The self in various

perspectives
PHILOSOPHY
PSYCH 1100
 Have you ever wondered. . .
What exactly are we?
What do we even mean by the “SELF”?
Are we souls, organic bodies or merely a figment of
another’s imagination?
Are we just minds or a combination of body and mind?
Will I survive bodily death because I am more than a
body or when my body is dead, that’s really the end?
Or maybe… I am actually a robot controlled by some
entity?
WHO AM I?
WHY IS GETTING TO
KNOW YOURSELF SO
IMPORTANT?
 THE TAO TE CHING SAYS. . .

“KNOWING OTHERS IS
INTELLIGENCE; KNOWING YOURSELF
IS TRUE WISDOM. MASTERING
OTHERS IS STRENGTH; MASTERING
YOURSELF IS TRUE POWER. IF YOU
REALIZE THAT YOU HAVE ENOUGH,
YOU ARE TRULY RICH”
WHAT IS A PHILOSOPHER?

Traditionally, he is thought of a lover of

wisdom.
An intellectual who has devoted time to
study the meaning of life.
Has contributed in the field of
philosophy in areas like logic, ethics,
metaphysics, epistemology (theory of
knowledge), etc.
 PHILOSOPHERS AND THEIR IDEAS

1. Socrates 7. David Hume

2. Plato 8. Immanuel Kant
3. Augustine of Hippo 9. Sigmund Freud
4. Thomas Aquinas 10. Gilbert Ryle
5. Rene Descartes 11. Paul Churchland
6. John Locke 12. Maurice Merleau Ponty
 Socrates
“KNOW THYSELF”
The true task of a philosopher is to know oneself.
For Socrates, every man is composed of body and soul.
There was soul first before man’s body.
Man’s existence was first in the realm of ideas and
exists as a soul or pure mind. This soul has knowledge by
direct intuition and all these are restored in his mind.
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 w/c causes
problems to man. The self is an immortal soul
He was the first philosopher who ever engaged in a that exists over time.
systematic questioning about the self.
 Plato
Plato supported the idea that man is a dual nature of body
and soul.
Dichotomy of the Ideal world or the world of Forms and the
Material world.
*World of Forms- the permanent, unchanging reality.
*World of Materials- keeps on changing. It is what we see
around us, and for him, this-where we live, is just a replica
of the real world found in the world of Forms.
Human beings are composed of a body and a soul. It is the
soul which is the true self-the permanent, unchanging Self.
The changing body, however, or what we see in the
material world on the other hand, is not the real self but
only a replica of our true Self.
The soul exists before birth and leaves room for the
possibility that it might survive bodily death.
 Augustine of Hippo
Augustine agreed that man is of a bifurcated nature;
the body is bound to die on earth and the soul is to
anticipate living eternally in a realm of spiritual bliss in
communion with God.
The body can only thrive in the imperfect, physical
reality that is the world, whereas the soul can also stay
after death in an eternal realm with the all-
transcendent God.
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’s the world where God is.
 Augustine of Hippo
God is fully real-as the unchanging, permanent
being and he sees God as the ultimate expression
of love.
Man has an immortal soul whose main pursuit is to
have an everlasting life with God.
Moral laws exist and is imposed on the mind.
Reason makes us recognize these laws and thus, we
can discern the distinction between right and
wrong.
There is an Eternal law which should be universally
followed because this is coming from the Eternal
reason or God Himself.
 Thomas Aquinas
Aquinas said that indeed, man is
composed of two parts: matter and form.
Matter or hyle in Greek refers to
“common stuff that makes up everything in
the universe.” Man’s body is part of this
matter.
Form or morphine in Greek, on the other
refers to “essence of a substance or thing.”
To Aquinas, the soul is what animates the
body; it is what makes us humans.
 Rene Descartes
“I THINK, THEREFORE; I AM”
Father of the modern Philosophy
Cogito ergo sum- emphasizes the consciousness of his
mind which leads to an evidence of his existence-
despite the fact that he is doubting the existence of
everything physical, including his own body.
Conceived of the human person as having a body and a
mind.
The body is nothing else but a machine that attached to
the mind.
The mind and the body are separated and very distinct
from one another but he also believes that the mind is The self is a thinking thing,
conjoined with the body in such an intimate way that distinct from the body.
they casually act upon each other.
 Rene Descartes
“I THINK, THEREFORE; I AM”
You are your body and your mind.
The body can be described in a precise, structured
manner (like a mathematical formula) but the mind is
not contained like that, and it’s allowed to pursue its
own thoughts.
When the body is gone, the mind may continue to exist
and function.

The self is a thinking thing,

distinct from the body.
 John Locke
His starting point is the claim that all knowledge must
come from experience (empiricism). There are no innate
ideas.
Before there is any knowledge, the mind is first
considered as a tabula rasa [blank slate], who’s
interactions with the world fill it with knowledge.
Unlike the first few philosophers discussed, he thinks that
our identity is not locked in the mind, soul, or body
ONLY.
He included the concept of a person’s memory in the
definition of the self.
He subscribes to the memory theory that holds we are Personal identity is made
the same person as we were in the past for as long as possible by self-
we can remember something from the past. consciousness.
 David Hume
The self is not an entity over and beyond the
physical body.
Men can only attain knowledge by experiencing.
He does believe in the existence of the mind and
what’s inside the mind is divided into two:
1. Impressions- those things we perceive through
our senses as we experience them.
2. Ideas- are those that we create in our minds
even though we are no longer experiencing
them.
There is no “self”, only a bundle of
constantly changing perceptions
passing through the theater of our
minds.
 David Hume
The self keeps on changing, like how one looks,
one feels, one thinks-they constantly change.
An “enduring self” is just a fiction produced by
our imagination.
There is no permanent and unchanging self. A
person is a bundle of perception.
The “I” will be constantly changing because the
different experiences one has for every constant
change will affect and reshape that person.
In conclusion, there is no self.
There is no “self”, only a bundle of
constantly changing perceptions
passing through the theater of our
minds.
 Immanuel Kant
Kant believes that man is a free agent, capable of
making decisions for himself. As a free agent, man is
gifted with reason and free will.
A moral person is one who is driven by duty and acts
towards the fulfillment of that duty.
For us to know what is our duty, we have to rationally
deliberate on it and not expect that a higher authority
will hand it automatically to us, and certainly we cannot
let the arbitrariness of emotion guide us.
In refuting Hume’s idea that there is no self, he (1781)
said that since man is gifted with reason and free will,
man can organize the data gathered by the senses. The self is a unifying subject, an
From these data, and the way we organize the data, we arguing consciousness that makes
intelligible experience possible.
can now have a good idea of a man.
 Gilbert Ryle
In his book, Concepts of Mind, he (1949) criticized
Descartes’ treatment of the mind.
The mind is NOT distinct from the body, but rather refers
to certain aspects of our bodies.
Blatantly denying the concept of an internal, non-physical
self; what truly matters is the behavior that a person
manifests in his day-to-day life.
“Self” is not an entity one can locate and analyze but
simply the convenient name that people use to refer to all
the behaviors that people make.
The mind is not like a specific, separate entity but is
certainly a part of our body. The self is the way people
We can only know a person through how a man behaves, behave.
their tendencies and reactions in certain circumstances.
 Sigmund Freud
Considered as the father of
psychoanalysis.
One of his famous ideas was the tripartite
division of man’s mind:
1. Id- represents man’s biological nature; the
impulses and the bodily desires.
2. Ego- the self; the reality principle
3. Superego- represents ethical component
of the personality and provides the moral The self is multi-layered.
standards by which the ego operates.
 Paul Churchland
In partnership with his wife, Churchland
believes that the self is the brain.
The term “mind”, our moods emotions, actions,
consciousness are deeply affected by the
state of our brain.
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
The self is the brain. Mental
comprehend how the brain works for us to
states will be superseded by
understand how it creates the Self. brain states.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
For him, 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.
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.
The self is embodied
The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and
subjectivity.
experiences are all alone.