Course Packet LM01-NGEC 01 0213 Learning Module Understanding the Self Course Packet 01 Philosophical Perspectives of Self Knowledge Area Code Course Code Learning Module Code Course Packet Code : : : : SSCI NGEC0213 LM-NGEC0213 LM-NGEC0213-01 Learning Module: Understanding the Self 3 Course Packet LM01-NGEC 01 0213 Course Packet 01 Course Packet 01 Philosophical Perspective of Self Introduction This topic will present the different perspective of 11 renowned philosophers who discussed the essence and nature of man in order for the learner to profoundly understand and know himself and somehow answer the perennial question: ‘Who am I?’ The philosophers that will be presented here are the following: Socrates (469 -399 BCE); Plato (427347 BCE); Augustine (354-430 CE); Rene Descartes (1596-1650 CE); John Locke (1632-1704 CE); David Hume (1632-1704 CE); Immanuel Kant (1724-1804 CE); Sigmund Freud (1856-1939 CE); Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976 CE); Paul Churchland (b. 1942); and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Lesson 01: Philosophical Perspective of Self WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? “love of wisdom” Philosophy is etymologically defined as ‘love of wisdom’. It is derived from the t w o Greek words Philo which means love and Sophia which means wisdom. It is also a science of all things that exist in their ultimate nature or cause through the aid of human intellect alone. WHAT IS ITS ORIGIN? “the sense of wonder (pagka-mangha)” This discipline started centuries before Christ (as stated in the history of Philosophy) when earliest thinkers began to wonder things and questioned the ‘basic stuff’, primary substratum or ‘arche’ that explains the ultimate nature of all thing around them. Prior to Socrates were the Ionian Philosophers—Thales, Anaximenes and Anaximander. For Thales the basic stuff is water. For Anaximenes it is air and for Anaximander the primary substratum is indeterminate for nobody can determine what particular thing is the basic stuff. HOW WAS THE PROBLEM OF SELF CAME OUT TO INQUIRE? Moreover, after the series of thinkers from all across the ancient Greeks inquiring the nature of change and the unity of the world amidst its diversity, a man came out to question something else. This man is Socrates. Unlike his predecessors, he was more concerned with the problem of the self. He was the first philosopher who ever engaged in the systematic knowing or questioning of oneself. Furthermore, some philosophers who came after him elaborate more the philosophical search of one’s definition of self. WHO ARE YOU? The perspective of the following philosophers about man, his nature and essence, and about himself (Yourself, myself, my identity) Learning Module: Understanding the Self 2 1. Course Packet LM01-NGEC 01 0213 SOCRATES (469-399 BCE) Course Packet 01 “The unexamined life is not worth living” - Socrates was born in Athens in approximately 469 BC. His father was a sculptor, his mother was a midwife. His wife Xantippe bore him three children. - He is known nowadays as the great teacher of mankind though during his time his teaching is not legitimate for the authorized teachers those days were the Sophists. His teaching was not formally held inside the four walls of the classroom but on the street corners. Yet unlike the Sophists, his teaching is for free. His teaching made knowledge is not for sale. Furthermore, sometimes he is also being described as a market philosopher because of his proclivity for engaging youths to discuss things, using the answer and question method in Agora (market place). - An examination of ‘Our Existence in the Universe’ is the focus of his philosophy. The answer to the question ‘who am I’ is being exemplified by his maxim: “an unexamined life is not worth living” (Plato’s Apology) leading to the optimistic and pro-active perspective of life for the life worthy to live is a life full of examinations such as challenges trials difficulties, doubts/questions, uncertainties, and the like. And so, there is an urgent call to examine one’s life, for it is in the examination that we can know ourselves. - Man is a pure mind. Man’s existence was first in the realm of ideas and exists as a soul. There was soul first before man’s body. This soul has knowledge by direct intuition and all these are stored in his mind. He already has knowledge of everything (omniscient). However, once he came to the material world or the world of senses, he forgot most of what he knew. This resulted in lack of knowledge or ignorance which causes problems to man. - However, knowledge can once again be restored through the process of dialectic method, a sort of maieutic process, an intellectual midwifery of trying to draw truth out of the pupil’s mind through question and answer (Q&A) or conversation method. The ultimately aim of an exchange of question and answer is to make the person remember all the knowledge that he has forgotten, including his former omniscient self. - Socrates was arrested and condemned to die because of t w o charges: (a) Impiety, because of not worshipping the gods of the state and introducing new and unfamiliar ways of worshipping, and (b) Corruption of the minds of the young who would flock around him. 2. Plato. (427-347 BCE) “Perfection consists in constant recollection and imitation of his former perfect self.” - Plato is an ancient Greek philosopher, student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle, and Learning Module: Understanding the Self 3 Course Packet LM01-NGEC 01 0213 founder of the Academy, now considered as the prototype of the modern university. He was born into an aristocratic Athenian family. His father is Ariston, and his mother is Perictione, a descendant Course Packet 01 of Solon--the Athenian lawgiver. - The dichotomy of the Ideal world/ the world of Forms and the Material world is the important fragment of his philosophy. The world of Forms is the permanent and unchanging reality. The Material world is what we see around us and just a replica of the real world found in the world of Forms. He believed that human beings are composed of t w o things; a body and a soul. Soul is the true self -the permanent, unchanging Self. The changing body, however: or what we see in the material world is not the real self but only a replica of our true Self. - Plato’s Theory of Form asserted that the physical world is not really the real world because the ultimate reality exists beyond physical world. Human soul as being the most divine aspect of human being is not being looked at as something spiritual but rather one that has an intellectual connotation. The three parts of the soul according to Plato are: the appetitive soul, the rational soul, and the spirited soul. - As a student of Socrates, Plato also believed that man’s soul pre-existed his body. And in consonance with his theory of Idealism, Plato propounded the view that man, in his present earthly existence, is only an imperfect copy of his real original self. The perfect man, a soul or pure mind in the realm of ideas, knew all things by direct intuition, and had all this knowledge stored in his mind. However, because of his banishment into this world of sense, he blurred, or forgot all or most of what he knew. - The solution to his present problems caused mostly by ignorance of lack of knowledge, can be found by knowing and constantly recalling his former self and his perfections, and by constant imitation of his ideal exemplar by the practice of virtue. And so once again man can regain his perfection which he lost during his long earthly exile and his imprisonment in the body as punishment for sin through constant recollection (inward contemplation) and imitation (practice of virtue) of his former perfect self. 3. Augustine (354-430 CE) “Man is a great mystery” - St. Augustine was born in November 13, 354 CE at Tagaste, Numidia (now Souk- Ahras, Algeria). His father was Patricius who was a government official, once a p agan but converted to Christianity. His mother was Monica who was a devout Christian and was canonized by the Roman Catholic as a saint. He lived with a woman who bore him a son named Adeodatus which is in Latin means “the gift of God”. Just like his father he was converted and baptized into the catholic church. Later on he became a priest and bishop of Hippo (northern Africa) Learning Module: Understanding the Self 4 Course Packet LM01-NGEC 01 0213 and was awarded as Doctor of the Church, the title given to the defenders of the Church. He was canonized and he is known as the “great formulator of Christian Doctrine”. - Augustine calls man as great mystery. He asks the Psalmists, “What is man that thou art mindful of him?” He wonders that there is in man which cannot be understood as a part of the world as a thing among things. The certainty in human knowledge (the existence of God as love) on which we may absolutely rely and disclose one’s immediate awareness of oneself. - According to him, our world (world of materials) is not our final home but just a temporary home where we are just passing through. Our real world is found in the world where there is permanence and infinity that World is where God is. Only God is fully real-as the unchanging, permanent being and he sees God as the ultimate expression of love. (City of God, Books XIXXII). For him, out of love, God created man. Man is in fact, created in the image of God. He has an immortal soul whose main pursuit is to have an everlasting life with God. - St Augustine’s philosophy reconciles and brings together to an admirable synthesis and harmony the wisdom of Greek philosophy and the divine truths contained in the scriptures. The Greeks’ pursuit of happiness (Eudaimonism) and with what he told us with the Bible that this happiness can be found in God alone. What was imperfectly perceived as God in Plato’s and Aristotle’s concept of the absolute and immutable good, the “Summum Bonum”, is now seen by Augustine with the aid of the light of divine revelation as the living personal God, the creator of all things, the supreme ruler of the universe. So, the idea of the Good of Plato is revealed, to Augustine as the living reality, God. - What then is God? Augustine answers the question with the words of the Scriptures that God is love; and since according to Plato, Morality consist in the constant imitation of the divine model, Augustine following his great predecessor and educator, teaches that morality consists in love since it is love that makes us like unto Love (God). - Life to Augustine is a dialectic movement towards love. Virtue, which is the art of living rightly and well, has been defined by Augustine as ‘the order of love’. A virtuous life is a dynamism of the will which is towards love, while a wicked life is a constant turning away from love. - To love God means necessarily to love one’s fellowmen and to love one’s fellowmen means never to do harm to another or as the golden principle of justice requires, to do unto Learning Module: Understanding the Self 5 Course Packet LM01-NGEC 01 0213 others as you would others do unto you. Love and justice, the t w o foundation stones of Course Packet 01 individual as well as social ethics. 4. Rene Descartes (1596-1650 CE) “I think therefore I am.” - Rene Descartes, a French Philosopher, is considered to be a Father of Modern Philosophy and a brilliant scientist and mathematician. His Metaphysical Dualism is the philosophy of one who believes that ultimate reality is composed exclusively of t w o entities. These t w o basic substances are mind and matter. - His maxim ‘Cogito ergo sum’ (I think therefore I am) emphasizes the consciousness of his mind leads to an evidence of one’s existence despite the b elief that everything is to be doubted. That the essence of man’s existence lay in being a purely thinking being because even if he can doubt whether he has real body or it’s just a trick of his senses, one thing he cannot doubt is that he is thinking. - Man being a thinking substance reiterates Plato’s Dualism. The mind and the body are very distinct from one another nonetheless he also believes that the mind is conjoined with the body in such an intimate way that they causally act upon each other. When I talk about myself, I talk about my body. The way I act and how I should perform something necessarily includes the use of my body. Therefore, these two are separated but inseparable. Man has an ability to think and act but he cannot do it without a body. Likewise, body is not just like a tool in a mechanical principle like chair for example for it is also me for I cannot separate myself from it. When you encounter my mind, it is already me that you are encountering, so I am my body and my mind, but these t w o are still distinct from each other. - The hegemony of the mind over the body tells us that the essence of the Self is in its being a ‘thinking being’ (Mind more than the Body) that is why then the human soul requires a science of its own, very much unlike that of mathematical science. When the body is gone, the mind may continue to exist and function. 5. John Locke (1632-1704 CE) He included memory in the definition of self. Human mind at birth is tabula rasa. - John Locke is a great British Empiricist Philosophers and widely credited for laying the Learning Module: Understanding the Self 6 Course Packet LM01-NGEC 01 0213 Course Packet 01 foundation of human rights. He is commitment to the idea that the sovereign should be the people and not the monarch. - Distinct to the influence of his predecessors (like Descartes) that described self as a thinking thing, he further included in his work the concept of a person’s memory in the definition of the self—the memories of the thinking thing. - The memory theory holds that we are the same person as we were in the past for as long as we can remember something from that past. The memory renders us self-conscious that we are one and the same person. - His theory of personal identity justifies the defense of accountability that to him since the person is the same in the passing of the time then he is held accountable for his past behavior. The person could only be held accountable for the behavior he can remember. Locke believed that punishing someone for the behaviors he has no recollection is tantamount to punishing him for the action he never performed. 6. David Hume (1711-1776) There is no self. A person is a bundle of perceptions. No impression corresponding to a self that endures through time. - Born in Scotland, he was a lawyer, philosopher, economist, and a historian for he wrote History of England. He opposed rationalism (a belief that reason is a foundation of knowledge) and just like Locke he is an empiricist (regarded the senses as our key source of knowledge). - He believes in the existence of the mind and what’s inside the mind is divided in to two: impressions and ideas. Impressions are those things we perceive through our senses as we experience them; on the other hand, ideas are those things that we create in our minds even though we are no longer experiencing them. - Whenever we think of simple ideas, it must have as a basis --a simple impression. Complex ideas happen when we combine simple ideas by arranging and rearranging them. Because of this, I can make an entirely new creation like a unicorn. - His idea of the self follows this philosophical pattern. In his Treatise on Human Nature. Hume (1738), argues that when he looks into his mind, he finds a stream of impressions and ideas, but no impression corresponding to a self that endures through time. - The self keeps on changing, like how one looks, one feels. one thinks they constantly Learning Module: Understanding the Self 7 Course Packet LM01-NGEC 01 0213 Course Packet 01 change. He concludes that the self is nothing over and above the stream of perceptions we enjoy. An enduring self is just a fiction produced by our imagination. (Law, 2007) - His bundle theory states that since a person is a bundle of perception then there is no permanent and unchanging self (always in a continuous ‘perpetual flux) because it continuously undergoes change. People will be constantly changing because of the different experiences he has. That constant change will affect and reshape his personhood. Thus, we therefore conclude that there is no self. 7. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804 CE) Man has dignity. A key to find essence of the self. - A citizen of Konigsberg, East Prussia. He is also considered as one of the giants in philosophy though he barely stands five feet tall. He was spurred into philosophical activism when he encountered Hume’s skepticism and took it upon himself to refute it. He (1781) argued that it is possible to discover universal truth about the world using our reason. He also argued that it is possible to find the essence of the Self. - For his idea of the self, Kant (1781) believes that man is a free agent, capable of making a decision for himself. His philosophy centers and revolves around the inherent dignity of a human being. As a free agent, man is gifted with reason and free will. - The necessity of his being free is tested in his decision to be moral. An individual has the free will to be moral or not. - A moral person is one who is driven by duty and acts towards the fulfillment of that of that duty Thus for us to know what is our duty. we have to rationally deliberate on it andnot expect that a higher authority will hand it on us automatically, and certainly we cannot let the arbitrariness of emotion guide us. - Only a free agent will be able to make a rational deliberation, hence he alone' is the moral agent of himself. It is also because we acknowledge that each individual i s capable of thinking that we must give them respect by treating every individual as ends in themselves and never as a means. This means that every person should not be exploited and used. (Kant, 1781). - Hence, it’s easy for us to see his views on slavery, prostitution, bribery, etc. which reduces man to a thing and therefore, considered as morally wrong acts. In refuting Hume’s Learning Module: Understanding the Self 8 Course Packet LM01-NGEC 01 0213 Course Packet 01 idea that there is no self, he said (1781) that since man is gifted with reason and free will, man can organize the data gathered by the senses. From these data, and the way we organize the data, we can now have a good idea of a man. 8. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) If ego behaves, then superego won. If ego misbehave then Id won. This battle is all taking place in the subconscious. The realm of the ego is found in the conscious. - Born in Frieberg, Moravia, this Jewish neurologist later on moved to Vienna. This proved good for Vienna because Freud became famous and was considered as the father of psychoanalysis, and he was more associated in Vienna than in anywhere else. - His works center on the mind and its development. He devised a structure that defines man according to his biological structure and w the influence of his socio-cultural environment. - One of his famous ideas was the tripartite division of man- the id, ego, and the superego. - The Id represents man’s biological nature, the impulses and the bodily desires. The Superego represents the ethical component of the personality and provides the moral standards by which the ego operates. - In a man’s stages of development, the id and the superego will find themselves clashing against each other, with the superego trying to control the impulses of Id and the Id trying to satisfy its urges. - The winner of this inner battle will be manifested in the Ego, which is the self. Hence the quote above. Things are not in control of the ego, but the ego only manifests the winner between the two. - If ego behaves, then superego won. If ego misbehave then Id won. This battle is all taking place in the subconscious although the realm of the ego is found in the conscious. 9. Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976) “Minds are things, but different sorts of things from bodies.” (The Concept of the Mind, 1949) - He studied and taught in Oxford University. This Englishman's Philosophy centers on Learning Module: Understanding the Self 9 Course Packet LM01-NGEC 01 0213 Course Packet 01 language. He claims that the problems of Philosophy were brought about only because of the confusion due to misinterpretation, misunderstanding, etc. of words. - The goal of philosophy should be to clear this confusion through linguistic analysis. - In the earlier discussion, one of the main debates regarding man was whether there is a dualism of mind-body, or is he only mind, body, memory? According to Ryle, the problem was the categories that we put those concepts in. - In his book, Concepts of Mind, he (1949) criticized Descartes’ treatment of the mind. For Descartes, the mind is a non-physical entity found within the body, which then produces human behavior. This to him is the error, because a talk about the mind is simply a talk about behavior. - The mind is not distinct from the body, but rather refers to certain aspects of our bodies. In fact, Ryle (1949, p130) he claims of exorcising the dogma of the Ghost in the Mach ine, referring to the Cartesian category, Ryle gives this example (p132). - Suppose that your parents went to your university and ask you to tour them around. You show them the library, the rooms, the gym. However, they look disappointed and so you ask them what is wrong. They answer that they ask you to tour them around the university, instead youshow them the library, rooms, etc. They do not realize that the term university refers to the whole thing and not one specific building. This is how Descartes made the ‘category a mistake’. Like the university, the concept of the mind expresses the entire system of thoughts, emotions, actions, and so on that make up the human self (Ryle, 1949). - The mind is not like a specific, separate entity but is certainly a part of our body. Ideally, the separation of mind/soul and body could be possible, but in practice this is hardly the case. The only way by which we can know how the mind is working is thr ough the behavior of the person, hence we can only know a person through how a man behaves, their tendencies and reactions in certain circumstances. 10. Paul Churchland (b. 1942) “We do have an organ for understanding and recognizing moral facts. It is called the brain.” (A Neurocomputational Perspective, 1989) - Known for his Eliminative Materialism, this American professor from the University of California, in partnership with his wife, believes that the self is the brain. Learning Module: Understanding the Self 10 Course Packet 01 - Course Packet LM01-NGEC 05 0213 With the advent of science and learning more about the nuances of the brain, it becomes clear to Churchland that the term “mind”, our moods, emotions, actions, consciousness are deeply affected by the state of our brain. - That by manipulating certain parts of our brain, our feelings, actions and physical state are successfully altered. It is only a matter of time before we can fully comprehend how the brain works for us to understand how it creates the Self. - He proposes that a new conceptual framework should be made which is based on neuroscience (Churchland, 2003) 11. Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) “We know not through our intellect but through our experience.” - This French philosopher is known more for his existentialist philosophy. This naturally reflects on his idea of the self. For him (1962), a person is defined by virtue of movement and expression. - To be a self is to be more than one’s body. It includes all the things that I will do with my body, how I will act on it and how I will make it act in consonance with other human beings. - I am the sum of all that I make my body do. This includes the interpretation of the past and how I actually make decisions in the present. - The self is grounded on the experiences from the past, the possibilities for the future, and the present cognition. - He approaches the idea of self as a continuous flow of movement and expression from infancy to adulthood. Our perception of who we are is strictly tied to our own bodily development. For example, an infant can have awareness of itself only when it learns to control its eye movement and learns to interpret the data provided by the external (as opposed to its internal self) world. - The self is a product of our conscious human experience. The definition of self is all about one’s perception of one’s experience and the interpretation of those experiences. Learning Module: Understanding the Self 11
