UNIT 1

The
SELF
from
Various
Perspectives
TOPICS for Unit 1

1. Philosophical View of the Self

2. Psychological View of the Self
3. Social and Cultural View of the
Self
PHILOSOP
HY At its simplest…

Greek φιλοσοφία 
 or phílosophía, meaning
‘the love of wisdom’
 • the search for knowledge and
truth, especially about the
nature of man and his behavior
and beliefs
PHILOSOP (Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary)

HY • the study of the ultimate nature

of existence, reality, knowledge
and goodness, as discoverable
by human reasoning 
(Penguin English Dictionary)
Who are you?
SOCRATES

• Greek Philosopher
• Father of Western
Philosophy
 Know Thyself.
The cornerstone of Socrates’ philosophy
Know Thyself?
1. What exactly does this mean?
2. Who exactly is your “self”?
3. What are the qualities that define it?
4. What is the relation of the “self” you were as a child
to the “self” you are now?
Know Thyself?
6. What is the relation of your “self” to your “body”?
7. What happens to the “self” when the body dies?
9. In what ways is it possible for you to “know” your “self”?
10. What do you mean when you say, “I don’t feel like myself
today” or when you encourage someone else to “Just be
yourself!”
 Human person is dualistic.

BODY SOUL
• Changeable • Unchanging
• Transient • Eternal
• Imperfect • Immortal
What is the soul?
Your core identity
The unique spirit that makes
PSYCHE
(Ψυχή) you distinctively YOU
“true self” Your authentic personality
or “soul” Your distinctive character
 Difference of soul and body
Soul Body
•Life • Death.
•All mental & • Carrier of the soul.
psychological • Substance which the
states are soul gives life.
associated with
the soul
 Difference of soul and body

 The soul desires The body is responsible

pleasures of learning, for beliefs and pleasure,
wisdom, knowledge desires and fears
The soul’s functions are:

1. Grasping and appreciating truth, and;

2. Regulating and controlling the body and its
affections

The soul controls the body and prevents it from

falling into fallacy and inadequate behavior.
 As a result, humans are in permanent struggle
between their body and their soul.

The soul has the power over the body because it is

the soul that gives life to the body.
For Socrates… every soul seeks happiness. The
only people who are truly happy are those who are
Who live
Virtuous and wise reflective,
“examined” lives

Strive to behave
rightly and justly
in every area of
their lives.
Many people are not happy because…
They have not
Enlarging their
pursued virtue &
wisdom
reputation
SLEEPWALKE
Devoted their lives
RS
to accumulating Inflating their egos
• People who are
material possessions only going through
the motions of
Indulging in living
mindless pleasures
 Genuine happiness is the result
of living an enlightened,
examined life.

Some of Socrates’ core teachings:

• The unexamined life is not worth

living.
• We should strive for excellence in
all areas of life.
PLATO

• Greek Philosopher
• Student of Socrates
Plato introduces the idea of a three-part
soul/self:

• RATIONAL SELF (Reason)

divine essence
reason and intellect
make wise choices
and achieve a true understanding of eternal truths
Plato introduces the idea of a three-part
soul/self:

• APPETITIVE SELF (Physical Appetite)

basic biological needs
hunger, thirst, and sexual desire
Plato introduces the idea of a three-part
soul/self:
• SPIRITED SELF (Spirit/Passion)
basic emotions
love, anger, ambition, aggressiveness, empathy
CHARIOT ANALOGY

One horse
represents passion,
the other appetite,
and the charioteer
who tries to control
them is reason”.
The fact that the horses
are “winged” suggests the
capacity of the soul to soar
to the world of wisdom
and intellectual
enlightenment.
Genuine happiness can only
be achieved by people who
consistently make sure that
their reason is in control of
their spirits and appetites.
 • French Philosopher
• Mathematician
• Scientist
• Invented the
Analytic Geometry
• Founder of Modern
Philosophy

RENE DESCARTES
THINKING
PROCESS
and its relation to the human self
Descartes is convinced that…

A wholesale and systematic

doubting of all things is the only
way to achieve clear and well-
reasoned conclusions.
 He explains, “If you would be a
real seeker after truth, it is
necessary that at least once in your
life you doubt, as far as possible,
all things.”

Skepticism – that everything

should be doubted until it could
be proved.
Cogito, ergo sum –
“I think, therefore I am.”

The essence of your self—

you are a “thinking thing.”
 You understand situations in which
you find yourself.

You doubt the accuracy of ideas

presented to you.

You deny an accusation that

For example: someone has made.

You refuse to follow a command

that you consider to be unethical.

You feel passionate emotions

toward another person.
For Descartes…

Awareness

self-identity

• Thinking
Mental • Reasoning
operations
• Perceiving
For Descartes…
Thinking
Body
self

nonmaterial material

immortal mortal

conscious non-thinking
being entity
For Descartes…
Your physical body is secondary to your
personal identity.

Your soul and your body are independent of

one another, and each can exist and function
without the other.
JOHN LOCKE

• English Philosopher
• Physician
 Self is the
CONSCIOUSNESS

All knowledge originates

in our direct
sense experience.
 TABULA RASA
(Latin: "scraped tablet," though often translated "blank slate")
 Human mind is at birth a "blank slate" without rules for
processing data.
 Human mind receives knowledge and forms itself based
on experience alone, without any pre-existing innate
ideas.
 TABULA RASA
• Tabula rasa emphasized the
individual's freedom to
author his or her own soul.
Locke makes the following points:
• To discover the nature of personal identity, is to find
out what it means to be a person.
1

• A person is a thinking, intelligent being who has the

abilities to reason and to reflect.
2

• A person is also someone who considers itself to be

the same thing in different times and different places.
3
Locke makes the following points:
• Consciousness—being aware that we are
thinking—always accompanies thinking and
4 is an essential part of the thinking process.

• Consciousness is what makes possible our

belief that we are the same identity in
5 different times and different places.
 What is the essence of the self?

Its conscious awareness of itself as a thinking,

reasoning, reflecting identity.
KEYS TO UNDERSTANDING THE
SELF
conscious awareness
• a coherent concept of your self as a personal
identity because you are aware of your self when
you are thinking, feeling, and willing
memory of previous experiences
• awareness of your self in the past, in other
situations
 Hit your hand with a pen.

Did you feel anything?

For Locke, every aspect of your physical body

(substance) is integrated with your personal identity.
What if your finger was cut and separated from your
body?
What will happen to your identity?

Your personal identity remains intact, although the substance

associated with it has changed (you now only have 4 fingers).
For Locke…

• Our personal identity is distinct from whatever

substance it finds itself associated with.
DAVID HUME
• Scottish Philosopher
• Historian
• Economist
• Essayist
 There is NO
SELF!

•All human knowledge is founded solely in

EXPERIENCE.
Entities of our experience:

Impressions Ideas
the basic
copies of
Hume argues that
sensations of our
experience
impressions impressions are
the cause of ideas.
“lively” and less “lively” and
“vivid” “vivid”

elemental data of our include thoughts and

images that are built up
minds: pain, pleasure,
from our primary
heat, cold, happiness, impressions through a
grief, fear variety of relationship
Hume makes the following points:

When one The self is thereby

By giving order to created from
habitually interacts
our lives (i.e. action and is also
with things
habits and fully contingent on
(aromas,
routines), we also action. The self is
temperature,
give order to our simply a
sounds, etc.), one
impressions. crystallization of
creates ideas.
our lived life.

This means that the self is not permanent and can be

subject to change.
 1. All ideas are ultimately derived from
impressions.

Hume’s 2. So, the idea of a persisting “self” is

argument ultimately derived from impressions.
against
3. But, no impression is a persisting
identity thing.

4. Therefore, there cannot be any

persisting idea of “self.”
 • SELF is “bundle or collection of
different perceptions, which
succeed each other with an
inconceivable rapidity, and are in a
There is NO perpetual flux and movement.”
SELF!
• PERCEPTION – the way you think
about or understand someone or
something
 MIND is “a kind of theatre,
SELF is where several perceptions
simply successively make their
memory and appearance, pass, repass,
imagination glide away, and mingle in an
infinite variety of postures
and situations.”
IMMANUEL
KANT
German Philosopher
We construct the self!

It is our SELF that makes

experiencing an intelligible world
possible because it’s the self that is
responsible for synthesizing the
discreet data of sense experience into
a meaningful whole.
Kant believed that…
• Your self that is actively organizing all your
sensations and thoughts into a picture that
makes sense to you.

• Without our self experience would be

unknowable, a chaotic collection of sensations
without coherence or significance.
Your self isn’t an object located in your
consciousness with other objects – your SELF is
a subject, an organizing principle that makes a
unified and intelligible experience possible

It is “above” or “behind” sense experience, and it

uses the categories of your mind to filter, order,
relate, organize, and synthesize sensations into a
unified whole