CHAPTER 1: PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE ON SELF
PHILOSOPHY
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Derived from the Greek words “Philos” and “Sophia”
which literally means “Love for Wisdom”
Study of acquiring knowledge through rational thinking
and inquiries that involves in answering questions
regarding the nature and existence of man and the
world we live in
It is imperative to look into the various explanations
from different philosopher their notion of what the
“Self” its nature and how it is formed in order to have a
better picture on how people develop their behaviors,
attitude and actions and to be able to identify and
understand who we are and how we came to be
➢ PHILOSOPHERS:
1. SOCRATES
- “Knowing oneself”
- Men’s goal is to obtain happiness and such goal
motivates us to act towards or avoid things that could
have negative repercussions in our lives
- A person’s acceptance of ignorance is the beginning of
acquisition of knowledge
- His work was never published, we were only able to
know who Socrates is and his works because of his
illustrious students spoke generously and in detail about
his knowledge, wit, wisdom and intellect.
- He could be considered as the first martyr of education,
knowledge and philosophy.
- For lighting up the minds of his students, he was literally
charged with corruption of minors. He was made to
choose between exile and death via the intake of
hemlock. Socrates chose the latter, thus dying as a
martyr that fights against ignorance and narrowmindedness
- He believed that the answer to our pursuit in knowing
ourselves lies in our own abilities and wisdom, and that
the only way for us to understand ourselves is through
internal questioning or introspection. This method of
questioning oneself, where the person assumes the role
of both the teacher and the student Is known to the
world as the Socratic Method or Socratic Conversation
- By continuously asking and evaluation who we are as a
person, we will also be able to understand our strengths
and weaknesses, the things that we like and dislike, how
we want people to treat us and how we want ourselves
to be treated, so by knowing these things we can act in
accordance wo what we know we are and live our lives
following our knowledge of ourselves.
2. PLATO
- He wrote several literatures that tackles politics, human
nature, and established the idea of virtue and
intelligence.
- He is historically known to be the father of the
academy, a place where learning and sharing of
knowledge happens, that later became one of the pillars
and basis of what schools and education is now in the
present.
- Plato generally followed his teacher and the idea of
knowing thyself although from his work with the
notable ones such as “The allegory of the cave”, “The
apology“’, and his work on a perfect government and
societal system, “The Republic” where he said that the
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world can only be led by a philosopher king, a person
who is virtuous as well as intelligent.
According to him, a person who is a follower of truth
and wisdom will not be tempted by vices and will always
be just
He also believed in the division of a person’s body and
soul which forms the person as a whole aside from the
material things and that he could be observed and
associated with a person.
He presented the idea of the 3 divisions of the soul:
• PLATO’S 3 PARTS OF THE SOUL:
A. APPETITIVE SOUL – part of the person that is
driven by desire and need to satisfy oneself
- Satisfaction involves physical
needs and pleasures and
desires
B. SPIRITED SOUL – part of the soul can be
attributed to the courageous part of a person
- Very competitive
(Competitiveness – drives one
to expect positive results and
winning) and very active
C. RATIONAL SOUL – last part of the soul could be
said is the driver of our lives
- Part that thinks and plans for
the future “the conscious
mind” it decides what to do,
when to do it and the possible
results one could have
depending on their actions
THE THREE PARTS OF THE SOUL
In Plato’s Republic and Phaedrus
PARTS OF
THE SOUL
RATIONAL
Chariot part
Charioteer
Loves
The Virtue
The Vice
Somatotype
Geographic
symbol
Body
symbol
SPIRITED
(“THYMOS”)
White horse
on right
Truth/wisdom Honor/victory
Wisdom
Courage
Pride/sloth
Anger/envy
APPETITIVE
Ectomorph
Athens
Mesomorph
Sparta
Black horse on
left
Pleasure/$$
Temperance
Gluttony/Lust/
Greed
Endomorph
Egypt/Phoenicia
head
heart
Belly/genitals
3. ST. AUGUSTINE
- He believes that our notion of ourselves and our idea of
existence comes from a higher form (God) in which
bodily senses may not perceive or understand, and the
more one doubts and question his life means that, that
person is actually living.
- His idea of a man and how to understand who we are as
a person is related to our understanding of who we are
and how we question ourselves
- He also rejected the doubtfulness of the academy in
which cannot or should not accept ideas from other. He
emphasized that we may not be able to give our
agreement to everything other people tell us but we can
still agree to those who we, from our own perception,
think is right or wrong based from our perception
4. RENE DESCARTES (FRENCH)
- “Methodical Doubt” = a continuous process of
questioning what we perceive and accepting the fact that
doubting, asking questions are a part of ones’ existence.
- His belief in Modern Dualism or the existence of mind
and body
- Descartes is known for the statement “Cogito Ergo Sum”
which means in English as “I think, therefore I am”. A
person is comprised of a mind and body, the body that
perceives from the different senses and the mind that
thinks and question or doubt what the body has
experienced
- Known to be the father of modern philosophy because
of his radical use of systematic and early scientific
method to aid ideas and assumptions
- He explained that because we cannot always trust our
senses and in turn what we perceive as who we are or
the essence of our existence, we as a rational being
should focus on the mind and explained that the more
we think and doubt what we perceived from our senses
and the answer that came from such thinking or doubting
leads to better understanding of ourselves.
- He also implies that being in a constant doubt regarding
one’s existence is proof that a person actually exists
5. JOHN LOCKE (ENGLISH)
- The concept “Tabula Rasa” which means a Blank Slate.
He believed that the experiences and perceptions of a
person is important in the establishment of who that
person can become.
- He stated that a person is born with knowing nothing
and that is susceptible to stimulation and accumulation
of learning from the experiences, failures, references,
and observations of the person.
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Considered to be the father of classical liberalism
because some of his works on this subject matter paved
the way to several revolutions to fight the absolute
powers of monarchs and rulers of his time that led to the
development of governance, politics and economic
system that we now know
- The process of the mind to absorb information and
accumulate knowledge may imply that as a person to be
able to be whom we want to be, with the right
stimulations, enough experiences, as well as awareness
that by primarily knowing nothing will enable one to be
open to any kind of learning and does not limit any
possibilities for growth implies that the opportunity for
one person to develop to anything he wants to be is
limited only to the environment, experiences, and the
choices of the person
6. DAVID HUME (SCOTTISH)
- According to him, there is no permanent “self” since it is
only the accumulation of different impressions.
- He said when a person is asked the question “who you
are?" that person tends to answer different impressions
such as good, happy, optimistic, contented, sad, etc.
generally they apply to who you are now.
- He focused his work in the field of empiricism,
skepticism, and naturalism
- Being an empiricist, which believes in concrete evidences
and observable experiences that meld a person, his
notion on the self contradicts to the ideas of the
philosophers before him which said that at the notion of
self, one’s identity and behavior does not exceed the
physical realm and that the “Self” is only the
accumulation of different impressions
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There is no permanent “Self”, since our impressions of
things based from our experiences and from such
impression we can create our ideas and knowledge which
leads to the argument that since our impression and
ideas change, it may improve and totally be replaced
means that one change occurred the same phenomenon
of what will happen to one’s idea of who he is and what
he can do
7. IMMANUEL KANT (GERMAN)
- “Transcendental Apperception” is an essence of our
consciousness that provides basis for understanding and
establishing the notion of “self” by synthesizing one’s
accumulation of experiences, intuition and imagination
goes.
- Known for his works on empiricism and rationalism
- He responded to Hume’s work by trying to establish
that the collection of impressions and different
contents is what it only takes to define a person
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He argued that the awareness of different emotions
that we have, impressions and behavior is only a part of
our self. He said that to fully understand who we are, a
certain level of consciousness or sense that uses out
intuition which synthesizes all the experiences,
impressions and perceptions of ourselves will pave the
way to define and know who we really are.
- We can say that we are not only an object that
perceives and reacts to whatever it is that we are
experiencing, we also have the capabilities to
understand beyond those experiences and be able to
think and have a clear identification who we are and
establish a sense of self that is unique and distinct from
others
8. SIGMUND FREUD (AUSTRIAN)
- Also known as the father of psychoanalysis
- Known for his work on human nature and the
unconscious.
- He believed that man has different constructs of
personality that interacts with each other and along
with his concept of the different levels of consciousness
provides an idea how a person develops a sense of self
• ASPECTS OF PERSONALITY:
a. ID - the primitive and instinctive component
of personality. Also known as the child aspect
of a person. Its attention is on satisfaction of
one’s needs and self-gratification. It is driven
by the pleasure principle
b. SUPEREGO - incorporates the values and
morals of society which are learned from
one's parents and others. It is the conscience
of one’s personality. Has the inclination to
uphold justice and do what is morally right
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and socially acceptable actions. Involved in
the notion of right and wrong
c. EGO - develops to mediate between the
unrealistic id and the external real world. It is
the decision-making component of
personality. Sometimes known as the police
or the mediator between id and superego. It
operates within the boundaries of reality,
primary function is to maintain the impulses
of the id to an acceptable degree
He also introduced the idea that the accumulation of
the experiences of a person helps build his personality
although such information is not stored in a single area
where we can access them at any time.
• LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS:
A. CONSCIOUS - where minority of our memories
are being stored and the memories that are in
the conscious is easier to be tapped or accessed.
B. PRE-CONSCIOUS - the middle part of the entirety
of our consciousness, the memories stored in this
area can still be accessed but with a little
difficulty.
C. UNCONSCIOUS - - this area is where majority of
our memories since childhood are deeply stored.
It is very difficult to tap the memories in the
unconscious, it would need a trained professional
and several special techniques in order to make
some memories resurface.
He believed that we are a by-product of our
experiences in the past. And that our actions are driven
by the idea of resisting or avoiding pain, and are molded
from our need for pleasure or being happy
9. GILBERT RYLE
- His Behavioristic approach to self, that the behavior
that we show, emotions, and actions are the reflection
of our mind and as such is the manifestation of who we
are.
- His explanation of self is further exemplified in his
“ghost in the machine” view. This view said the man is a
complex machine with different functioning parts, and
the intelligence, and other characteristics or behavior of
man is represented by the ghost in the said machine.
- He does not believe that the mind and body, though
some say can coexist, are two separate entities which
is said to be evident in the unexplainable phenomenon
or abilities of the mind where the soul is considered.
- To him, we encounter others, their perceptions of what
we do, how we act, and the way we behave will then
result to the understanding of other people and
establishing of who we are
10. PAUL CHURCHLAND (CANADIAN)
- He built the idea Eliminative Materialism opposes that
people’s common sense understanding of the mind is
false and that most of the mental states that people
subscribe to, in turn, do not actually exist, this leads to
his idea of Neurophilosophy.
- The brain can be the basis of who the person is, this is
emphasized by Churchland in the statement “The Brain
as the Self”.
- He focusses on the idea that people should improve our
association and use of words in identifying the self. He
has this idea that the “Self” is defined by the
movements of our brain
- His works revolve around challenging of the notion and
terms being used to explain behavior or to explain how
a person feels, thinks, and act with regards to
physiological phenomenon as well as definitions
brought about by emotions, this is one of the notions of
the concept of Folk Psychology also known as common
sense psychology
11. MAURICE JEAN JACQUES MERLEAU-PONTY (FRENCH)
- He is known for his works on existentialism and
phenomenology
- His idea of the self, regarded that the body and mind
are not separable entities, but rather those two
components is one and the same. His idea that follows
the gestalt ideation where the whole is greater than
the sum of its parts in which pushed his idea on the
unity of the function of the mind and body, this idea is
called the Phenomenology of Perception
• THE IDEA OF PHENOMENOLOGY OF PERCEPTION IS
DIVIDED INTO THREE (3) DIVISIONS:
a. THE BODY – both receives the experience as well
as integrates such experiences in the different
perception.
b. THE PERCEIVED WORLD - which are the
accumulation of the perception as integrated by
the experiences of the body.
c. THE PEOPLE AND THE WORLD - enable one to
not only be able to integrate the other objects in
the world but also to be able to experience the
cultural aspect and relate to others.
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For him, perception guides our action based from what
our experiences are