UNDERSTANDING

z THE SELF
 z
What is Understanding the Self?
 Understanding the self is essential in every person's life.
 For you to better understand yourself, you must allow yourself to
experience self-discovery and self-awareness.
 Self-discovery is the process of learning, understanding, or
knowing more about yourself and who you are, becoming aware of
one's true potential, character, motives, and the like.
 Self-awareness is your knowledge of yourself and your worth as a
person.
 THE SELF FROM
VARIOUS
z PERSPECTIVES
z

Philosophy
 z

What is Philosophy?
 The word "philosophy" originates from two Greek words ("Philos"
means beloved and “Sophia" means wisdom), meaning "love of
wisdom."
 Philosophy is a way of thinking about anything in the world, the
universe.
 Philosophy works by asking very basic questions about the nature of
human thought, the nature of the universe, and the connections
between them.
 z
Socrates: The Soul Is Immortal
 “The unexamined life is not worth living”

 Socrates was believed to be the first thinker to focus on the full power of reason
on the human self - our existence in the universe, who we are, who we should be,
and whom we will become.
 For Socrates, the self exists in two parts: the physical body and the soul.

 The physical body is a tangible aspect of us. It is mortal (it dies), constantly
changing, imperfect, transforming, disappearing.
 Our soul, which Socrates believed to be immortal, is eternal, unchanging,
perfect, or ideal.
 z
Socrates: The Soul Is Immortal
 Socrates believed that there was a soul first before a man's body.

 The soul has all the knowledge that is stored 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 a lack of knowledge or ignorance, which causes problems for
men.
 Knowledge can be restored through the process of dialectic method or Socratic
method - an exchange of question and answer that ultimately aims to make a
person remember all the knowledge that he has forgotten, including his former
all-knowing self.
 z
Socrates: The Soul Is Immortal

 Socrates’ conviction is conveyed in his famous statement: "the

unexamined life is not worth living." The most important task one can
undertake is to examine one's self, for it alone will give one the
knowledge necessary to answer the question ‘how should I live my life’.
 Socrates explained: "…once we know ourselves, we may learn how to
care for ourselves, but otherwise, we never shall."
 Socrates is, eventually, known as the "father of Western philosophy."
 z
Plato: The Soul Is Immortal
 “The first and the best victory is to conquer self.”

 Plato is a dualist; there is both an immaterial mind (soul) and a material body, and it is
the soul that represents the self. Plato believed the soul exists before birth and after
death. For him, one should care about his soul rather than his body.
 The soul (mind) is divided into three parts:

 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.
 Will or Spirit - is our basic emotion or passion, such as empathy, aggressiveness, love,
anger, ambition.
 z
St. Augustine: Christianity
 “Accepting God is the path to know thyself.”

 Augustine believes that man is created in the image and likeness of God, and he is
essentially a soul whose goal is to be with God.
 Augustine's sense of self is his relation to God, both in his recognition of God's love,
and his response to it.
 It is achieved through self-presentation then self-realization. Augustine believed one
could not achieve inner peace without finding God's love and through faith and reason,
our self seeks to be united with God.
 Augustine believes that God is transcendent, and everything created by God, who is all
good, is good.
 z
Rene Descartes:
A Modern Perspective on the Self

 “Cogito ergo sum (I think; therefore I am.)”

 René Descartes is the "founder of modern philosophy." Descartes'

principle, cogito ergo sum (Latin), is the keystone of his concept of self.
 For Descartes, this is the essence of self— you are a "thinking thing" (I
exist because I think: I think, therefore I exist).
 The mind is what matters. But what about your body? Descartes
believes that our physical body is secondary to our personal identity.
 z
Rene Descartes:
A Modern Perspective on the Self
 Descartes declares that the essential self, or the self as a thinking entity, is
radically different from the self as a physical body.
 The thinking self —or soul—is a non-material, immortal, conscious being, independent
of the physical laws of the universe.
 The physical body is a mortal, non-thinking material that is fully governed by the
physical laws of nature.

 Further, your soul and your body are independent of one another. Each one can
exist and function without the other. This, in a way, echoes the dualism of
Plato.
 z
John Locke: The Self Is Consciousness
 John Locke is known for his theory that the mind is a tabula rasa, a blank slate. Locke
believed that we are born without thoughts, or our mind was empty and that knowledge is
instead determined only by experience.
 According to Locke, our memory plays a key role in our definition of the self. He
theorized that we are the same person as we were in the past for as long as we can
remember memories from that past.
 It is our memory or our consciousness of our past that makes us that same person as we
were in the past. Thus, to Locke, our conscious awareness and memory of previous
experiences are the keys to understanding the self.
 It is our consciousness that makes possible our belief that we are the same identity at
different times and different places.
 z
David Hume: There Is No “Self”
 David Hume believed that the source of all genuine knowledge is our direct sense experience.
 He believes in the existence of the mind, and what’s inside the mind is divided into two:
impressions and ideas.
 Impressions are those things we perceive through our senses as we experience them. Like
when I see the sky, and my sense of sight tells me I am looking at a blue sky. That is now
my impression.
 Ideas, on the other hand, are those things that we create in our minds even though we are
no longer experiencing them. For example, even when I’m already inside my room and
can no longer see the sky, I can still think of the idea of the sky, like it’s a nice day, it’s not
likely to rain, maybe I can do the laundry, or maybe I can go out to the park.
 Whenever we think of simple ideas, it must have as a basis a simple impression.
 z
David Hume: There Is No “Self”
 Hume's idea of the self follows this philosophical pattern. In his mind, he finds
a stream of impressions and ideas, but no impression that corresponds to a self
that endures through time.
 For Hume, the self keeps on changing, like how one looks, one feels, one
thinks they constantly change.
 There is no permanent and unchanging self. A person is a bundle of
perceptions. "I" will constantly be changing because the different experiences
one has for every constant change will affect and re-shape that person. Thus,
we cannot observe any permanent self because we continuously undergo
change.
 In conclusion, there is no self.
 z
Immanuel Kant: We Construct the Self

 Immanuel Kant refutes Hume’s theory that there is no “self” and argues that it
is possible to find the essence of the self.
 For Kant, man is a free agent, capable of making a decision for himself.

 Man is a free agent, for he is gifted with reason and free will to enable him to
organize the data gathered by the senses.
 From these data and the way we organize them, we can build an idea of who
we are. Hence, the self is very present.
 z
Gilbert Ryle: The Self Is How You Behave

 Gilbert Ryle simply focused on observable behavior in defining the self. No

more inner selves, immortal soul, states of consciousness, or unconscious self:
instead, the self is defined in terms of the behavior that is presented to the world.
 From Ryle's point of view, the self is best understood as a pattern of behavior, a
person’s tendency or disposition to behave in a certain way in certain
circumstances.
 In short, the self is defined by the observable behaviors we project to the world
around us.
 z
Paul Churchland: The Self Is the Brain

 Paul Churchland disagrees with the concept of dualism. Churchland asserts that since the mind
cannot be experienced by the senses, it does not exist.
 It is the physical brain, not the imaginary mind, that gives us our sense of self.
 To Churchland, the self is the brain. He focused on the brain states rather than the mental
states. Neuroscience is into the fore of understanding the self. When people want to ask what
is going on with themselves, they might go for an MRI scan or CT scan to understand the
condition of the brain and how it works.
 Churchland believes that the term “mind,” our moods, emotions, actions, consciousness are
deeply affected by the state of our brain. That by manipulating certain parts of our brain, our
feelings, actions, and physical state is successfully altered.
 z
Maurice Merleau-Ponty: The Self is
Embodied Subjectivity

 Maurice Merleau-Ponty takes a very different approach to the self. His ideas
suggest that there is unity in our mental, physical, and emotional disposition,
and they all affect how we experience our selves.
 Our 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. To Merleau-Ponty, the self is embodied subjectivity. He entirely
rejected the idea of mind and body dichotomy because, for him, man is all
about how he sees himself.