise of truth and reason to protect ourselves in order to build and
knowledge. Man‘s long exile on earth, live out our peace
remembering through contemplation and doing
well, he can regain his former perfection. Man in Immanuel Kant
his life should imitate his former self; more
A Prussian Metaphysicist who believed that man is
specifically, he should live a life of virtue in which
the only creature who governs and directs himself
true human perfection exists. Happiness, which is
and his purpose, and who freely orders means for
the fruit of virtue, is attained by the constant
the attainment of his aims. Other men should not
imitation of the divine exemplar of virtue,
be treated merely as means – as per order by the
embodied in man‘s former perfect self.
creator and the natural order of things. A person
David Hume “The self is a bundle theory of mind” should not be used as a tool, instrument, or device
to accomplish another private‘s ends.
It is a widely held view among philosophers that
This shows that the structure of the Paralogisms
Hume's doctrine of personal identity is seriously
provides an essential key to understanding both
mistaken, that he makes claims about the
Kant's critique of ‗rational psychology‘ and his

Module 1 – The Self from Various Perspectives | Page 3 of 6

theory of self-consciousness. As Kant realized, the Freud's personality theory (1923) saw the psyche
ways in which we must represent ourselves to structured into three parts (i.e., tripartite), the id,
ourselves have import not only for epistemology, ego and superego, all developing at different
but for our view of persons and of our own stages in our lives
immortality, and for moral philosophy as well.
Kant's theory of self-consciousness is also shown Freud proposed that psychological development in
childhood takes place during five psychosexual
to have implications for contemporary discussions
stages: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital.
of the problem of other minds, functionalism, and These are called psychosexual stages because
the problem of indexical self-reference. each stage represents the fixation of libido
(roughly translated as sexual drives or instincts)
John Locke on a different area of the body.

Personal identity (the self) "depends on

consciousness, not on substance" nor on the soul. Ryle
We are the same person to the extent that we are
conscious of the past and future thoughts and He was a British philosopher who opposed the
actions in the same way as we are conscious of Cartesian dualism of mind versus matter. The
present thoughts and actions. If consciousness is mind and the body are united in the Sufi
this "thought" which "goes along with the psychology and is defined as the ―self‖.
substance…which makes the same person," then
personal identity is only founded on the repeated The first 4 levels are: 1. Basic Awareness, 2. Self-
Controlling Awareness, 3. Intuitive Awareness and
act of consciousness: "This may show us wherein
4. Fulfilling Awareness.
personal identity consists: not in the identity of
substance, but…in the identity of consciousness Erik Erikson

Augustine
Concerned with how psychological and social
Augustine followed the views of Plato when it factors affect the development of individuals. He
comes to man. He agreed that man is of separate formulated eight major stages of development,
from nature. An aspect of man dwells in the world each posing a unique developmental task and
and is imperfect and continuously yearns to be simultaneously presenting the individual with a
with the Divine and the other is capable of crisis he/she must overcome. For Erikson, crisis is
immortality. The body is bound to die on earth and not threat or a catastrophe but a turning point, a
the soul anticipates living in eternal realm. crucial period of increased vulnerability and
heightened potential.
Augustine's sense of self is his relation to God,
both in his recognition of God's love and his Churchland
response to it—achieved through self-
presentation, then self-realization. Augustine She proposed that the ―SELF‖ is the brain:
believed one could not achieve inner peace Physicalism. It is the philosophical view that all
without finding God's love. aspects of the universe are composed of matter
and energy and can be fully explained by physical
laws. From a physicalist perspective, there is no
Sigmund Freud
immaterial ―self‖ that exists independently from the
Freud lamented the victory and insisted on the brain or the body.
complexity of self. He regarded the self as the ―I‖
Merleau-Ponty
that ordinarily constitute both the mental and
physical actions. Freud sees the ―I‖ as a product of He believed the physical body to be an important
multiple interacting processes, systems and part of what makes up the subjective self. This
schemes. idea flew in the face of two of the most heralded,

Module 1 – The Self from Various Perspectives | Page 4 of 6

yet opposing, ideas in all of philosophy. They are
empiricism and rationalism.
SUMMARY
Carl Rogers
Let us see if you can remember the main points
For Rogers, in order for self to grow, we need an raised in this lesson. Below is a summary of these
environment that provides us with genuineness, points
acceptance, and empathy.
 Socrates states that self is the state of our
Unconditioned Positive Regard is where we are soul, or our inner being, which determines
accepted and loved regardless of our the quality of our life.
weaknesses. It tells us that we need not to pretend  Plato established two enduring binaries:
to be loved and accepted. the metaphysical realm and the human
self and the physical world.
Conditional Positive Regard - is where positive  Augustine believed one could not achieve
regard, praise, and approval exists when we inner peace without finding God's love.
behave in certain ways  Descartes‘ philosophy is his thesis that
mind and body are really distinct—a thesis
Congruence – the feeling, experience and
now called ―mind-body dualism.
behavior in ways which we are consistent with our
 Locke elaborate that the personal identity
self-image and which can reflect to our ideal self
(the self) "depends on consciousness, not
on substance" nor on the soul.
LEARNING  Hume actually claiming is that we are
ACTIVITY 2 constantly making a mistake in referring to
a person from day to day as the same
1. Make a portrait of yourself by looking at the person … or in this way to anything that
mirror using your favorite pose and give reflection has changed in the slightest.
on it.  In the Paralogisms of The Critique of Pure
Reason, Kant comes to terms with this
Material: paint, coloring tools, long coupon bond,
dialectic, and with the character of the
pencil and others
experiencing self.
2. After learning different philosophies about self,  Freud proposed that psychological
did your own philosophy change? How? Create a development in childhood takes place
30 second short video clip that explains briefly during five psychosexual stages: oral,
your concept. Provide examples and illustrations if anal, phallic, latency, and genital.
needed.  Ryle said that the mind and the body are
united in the Sufi psychology and is
3. I AM, I AM NOT defined as the ―self‖
 She proposed that the ―SELF‖ is the brain:
Write as many sentences as you can which starts
Physicalism
with the prompt, 'I am.' Then, write as many
 Marleau Ponty believed the physical body
sentences as you can which starts with the
to be an important part of what makes up
prompt, 'I am not.' Then, read back over the
the subjective self.
sentences and think about what you‘ve learned
about yourself from doing this writing exercise

Materials: yellow pad paper

Congratulations! You can now proceed to the

next module.

Module 1 – The Self from Various Perspectives | Page 5 of 6

 Prepared by:

REFERENCES
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MAE REGINE I. PANGONILO
Chafee, J. (2013) Faculty, College of Human Sciences
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