UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

Lec 2/Pre-Mid First Sem

Philosophy What is SELF?
Comes from Greek words: ● Socrates as the first thinker in Western
● Philo - loving history emphasized the full power of
● Sophia - knowledge/wisdom reason on the human self:
Knowledge ● Pag ginamit ang reasoning we are going
● stays in the mind only to answer the ff questions:
Wisdom ○ who we are?;
● knowledge plus practice ○ who we should be?; and
Various Philosophical Perspectives ○ who we will become?
Various - different Perspective- pananaw Virtue - a good habit ( we regularly do)
Philosophical Views of Self ● Ex: act of praying,

● philosophy of self seeks to describe Vice- opposite of virtue(bisyo)

essential qualities that constitute a person's ● Ex: pag iinom

uniqueness or essential being.

Ancient Philosophers
Socrates (469-399 BC)
ancient Athenian philosopher /Plato’s teacher
● Dualistic
● Socratic method - Question answer
method
● Apology (Plato)
● Angkop sa Tao (Ferriols, 1992)
● The full power of reason is in the soul
● Nosce te ipsum - (Know thyself)
Plato (c.429-c.347 BC)
Socrates’ Ethos
Greek philosopher/disciple of Socrates/teacher of
● “The goal of life is to know thyself and to
Aristotle/ Academy in Athens
improve our souls through virtuous living”
● The first and best victory is to conquer self.
● The duties of individual is to know thyself
● Conquer- malupig, masakop, macontrol
● He believes that we have soul
● We have to control ourself, our
● To improve our soul we must practice
weaknesses and limitations
virtue
○ Bcs if we know we know to cope
● Unexamined life is not worth living (“Ang
/abanan, that is our best victory
buhay na hindi sinusuri ay hindi buhay
● The essence of knowledge is
● Recollection - reflection , look at yourself
Self-knowledge
● Knowledge of yourself
Self-knowledge (from Charmides)
● practical task in life which consists of
self-examination about what one is really
doing in life
● acknowledging the limit

Changeable- papalit, transient - temporary,

Soul- hindi magbabago
Pilgrim - journey, traveler
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
Lec 2/Pre-Mid First Sem
Self-knowledge (from Phaedo) 3 Kinds of Soul by Aristotle
● process of self-recognition Vegetative Soul
● the real self is the soul (self-reflection and ● Includes the physical body that can grow
purification) ● For the plant reproduction & growth
● Self-control is knowing oneself Sentient Soul
● includes the sensual desires, feelings &
emotions
● For animals mobility & sensation
● Sentient- senses, sensual desires
Rational Soul
● What makes a man human
● Includes intellect that makes man know &
understand
● For humans thought and reflectionn
Medieval Philosophers
● karamihan injected religious principles
St. Augustine (354-430)
doctor of church ( expert in the field not literally
means doctor )
● known as St. Augustine of Hippo
● Bishop of Hippo in North Africa in 396;
writings (Confession and City of God)
Appetite- craving, kagustuhan, desire ● His mother (Monica) is catholic and his
Physical appetite- bodily cravings father is atheist
● Ex: food, water, sexual desires ● Monica prays that his husband & son will
Spirit (passion) basic emotions, love anger change
Reason - in the mind, magisip ng malalim ● After months augustine wish to enter the
● Ano ba tlga ang totooo in the world seminary
Aristotle “You have made us for You, for our heart is
Student of plato restless, for they rest in You, late that I have
● The body and soul are not two separate love You”.
elements but they are simply one ● Ginawa tayo ni god para sakanya
● The soul is simply the form of the body and
the soul is not capable of existing without ● Self – “Man is rational, immortal and
the body earthly soul using a body”
● Without the body, the soul cannot exist, ○ The soul uses a body
the soul dies along with the body ● Self – “ I am doubting, therefore I am”
● Rational being - we have the ability to ○ Nagdududa, therefore he is
think, decide and reason out existing
● Suggest that rational nature of the self is to Self (The Confession)
lead a good, flourishing ● individual identity (idea of the self);
● A change in the body, produces change self-presentation to self-realization
in the soul
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
Lec 2/Pre-Mid First Sem
Self (happiness and completeness) John Locke (1632-1704)
● omnipotent (having ultimate power and ● English philosopher ( England )
influence) and omniscient (knowing ● founder of empiricism & political
everything) liberalism.
● Self is identical with consciousness and
consciousness is accessible empirically
(Azeri, 2011)
● The identity of the self depends on the
consciousness of the person
Empiricism
● the theory that all knowledge is derived
from sense-experience (phenomenalism
human knowledge is founded on the
Intellect-responsible for appetite
realities)
Faith comes from our reason, we are not sure bout
Tabula rasa (empty/ blank tablet)
it ,yet we believe in it
● having no innate ideas
St Thomas Aquinas
Human Understanding (1690)
● Man is composed of matter & form
● he argued that all knowledge is derived
● Matter- common stuff that makes up
from sense-experience
everything of the universe
Consciousness
● Form - the essence of a substance or thing
● element that accompanies all acts of
that makes it as it is
thinking including the act of recollection.
Modern Day Philosophers
David Hume (1711-1776)
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian.
● French philosopher
● rejected the possibility of certainty in
● mathematician & man of science.
knowledge. “Skepticism”
● he developed the use of coordinates to
● reject the notion of identity over time
locate a point in two or three dimensions.
● reject idea that there are no persons that
● Skepticism – the theory that certain
continue to exist over time (impression)
knowledge is impossible
● “ All ideas are ultimately derived from
● He concluded that everything was open
impression. Hence, the idea of persisting
to doubt except conscious experience
self is ultimately derived from impression
and existence as necessary condition:
but, no impression is a persisting thing.
● “Cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I Am)
● Therefore, there cannot be any persisting
○ Nagiisip ako, therefore i am alive
idea of self.”
● Self is thinking not sensing.
Notable works:
● independent principles, especially mind
● A treatise of human nature (1739-40)
and matter (Cartesian dualism)
● History of England (1754-62)
Dualism (body and mind or soul)
● a theory or system of thought that regards
a domain of reality in terms of two
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
Lec 2/Pre-Mid First Sem
David Hume ● he countered Hume’s skeptical empiricism
● Self is constant, persisting & stable thing. ● by arguing that any affirmation or denial
● All Knowledge is derived from impressions regarding the ultimate nature of reality
which are transient and non-persisting (noumenon) makes no sense.
variable thing therefore, there is no self. Metaphysics
Transient - lasts only a short time or is constantly ● deals with the first principles of things,
changing. including abstract concepts
● Self is a bundle of impression/ perception ● such as being, knowing, substance,
of others (individual impression) cause, identity, time, and space.
The bundle of impression Kant’s Metaphysics of the Self (Selbst)
● is just a collection of variable and ● Wittgenstein claims that the self or subject
interrupted part. doesn’t belong to the world, but it is a limit
Identity of the world.
● is just a union created in the imagination ● Self is individuated as
“ When the mind receives a series of ○ “I” (thinking) (whole man = body +
uninterrupted impression that are similar soul); and
● it assumes that the only thing that is ○ “Am” (object of inner sense and
changing is time, and not the impression soul)
themselves. Kant’s discussion on phenomena and noumena
● The mind then infers mistakenly that this ● he states that without the possibility of a
underlying series of impression is itself, a corresponding intuition, a concept has no
persisting individual thing such as identity” sense, and is entirely empty of content;
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) ● that without empirical intuitions concepts
German philosopher have no objective validity at all, but are
central figure in modern philosopher(metaphysic). rather a mere play
● argued that the human mind creates the Limits of our cognition:
structure of human experience that reason ● “We have no cognition of our selves as we
is source of morality are in ourselves;
● aesthetics arises from a faculty ● We have no knowledge of any facts
disinterested judgment about ourselves outside of how we
● space and time are forms of human appear.”
sensibility Contemporary Philosophers
● the world is independent of humanity’s Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976)
concepts of it. British philosopher
Critique of pure reason (1781) Cartesian dualism (ghost in the machine)
● he attempted to explain the relationship ● The Concept of Mind (1949) – disagree on
between reason and human experience. Descartes’ dualism
● He argued that our experiences are Logical behaviorism
structured by necessary features of our ● focused on creating conceptual clarity,
minds not on developing techniques to
condition and manipulate human
behavior
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
Lec 2/Pre-Mid First Sem
Self (“ghost in the machine”) Eliminative materialism (eliminativism)
● thought to be spiritual, immaterial ghost ● radical claim that our ordinary,
rattling around inside the physical body, common-sense understanding of mind is
conflicts directly with our everyday deeply wrong
experience, revealing itself to be a ● that some or all of the mental state
conceptually flawed and confused notion posited by common-sense do not actually
that needs to be revised exist.

● Ryle believes that the mind is a concept

that expresses the entire system of
thoughts, emotions, actions, and so on
that make up the human self.
Category mistake
● happens when we think of the self as
existing apart from certain observable
behaviors,
● a purely mental entity existing in time but
not space.
● refers to a type of informal fallacy in which
things that belong to one grouping are
mistakenly placed in another.

● Ryle claims that the self is best understood

as a pattern of behavior, the tendency or
disposition for a person to behave in a
certain way in certain circumstances
(human behavior).
Paul Churcland (born on October 21, 1942)
Canadian philosopher
neurophilosophy and philosophy of mind
● The self is the brain (mental state = brain
state)
Physicalism
● philosophical view that all aspect of the
universe are composed of matter and
energy and can be fully explained by
physical law
Philosophy of mind
● studies the nature of the mind
Folk psychology
● human capacity to explain and predict
the behavior and mental state of other
people
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
Lec 2/Pre-Mid First Sem