UNDERSTANDING
THE SELF
Table of Contents
Chapter I – Defining the Self: Personal and
Developmental Perspectives on Self and
Identity
Lesson 1: The Self from Various
Philosophical Perspectives
Lesson 2: The Self, Society, and Culture
Lesson 3: The Self as Cognitive
Construct
Lesson 4: The Self in Western and
Eastern Thoughts
CHAPTER I
DEFINING THE SELF: PERSONAL
AND DEVELOPMENTAL
PERSPECTIVES ON SELF AND
IDENTITY
Lesson 1:
The Self from Various
Philosophical Perspectives
LESSON OBJECTIVES
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
1. Explain why it is essential to understand the
self;
2. Describe and discuss the different notions of
the self from the points-of-view of the
various philosophers across time and place;
3. Compare and contrast how the self has been
represented in different philosophical
schools; and
4. Examine one’s self against the different views
of self that were discussed in class.
ACTIVITY
Answer the following questions about your self as
fully and precisely as you can.
1. How would you characterize your self?
2. What makes you stand out from the rest? What
makes your self special?
3. How has your self transformed itself?
4. How is your self connected to your body?
5. How is your self related to other selves?
6. What will happen to your self after you die?
ANALYSIS
Were you able to answer the questions on the previous slide
with ease? Why? Which questions did you find easiest to
answer? Which ones are difficult? Why?
Can one truly know the self? Do you want to know about self?
ABSTRACTION
• Socrates and Plato
- Socrates was the first philosopher who ever engaged in a
systematic questioning about the self; the true task of the
philosopher is to know oneself.
- For Socrates, every man is composed of body and soul; all
individuals have an imperfect, impermanent aspect to him,
and the body, while maintaining that there is also a soul
that is perfect and permanent.
- Plato supported the idea that man is a dual nature of body
and soul.
- Plato added that there are three components of the soul:
the rational soul, the spirited soul, and the appetitive soul.
• Augustine and Thomas Aquinas
- Augustine agreed that man is of a bifurcated nature; the body
is bound to die on earth and the soul is to anticipate living
eternally in a realm of spiritual bliss in communion with God.
- The body can only thrive in the imperfect, physical reality that
is the world, whereas the soul can also stay after death in an
eternal realm with the all-transcendent God.
- Aquinas said that indeed, man is composed of two parts:
matter and form. Matter, or hyle in Greek, refers to the
“common stuff that makes up everything in the universe.”
Man’s body is part of this matter. Form, on the other hand, or
morphe in Greek refers to the “essence of a substance or
thing.”
- To Aquinas the soul is what animates the body; it is what
makes us humans.
• Rene Descartes
- Conceived of the human person as having a body and a
mind
- The body is nothing else but a machine that is attached to
the mind. The human person has it but it is not what makes
man a man. If at all, that is the mind.
• David Hume
- The self is not an entity over and beyond the physical body.
- Men can only attain knowledge by experiencing.
- Self, according to Hume, is simply “a bundle or collection of
different perceptions, which succeed each other with an
inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and
movement.”
• Immanuel Kant
- Things that men perceive around them are not just
randomly infused into the human person without an
organizing principle that regulates the relationship of all
these impressions.
- There is necessarily a mind that organizes the impressions
that men get from the external world.
- Time and space are ideas that one cannot find in the world,
but is built in our minds; he calls these the apparatuses of
the mind.
- The self is not just what gives one his personality; it is also
the seat of knowledge acquisition for all human persons.
• Gilbert Ryle
- Blatantly denying the concept of an internal, non-physical self;
what truly matters is the behavior that a person manifests in
his day-to-day life.
- “Self” is not an entity one can locate and analyze but simply
the convenient name that people use to refer to all the
behaviors that people make.
• Merleau-Ponty
- The mind and body are so intertwined that they cannot be
separated from one another.
- One cannot find any experience that is not an embodied
experience. All experience is embodied; one’s body is his
opening toward his existence to the world.
- The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and experiences are
all one.
APPLICATION AND ASSESSMENT
In your own words, state what “self” is for each of the
philosophers enumerated below. After doing so, explain how
your concept of “self” is compatible with how they conceived
of the “self.”
1. Socrates
2. Plato
3. Augustine
4. Descartes
5. Hume
6. Kant
7. Ryle
8. Merleau-Ponty
LESSON SUMMARY
- Philosophy is replete with men and women who
inquired into the fundamental nature of the self.
- Socrates was the first philosopher who ever engaged
in a systematic questioning about the self.
- Plato supported the idea that man is a dual nature of
body and soul.
- Augustine agreed that man is of a bifurcated nature.
- Thomas Aquinas said that indeed, man is composed
of two parts: matter and form.
- Rene Descartes conceived of the human person as
having a body and a mind.
- David Hume, the self is not an entity over and beyond
the physical body
- Immanuel Kant, there is necessarily a mind that
organizes the impressions that men get from the
external world
- Gilbert Ryle, “self” is not an entity one can locate and
analyze
- Merleau-Ponty, the living body, his thoughts,
emotions, and experiences are all one
Lesson 2:
The Self, Society, and
Culture
LESSON OBJECTIVES
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
1. Explain the relationship between and among
the self, society, and culture;
2. Describe and discuss the different ways by
which society and culture shape the self;
3. Compare and contrast how the self can be
influenced by the different institutions in the
society; and
4. Examine one’s self against the different views
of self that were discussed in the class.
ACTIVITY
Paste a picture of you when you were in elementary, in high
school, and now that you are in college. Below the picture, list
down your salient characteristics that you remember.
ANALYSIS
After having examined your “self” in its different stages, fill
out the table below:
ABSTRACTION
• What Is the Self?
-
The self, in contemporary literature and even common sense,
is commonly defined by the following characteristics:
Separate means that the self is distinct from other selves. The
self is always unique and has its own identity.
Self-contained and independent because in itself it can exist.
Its distinctness allows it to be self-contained with its own
thoughts, characteristics, and volition.
Consistency means that a particular self’s traits,
characteristics, tendencies, and potentialities are more or less
the same.
Unitary in that it is the center of all experiences and thoughts
that run through a certain person
Private means that each person sorts out information,
feelings and emotions, and thought processes within the self.
This whole process is never accessible to anyone but the self.
• The Self and Culture
- According to Marcel Mauss, every self has two faces:
Moi refers to a person’s sense of who he is, his body,
and his basic identity, his biological givenness.
Personne is composed of the social concepts of what
it means to be who he is.
- Language is another interesting aspect of this social
constructivism; it is a salient part of culture and
ultimately, has a tremendous effect in our crafting of
the self.
- If a self is born into a particular society or culture,
the self will have to adjust according to its exposure.
• The Self and the Development of the Social World
- More than his givenness (personality, tendencies, and
propensities, among others), one is believed to be in active
participation in the shaping of the self.
- Men and women in their growth and development engage
actively in the shaping of the self.
- The unending terrain of metamorphosis of the self is
mediated by language.
• 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.
• Self in Families
- The kind of family that we are born in, the resources
available to us (human, spiritual, economic), and the kind
of development that we will have will certainly affect us.
- Human beings are born virtually helpless and the
dependency period of a human baby to its parents for
nurturing is relatively longer than most other animals.
- In trying to achieve the goal of becoming a fully realized
human, a child enters a system of relationships, most
important of which is the family.
- Human persons learn the ways of living and therefore their
selfhood by being in a family. It is what a family initiates a
person to become that serves as the basis for this person’s
progress.
• Gender and the Self
- Gender is one of those loci of the self that is subject
to alteration, change, and development.
- The sense of self that is being taught makes sure that
an individual fits in a particular environment, is
dangerous and detrimental in the goal of truly
finding one’s self, self-determination, and growth of
the self.
- It is important to give one the leeway to find,
express, and live his identity.
- Gender has to be personally discovered and asserted
and not dictated by culture and the society.
APPLICATION AND ASSESSMENT
Answer the following questions cogently but honestly.
1. How would you describe your self?
2. What are the influences of family in your development as an
individual?
3. Think of a time when you felt you were your “true self.” What
made you think you were truly who you are during this time of
your life?
4. Following the question above, can you provide a time when
you felt you were not living your “true self”? Why did you have
to live a life like that? What did you do about it?
5. What social pressures help shape your self? Would you have
wanted it otherwise?
6. What aspects of your self do you think may be changed or you
would like to change?
LESSON SUMMARY
The self is commonly defined by the following
characteristics:
- Separate, is always unique and has its own identity
- Self-contained and independent because in itself it can
exist
- Consistency, a particular self’s traits, characteristics,
tendencies, and potentialities are more or less the
same
- Unitary in that it is the center of all experiences and
thoughts that run through a certain person
- Private. Each person sorts out information, feelings
and emotions, and thought processes within the self.
• The Self and Culture
- Every self has two faces: Moi and Personne;
- Language is a salient part of culture and ultimately,
has a tremendous effect in our crafting of the self.
• The Self and the Development of the Social World
- Men and women in their growth and development
engage actively in the shaping of the self;
- The unending terrain of metamorphosis of the self
is mediated by language.
• Mead and Vygotsky
- The way that human persons develop is with the use
of language acquisition and interaction with others
• Self in Families
- The kind of family that we are born in, the resources
available to us, and the kind of development that we
will have will certainly affect us.
- Human persons learn the ways of living and therefore
their selfhood by being in a family.
• Gender and the Self
- Gender is one of those loci of the self that is
subject to alteration, change, and development.
- It is important to give one the leeway to find,
express, and live his identity.
- Gender has to be personally discovered and
asserted and not dictated by culture and the
society.
Lesson 3:
The Self as Cognitive Construct
LESSON OBJECTIVES
At the end of this lesson, you should be able
to:
1. Identify the different ideas in psychology
about the “self”;
2. Create your own definition of the “self”
based on the definitions from psychology;
and
3. Analyze the effects of various factors
identified in psychology in the formation of
the “self.”
ACTIVITY
• This activity has two parts that try to compare how we look at
ourselves against how people perceive us depending on how
we present ourselves to them. For the first part, list 10 to 15
qualities or things that you think define who you are around
the human figure representing you.
• For the second part, in the space below, write “I am
___________ (your name). Who do you think I am based on
what you see me do or hear me say?” Pass your paper around
for two to three minutes without looking who writes on it. As
you fill out the paper of your classmates, write briefly and only
those that you observe about the person. Do not use any bad
words and do not write your name. After the allotted period,
pass all the paper to your teacher who will distribute them to
the respective owners.
ANALYSIS
Compare what you wrote about yourself to those
written by your classmates. What aspects are similar and
what are not? What aspects are always true to you?
What aspects are sometimes true or circumstantial?
What aspects do you think are not really part of your
personality?
ABSTRACTION
- There are various definitions of the “self” and other similar or
interchangeable concepts in psychology.
- Other concepts similar to self are identity and self-concept:
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.
- Theories generally see the self and identity as mental
constructs, created and recreated in memory.
- Freud saw the self, its mental processes, and one’s behavior
as the results of the interaction between the Id, the Ego, and
the Superego.
- There are 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.
2. Whether we like to admit it or not, we actually need
others to affirm and reinforce who we think we are.
3. What we think is important to us may also have been
influenced by what is important in our social or historical
context.
- Social interaction and group affiliation are vital factors in
creating our self-concept especially in the aspect of
providing us with our social identity;
- There are times when we are aware of our self-concepts;
this is also called self-awareness;
- Carver and Scheier identified two types of self that we can
be aware of:
1) the private self or your internal standards and private
thoughts and feelings; and
2) the public self or your public image commonly geared
toward having a good presentation of yourself to others.
- Self-awareness also presents us with at least three other
self-schema:
• The “actual” self is who you are at the moment
• The “ideal” self is who you like to be
• The “ought” self is who you think you should be
- Self-awareness may be positive or negative depending on
the circumstances and our next course of action.
- Our group identity and self-awareness also has a great
impact on our self-esteem, defined as our own positive or
negative perception or evaluation of ourselves.
- One of the ways in which our social relationship affects our
self-esteem is through social comparison:
• The downward social comparison is the more common
type of comparing ourselves with others, by comparing
ourselves with those who are worse off than us.
• The upward social comparison which is comparing
ourselves with those who are better off than us.
- Social comparison also entails what is called self-evaluation
maintenance theory, which states that we can feel
threatened when someone out-performs us, especially when
that person is close to us.
- In the attempt to increase or maintain self-esteem, some
people become narcissistic, a “trait characterized by overly
high self-esteem, self-admiration, and self-centeredness.”
- There is a thin line between high self-esteem and narcissism
and there are a lot of tests and measurements for selfesteem like the Rosenberg scale.
- Though self-esteem is a very important concept related to
the self, studies have shown that it only has a correlation,
not causality, to positive outputs and outlook.
- Programs, activities, and parenting styles to boost selfesteem should only be for rewarding good behavior and
other achievements and not for the purpose of merely trying
to make children feel better about themselves or to appease
them when they get angry or sad.
APPLICATION AND ASSESSMENT
• Do a research and list 10 things to boost your selfesteem or improve your self-concept. Cite your
sources.
• Analyze which of those tips are more likely to
backfire and make someone conceited or narcissistic
and revise them to make the statements both helpful
to the individual as well as society in general.
LESSON SUMMARY
- Other concepts similar to self:
Identity, composed of personal characteristics,
social roles, and responsibilities
Self-concept, 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.
- Theories generally see the self and identity as
mental constructs, created and recreated in
memory.
- Social interaction and group affiliation are vital
factors in creating our self-concept.
- There are times when we are aware of our self-concepts;
this is also called self-awareness.
- Two types of self that we can be aware of:
(1) the private self or your internal standards and private
thoughts and feelings, and;
(2) the public self or your public image commonly geared
toward having a good presentation of yourself to others.
- Self-awareness also presents us with at least three other
self-schema:
• The “actual” self is who you are at the moment
• The “ideal” self is who you like to be
• The “ought” self is who you think you should be
- Our group identity and self-awareness also has a great
impact on our self-esteem.
- One of the ways in which our social relationship affects our
self-esteem is through social comparison:
• The downward social comparison is by comparing
ourselves with those who are worse off than us.
• The upward social comparison which is comparing
ourselves with those who are better off than us.
Lesson 4:
The Self in Western and
Eastern Thoughts
LESSON OBJECTIVES
At the end of this lesson, you should be able
to:
1. Differentiate the concept of self according
to Western thought against
Eastern/Oriental perspectives;
2. Explain the concept of self as found in Asian
thoughts; and
3. Create a representation of the Filipino self.
ACTIVITY
Write top five differences between Western society and
Eastern society, culture, and individuals in the table
below. Cite your sources.
ANALYSIS
Do you agree with the differentiation between the
West and the East? Where can you find the
Philippines in the distinction? What are the factors
that make the Philippines similar or different from its
Asian neighbors? Is there also a difference between
regions or ethnolinguistic groups in the Philippines?
ABSTRACTION
Eastern thoughts:
- Sees the other person as part of yourself as well as the things
you may create, a drama in which everyone is interconnected
with their specific roles
- Asian culture is called a collectivistic culture as the group and
social relations that is given more importance than individual
needs and wants.
Western thoughts:
- Looks at the world in dualities wherein you are distinct from the
other person, the creator is separate from the object he created,
in which the self is distinguished and acknowledged
- The Western culture is what we would call an individualistic
culture since their focus is on the person.
• Confucianism
- A code of ethical conduct, of how one should properly act
according to his/her relationship with other people
- The identity and self-concept of the individual are
interwoven with the identity and status of his/her
community or culture, sharing its pride as well as its failures.
- Self-cultivation is seen as the ultimate purpose of life.
- The cultivated self in Confucianism is what some scholars call
a “subdued self” wherein personal needs are repressed
(subdued) for the good of many, making Confucian society
also hierarchal for the purpose of maintaining order and
balance in society.
• Taoism
- Living in the way of the Tao or the universe
- Rejects having one definition of what the Tao is
- Rejects the hierarchy and strictness brought by
Confucianism and would prefer a simple lifestyle and its
teachings thus aim to describe how to attain that life
- The self is not just an extension of the family or the
community; it is part of the universe.
- The ideal self is selflessness but this is not forgetting about
the self; it is living a balanced life with society and nature,
being open and accepting to change, forgetting about
prejudices and egocentric ideas and thinking about
equality as well as complementarity among humans as
well as other beings.
• Buddhism
- 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.
- To forget about the self, forget the cravings of the self, break
the attachments you have with the world, and to renounce
the self which is the cause of all suffering and in doing so,
attain the state of Nirvana.
APPLICATION AND ASSESSMENT
• Create a representation, diagram, or concept map
of the SELF according to Filipino culture.
• Provide a brief explanation of your output. You can
also cite books and researches about Filipino
culture, self, and identity to further elaborate on the
topic.
LESSON SUMMARY
Eastern thoughts:
- Asian culture is called a collectivistic culture as the
group and social relations that is given more
importance than individual needs and wants.
Western thoughts:
- The Western culture is what we would call an
individualistic culture since their focus is on the
person.
• Confucianism
- A code of ethical conduct, of how one should properly act
according to their relationship with other people
- Self-cultivation is seen as the ultimate purpose of life.
• Taoism
- The self is not just an extension of the family or the
community; it is part of the universe.
- The ideal self is selflessness but this is not forgetting about the
self; it is living a balanced life with society and nature.
• Buddhism
- The self is seen as an illusion, born out of ignorance, of trying
to hold and control things, or human-centered needs
- To forget about the self, and in doing so, attain the state of
Nirvana.