CONCEPT AND NATURE OF SELF
( WHO AM I?)
THE PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW OF SELF
SOCRATES : know yourself
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Socrates is principally concerned with man.
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He considers man from the point of view of his inner life.
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The famous line of Socrates, “ know yourself”, tells each man to bring his inner self to light.
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Virtue is the deepest and most basic propensity of man.
Plato: The Ideal Self, the Perfect Self
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According to Plato, man was omniscient or all-knowing before he came to be born into this
world.
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With his separation from the paradise of truth and knowledge and his long exile on earth, he
forgot most of the knowledge he had.
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Happiness, which is the fruit of virtue, is attained by the constant imitation of the divine
exemplar of virtue, embodied in man’s former perfect self.
Immanuel Kant: Respect for Self
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Man is the only creature who governs and directs himself and his actions, who sets up ends for
himself and his purpose, and who freely orders means for the attainment of his aims.
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Every man is thus an end in himself and should never be treated merely as a means – as per the
order of the Creator and the natural order of things.
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Thus, all men are persons gifted with the same basic rights and should treat each other as
equals.
René Descartes: “I think, therefore I am”
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Descartes states that the self is a thinking entity distinct from the body.
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His first famous principle was “Cogito, ergo sum,” which means “I think, therefore I am.”
John Locke: Personal Identity
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John Locke holds that personal identity (the self) is a matter of psychological continuity.
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For him, personal identity is founded on consciousness (memory), and not on the substance of
either the soul of the body.
David Hume: The Self is the Bundle Theory of Mind
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Hume is skeptical about the existence of the self, specifically, on whether there is a simple,
unified self that exists over time.
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For him, man has no “clear and intelligible” idea of the self.
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He posits that no single impression of the self exists; rather, the self is just the thing to which all
perceptions of a man is ascribed.
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Moreover, even if there were such an impression of the self, it would have to remain constant
over time to constitute identity.
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Thus, Hume asserts that what we call the “self” is really just “a bundle or collection of different
perceptions which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity.”
The Christian or Biblical View of Self
According to the Holy Writ, man, following his redemption by the Savior from eternal bondage, now
shares in the infinite merits of his Redeemer and has become not only the inheritor of the new earth but
also the heir of heavenly kingdom.
This imagery is shown in Figure 1.
St. Augustine: Love and Justice as the Foundation of the Individual Self
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St. Augustine believes that a virtuous life is a dynamism of love.
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It is a constant following of and turning towards love while a wicked life is a constant turning
away from love.
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Loving God means loving one’s fellowmen; and loving one’s fellowmen denotes never doing any
harm to another or, as the golden principle of justice state, doing unto others as you would have
them do unto you.
The Psychological View of Self
Sigmund Freud: The Psychoanalytic Theory of Self
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Freud’s asserts that the human psyche (personality) is structured into three parts (tripartite).
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These structures – the id, ego, and superego – all develop at different stages in a person’s life.
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These three structures are systems and not physical parts of the brain.
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Although each part comprises unique features and contributes to an individual’s behavior, they
interact to form a whole.
Parts of Personality
1. Id (internal desires).
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Also called internal drives or instinctive drives, it consist of the body’s primitive
biological drives and urges which are concerned only with achieving pleasure and selfsatisfaction.
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Id lives completely in the unconscious.
2. Ego (reality).
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It is the “I” part of the individual that gives him/her the sense of his/her own identity.
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The ego is the rational part of the personality.
3. Superego (conscience)
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It is the part of the personality concerned with moral, precepts, standards, and ideas.
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The superego is also the critical faculty of the personality
Freudian Stages of Psychosexual Development
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Freud also argues that the development of an individual can be divided into distinct stages
characterized by sexual drives.
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As a person grows, certain areas become sources of pleasure, frustration or both.
1. Oral. – From birth to the end of the first year, the mouth becomes the part of the body
through which gratification is secured.
2. Anal (expulsive phase). – From the age of 2 to 3 years, the child derives the feelings of
pleasure or pain from defecating. It covers the toilet-training period.
3. Phallic – From the age of 3 to 6 years, the child gets curious about his/her genitals and
becomes attached to the parent of the opposite sex. The attraction of a boy to his
mother is called Oedipus complex, while that of a girl to her father is called Electra
complex.
4. Latency – from the age of 10 to 12 years, sexual motivations presumably recede in importance as the
child becomes preoccupied with developing skills and other activities.
5. Genital – After puberty, the deepest feelings of pleasure presumably come from heterosexual
relations.
Erik Erikson: The Psychosocial Stages of Self-development
Erikson was primarily concerned with how both psychological and social factors affect the development
of individuals.
He has formulated eight major stages of development, each posing a unique developmental task and
simultaneously presenting the individual with a crisis that he/she must overcome.
As defined by Erikson, a crisis is not “ a threat of catastrophe but a turning point, a crucial period of
increased vulnerability and heightened potential”.
Accordingly, individuals develop a healthy personality by mastering “ life’s outer and inner dangers”.