PSYCH101: Socrates Sunday, 4 September 2022 10:27 pm PSYCH101 Lesson 1 | Page 2 Philosophical Perspective in Understanding the Self Philosophy • • • • • • comes from two greek words philo ("love") and sophia ("wisdom") means love of wisdom The search for knowledge An exploration of the "being" of all things A delving into the nature of all things Philosophers love to ask questions of life and about the self Socrates first ever known to question the self concerned with the problem of the self During the time of Socrates, the Greek Government disliked him because of new ideas. He was accused of corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens and was sentenced to death. Choosing not to flee, he spend his last moments with his friends before drinking the executioner's cup of poisonous hemlock. • "Be true to thine own self" - Socrates • • • • • Man is a being in search for knowledge. This search for knowledge is introspective - knowing the very own self (self-directed knowledge). Definition of introspective : characterized by examination of one's own thoughts and feelings Knowledge is inherent in man. Thus, one has to recollect. How to recollect? - Through Socratic Method—self quetioning itself. - This is a form of self-examination; "An unexamined is not worth living for." - This self-examination has a therapeutic goal. PSYCH101 Page 1 PSYCH101: Plato Monday, 5 September 2022 12:35 am PSYCH101 Lesson 1 | Page 2 Plato - concept of body and soul distinction ( directly related to his two realms theory ) - was a student of Socrates and later taught Aristotle - he founded the Academy, an academic program, which many considered the first Western University. - Plato wrote a tleast 25 philosophical texts - believed that a person is composed of body and soul Body - the material and destructible part Soul - immaterial and indestructible part - Plato argues that the soul is really an entity from the body. Instead for Plato, the Soul is the Self. Psyche - a Greek word which means "soul" or "life-principle" Religion - Plato's ideas about the body and soul have been adopted by Christianity which does not have explicit teaching on such duality in the Bible. The soul has a composition of three basic elements: a. Appetitive Element - All pertains to our desires for pleasures, comforts, physical satisfactions and bodily ease. b. Spirited Element - This pertains to emotional part of the soul. - Even being called as "hot-blooded part." - the part of us that loves to face and overcome great challenges c. Mind or Nous - This entails the conscious awareness. - This is regarded as the guiding principle of our existence. - This is the part that thinks, analyzes, looks ahead, rationally weighs options, and tries to gauge what is best and truest overall. Appetitive element and Spirited element are mostly governed or influenced by blind instinct Which means your body is automatically driven by these elements. What happens to a person whose 3 components of the soul are imbalanced? The mind must be what governs our soul because if it's not, our soul will be in a state of ignorance. PSYCH101 Page 2
