UNDERSTANDING THE SELF REVIEWER NAME SELF - had all different origins to a certain person admired by our parents, from celebrities to common people who touched the lives of our parents when we are called by our names, we were conditioned to respond to them because supposedly, our name represents who we are as a student we were told to write our name with our output for identification our name signifies us even until death, our name is inscribed in the tombstones name is not the person itself no matter how intimately bound it is with the bearer, it is only a signifier a person who was named after a saint most probably will not become an actual saint. He may not even turn out to be saintly signifier, official and legal identity and we cannot change it not a static thing that one is simply born with the self is something that a person perennially moulds, shapes and develops personhood/pagkatao (keeps on growing, developing and changing and it does not remain as it is) SOCRATES - first philosopher who ever engaged in a systematic questioning about the self - to Socrates, the true task of a philosopher is to know oneself - Plato claimed in his dialogs that Socrates affirmed that the unexamined life is not worth living - Every man is composed of body and soul, this means that every human person is dualistic, that is, he is composed of two important aspects of his personhood. For Socrates, this means all individual (BODY) have an imperfect, impermanent aspect to him, and the body, while maintaining that there is also a SOUL that is perfect and permanent PLATO – he believed that justice in the human person can only be attained if the three parts of the soul are working harmoniously with one another THREE COMPONENTS OF THE SOUL • RATIONAL SOUL: forged by reason and intellect has to govern the affairs of the human person • SPIRITED SOUL: is in charge of emotions and should be kept at bay • APPETITIVE SOUL: in charge of base desires like eating, drinking, sleeping and having sex are controlled as well. NOTE: When this ideal state is attained, then the human person’s soul becomes just and virtuous. ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO - Augustine agreed that man is of bifurcated nature - An aspect of man dwells in the world and is imperfect and continuously yearns to be with the Divine and the other is capable of reaching immortality - we can establish the conditions for selfhood by becoming and remaining peregrine, focused on the mystery of our self and our God, while ever seeking to return to our true home with God who is the very self of our selves ST. THOMAS AQUINAS - Aquinas said that indeed, man is composed of two parts: 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 what makes it FORM OR MORPHE in Greek refers to the essence of a substance or thing - It is what makes it what it is. - in the case of human person, its cell is more or less the same with the cells of any other living, organic being in the world. However, what makes a human person a human and not an animal is his soul, his essence - to Aquinas, THE SOUL IS WHAT ANIMATES THE BODY; IT IS WHAT MAKES US HUMANS RENE DESCARTES - as the FATHER OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY, Descartes conceived of the human person as having a body and a mind - the self for Descartes is also a combination of two distinct entities, THE COGITO, the thing that thinks, which is the mind, and THE EXTENZA or extension of the mind, which is the body. - in Descartes’ view, the body is nothing else but a machine that is attached to the mind - the human person has it but is not what makes man a man. If at all, that is the mind - Descartes says, “But what then, am I? a thinking thing. It has been said. But what is a thinking thing? It is a thing that doubts, understand, affirms, denies, wills, refuses; that imagines also, and perceives DAVID HUME - as an empiricist who believes that one can know only what comes from the senses and experiences, Hume argues that the self is not an entity over and beyond the physical body EMPIRICISM - school of thought that espouses the idea that knowledge can only be possible if it is sensed and experienced - men can only attain knowledge by experiencing – For example, Rudy knows that Leni is another human person not because he has seen her soul. He knows she is just like him because he sees her, hears her, and touches her - For David Hume, if one tries to examine his experiences, he finds that they can all be categorized into two: • IMPRESSIONS: the basic objects of our experience or sensation. They therefore form the core of our thoughts. • IDEAS: are copies of impressions. Because of this, they are not as lively and vivid as our impressions Impressions Vs Ideas: When one touches an ice cube, the cold sensation is an impression. Impressions therefore are vivid because they are products of our direct experience with the world. When one imagines the feeling of being love for the first time, that still is an idea. - Hume then defined SELF as 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 - thinking of the “self” as a mere combination of impressions was problematic for Immanuel Kant - To Kant, there is necessarily a mind that organizes the impressions that men get from the external world. – Time and space, for example, are ideas that one cannot find in the world but is built in our minds. Kant calls these the apparatuses of the mind. Along with the different apparatuses of the mind goes the “self”. Without the self, one cannot organize the different impressions that one gets in relation to his own existence. - Kant therefore suggests that the self is an actively engaged intelligence in man that synthesizes all knowledge and experience. Thus, the self is not just what gives one his personality. In addition, it is also the seat of knowledge acquisition for all human persons GILBERT RYLE - Ryle denied the concept of an internal, non-physical self. For him, what truly matters is the behaviour that a person manifests in his day-to-day life - Ryle suggests that the “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. – Example: Looking for a university Summary • Socrates – man is composed of body and soul • Plato - rational soul, the spirited soul, and the appetitive soul. • Augustine – yearns to be with the Divine / immortality • Aquinas – matter: common stuff / form: essence • Descartes – cogito: the mind, extenza: the body. • Hume – Impressions basic sensation/experience / Ideas: are copies of impressions • Kant - self synthesizes all knowledge and experience. • Ryle - behaviour that a person manifests in his day-to-day life
