THE SELF FROM
VARIOUS
PERSPECTIVES
SOCRATES
Ideas of Socrates
• The soul is immortal.
• The care of the soul is the task of
philosophy.
• Virtue is necessary to attain
happiness.
“The unexamined
life is not worth
living.”
The state of your inner
being determines the
quality of your life.
“When the soul and body are
together, nature assigns our
body to be a slave and to be
ruled, and the soul to be
ruler and master.”
A virtuous
man is a happy
man.
PLATO
Theory of Forms
- the physical world is not really the
“real” world because the ultimate
reality exists beyond the physical
world
Three Parts of the Soul
• The APPETITIVE (sensual)
- the element that enjoys sensual experiences
• The RATIONAL (reasoning)
- the element that forbids the person to enjoy the sensual experiences
• The SPIRITED (feeling)
- the element towards reason but understands the demands of passion
ST. AUGUSTINE
St. Augustine adopted
Plato’s view that the “self”
is a rational soul.
The aspects of the self/soul
• It is able to be aware of itself.
• It recognizes itself as a holistic one.
• It is aware of its unity.
RENE DESCARTES
“everything perceived by the senses could not be
used as proof of existence because human senses
could be fooled”
“by doubting one’s own existence, there is a thinking
entity that is doing the act of doubting”
Distinction between the body
and soul
SOUL
It is a conscious thinking substance
that is unaffected by time.
It is known only to itself.
It is not made up of parts. It views the
entirety of itself with no hidden or
separate compartments. It is both
conscious and aware of itself at the
same time.
BODY
It is a material substance that changes
through time.
It can be doubted.
It is made up of physical, quantifiable,
divisible parts.
JOHN LOCKE
THEORY
OF
SELF-IDENTITY
The self consists of memory; that
the person existing now is the
same person yesterday because
he remembers the thoughts,
experiences, or actions of the
earlier self.
A person can be held
accountable for the
past behaviors that are
REMEMBERED.
DAVID HUME
Hume, Locke and Berkeley
are the three figureheads
of Empiricism
Empiricism
the idea that the origin of all
knowledge is SENSE EXPERIENCE
The self is a bundle of
different perceptions that
are moving in a very fast
and successive manner
(perpetual flux)
2 Groups of Mind Perception
1. Impressions – strongest impression
- directly
experienced
2. Ideas – less forcible
- mechanisms that copy
and reproduce sense data formulated
based upon the previously perceived
The self dies if the perceptions stop functioning.
IMMANUEL KANT
The self related to
a spiritual or
nonphysical
realm
What truly exist are your ideas and
your knowledge of your ideas. Hence,
you perceive the outside world because
there is already an idea residing
within you.
The 2 components of the “self ”;
INNER SELF
and
OUTER SELF
SIGMUND FREUD
Freud was the proponent
of
PSYCHOANALYSIS
GILBERT RYLE
We get our sense of self from our
behaviors and actions. For example, you
think of yourself as a kind person
because of your acts of kindness.
“Your actions
define who you
are.”
PAUL CHURCHLAND
If something is seen, felt,
heard, touched, or tasted,
then it exists.
The physical brain and
NOT the imaginary
mind gives us our sense
of self.
MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY
The “body” is not a
mere “house” where
the mind resides.
The “body” is needed by
the “mind” to receive
the experiences, act on
its perceptions and
communicate with the
external world.
• The class is divided into 11.
• Your task is to present a short play about the
philosopher’s assumption/theory/philosophy.