Understanding the Self

Chapter 1: THE SELF FROM VARIOUS PERSPECTIVES

Introduction
Different Perspectives in Explanation of Self
Philosophy
Socrates
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

 Socrates was a Greek philosopher and one of the very few individuals who shaped Western thought.
 He never wrote anything.
 Knowledge about Socrates is through second- hand information from the writings of his student Plato and
historian Xenophon.
 Socrates was known for his method of inquiry in testing an idea. This is called the Socratic Method whereby an
idea was tested by asking a series of questions to determine underlying beliefs and extent of knowledge to guide
the person toward better understanding.
 He was accused of impiety or lack of reverence for the gods and for corrupting the minds of the youth.
 Socrates was sentenced to death by drinking a cup of poison hemlock.
 According to Socrates, self- knowledge or the examination one’s self, as well as the question about how one
ought to live one’s life, are very important concerns because only by knowing yourself can you hope to improve
your life.
 Virtue is defined as moral excellence and an individual is considered virtuous if his/her character is made up of
the moral qualities that are accepted as virtues such as courage, temperance, prudence, and justice.
 Even death is a trivial matter for the truly virtuous because he/she realized that the most important thing in life
is the state of his/her soul and the acts taken from taking care of the soul through self-knowledge.

Plato

“Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.”

 Plato was a student of Socrates.

 He is best known for his Theory of Forms that asserted the physical world is not really real world because the
ultimate reality exists beyond the physical world.
 The soul is indeed the most divine aspect of the human being.
Three parts of the soul according to Plato are:
 Appetitive or appetite (sensual) - the element that enjoys sensual experience such as food, drink, and sex.
 The rational or mind (reasoning) - the element that forbids the person to enjoy the sensual experience; the part
that loves the truth, hence should rule over the other parts of the soul through the use of reason.
 The spirited (feeling)- the element that is inclined toward reason but understands the demands of passion; the
part that loves honor and victory.

St. Augustine

All knowledge leads to God.

 Also called Saint Augustine of Hippo, is one of the Latin Fathers of the Church, one of the doctors of the church.
 He adopted Plato’s view that the ‘self’ is an immaterial (but rational) soul.
  Theory of Forms a Christian perspective, Augustine asserted that these Forms were concepts existing within the
perfect and eternal God where the soul belonged.
 Held that the soul held the Truth and was capable of scientific thinking.
 Concept of the self was inner, immaterial “I” that had self- and self- awareness. He believed that the human
being was both a soul and body, and the body possessed senses, such as imagining, memory, reason, and mind
through which the soul experienced the world.

Rene Descartes

“I think, Therefore I am.”

 Rene Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist.

 He is considered the father of modern Western philosophy.
 Descartes proposed that doubt was a principal tool of disciplined inquiry. His method was called hyperbolical/
metaphysical doubt, also sometimes referred to as methodological skepticism. It is a systematic process of
being skeptical about the truth of one’s belief in order to determine which beliefs could be ascertained as true.

John Locke

“Human mind at birth is tabula rasa, which means that knowledge is derived from experience.”

 John Locke was a philosopher and physician and was one of the influential Enlightenment thinkers.
 Locke believed that the self is identified with consciousness and this self consists of sameness of consciousness.
 This is usually interpreted to mean that the self consists of memory, that the person existing now is the same
person yesterday because he/she remembers the thoughts, experiences, or actions of the earlier self.
 Personal identity- a person’s memories provide a continuity of experience that allows him/her to identify
himself/herself as the same person over time.

David Hume

“There is no self”.

 David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, economist and historian during the age of Enlightenment.
 He was a fierce opponent of Descartes Rationalism.
 Rationalism- is the theory that reason, rather than experience is the foundation of all knowledge.
 Empiricism- is the idea that the origin of all knowledge is sense experience.
 Hume identified with the bundle theory wherein he described self or person as a bundle or a collection of
different perceptions that are moving in a very fast and successive manner; therefore, it is in a “perpetual flux.”
 Impressions- these are the perceptions that are the most strong. They enter the senses with the most force.
These are directly experienced; they result from inward and outward sentiments.
 Ideas- these are the less forcible and less lively counterparts of impressions. These are mechanisms that copy
and reproduce sense data formulated based upon the previously perceived impressions.
 Hume did not believe in the existence of the self. He stressed that your perceptions are only active for as long
as you are conscious. According to Hume, should your perception be removed for any time such as sleeping and
you can no longer sense yourself then you also cease to exist.
Immanuel Kant

“Reason is the final authority of morality.”

 Immanuel Kant is a Prussian philosopher.

 Kant proposed was that the human mind creates the structure of human experience.
 Kant view of self is transcendental, which means self is related to a spiritual or nonphysical realm. The self is not
in the body. The self is outside the body and it does not have the qualities of the body.
 He proposed that it is the knowledge that bridges the self and the material things together.
 Apperception- is the mental process by which a person makes sense of an idea by assimilating it to the body of
ideas he or she already possesses.
 Inner self- the self by which you are aware of alterations in your own state. This includes your rational intellect
and psychological states, such as moods, feelings, and sensations, pleasure and pain.
 Outer self- it includes your senses and physical world.

Sigmund Freud

Wish fulfillment is the road to the unconscious.

 Psychoanalysis- a practice devised to treat those who are mentally ill through dialogue.
 Psyche- is the totality of the human mind, both conscious and unconscious.

Three Levels of consciousness:

1. Conscious- which deals with awareness of present perceptions, feelings, thoughts, memories, and fantasies at
any particular moment.
2. Pre- conscious/ subconscious- which is related to data that can readily be brought to consciousness
3. Unconscious- which refers to data retained but not easily available to the individual’s conscious awareness or
scrutiny.

Psychoanalytic Theory- a personality theory based on the notion that an individual gets motivated by unseen forces,
controlled by the conscious andrational thought. To explain his model, Freud used the analogy of an iceberg to describe
the three levels of the mind.

Freud further structured the psyche/ mind into three parts:

1. Id- it operates on the pleasure principle. Every wishful impulse should be satisfied immediately, regardless of the
consequences. When the id achieves its demands, you experience pleasure; when it is denied, you experience
“unpleasure” or tension.
2. Ego- it operates according to the reality principle. It works out realistic ways of satisfying the id’s demands. The
ego considers social realities and norms, etiquette and rules in deciding how to behave.
3. Superego- it incorporates the values and morals of society. The superego’s function is to control the id’s
impulses. It persuades the ego to choose moralistic goals and to strive for perfection rather than simply realistic
ones.
1. Conscience- if the ego gives in to the id’s demands. The superego may make the person feel bad through
guilt.
2. Ideal self- it is an imaginary picture of how you ought to be. It represents career aspirations; how to treat
other people; and how to behave as a member of society.
Gilbert Ryle

I act, therefore I am

 According to Ryle, the rationalist view that mental acts are distinct from physical acts and that there is a mental
world from the physical world is a misconception.
 Ryle described this distinction between mind and body as the dogma of the ghost in the machine where he
explained there is no hidden entity or ghost called soul inside a machine called body.

Paul Churchland

The physical brain and NOT the imaginary mind gives us our sense of self.

 Known for his studies in neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind.

 His philosophy stands on a materialistic view or the belief that nothing but matter exists.
 Eliminative materialism- or the claim that people’s common- sense understanding of the mind is false, and that
certain classes of mental states which most people believe in do not exist.

Maurice Merleau- Ponty

Embodied- The term embodied is a verb that means to give a body to

Subjectivity- is the state of being a subject- an entity that possesses conscious experiences, such as perspectives,
feelings, beliefs, and desires.

Object- a subject acts upon or affects some other entity.

- He asserted that human beings are embodied subjectivities and that the understanding of the self should begin
from this fundamental fact. He added that the body is not a mere house where the mind resides. Rather it is
through the lived experience of the body that you perceive are informed and interact with the world.

Sociology

- Posits that socially formed norms, beliefs, and values come to exist within the person to a degree where these
become natural and normal thus developing the person’s self- identity.

Key characteristics of modernity

According to Giddens (1991), the most patent, major characteristics of modernity are:

1. Industrialism- the social relations implied in the extensive use of material power and machinery in all processes
of production
2. Capitalism- a production system involving both competitive product markets and the commodification (putting a
price tag) of labor power.
3. Institution of surveillance- the massive increase of power and reach by institutions especially in government
4. Dynamism- characterized as having vigorous activity and progress.

Social groups and social network

Social group- described as having two or more people interacting with one another, sharing similar characteristics and
whose members identify themselves as part of the group.
Social network- refers to the ties or connections that link you to your social group.

Organic group- is naturally occurring and it is highly influenced by your family. This is usually formed in traditional
societies because there is little diversity in these communities. Sociologist George Simmel stated that you join these
groups because your family is also a part of it, in the first place. He called it organic motivation.

Rational groups- occur in modern societies. Modern societies are made up of different people coming from different
places.