UNDERSTANDING

THE SELF

By: Mary ANN Palomar

 LESSON 1:

FROM THE
PERSPECTIVE OF
PHILOSOPHY
LESSON 1: FROM THE
PERSPECTIVE OF PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy ( love of wisdom)
Birth of Philosophy : 600 BCE

Philosophy can be explain by:

 Science
 Natural light of reason
 Study of all things
Greek philosopher in Miletus chose
to seek natural explanations to events
and phenomena around him instead
of seeking for supernatural
explanations from the gods as what
was passed down through the
generations.
 Early
Philosophers search for explanations on
how the world works through understanding the
ELEMENTS, MATHEMATICS, HEAVENLY
BODIES and ATOMS.

 Othergroup of Philosophers shifted their search

and focused on a MAN. They sought to
understand the nature of human beings,
problems of morality and life philosophies.
THE BIG THREE
Socrates

Plato

Aristotle.
 Inthe 5th century BCE, Athens enjoyed the status
of being a city state and a democracy.

 ATHENS was the center of western thoughts.

 Athenianssettle arguments through discussion

and debates.

 Peoplewho are skilled in doing debates and

discussion in settling arguments was called
Sophists, the first teachers of the West.
Socrates (470-399 BCE).
Socrates
A stonemason with a sharp mind, Socrates
wanted to discover the essential nature of
knowledge, justice, beauty and goodness,

 However, Socrates did not write anything, he

was not a writer.

A lot of his thought were only known through

Plato’s writing (The Dialogues).
 THE SOCRATIC METHOD

 Also known as the Socratic/ Dialectic Method

 Thismethod involves the search for the

correct/proper definition of a thing.

 Inthis method, Socrates did not lecture, he

instead would ask questions and engage the
person in a discussion.
 Inusing this method, the questioner should
be skilled at detecting misconceptions and
at revealing them by asking the right
questions.

 The goal is to bring the person closer to the

final understanding.
 SOCRATES' VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE
 “the unexamined life is not worth living”.

 Hebelieve that this mission in life was to

seek the highest knowledge and convince
others who were willing to seek this
knowledge with him.

 The touching of the soul, may mean

helping the person to get in touch with his
TRUE SELF. True self is not the body but
the soul.
 Delphi Oracle named Socrates the wisest
of all men, Socrates became confused.

 Socrates knew that the important aspect is

knowing that you know nothing.

 The aim of Socratic method is to make

people think, seek and ask again and again.
 Socraticmethod forces people to use their
innate reason by reaching inside themselves to
their deepest nature.

 What is important is for them to realize that they

do not know everything, that there are things that
they are ignorant of, to accept this and to
continue learning and searching for answer
 PLATO
 Aristocles (428-348 BCE)

 Born in Athens

 He was nicknamed Plato because of his physical

built which means “wide/broad”.

 Plato
left Athens for 12 years after death of
Socrates.
 He established “THE ACADEMY”

 Socrates
and Plato believe that Philosophy is
more than analyses but rather is a way of life

 Plato’s
metaphysics is a Philosophical study on
the causes and nature of things.
 It is also known as the “Theory of Forms”.

 Inhis theory of forms, Plato explained that

Forms refers to what are real.

 They are not objects that are encountered with

the senses but can only by grasped
intellectually.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF PLATO’S FORMS

 The forms are ageless and therefore are eternal

 Theforms are unchanging and therefore

permanent

 The forms are unmoving and invisible

PLATO’S DUALISM:
 Platoalso introduced to the West the existence
of two REALMS.

 The Realm of the Shadows is composed of

changing, ‘sensible’ things which are lesser
entities and therefore imperfect and flawed.

 The Realm of Forms is composed of eternal

things which are permanent and perfect. It is the
source of all reality and true knowledge.
 PLATO’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE
 Plato
made use of Socrates’ dialectic method and
considered it an important tool in discovering
knowledge.

 Healso believed that knowledge lies within the

person’s soul

 He considered human beings as microcosms.

PLATO DESCRIBED THE SOUL AS HAVING THREE
COMPONENTS:

 The Reason is the 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 pleasure of the body.
 Reason seeks the real goal of a man which is
to see things in their true nature.

 Spirited and Appetite want worldly pleasures

and can influence reason by making it believe
that sensual pleasures are the source of
Happiness

 Plato believed that people are intrinsically good.

PLATO’S THEORY OF LOVE AND BECOMING
 Plato
further illustrated his philosophy of the
search for knowledge using the “Allegory of the
Cave”

 In
the Allegory of the Cave, what people in the
cave see are only shadows of reality which they
believe are real things and represents knowledge

 The shadows are not real but “ only forms are

real”.
 Once these people get out of the cave and into
the light, what they will see are the Forms which
is what real knowledge is.

 In
knowing the TRUTH according to Plato, the
person must become the TRUTH.

 Theory of Being. To know for Plato is to be. The

more the person knows, the more he is and the
better he is
 Each individual has immortal soul a perfect set
of FORMS that he can recall which constitutes
true knowledge.

 To recall or remember the Forms is to know the

truth and then to become just and wise.
 InPlato’s symposium, he postulated that love is
the way by which a person can move from a
state of imperfect knowledge and ignorance to a
state of perfection and true knowledge.

 Love is the force that paves the way for all

beings to ascend to higher stages of self-
realization and perfection.

 Plato’slove begins with a feeling or experience

that there is something lacking.
 According to Plato love is the way of knowing
and realizing the truth.

 Loveis a process of seeking higher stages of

being.

 Love motivates man and transforms people and

societies. To love the highest is to become the
best.
 ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
 ChristianPhilosophers of the medieval era were
also theologians.

 Their concern was with God and man’s

relationship with God.

 These Christian philosopher did not believe

that self-knowledge and happiness were the
ultimate goals of man but instead man should
rely on God’s commands and his judgment of
what constitutes good and evil.
 Platoand the other Greek Philosopher sees
man as basically good and becomes evil through
ignorance of what is good.

 Christianity,
on the other hand, sees man as
sinners who reject/go against a loving God’s
commands.

 One of famous Christian Philosopher St.

Augustine (354-436 CE) initially rejected
Christianity, he wanted to know about moral evil
and why it existed in people, his personal desire
for sensual pleasures and questions about all the
sufferings in the world.
ST. AUGUSTINE VIEWS OF HUMAN NATURE
 God as the source of all reality and truth.
According to him without God as the source of all
truth, man could never understand eternal truths.

 The sinfulness of man.

According to St. Augustine, the cause of good or
evil is an act of man’s freewill. Evil therefore does
not live in Gods creatures but rather in man.
 THE ROLE OF LOVE
 St. Augustine is in agreement with the Greeks that man
searches for happiness.

 He stated that real happiness can only be found in God.

 For God is love and he created humans for them to also

love.

 Problems arise because of the objects humans choose to

love.

 Disordered love results when man loves the wrong things

which he believes will give him happiness.
ST AUGUSTINE EXPLAINS....
1. Love of physical objects leads to the sin of
greed.

2. Love for other people is not lasting and

excessive for them is the sin of jealousy.

3. Love for the self leads to the sin of pride.

4. Love for God is the supreme virtue and

only through loving God can man find real
happiness.
 RENE DESCARTES
 Descartes
(1596-1650) is known as the Father
of Modern Philosophy.

 Considered
as one of the Rationalist
Philosopher of Europe.

 Heintroduced what is known as the Cartesian

method and invented analytic geometry.

 In
this method, he asked himself “is there
anything I can know with certainty?.
 With his research, nothing satisfied him for he
saw that there were always differences in the
facts, ideas and opinions.

 Inhis search for an answer to his question he

had three dreams. These dreams instructed him
to construct a system of knowledge using the
powers of human reason.
 DESCARTES’ SYSTEM
Using dreams as guide Descartes came up with a system
using principles that were true and related to each other in a
clear and meaningful way. He turned to mathematics, through
math, he discovered that the human mind has two powers.

 INTUITION or the ability to apprehend direction of

certain truths.

 DEDUCTION or the power to discover what is not

know by progressing in an orderly way from what is
already known.
 Descartes believed that reasoning could produce
absolute truths about nature, existence, morality
and God.

 TheTruths that can be discovered are a PRIORI

means that ideas discovered do not rely on some
experiences because they are innate in the human
mind.

 In
addition he believed that Philosophy should
progress from simple ideas to complex ideas.
DESCARTES’ VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE
“I think, therefore I am”

 He believes that to doubt is to think. What is a

thing that thinks? He conclude that a thinker is a
thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies,
wills, refuses and that also imagines and feels.
 THE MIND – BODY PROBLEM
 Descartes considered the soul/mind (also the
self). As a substance that is separate from the
body.

 Descartesbelieved that all bodily processes are

mechanical. The body according to him, is like a
machine that is controlled by the will and aided by
the man.
 JOHN LOCKE
 John Locke (1632-1704)

 Born in Wrington, England

 Lockewas interested in politics and like his father

was a defender of the parliament system.

 Atthe age of 57 he published a book on the

scope and limits of the human mind which played
a significant role in the new era of thought known
as the “Enlightenment”.
 Locked believed that knowledge results from
ideas produced a POSTERIORI or by objects
that were experienced.

 The process involved two forms: sensation

wherein objects are experienced through the
senses and reflection by which the mind ‘looks’
at the objects that were experienced to discover
relationships that may exist between them.

 Locke contented that ideas are not innate but

rather the mind at birth is a ‘tabula rasa’.
 Lockestated further that “nothing exists in the
mind that was not first in the sense.”

 What the senses have experienced are simple

ideas which are the raw materials from which
knowledge begins.

 Ideas can also be the result of reflection which

demonstrates the power of thinking and volition
or will
LOCKE’S VIEW ON HUMAN NATURE
 According to Locke there are no innate ideas,
morals religious and political values must come
from sense experiences.

 Mental acts are acts that produce the “greatest

possible good” but contended that knowing what
is good does not necessarily mean that people
will always do what is good.

 Morality has to do with choosing or willing to do

good.
Three laws according to Locke :

1. Law of Opinion – where actions that are

praiseworthy are called virtues and those
that are not are called vice.

2. Civil law – where right actions are enforced

by people in authority.

3. Divine law – set by God on the actions of

man.
 DAVID HUME
 David Hume (1711-1776)

 Born in Edinburgh, Scotland

 He was enrolled in University of Edinburgh when

he lost his faith and after reading the philosophy of
Locke he never again entertained any belief in
religion

 Hume was credited for giving empiricism its

clearest formulation.
 He relied on the scientific method, believing that
it could analyze human nature and explain the
workings of the mind.

 Ashe examined the process of how ideas

formed, he discovered the limitations of the mind
and his optimism turned into skepticism.
THE HUMAN MIND

Hume’s analysis was the mind receives materials from the

senses and calls it PERCEPTIONS.

TWO TYPES OF PERCEPTIONS

1. Impressions are immediate sensation of external

reality. These are more vivid than the ideas it
produces.

2. Ideas are recollections of these impressions.

 These two together make up the content of the human
mind. It all begins with impressions. Without impressions
there will be no formation of ideas. The imagination has
the ability to connect ideas to form a complex idea.

THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSE AND EFFECT

According to hume, the idea of cause and effect
relationship arise only when people experience certain
relations between objects thus it cannot be a basis for
knowledge.
HUME’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE
 The part of human nature is what other philosophers called
the soul; Hume termed it “the Self”.

 He concluded that man does really have an idea of the so-

called self because ideas rely on sense impressions and
people have no sense impression of a self.

 He said that the self is a product of the imagination.

 According to Hume, there is no such thing as “Personal

Identity”, behind perceptions and feelings that come and
go. Therefore, for him there is no permanent.
 IMMANUEL KANT
 Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

 Lived all his life in the town of Konisberg in East Prussia

(presently western Russia).

 Kant was deeply spiritual.

 His studies on Asian philosophies had a strong influence

on him but French philosopher Rousseau made him
realized to formulate his philosophical ideas.
 However Kant stated that it was the philosophy of David
Hume that awakened and motivated him to be the
founder of German Idealism.

 Books of Kant:
1. Critique of Pure Reason
2. Critique of Practical Reason
3. Critique of Judgment

Kant’s views of the Mind

- The mind is not just a passive receiver of sense of
experience but actively participates in knowing the
objects it experiences.
 According to Kant instead of the mind conforming to the
world, it is the external world that conforms to the mind.

KANT’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE

AND THE SELF
 According to Kant the bundles of sensory as seen by
Hume imply a unity of the self without which there would
be no knowledge of experience.

 Self must exist or without it there could be no memory or

knowledge.

 The term he used for experience of the self and its unity
with the objects is TRANSCENDENTAL APPERCEPTION.
 Transcendental is used because people do not experience
the self directly but as unity of all impressions that are
organized by the mind and perceptions.

 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.

 Kant emphasized that people should always see duty as a

divine command.
 SIGMUND FREUD
 Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

 Austrian Neurologists

 One of the pioneering figures in the field of Psychology.

Father of modern Psychology.

 Freud has many ideas on the possible factors in

determining human behaviour, he came in the work of the
unconscious mind. Repressed thoughts and memories
according to him enough psychic energy to impose its
control on the person’s consciousness.
 Hidden , unexpressed and repressed memories resurface
and manifested as form of Psychopathology/ Hysteria.

 Freud made use the methods of FREE ASSOCIATION

and DREAM ANALYSIS. In his clinical practice there are
therapy and techniques involve to help the person
recognized the repress thoughts and could bring back the
emotional stability of a person.
STRUCTURES OF THE MIND

 In his theory PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORY, it tells about

the workings of the mind or one’s mental life impacts
strongly on the body resulting in either emotional stability
or psychological dysfunctions
 TOPOGRAPHY OF THE MIND
3 levels of the mind according to Freud.

1. Id. The structure that is primarily based on the pleasure

principle.

2. Ego. The structure that is based on the reality principle.

3. Superego. The last structure to develop and is primarily

dependent on learning the difference between right and
wrong.
 In his book Beyond the Pleasure Principle in 1920 he
presented two kinds of instincts that drive individual
behaviour.

 EROS – life instincts

 THANATOS- death instincts

The energy of EROS is called LIBIDO it includes the urges

necessary for individual and species survival like thirst,
hunger and sex.

When a man’s behaviour is directed towards destruction in

form of aggression and violence are the manifestations
of THANATOS.
FREUD’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE
 Freud Psychoanalysis sees a man as a product of his
past lodged within his subconscious.
 GILBERT RYLE
 Girlbert Ryle (1900-1976)

 English Philosopher who contradict the idea of Cartesian

Dualism

View about Human Nature and Knowledge.

Ryle thought that freewill was invented to answer the
question of whether an action deserves praise or blame.
He also agrees with Kant who stated that freewill involves
a moral responsibility.
2 TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE (RYLE)
 Knowing-That
 Knowing-How

 Knowing how- refers to knowing the facts/ information

and latter to using the facts in the performance of the
skill or technical abilities.

 Knowing that- considered as empty intellectualism.

 For Ryle what is more important is knowing how to make
use of these facts. A person may acquire a great bulk of
knowledge but without the ability to use it to solve some
practical problems to make his life easier, this
knowledge is deemed to be worthless.
PATRICIA AND PAUL CHURCHLAND
 Patricia Churchland- July 16, 1943
 Paul Churchland – October 21, 1942

 They coined the term NEUROPHILOSOPHY.

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

 It aims to explore the relevance of neuroscientific

experiments/studies to the philosophy of the mind.
 The issue of the brain and mind is the central of this
study.
 In neuroscience there is no casual relationship between
the mind and the brain, however the mind can still be
associated with brain.

CHURCHLAND’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE

 What and who the person, how he makes decisions,
controls impulses and how he sees himself is largely
determined by his neurons, hormones and overall
genetic make-up.

 Neurophilosphy states that the self is real, it is a tool that

helps the person tune-in to the realities of the brain and
the extant reality. It can malfunction but can also allow
human beings to do amazing things.
MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY
 Merleau Ponty (1908-1961)

 French Phenomenological Philosopher

 His thoughts were influenced by Edmund Husserl and

Martin Hedigger.

 He wrote books on perception, art and political thought.

 The center of his philosophy is the emphasis placed on

the human body as the primary site of knowing the
world.
MERLEAU’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE AND THE
SELF

 According to him the world and the sense of self are

emergent phenomena in the ongoing process of man’s
becoming.

 In his book the phenomenology of perception (1945)

He describe the nature of man’s perceptual contact with the
world.
 Phenomenology provides a direct description of the
human experience while perception forms the
background of the experience which served to guide
man’s actions.
 According to Merleau when perception towards a
particular object takes place, the perception is not
CONSTANT.

 It may change depending on the perspective upon

which it is seen.

 Therefore it is possible that one object may be

perceived from the various perspective.