GE 1

Understanding
the Self

JOMERY ROSE N. SANORJO

INSTRUCTRESS

Module 1: Week 1
Understanding the Self is a contemporary course in the General Education Curriculum mandated by the Commission on
Higher Education (CHED) as part of the paradigm shift in the Philippine educational system in the context of the K to 12
curriculum.
In line with the mission of the Philippine Higher Education to produce competent, humane and moral professionals
capable of addressing the demands of the 21st Century life, the need to learn continuously throughout life has been Viewed
essential. This course will enable the process of self-exploration and aid the students in understanding the concepts of
personality and the ’self’, to develop their identity as a person. In View of the fact that adolescents are prone to critical
self-issues, this book will help in the development of self-awareness for a better understanding of one’s self, and to realize
one’s uniqueness and individual differences. A proper integration of the student’s acquired knowledge and skills with his
or her day-to-day life experiences leads to a Vast opportunity for empowerment so that he/she can develop a more critical
and reflective attitude, enabling him/her to make changes and build on the strong areas of his/her identity. This can result
to helping the adolescent attain a better quality of life by making confident decisions, which will eventually help him/her
derive long-term fulfillment in school, in his/her future career, in the community, and in the country.
This book contains three chapters, each one addressing the nature, as well as the factors and forces that affect the
development and maintenance of personal identity. The first chapter seeks to answer the essential question, “What is the
Self?” and raising the question, “Does a self- construct even exist?” This part enables the students to understand the
construct of the self from Various disciplinal perspectives namely philosophy, sociology and anthropology, and psychology,
incorporating the eastern and western thoughts about the self.
The second chapter explores the Various aspects that make-up the self: the physical self, sexual self, economic self,
spiritual self, political self and the digital self. The final chapter identifies three areas of concern for young students:
learning, goal-setting and managing stress.
This book provides for the more practical application of the concepts discussed in this course to aid the students become
better individuals capable of contributing significantly for the nation’s advancement.
Using the Outcomes-Based Approach, each lesson is comprised of start-up activities that motivate the students to activate
their capabilities to engage in the lesson, leading to an overview and discussion proper to empower them with the
necessary knowledge and skills about the Various aspects of the self. Each lesson ends with worksheets that strive to
provide opportunities for students to evaluate and apply their understanding of the concepts learned, reflect on their
insights and realizations, and design their own plans for self-improvement.

Table
of
Conte

Cover Page
Table of Contents
Pre-test
 Pre-test
Pretend that you are a fresh graduate ready to enter the real world of the
labor force. While looking at the Classified Ads, you came across the
advertisement of your dream company, hiring a qualified candidate who can
genuinely take the role and contribute to the advancement of the company.
Then, you sent your resume for evaluation and surprisingly, you got a
phone call from the HR Department asking you to come in for an interview.
How are you going to sell yourself to get hired? What characteristics about
yourself are you going to say to the Interviewer? Write as many
descriptions as you can to define yourself. Use the space provided below
and answer the questions that follow.

_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

1. How do you feel about choosing the best descriptions about yourself?

Box your answer

2.Why do you think you feel that way?

3.Do you really know yourself?

4. Do you want to know yourself? _______________________________________________

 Lesso The Philosophy of the
n1 Self
Lesson Objectives:
a. Define the Self based on the philosophical perspective.
b. Recognize the similarities and differences of self-
conceptualizations according to the point of View of
philosophy.
c. Evaluate one’s concept of the ‘self’ as compared to its
philosophical perspectives
People say that the secret to success is to “know yourself”. Do you agree? Have you ever
asked yourself the question, “Do I really know myself?” Some of you may have found the activity
on the previous page quite easy, but surely, many of you found it tough to look for the finest
words to describe yourself. Some of you may have encountered instances wherein you
underestimate yourself either because you are afraid to get embarrassed or you have absolutely
no idea of what you are capable of doing. Why do you think this happens?? The answer is simple:
because you do not truly know yourself.

Indeed, it is necessary to know yourself. But how do you go about it, right? This lesson
explores the philosophies of the self, which breaks into several key theories about human
existence that have been a heated debate throughout history and are still being argued about up
until now. In an effort to answer the countless inquiries about the self, the greatest thinkers,
known as the philosophers, have immersed themselves in search for knowledge about the nature
of being human. Questions like, “What does it mean to be a person?” or “Who am I?” or “Do I
really matter?” or “How do I know that I will continue to be me in the future?” have engaged key
thinkers to address these matters of existence to help us understand the different Views about the
self.

Socrates - Most of what we know about Socrates come from the accounts of people’s writings
long after his death. He was born in Athens around 469 B.C. Some say he followed his father’s
trade as a stone mason and has even served in the Athenian army at some point in his life.
Granting that his ideas earned him many followers in Athens, he has also upset a lot of people with
his philosophical inquiries. He was brought to trial in 399 B.C. under charges of corrupting the
youth of the city. He was found guilty and sentenced to death by drinking hemlock poison. What
was Socrates’ philosophy? Why did the Athenian city-state consider him dangerous? Socrates was
often in the position of an examiner — a questioner. He constantly looks for imperfections in the
ideas of others, which is actually the heart of his philosophy. Socrates knows that he knows
nothing, more importantly, he knows that he knows nothing, while everyone else is under the
flawed impression that they know something (Vlastos & Graham, 1971).

Do you realize the danger in this?

The highest form of human excellence, according to Socrates, is to question oneself and others
(Maxwell, 2013). In truth, Socrates is simply establishing a higher standard of truth, which must
be logically consistent and not contradicting itself. This is Socrates’ dangerous idea. Instead of
being satisfied with an answer that sounds pretty good, Socrates asserts that one should examine
more closely the things we call ‘true,’ considering that there are Vast concepts that are not easily
defined. To Socrates, man has to look at himself to understand his long-standing mission, to “Know
Yourself.” For him, “an unexamined life is not worth living” (Vlastos & Graham, 1971). Basically,
the most horrible thing that can happen to anybody is to “live but die inside” (Alata, et. Al 2018).
Therefore, to preserve our souls for the afterlife, we must be fully aware of who we are and the
Virtues that come with its attainment. He also believed that an individual’s personhood is
composed of the body and soul. The soul, for him, is immortal. For this reason, he insisted that
death is not the end of existence. Rather, it is simply the separation of the soul from the body.
Socrates also raised the point that just because something seems true does not mean it is true
(Rowe, 2007). He further noted that, in reality, many people believe things that are not true.
Hence, Socrates made a distinction between knowledge and belief. The former being always and
universally true while the latter is only true in certain circumstances.

What made Socrates a menace was the fact that even matters of faith fall short of his standard of
truth since every religion in the world is full of contradictions. By undermining religion, Socrates is
essentially questioning the foundation of his society. So, the Athenians made the worst decision
they could have made—they took him and turned him into a martyr (Anagnostopoulos, 2006).

Plato- What happened to Socrates dismayed his friends and followers. Plato, Socrates’
student, got mad at the plight of his master, enough to write tons of books about him,
making sure that his dangerous ideas lived on.
Plato sustained the idea that man is composed of a dual nature of body and soul.
According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Plato believed that the soul is
immortal and separated from the body. However, he took it to a higher level, claiming that the
soul was eternal. According to Plato, the soul does not exist with the body. Instead, it exists
prior to being joined to the body. Resembling the idea of reincarnation, Plato ascertained that
the soul lives within a body and upon death, the soul moves onto another body afterwards.
Building on this belief, Plato called the body the prison of the soul.

In his dialogue, “The Republic” (Santas, 2010), Plato argued that the human soul or the
psyche is divided into three parts labelled as appetitive, spirited, and rational. For justice in
the human person to be attained, these parts of the soul should be in tune with one another.
Imagine this, there are three things in front of you: a moist, warm piece of chocolate cake, a
slice of your self-baked but half-burnt pie, and your favorite fruit. Which one would you end up
selecting to eat?
Plato’s theory tells us that if we are left with our own instincts to decide what is good for us,
then we are most likely to choose based on our desires (appetitive soul) to satisfy our needs
in ways that are easier and more likeable for all of us. We are also likely to choose based on
our mood or emotions (spirited soul) that have to be kept in control at all times to prevent
causing us problems. Lastly, we also choose based on logic and intellect (rational soul),
choosing the healthy one for us. When these three works in with each other, then the
tendency to be enslaved by our own false opinions is lesser and the human soul becomes just
and Virtuous through our capability of making rational decisions, capable of breaking free of
opinions, scrutinizing misleading sensory perceptions and discovering true knowledge
(Shoefield, 2006).
Augustine
Like Plato, he also asserted that the soul is immortal. However, he believed that the soul AND
the body make up a human. He does not believe that the soul jumps from one body to
another. Instead, one person is made up of one body and one soul.
Augustine’s View of the human person states that the body is that imperfect aspect of man
that is bound to perish on earth, which incessantly longs to be in communion with the spiritual
realm of the Divine God. The soul, on the other hand, is “capable of reaching immortality by
staying after death in an eternal realm with the all-transcendent God (Mennel, 1994). The
purpose, therefore, of every human person is to attain this spiritual union with God by living
his life according to Virtues.
Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, in his theory of self-knowledge, claimed that all our experiences about the world around us
determine our self-knowledge. He argues that our experiences greatly shape our awareness of ourselves — the
more experience we have, the more we get to know ourselves. Answering the question, ’Who am I?’ can only
be unraveled from the inside by me, the one asking the question. Such question can be resolved by reasoning
taken from life encounters as eVidences. For Aquinas, our being is not composed of isolated minds or selves,
rather, we are agents interacting with the env i ro n men t ( Torrell, 2 0 0 5 ). Note that a n s w e r i n g t h e
s a i d question requires becoming more aware of ourselves as we engage with real-life experiences. This
is Aquinas’ deeper sense of self.
Descartes
Rene Descartes is known to be the “Father of Modern Philosophy” and one of the most famous
dualistic thinkers of all time (Rozemond, 1998). Dualism is the concept that reality or ex-
istence is diVided into two parts: the mind and the physical body. According to dualism, the
mind is somehow separate from the physical attributes of the body. The body is nothing but a
part attached to the mind, while the mind is part of the unseen crea- tion. Literally speaking, if
a human skull is opened-up, one can use his senses to find out something about the human
brain, but can neVer find anything about the mind. Descartes asserted that one cannot rely on
his senses because they are sometimes misleading. He further believed that the mind is the
seat of our consciousness. Because it houses our drives, intellect, passion and understanding,
it giVes us our identity and our sense of self. In short, all that we really are comes from the
mind. As Descartes puts it, “I think, therefore I am” (“Cogito, ergo, sum” in Latin). He argued
that the only thing that cannot be doubted is the existence of the self, as man himself was the
one doing the doubting in the first place. One thing should be clear by now, we exist, because
we think; we think therefore we exist. In the Second Meditation, he explored on the idea that
he is “nothing but a thinking thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is
unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions” (Skirry, 2005; Flage & Bonnen,
2014).
Locke
Identity has been defined in so many ways but for philosophers, identity means being one
thing and not another. It is what makes you “you” and me “me”. John Locke believed that our
identity is tied with our consciousness, which to him, is the perception of what passes in a
man’s own mind (Anstey, 2011). In other words, it comprises our memories.
Was there ever a time that you asked yourself, “Am I still the person I once was?” To answer
this, Locke used his principle of individuation, the idea that a person keeps the same identity
over time. For instance, would we be a different person if we lost an arm or a leg? Locke’s
answer was simple: Of course, not! To Locke, our identity is not defined by our physical being.
Whether we grow taller, lose hair, go blind or get a face lift, our memories are still the same.
Therefore, Locke simply tells us that our memories give us our identity (Ayers, 1993).
Hume
David Hume is known for his lack of self theory. He held to empiricism, the theory that all
knowledge is derived from human senses. Basically, he believes that it is only through our
physical experiences using our sense of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell that we know
what we know.
To understand his lack of self beliefs, Hume made a clear distinction between impressions
(everything that originate from our senses) and ideas (which are just faint images of thinking
and reasoning based on impressions) in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Source:
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). For instance, our sense of touch tells us that a sea
urchin is spiny and therefore, sharp. This is an impression and is wild because it is a product
of our direct experience with the world. From this impression, we form the idea that it is
dangerous to the touch. The concept of ‘dangerous’ is difficult to define completely since it
cannot be seen, touched or tasted — it is just an idea. Hume also argued that these
impressions are the changing, shifting elements of our existence and because of this, our
personal identity cannot persist through time. In short, we perceive a sense of self depending
on how our mind put impressions together and makes sense of them as ’me.’
To Hume, the idea of the self that we make is a bunch of physical impressions. He argued in
his bundle theory, the assertion that the properties we can sense are the only real parts of an
object (Larsen & Buss, 2013). If an orange fruit is round and orange in color, the theory holds
that if we remove all the properties of an orange, the idea of the orange Vanishes and we are
left with nothing. In the same manner, Hume emphasized that if a human is stripped off of all
his/her physical properties, the idea of the human also disappears. Therefore, our sense of self
is simply a combination of all the impressions that we have, that, once removed, leave us with
a complete lack of self.
Kant
Several philosophers during Immanuel Kant's time take into account empiricism as the only path
to true knowledge, which asserts that knowledge is only attained through the senses. In other
words, ’To see is to believe!’ Hence, if something cannot be seen, tasted, touched, heard, or
physically experienced, it might as well be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!

Then again, many of Kant's supporters advocated rationalism, a theory which states that reason is
the foundation of all knowledge, rather than experience. Say for example, while watching a 3D
movie, your eyes tell you that a dinosaur is about to jump out of a screen. However, your rational
mind lets you know that it is not! Therefore, seeing is not believing — reasoning is!

In the middle of this heated debate on self-knowledge and perception between empiricism
Vs. rationalism was Kant, who

believed that we all have an inner and an outer self which together, form our consciousness. The
inner self is comprised of our psychological state and our rational intellect. The outer self includes
our sense and the physical world (Carver & Scheier, 2014). To Kant, both of these theories are
incomplete when it comes to the self. When speaking of the inner self, there is apperception,
which is how we mentally assimilate a new idea into old ones. Basically, it is how we make sense
of new things. Consider Person A to be the owner of a 180-lb. dog. For him, his dog is huge so
whenever he meets an 80-lb. dog (or any other weight less than his dog’s, for that matter), he
does not consider it to be big. On the other hand, to a person who spends all day with a small
breed dog like a Chihuahua, the same 80-lb dog would seem immense. With this, Person A’s
rational thoughts on ‘big’ are based on the already formed apperception of his big dog, while the
other person’s is based on undersized canines. According to Kant, neither is right nor wrong — the
idea of ‘big’ is just based on internal reasoning that cannot be experienced through senses.

As a fragment of the outer self, Kant argued about a mental imagery based on past sensations and
experiences called representation, which occurs through our senses. Let us say that you are a
person who is not into cold places. You have never been to Alaska but based on the photos you
found online and your personal experiences with snow even in other places in the past, you
already have imagined what Alaska would feel like. This representation of cold for you is enough to
keep you from going to Alaska. As per Kant, empiricists who only rely on the sensory world and
representation miss the mark on self by negating the effects of apperception Conversely,
rationalists who cancel out representation miss by just as much. It is through these that Kant
believed that the inner and outer self combine to give us our consciousness instead of self being
one or the other.

Kyle

While many philosophers support, “I think, therefore I am,” Gilbert Ryle in a way said, “I act,
therefore I am!” Ryle unravels the separation between the mind and the body by claiming that it is
our behaviors and actions that give us our sense of self. In other words, we are all just a bundle of
behaviors that if someone thinks she is beautiful, it is because she acts beautifully. If someone
thinks he is intelligent, it is because he acts intelligently.

Ryle tells us that those who think that the mind exists separately from the body are committing a
category mistake, an error in logic in which one category of something is presented as belonging
to another category (Hofstadter, 1951). This concept is best explained below:

“One day a girl Visited a college campus. After seeing the buildings, teachers, students, and
dorms, she looked at the tour guide and sweetly asked, ‘This is all nice, but when do I get to see
the university?'

With this question, the girl committed a category mistake. Rather than realizing everything she
saw

made up the university, she thought it existed as a separate category.”

To Ryle, the idea that “there is something called ‘mind’ over and above a person’s behavioral
dispositions” is questionable. He argued that the mind does not exist and therefore cannot be the
seat of self. In other words, we neither get our sense of self from the mind nor from the body, but
from our behaviors in our day-to-day activities.

Churchland
When it comes to discussing the mind, many Western philosophers held to dualism, which asserts
that the mind and the body are separate. In other words, we all have a physical brain, but we
also haVe a separate mind. Because the mind is the seat of our consciousness, it is what gives us
our identity.

But Paul Churchland, a modern-day philosopher, believed otherwise. Instead of dualism, he holds
to the belief that the physical brain is where we get our sense of self. This is known as eliminative
materialism, the belief that nothing but matter exists (Churchland, 1981). In short, if it cannot be
recognized by our senses, then it is simply a fairy tale. Therefore, since the mind cannot be
experienced by our senses, then it does not really exist. For him, it is the physical brain and not
the imaginary mind that gives us our sense of self.
To prove this, Churchland points out that if the mind is the seat of the self, how can
personalities be altered by physical injuries or brain trauma? Using this argument, he claims
that the physical brain is the origin of the ‘self’ and that the belief in the mind is rather
unnecessary.
Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Merleau-Ponty believed the physical body to be an important part of what makes up
the subjective self (Carbone, 2004).
Subjectivity, or subject is something that has being (ZahaVi, 2005; Clark, 1997). It is defined
as a real thing that can take real action and cause real effects. In short, it exists. However,
he argued that this concept contradicts with rationalism and empiri- cism.
Rationalism asserts that reason and mental perception, rather than physical senses and
experience, are the basis of knowledge and self (Alloa, 2017). Merleau-Ponty believed that
the mind is the seat of our consciousness (Barbaras, 2014). The body is just a shell and it is
the subject behind what it means to be human. On the other hand, empiricism is the belief
that our physical senses are

our only source of knowledge. If the source of knowledge cannot be seen, touched, heard,
tasted, etc., it really cannot be trusted. While the rationalists would say, ‘I think, therefore I
am,” Empiri- cists would say, “I sense, therefore I am!”
Merleau-Ponty disagreed with these concepts. Rather than seeing and perceiving the mind
and the body as two separate entities, Merleau-Ponty argued that they are interconnected.
They both are our seat of knowledge, and they both give us our sense of self. Like love and
marriage, you cannot have one without the other! In other words, the self and perception are
encompassed in a physical body. The physical body is part of the self — the body is not a
prison house of self, rather, it is the subject that embodies self.
.
 Activity #1
Who are you according to...?
Who are you? In your own understanding, briefly express the concept of the ‘self’ for each
philosopher. Then, state how similar or different your View of the ‘self’ is as compared to that

Socrates Plato Augustine

Aquinas Descartes

Locke Hume
Kant

Ryle Churchland Marleau-Ponty

 Activity # 2
How Self is understood
Examine your ‘self’ now that you are in college. Write a short essay below on how
you understand your self. Identify the different influences, factors and forces that led to
yourself. Then, reflect on the kind of identity that you haVe at present by developing a

theory of your own.

 Activity # 3
Do you want to know how other people see you? Do you believe that you have the
same perception of your self as compared to how others see you? Let’s find out by
asking your classmates to describe you by writing their perceptions of you on the space

provided below.

1. What did you discover about yourself from other people’s point of View?

2. Do you believe in their perception about you? Why or why not?

3. What could be the possible reason/s why others perceive you differently from what you know
about
yourself?

Required Readings and Materials

Alloa, E. (2017). Resistance of the Sensible World. An Introduction to Merleau-Ponty. New York: Fordham
UniVersity Press.
 Anagnostopoulos, M. (2006). “The DiVided Soul and the Desire for Good in Plato’s “Republic” in
Santas, Gerasimos (ed.). The Blackwell Guide to Plato’s Republic. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Anstey, P. (2011). John Locke & Natural Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford UniVersity Press. Ayers,

M. (1993). Locke: Epistemology and Ontology. New York: Routledge.

Barbaras, R. (2004). The Being of the Phenomenon. Merleau-Ponty's Ontology. Bloomington: Indiana
UniVersity Press.

Carbone, M. (2004). The Thinking of the Sensible Merleau-Ponty’s A Philosophy. EVanston:

Northwestern UniVersity Press.

CarVer, C. & Scheier, M. (2014). PerspectiVes on Personality (7th ed.). Edinburgh Gate: Pearson
Education Limited.

Churchland, P. (1981). EliminatiVe Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes. Journal of Philosophy
78:67-90.

Clark, A. 1997. Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Flage, D. & Bonnen, C. (2014). Descartes and Method: A Search for a Method in Meditations. New York:
Routledge.

Giles, J. (1997). No Self to be Found: The Search for Personal Identity. Maryland: UniVersity Press of
America.

Hofstadter, A. (1951). The Journal of Philosophy, Vol.48,No.9, pp.257-270. DOI: 10.2307/2021599

RetrieVed from : http://www.jstor.org/stable/2021599

Larsen, R. & Buss, D. (2013) Personality Psychology: Domains of Knowledge About Human Nature (11th
ed.). New Delhi: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Prepared by:
Jomery Rose N. Sanorjo