UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

GEC101 1ST SEMESTER – RENZ ANTHONY R. SUMAPAL

1. PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF

A PHILOSOPHY

● Philia - love; Sophia - wisdom (love of wisdom)

● Philosophy employs the inquisitive mind to discover the ultimate causes, reasons, and principles of
everything
● The nature of the self is a topic of interest among philosophers.
● The philosophical framework for understanding the self was heavily explored by ancient Greek
philosophers Socrates and Plato.
● Socrates suggests to "know thyself."
● What is self and the qualities that define it?
● Philosophers agree that self-knowledge is a prerequisite to a happy and meaningful life.

1.1 ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY

A SOCRATES

● "An unexamined life is not worth living"

● For ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, the self is synonymous with the soul (Psyche).
● Dualistic - every man is composed of body and soul.
● The soul is immortal. Socrates believed that every human possessed an immortal soul.
● Human life does not end at one's death.
● Socrates explained that death is the departure of the soul for the eternal world

Dichotomous Realms
- The physical realm is changeable, transient, and imperfect. The body belongs to the physical realm.
- The ideal realm is unchanging, eternal, and immortal. The soul belongs to the ideal realm.

Socrates - how to be human

➔ Socrates was the first thinker to focus on the full power of reason on the human self: who we are, who
we should be, and who we will become.
➔ The soul strives for wisdom and perfection, and reason is the soul's tool to achieve an exalted state of
life.
➔ Our preoccupation with bodily needs such as food, drink, sex, pleasure, material possessions, and
wealth keep us from attaining wisdom.
➔ Goodness or beauty is the most important of all.
➔ A person can have a meaningful and happy life only if he becomes virtuous and knows the value of
himself that can be achieved through constant soul-searching.
➔ For him, this is best achieved when one tries to separate the body from the soul as much as possible.
➔ The Socratic method, the so-called introspection, is a method of carefully examining our thoughts and
emotions - to gain self- knowledge.
 B PLATO

● Almost same as Socrates with some add-ons

● The self consists of three parts: rational soul, spirited soul, and appetitive soul.
○ Rational Soul (reason) is the divine essence that enables us to think deeply, make wise choices,
and achieve a true understanding of eternal truths.
○ Spirited Soul (passion) includes basic emotions such as love, anger, ambition, aggressiveness,
and empathy.
○ Appetitive Soul (physical appetite) includes our basic biological ads such as hunger, thirst, and
sexual desire.

Plato - Conflict of the Self

➔ These three elements of ourselves are in a dynamic relationship with one another, sometimes in
conflict.
➔ When conflict occurs, Plato believes that it is the responsibility of our Reason to sort things out and
exert control, restoring a harmonious relationship among the three elements of ourselves.
➔ Plato believes that genuine happiness can only be achieved by people who consistently make sure that
their Reason is in control of their Spirits and Appetites.

C ARISTOTLE

● For Aristotle, the body and soul are not two separate elements but are one thing.
● The soul is simply the Form of the body and is not capable of existing without the body.
● The soul is that which makes a person a person. The soul is the essence of the self.
● Without the body the soul cannot exist. The soul dies along with the body.

Aristotle - On the Soul

➔ Aristotle suggested that anything with life has a soul.
➔ Three kinds of soul:
○ Vegetative - the physical body; allows things to grow
○ Sentient - sensual desires, feelings, and emotions
○ Rational - what makes us human; includes intellect that makes man know and understand
things
➔ Aristotle suggests that the rational nature of the self is to lead a good, flourishing, and fulfilling life.

1.2 MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY

A ST. AUGUSTINE

● Socrates/Plato in the Christian World

● St. Augustine integrated the ideas of Plato and Christianity.
● He developed a more unified perspective on the body and soul.
● Two aspects:
1. Imperfect (earthly)
2. capable of reaching immortality.
● The soul is what governs and defines the human person or the self.
● The soul is an important element of man.
● Goal of the person: to attain communion with the divine.
● The soul is united with the body so that man may be entire and complete.
● The physical body is different from and inferior to its inhabitant, the immortal soul.
● Augustine described that humankind is created in the image and likeness of God.
● Augustine believed that God is transcendent and everything created by God, who is all good, is good.
● Knowing God, is knowing oneself.
 B ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

● Man is composed of matter and form

○ Matter (hyle) - common stuff that makes up everything
○ Form (morphe) - essence of the living

1.3 MODERN PHILOSOPHY

A RENE DESCARTES

● Father of Modern Philosophy

● Cogito ergo sum, "I think, therefore, I am"
● Doubts the existence of his own physical body
● Hyperbolical Doubt
● The essence of the self - a thinking entity that doubts, understands, analyzes, questions, and reasons.
● For him, the act of thinking about the self - of being self-conscious- is in itself proof that there is a self.

Descartes - Mind-body dichotomy

➔ There are two dimensions of the self: the self as a thinking entity and the self as a physical body.
○ Cogito, the thinking mind (or soul) is the nonmaterial, immortal, conscious being, and
independent of the physical laws of the universe; the thing that thinks, which is the mind
○ Extenza, extension of the mind, the physical body - material, mortal, non-thinking entity, fully
governed by the physical laws of nature
➔ The soul and body are independent of one another, and each can exist and function without the other.
➔ The self as a thinking entity is distinct from the self as a physical body. In other words, the thinking self
can exist independently of the physical body

B JOHN LOCKE

● Tabula rasa or blank slate

● Our identity is not locked in the mind, soul or body only. He included the concept of a person’s
memory.
● He felt that the self, or personal identity, is constructed primarily from sense experiences - or more
specifically, what we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel.
● These experiences shape and mold the self in terms of psychological connection between life stages.
● Self-consciousness is necessary to have a coherent personal (self) identity or knowledge of the self as a
person.

John Locke - memories as the self

➔ Consciousness is what makes possible our belief that we are the same identity in different situations.
➔ Using the power of reason and introspection enables people to understand and achieve accurate
conclusions about the self.
➔ In essence, the self is a collection of memories organized by consciousness.

C DAVID HUME

● “All knowledge is derived from human senses”

● Influenced by empiricism
● Bundle Theory - collection of impressions
○ Impressions - vivis; products of direct experience
■ What people experience is just a bundle or collection of different perceptions,
impressions, sensations, ideas, thoughts, and images.
■ There is no past nor future, only the present stimulation provided by the environment.
○ Ideas - copies of impressions; imagination
■ The idea of personal identity is a result of imagination.
 D IMMANUEL KANT - understand

● It is the self that makes experiencing an intelligible world possible because it is the self that is actively
organizing and synthesizing all our thoughts and perceptions.
○ Internal world - thoughts, feelings
○ External world - events, situations, happenings outside our control
○ We synthesize both to create the self
● In other words, the self constructs its own reality creating a world that is familiar and predictable.
● Through our rationality, the self transcends sense experience.

E SIGMUND FREUD

● “The ego is not master in its own house”

● Man is governed by 2 drives: Eros and Thanatos

Sigmund Freud - Psychoanalysis

● Provinces of the mind
○ Id, the primitive, instinctual part of the mind that contains hidden memories and sexual and
aggressive drives. The id is driven by the pleasure principle, which seeks immediate gratification
of needs, wants, and desires.
○ Ego, the rational, realistic part of the mind that mediates between the desires of the id and the
superego. The ego uses secondary process thinking to find an object in the real world that
matches the mental image created by the id.
○ Superego, the moral conscience of the mind. The superego can make a person feel guilty if they
don't follow rules.

● Levels of the mind:

○ Conscious, includes everything that a person is aware of at any
given moment, such as thoughts, sensations, perceptions, and
memories.
○ Preconscious, includes things that can be brought into
consciousness at any time, such as memories that are stored
for easy retrieval.
○ Unconscious, includes thoughts, feelings, memories, and urges
that are outside of conscious awareness. Freud believed that
most of what drives people is buried in the unconscious mind.

F GILBERT RYLE

● Denies the existence of internal, non-physical self.

● The self is NOT an entity one can locate. It is a name we use to refer to all behavior.
● The way we do things, defines the self.
● I act, therefore I am.

G MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY

● Denies the dualistic ideas.

● The mind and the body cannot be separated.
● The Self is embodied subjectivity.
● All knowledge of ourselves and our world is based on subjective experience.
● The self can never be truly objectified or known in a completely objective sort of way.
● The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and experiences are all one.
 2. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF
The Self as a product of the society

What is the Self?

➔ Separate, self-contained, independent, consistent, unitary, and private (Stevens 1996).

Social Constructionist Perspective

➔ Social Constructionists argue for a merged view of ‘the person and their social context’ where the
boundaries of one cannot easily be separated from the boundaries of the other” (Stevens 1996).

A MARCEL MAUSS

The Self and Culture

● Two faces of the Self
1. Moi - a person’s sense of who he is, his body, and his basic identity, his biological givenness.
2. Personne - composed of social concepts of what it means to be who he is.

The Self and Culture

➔ Language as both a publicly shared and privately utilized symbol system is the site where the
individual and the social make and remake each other. (Schwartz, White, and Lutz 1993).
➔ Also one of the reasons why cultural divide spells out differences in how one regards oneself.
➔ If one finds himself born and reared in a particular culture, one definitely tries to fit in a particular mold.
If a self is born into a society or culture, the self will have to adjust according to its exposure.

B MEAD AND VYGOTSKY

Self and Development of Social World (Mead and Vygotsky)

➔ For Mead and Vygotsky, the way that human persons develop is with the use of language acquisition
and interaction with others.
➔ Both Vygotsky and Mead treat the human mind as something that is made, constituted through
language as experienced in the external world and as encountered in dialogs with others.

The Self as a Product of Social Interaction

● The self is not present at birth.
● It develops only with social experience wherein language, gestures, and objects are used to
communicate meaningfully.
● The sociological perspective of the self assumes that human behavior is influenced by group life.
● A particular view of oneself is formed through interactions with other people, groups, or social
institutions.

C CHARLES HORTON COOLEY - The looking glass self

● The people whom a person interacts with become a mirror in which he views himself.
● Since these perceptions are subjective, there might be some wrong interpretations of how other
people evaluate him/her.
● It would be critical if he/she thinks others judge him/her unfavorably because he could develop a
negative self-image.
● The Looking Glass Self - The self is a product of internalizing the views of other people
 D GEORGE HERBERT MEAD - "I" and "me"

● The "I'" is the subjective element and the active side of the self.
● It represents the spontaneous, and unique traits of the individual
● The "I" is the response of the individual to the "Me"
● The "Me" is the objective element of the self.
● It represents the "internalized" attitudes, expectations, and demands of other people.
● The "Me" is what is learned in interaction with others and with the environment.

I and Me Self
● The full development of the self is attained when the "I" and the "me" are united.
● Who you really are and what others see you

Two Sides of the Self

● Mead sees the person as an active process, not just a reflection of the society.
○ I - How the person sees himself
○ Me - How others see Us

Developing the Self

● Three stages of self-development according to Mead:
1. Language - allows us to express ourselves and to comprehend what others express.
2. Play - Role-playing and assuming the role of others
3. Game - taking into account the societal rules

E THE SELF AS A PRODUCT OF POSTMODERN SOCIETY

● Gerry Lanuza - in modern societies the attainment and stability of self-identity is freely chosen. It is no
longer restricted by customs and traditions.
● In postmodern societies, self-identity continuously changes due to the demands of a multitude of
social contexts, new information technologies, and globalization.
● These freedom and changes offer opportunities for self-cultivation but problems may also arise (e.g.,
alienation and dehumanization)
● For instance, it limits the face to face, close relationships with others especially among family members.

F POSTMODERN SELF

● Jean Baudrillard - individuals achieve self-identity through prestige symbols that they consume.
● The cultural practices of advertising and mass media greatly influence individuals to consume goods
not for their primary value and utility but to give them a feeling of goodness and power when
compared with others.
● The postmodern person has become an insatiable consumer and may never be satisfied in his life.
● Thus, the self may be a never-ending search for prestige in the postmodern society.

“Not only the self is entwined in society; it owes society its existence in the most literal sense”
- Theodor Adorno

G THE SELF AS A PRODUCT OF MODERN SOCIETY

● How does society influence you?

● How do you affect society?
● Who are you as a person in the community?

H SOCIAL GROUPS AND SOCIAL NETWORK

 ● Social Group - characterized by having two or more people interacting with one another, sharing
similar characteristics, and whose members identify themselves as a part of the group.
● Social Network - ties that connect you to the social group

I SELF IN FAMILIES

● Without a family, biologically and sociologically, a person may not even survive or become a human
person.

J GENDER AND THE SELF

● One of those loci of the self that is subject to alteration, change and development.
● Gender has to be personally discovered and asserted and not dictated by culture and the society.

3. THE SELF AS COGNITIVE CONSTRUCT

Self is "the sense of personal identity and of who we are as individuals"

1 WILLIAM JAMES (1890)

● was one of the earliest psychologists to study the self and conceptualized the self as having two
aspects-the "I" and the "me". The “I” is the thinking, acting, and feeling self. The "me" on the other hand,
is the physical characteristics as well as psychological capabilities that makes you who you are.

2 CARL ROGERS (1959)

Carl Rogers's (1959) theory of personality also used the same terms, the “I” as the one who acts and decides
while the "me" is what you think or feel about yourself as an object.

● IDENTITY - is composed of personal characteristics, social roles, and responsibilities, as well as

affiliations that define who one is.
● SELF-CONCEPT - is what basically comes to your mind when you are asked about who you are
Self, identity, and self-concept are not fixed in one time frame

Carl Rogers captured this idea in his concept of self-schema or our organized system or collection of
knowledge about who we are.

The schema is not limited to the example in the diagram. It may

also include your interests, work, course, age, name, and physical
characteristics, among others. As you grow and adapt to the
changes around you, they also change. But they are not passive
receivers, they actively shape and affect how you see, think, and
feel about things (Gleitman, Gross, and Reisberg 2011; Jhangiani
and Tarry 2014).

Theories generally see the self and identity as mental constructs,

created and recreated in memory. Current research points to the
frontal lobe of the brain as the specific area in the brain
associated with the processes concerning the self.

3 SIGMUND FREUD
Sigmund Freud saw the self, its mental processes, and one's behavior as the result of the interaction between
the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. In the above mentioned definitions of the self, social interaction always
has a part to play in who we think we are. This is not nature vs. nurture but instead a nature-and-nurture
perspective.

4 GEORGE HERBERT MEAD (1934)

Under the theory of symbolic interactionism, G.H. Mead argued that the self is created and developed
through human interaction.

THREE REASONS WHY SELF AND IDENTITY ARE SOCIAL PRODUCTS:

1. We do not create ourselves out of nothing. Society helped in creating the foundations of who we are and
even if we make our choices, we will still operate in our social and historical contexts in one way or the other.
You may, of course, transfer from one culture to another, but parts of who you were will still affect you and
you will also have to adapt to the new social context. Try looking at your definition of who you are and see
where society has affected you.

2. We need others to affirm and reinforce who we think we are. We also need them as reference points
about our identity. One interesting example is the social media interactions we have. For example, If one
says he is a good singer but his performance and the evaluation of his audience says otherwise, that will have
an effect on that person's idea of himself, one way or another.

3. What we think is important to us may also have been influenced by what is important in our social or
historical context. For example, Education might be an important thing to your self-concept because you
grew up in a family that valued education.

Social interaction and group affiliation, therefore, are vital factors in creating our self-concept, especially in
the aspect of providing us with our social identity or our perception of who we are based on our membership
to certain groups . It is also inevitable that we can have several social identities, that those identities can
overlap, and that we automatically play the roles as we interact with our groups.

5 CARVER AND SCHEIER (1981)

Self-awareness - when we are aware of our self-concepts.

- Self-awareness can keep you from doing something dangerous; it can help remind you
that there is an exam tomorrow in one of your subjects.
- When self-awareness is too much that we are concerned about being observed and
criticized by others, also known as self-consciousness

THREE OTHER SELF-SCHEMA OF SELF-AWARENESS:

1. Actual self - is who you are at the moment

2. Ideal self - is who you like to be
3. Ought self - is who you think you should be

TWO TYPES OF SELF THAT WE CAN BE AWARE OF:

Carver and Scheier (1981)
 1. The private self or your internal standards and private thoughts and feelings.
2. The public self or your public image commonly geared toward having a good presentation of yourself to
others

● One of the ways in which our social relationship affects our self-esteem is through social comparison.
According to the social comparison theory, we learn about ourselves, the appropriateness of our
behaviors, as well as our social status by comparing aspects of ourselves with other people.
○ Downward social comparison - is the more common type of comparing ourselves with others.
As the name implies, we create a positive self-concept by comparing ourselves with those who
are worse off than us. By having the advantage, we can raise our self-esteem.
○ Upward social comparison - comparing ourselves with those who are better off than us. While
it can be a form of motivation for some, a lot of those who do this actually feel lower self-esteem
as they highlight more of their weaknesses or inequities.

Self-evaluation maintenance theory - states that we can feel threatened when someone outperforms us,
especially when that person is close to us.
We usually react in three (3) ways:
1. We distance ourselves from that person or redefine our relationship with them. Some will resort
to the silent treatment, change of friends, while some may also redefine by being closer to that
person, hoping that some association may give him a certain kind of acknowledgment also.
2. We may also reconsider the importance of the aspect or skill in which you were outperformed. If
you get beaten in a drawing competition, you might think that drawing is not really for you and
you will find a hobby where you could excel, thüs preserving your self-esteem.
3. Lastly, we may also strengthen our resolve to improve that certain aspect of ourselves. Instead
of quitting drawing, you practice more often. Achieving your goal through hard work may
increase your self-esteem too.

Narcissism - is a "trait characterized by overly high self-esteem, self-admiration, and self-centeredness".

- In the attempt to increase or maintain self-esteem, some people become narcissistic.
- They are often charismatic because of how they take care of their image. Taking care of that
image includes their interpersonal relationships thus they will try to look for better partners,
better acquaintances, as well as people who will appreciate them a lot.
 4. ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF

A ANTHROPOLOGY

➔ Holds a holistic view of human nature

➔ It is concerned with how cultural and biological processes interact to shape the self
➔ Considers human experience as an interplay of “nature” referring to genetic inheritance which sets the
individual’s potentials and “nurture” which refers to sociocultural environment
➔ Both biological and cultural factors have significant influence in the development of the self.

In anthropological perspective, there are two ways in which the concept of self is viewed in different societies:
● EGOCENTRIC - each person is defined as a replica of all humanity but capable of acting independently
from others. The self is an autonomous and distinct individual with inherent characteristics.
● SOCIOCENTRIC - the self is viewed as dependent on the situation or social setting.

People construct their social identities from the similarities and/or differences in characteristics among
individuals.

IDENTITY TOOLBOX - features of a person’s identity that one chooses to emphasize in constructing a social
self.

Self-identification may be attained by: kinship, family membership, gender, age, language, religion, ethnicity,
personal appearance, and socioeconomic status.
● Some characteristics such as kinship, gender, and age are almost universally used to differentiate
people.
● Other characteristics such as ethnicity, personal appearance, and socioeconomic status are not always
used in every society.
● Family membership could be the most significant feature to determine the person’s social identity.
● Another important identity determinant that is often viewed as essential for the maintenance of a
group identity is language.
● In other societies, religious affiliation is an important marker of group identity.

One’s identity is not inborn. It is something people continuously develop in life. Changes in one’s identity
usually involve rites of passage that prepares individuals for new roles from one stage of life to the another.
Changes in one’s status and identity are marked by a three-phased rite of passage:
● SEPARATION - people detach from their former identity to another
● LIMINALITY (TRANSITION) - a person transitions from one identity to another
● INCORPORATION - the change in one’s status is officially incorporated
 5. WESTERN AND EASTERN PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF

WESTERN THOUGHTS
➔ The Western thoughts conducted scientific investigations in the effort to understand the self and have
developed theories and concepts to account for the similarities and differences among them.
➔ They emphasized the importance of scientific methods of investigation to provide satisfactory answers
to understanding the self.
➔ In the Western thought, the emphasis is individualistic rather than relational.

EASTERN THOUGHTS
➔ Many movements of Eastern thoughts raise questions about the ultimate meaning of human life and
have developed theories of self so far they have investigated what it means to be a human being.
➔ Aims at transformations in consciousness, feelings, emotions, and one’s relation to other people in the
world.
➔ In eastern thought, the emphasis is relational rather than individual. The self is considered not in
isolation but in relation to others, society, and the universe.
➔ They are highly practical.
➔ They offer a variety of techniques for cultivating a deeper understanding of the self. They do not utilize
the scientific techniques of investigation.

MODELS AND APPROACHES OF UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

DIMENSION WESTERN THOUGHT EASTERN THOUGHT

Frame of Reference There is a separation between Religion and Philosophy are

philosophy and intertwined.
religion/spirituality.

Examples of School of Scholasticism Hinduism

Thought/Belief System Rationalism Buddhism
Empiricism Confucianism
Phenomenology Taoism

Notable Philosophers Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Rene Confucius

Descartes, John Locke Lao Tzu
Siddharta Gautama
(Buddha)

Source of Knowledge Has made us of reason rather Has trusted intuition and is
than faith to pursue wisdom often associated with religious
beliefs

Modes of Cognition Analytic and Deductive Synthetic and Inductive

Emphasis Distinctions and oppositions Commonalities and harmonies

View of the Universe and Life Linear Circular

View of Self Egocentric Sociocentric

Subject-Object Distinction (Bipolar Duality of self as subject Simultaneously subject and

qualities of Self) (knower) and self as object object (The experience of self as
(known) both the knower and known)

Theological View Monotheistic Polytheistic

Ideal Self-actualization through To achieve a balanced life and

personal growth find one’s role in society.
CULTURAL FRAMEWORK INDIVIDUALISM COLLECTIVISM

1. The self is a distinct and 1. The self is an integrated

autonomous entity; it is an part of the universe and
independent part of the the society.
society. 2. Interdependence and
2. Independence and connectedness are core
self-reliance are core values.
values. 3. No distinctions between
3. Prioritize personal goals personal and group goals,
over group goals or if there is a distinction,
4. Characterized by the personal goals are
exchange relationship subordinate to the group
5. Uniqueness, sense of goals.
direction, purpose and 4. Characterized by
volition are the communal relationships.
acknowledged features of 5. Conformity and
self. obedience are essentia
6. Personal success is social behaviors.
important. 6. Duty towards all others is
important.

A BUDDHISM

● Siddharta Gautama known as Buddha is the founder of Buddhism.

● The root word of Buddhism is “budh” meaning “awake”.
● To be awake may imply that when the eyes are open, it would lead to understanding more
about the self and the world.
● According to the teachings of Buddhism, every person has the seed of enlightenment, hence,
potential to be a Buddha. But the seed should be nurtured.
● Man is just a title for the summation of five parts (matter, sensation, perception, mental
constructs, and consciousness) that compose the individual, however each of the parts
distinctly is not man.
● There is no self (or no-soul). There is only nothing and all else is an illusion. There is nothing
permanent, but change.
● Anicca (impermanence) means that everything in life is always changing, that nothing lasts
forever.
● (From the book) The self is seen as an illusion, born out of ignorance, of trying to hold and
control things, or human-centered needs; thus, the self is also the source of all these
sufferings.
● It is our quest to forget about the self, forget about the cravings of the world, and to renounce
the self which is the cause of all suffering and in doing so, attain the state of Nirvana.

B HINDUISM

● The goal of man is to have a knowledge of the true reality - Brahman.

● Law of karma is the most important doctrine of Hinduism.
● All actions are subject to karma.
● Individual actions will lead to either a good or bad outcome in one’s life.
● Hindus believe that Atman being an immortal soul continues to be reincarnated from lifetime
to lifetime until it is freed from the cycle of rebirth and reaches a state of nirvana or non-birth.
● Karma does not end with a body’s death, so its influence may extend through incarnation of
the soul.

C CONFUCIANISM

● The core of Confucian thought is the Golden Rule or the principle of reciprocity: “Do not do
unto others what you would not want others to do to you.”
● Another important feature in Confucian thought is the individual’s greatest mission of
attaining self-realization wherein self-cultivation is instrumental.
● Self-cultivation could be accomplished knowing one’s role in the society and acting
accordingly.
● Moral character is perfected through continuously taking every opportunity to improve
oneself in thought and action.

D TAOISM

● The self is an extension of the cosmos, not of social relationships.

● The self is described as one of the limitless forms of the Tao.
● The Tao is commonly regarded as Nature that is the foundation of all that exists.
● It is not bounded by time and space.
● The ideal is to identify with the Tao.
● The perfect man has no self. The selfless person leads to a balanced life, in harmony with both
nature and society.
● Taoists believe that simplicity, spontaneity, and harmony with nature should govern one’s life.
● There should be unity and harmony among opposing elements: the Yin and Yang.