WELCOME TO

UNDERSTANDING THE
SELF CLASS
1. Discuss the different representations and conceptualizations
of the self from various disciplinal perspectives.

2. Compare and contrast how the self has been represented

across different disciplines and perspectives.

3. Examine the different influences, factors, and forces

that shape the self.

4. Demonstrate critical and reflective thought in analyzing the

development of oneself and identity by developing a theory of
the self.
Birth of Philosophy – Love for Wisdom

Socrates – The mentor of Plato

Wanted to discover the essential nature of knowledge,
justice, beauty and goodness

Socratic Method – this is the tool Socrates use to discover what is important in the world and in
people.
Plato – real name is Aristocles
- Left Athens for 12 years after the death of Socrates, when he returned, he
established a school known as “The Academy”,

THEORY OF FORMS
Plato’s Metaphysics (philosophical study on the causes and nature of things)
Plato explained that Forms refers to what is real
They are not objects encountered with the senses but can only be grasped intellectually
 Characteristics of Plato’s forms

• The Forms are ageless and therefore eternal

• The Forms are unchanging and therefore permanent

• The Forms are unmoving and indivisible

Plato’s Dualism – Splitting the Body and Soul

Components of Soul as per Plato

 The Reason is rational and is the motivation for goodness and

truth

 The Spirited is non-rational and is the will or the drive

toward action

 The Appetites are irrational and lean towards the desire for
pleasures of the body.
ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

 What people see are just illusions of truth that they believe are true
things and that reflect knowledge

 What these people fail to realize is that the shadows are not real for
according to Plato, “only the Forms are real”
 Plato’s Love

 Plato’s love begins with a feeling or experience that there is something lacking

 This then drives the person to seek for that which is lacking

 Thoughts and efforts are then directed towards the pursuit of which is lacking

 The deeper the thought, the stronger is the love

 Lifelong longing and pursuit seek even higher stages of love which lead to the
possession of absolute beauty (Moore and Bruder, 2002)
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-436 CE)

 Became a priest and bishop of Hippo

 Initially rejected Christianity for it seemed to him then that

Christianity could not provide him answers to questions that interests
him

1. GOD AS THE SOURCE OF ALL REALITY AND TRUTH.

 Through a mystical experience, a man is capable of knowing the eternal
truths
 This is possible through the existence of one eternal truth which is God
 God is within man and transcends him

2.THE SINFULNESS OF MAN

 The cause of sin or evil is an act of man’s freewill
 Moral good ness can be only achieved through the grace of God
 Love of physical objects leads to sin of greed

 Love for other people is not lasting and excessive love for them is the
sin of jealousy

 Love for the self leads to the sin of people

 Love for God is the supreme virtue and only through loving God can
man find real happiness
RENE DESCARTES (470- 399 BCE)

 Father of Modern Philosophy

 One of the Rationalist Philosophers of Europe

 Cartesian Method and Analytic Geometry

Descartes concluded that a thinker is something

that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, refuses,
imagines and also feels (Price, 2020)
 DESCARTES’ SYSTEM
Through math, he discovered that the human mind has TWO POWER;

1.INTUITION or the ability to apprehend direction of certain truths

2.DEDUCTION or the power to discover what is not known by progressing in an

orderly way from what is already known

THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM

 The soul/mind (also the self) as a substance that is separate from the body.

 The body, according to Descartes, is like a machine that is controlled by

the will and aided by the mind.
 JOHN LOCKE (470- 399 BCE)

 Interested in politics; Defender of the parliamentary system

 He believed that human nature is characterized by reason and tolerance

 He believed that human nature allowed people to be selfish.

There a 3 Laws according to Locke:

1.LAW OF OPINION – where actions that are praiseworthy are called VIRTUES
and those are not are VICES

2.CIVIL LAW – people in authority enforce the right actions

3.DIVINE LAW – set by God on the actions of man

 DAVID HUME (1711-1776)

 Born in Edinburgh, Scotland

 He relied on the scientific method, believing that it could analyze human
nature and explain the workings of the mind

THE HUMAN MIND

In examining the patterns of thinking, Hume
formulated three principles on how ideas relate to
According to Hume, there are two types one another:
of
perceptions: 1.THE PRINCIPLE OF RESEMBLANCE

1.IMPRESSIONS immediate sensations of 2.THE PRINCIPLE OF CONTIGUITY

external reality
2.IDEAS recollections of the impressions 3.THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSE AND EFFECT
 In looking for ‘the self’, Hume only discovered sense of impressions

 He believed that like causality, ‘the self’ is also a product of imagination

 There is no such thing as ‘personal identity’ behind perceptions and feelings that come
and go;

 THERE IS NO PERMANENT/UNCHANGING SELF

IMMANUEL KANT (1724- 1804)
 Lived in the town of Konisberg in East Prussia (presently Western Russia)
 Founder of German Idealism
 Wrote three books: Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical reason and Critique of
Judgement

Kant argued that the mind is not merely a passive receiver of sense experience but
participates actively in the awareness of the objects it encounters.

In the matter of God, Kant stated that the Kingdom of God is within man

God is manifested in people’s lives therefore it is man’s duty to move

towards perfection
SIGMUND FREUD (1856- 1939)

 Austrian Neurologists
 Freud made use of methods like free association and dream
analysis for his clinical practice
 Believed that events in our childhood have a great influence on
our adult lives, shaping our personality

The three levels of the mind or human consciousness are

structured by the following components:

ID – based on the pleasure principle

EGO – based on the reality principle

SUPER EGO – primarily dependent on learning the difference

between right or wrong
Freud in his 1920 book, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, he presented 2 kinds of
instincts that drive individual behavior:

EROS – Life Instinct; the energy is called LIBIDO and urges necessary for individual
and species survival like thirst, hunger and sex

THANATOS – Death Instinct; behavior that is directed towards destruction in the

form of aggression and violence

“Man’s behavior by his pleasure seeking “Man then lives his life balancing the
life instinct and his destructive instinct is forces of life and death – making
said to be born with his ego already in mere existence a challenge”
conflict”
 GILBERT RYLE (1900-1976)
 Philosopher
 Contradicted Cartesian Dualism
 Stated that many of the philosophical problems were caused by the
wrong use of language

RYLE TOUCHED TWO TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE:

 KNOWING-THAT Refers to knowing facts/

information

 KNOWING-HOW Using facts in the performance of some

skill or technical abilities
 PATRICIA & PAUL CHURCHLAND
Patricia coined the term NEUROPHILOSOPHY, in which it sought to guide
scientific theorization with philosophy, and to guide philosophy with
scientific inquiry.

 The philosophy of neuroscience is the study of the philosophy of the mind, the philosophy of
science, neuroscience and psychology.

 Aims to explore the relevance of the neuroscientific studies to the philosophy of the mind

 Patricia claims that the man’s brain is responsible for the identity known as ‘the self’

 The biochemical properties of the brain according to this philosophy is really responsible for
man’s thoughts, feelings and behavior
 MAURICE MERLEAU – PONTY (1908 – 1961)

 French Phenomenological Philosopher

 Philosopher of the Body

 Center of his philosophy is the emphasis placed on the human body as

the primary site of knowing the world

The world and the sense of self are

emergent phenomena in the ongoing
process of man’s ‘becoming’
Ponty further claimed that experience is
neither solely the product of sensations nor
is it solely interpretation. Consciousness is
just a mechanism involving sensing as well
as interpreting or reasoning.