PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS
ABOUT THE SELF
• Chapter 2
SELF
• The philosophy of self defines the essential qualities that make one person
distinct from all others. There have been numerous approaches to defining
these qualities.
• The self is the idea of a unified being which is the source of consciousness.
• Moreover, this self is the agent responsible for the thoughts and actions of
an individual to which they are ascribed.
• It is a substance, which therefore endures through time; thus, the
thoughts and actions at different moments may pertain to the same self.
FAMOUS PHILOSOPHERS
SOCRATES (469-
399 BC) Socrates was the first thinker in recorded
history to focus the full power of reason
on the human self: who we are, who we
should be, and who we will become.
Socrates was convinced that in addition
to our physical bodies, each person
possesses an immortal soul that survives
beyond the death of the body.
SOCRATES (469-399 BC)
• Socrates' view of the self is centered on the idea of self-
knowledge and the soul. His famous statement, "The
unexamined life is not worth living," emphasizes the
importance of self-reflection and understanding one's
true nature.
SOCRATES (469-399 BC)
Key Aspects of Socrates’ View of the Self:
1.The Self as the Soul – Socrates believed that the true self is not the physical body but the
soul (psyche), which is the seat of reason and wisdom.
2.Self-Knowledge is the Path to Virtue – He argued that knowing oneself leads to moral and
intellectual improvement. Ignorance, on the other hand, leads to wrongdoing.
3.Dialogue and Reflection – Socrates used his Socratic Method (questioning and dialogue) to
help individuals examine their beliefs and discover the truth about themselves.
4.The Immortality of the Soul – While not explicitly stating it himself, later interpretations
(especially through Plato) suggest that Socrates viewed the soul as immortal and separate
from the body.
PLATO (427- Plato, a student of Socrates, also
347 BC) studied and explained thoroughly
what is the true essence of self,
which is then founded by his mentor.
Plato suggested that the “self is
fundamentally an intellectual entity
whose nature exists independent from
physical world.”
PLATO (427-347 BC)
• Plato elaborates his concept of the soul (the Greek word is psyche) in his later
dialogues such as the monumental Republic and the Phaedrus.
• In particular, he introduces the idea of a three-part soul/self constituted by
• Reason — our divine essence that enables us to think deeply, make
wise choices, and achieve a true understanding of eternal truths.
• Physical Appetite — our basic biological needs such as hunger, thirst,
and sexual desire.
• Spirit or Passion — our basic emotions such as love, anger, ambition,
aggressiveness, empathy.
ARISTOTLE (384-322 BC)
• Aristotle’s view on the self is deeply connected to his concept of the soul
(psyche) and the function (telos) of a human being. His perspective is both
biological and philosophical, emphasizing that the self is defined by reason
and purpose.
• For Aristotle, the self is not a separate soul but a unified being whose purpose
is to think, act virtuously, and flourish within society. The best life is one
where reason guides actions, leading to happiness and fulfillment.
Aristotle, student of Plato, Aristotle called the ideal as
Aristotle undeniably
explained thoroughly how essence, and the phenomena
diverged from Plato in his
we could see the essence of as the matter. He
view of what a human
self. Aristotle suggested that emphasized that these 2 co-
being most truly and
the ideal is subsumed in the exist, and is dependent with
fundamentally is.
phenomena. one another.
ARISTOTLE (384-322 BC)
ARISTOTLE (384-322 BC)
• Aristotle, for his part, insisted that the human being is a composite
of body and soul and that the soul cannot be separated from the
body.
• Aristotle’s philosophy of self was constructed in terms of
hylomorphism in which the soul of a human being is the form or the
structure of the human body or the human matter, i.e., the
functional organization in virtue of which human beings are able to
perform their characteristic activities of life, including growth,
nutrition, reproduction, perception, imagination, desire, and
thinking.
2 LENS OF
PHILOSOPHY OF SELF
IN GREEK TIMES
RATIONALISM
• “Rationalism” denotes a family of philosophical views that have emerged
over the past two millennia.
• Many of the views have in common the idea that the possibility of
knowledge is rooted in certain inherent features of the mind. These
features fall into at least three distinct though related categories.
• The first includes any feature that serves as an organizing
principle, specifically organizing sensations or sensory data (e.g.,
colors, sounds, tastes, and so on), the result of which is a
unified sensory experience.
RATIONALISM
• The second category includes any inherent feature that serves as a
link between thoughts, a link that specifically preserves truth,
such that if one thought (or proposition) is true, another
thought (or proposition), distinct from the first, is true (i.e., it cannot
be false if the first is true).
EMPIRICISM
• Empiricism is the philosophy of knowledge by observation.
• It holds that the best way to gain knowledge is to see, hear, touch, or
otherwise sense things directly. In stronger versions, it holds that this is
the only kind of knowledge that really counts.
• It has been extremely important to the history of science, as various
thinkers over the centuries have proposed that all knowledge should be
tested empirically rather than just through thought-experiments or
rational calculation.
EMPIRICISM
• It is an idea about how we know things, which means it belongs to
the field of epistemology.
• It is often contrasted with rationalism, a rival school which holds
that knowledge is based primarily on logic and intuition, or innate
ideas that we can understand through contemplation, not
observation.
TOWARDS MODERN
PHILOSOPHY
ST. AGUSTINE (354-430 BC)
• St. Augustine is a fourth century philosopher whose groundbreaking
philosophy infused Christian doctrine with Neoplatonism.
• He is famous for being an inimitable Catholic theologian and for his
agnostic contributions to Western philosophy. He argues that skeptics
have no basis for claiming to know that there is no knowledge.
• In a proof for existence similar to one later made famous by René
Descartes, Augustine says, “[Even] If I am mistaken, I am.”
ST. AGUSTINE (354-430 BC)
• He is the first Western philosopher to promote what has come to be
called “the argument by analogy” against solipsism: there are bodies
external to mine that behave as I behave and that appear to be
nourished as mine is nourished; so, by analogy, I am justified
in believing that these bodies have a similar mental life to
mine.
JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)
• John Locke was among the most famous philosophers and political
theorists of the 17th century.
• He is often regarded as the founder of a school of thought known
as British Empiricism, and he made foundational contributions to
modern theories of limited, liberal government. He was also
influential in the areas of theology, religious toleration, and
educational theory.
• Locke holds that consciousness can be transferred from one soul
to another and that personal identity goes with consciousness.
JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)
• Consciousness can be transferred from one substance to another, and
thus, while the soul is changed, consciousness remains the same,
thereby preserving the personal identity through the change.
• On the other hand, consciousness can be lost as in utter
forgetfulness while the soul or thinking substance remains the
same.
DAVID HUME (1711-1776)
• Part of Hume’s fame and importance owes to his boldly skeptical approach to a
range of philosophical subjects.
• In epistemology, he questioned common notions of personal identity, and
argued that there is no permanent “self” that continues over time.
• Hume characterizes what he takes to be the traditional view on personal
identity.
• According to such view, we are always intimately conscious of what has
been called "the self".
DAVID HUME (1711-1776)
• Furthermore, both dyachronic and synchronic existence of the self is open to
sense experience, and because of our continuous experience of it, we become
certain "beyond the evidence of demonstration" of its perfect identity and
simplicity.
• The traditional view even holds that strong sensations and violent
passions instead of hindering our perception of the self, fix our awareness
of it more intensely.
IMMANUEL KANT
• At the foundation of Kant’s system is the doctrine of “transcendental idealism,”
which emphasizes a distinction between what we can experience (the natural,
observable world) and what we cannot (“supersensible” objects such as God and
the soul).
• Kant argued that we can only have knowledge of things we can experience.
• Kant used inner sense to defend the heterogeneity of body and soul: "bodies
are objects of outer sense; souls are objects of inner sense"
IMMANUEL KANT
• In Kant's thought there are two components of the self: 1. inner self 2.
outer self.
• There are two kinds of consciousness of self:
• Consciousness of oneself and one's psychological states in inner
sense
• Consciousness of oneself and one's states via performing acts of
apperception.
RENE DESCARTES (1596-1650)
• René Descartes is often credited with being the “Father of Modern
Philosophy.”
• This title is justified due both to his break with the traditional
Scholastic-Aristotelian philosophy prevalent at his time and to his
development and promotion of the new, mechanistic sciences.
RENE DESCARTES (1596-1650)
• Descartes’ view of what a person is might be summarized in this way :
• “A live human being is composed of two parts: a material body and a non-
material mind. It is the latter – the mind, or, as we might say, the soul – that
is the real person. For it is here that mental states occur; and it is these states
– rather than the physical states of my body – that are fundamental to my life
as a person. During my present life the mind ‘inhabits’ the body, in the sense
that it is closely causally linked with this particular body. But there is no
difficulty in the idea that I – that is, my mind – should continue to exist in a
completely non-bodily form after the destruction of my body. “
CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHERS
• Contemporary philosophers have incorporated science to their theories in the light
of the technological advancements that they have been exposed to.
• The term ‘contemporary philosophy’ refers to the current era of philosophy,
generally dealing with philosophers from the late nineteenth century through to
the twenty-first.
• Majority of contemporary philosopher were empiricists. Some well-known
contemporary philosophers were:
