UNDERSTANDING THE body and soul.

Where body is
SELF the imperfect and
impermanent aspect while the
THE SELF FROM VARIOUS soul is permanent and
PHILOSOPHICAL perfect.
PERSPECTIVES
PLATO
PRIOR TO SOCRATES  He is Socrates’ student.
 Prior to Socrates, there were  He basically took off from his
Greek thinkers who were teacher’s philosophy and
collectively called the Pre- supported that man is a dual
Socratics to denote that some nature of body and soul.
of them preceded or existed  He also added that there are
around Socrates’ time. They three parts or components of
preoccupied themselves with the soul: the rational soul,
the questions of the primary spirited soul, and appetitive
substratum. soul.
 Pre-Socratics: Thales,  Rational soul is the
Pythagoras, Parmenides, component in charge of the
Heraclitus, and Empedocles reason and intellect that
governs the affairs of the
SOCRATES human person
 He was concerned with  The spirited soul is in charge
another subject which is “the of the emotions should be
problem of the self” kept at bay.
 He is the first philosopher to  The appetitive soul is in
ever engage in a systematic charge of base desires, like
questioning about the self. eating, drinking, sleeping,
 His life-long mission, is to and having sexual
know oneself intercourse.
 Socrates was accused of  When the three parts are
corrupting the youth of working harmoniously with
Athens and for impiety. one another, a person’s soul
 He took it upon himself to becomes just and virtuous.
serve as a gadfly that disturbs
Athenian men from their RENÉ DESCARTES
slumber and shake them off in  FATHER OF MODERN
order to reach the truth and PHILOSOPHY
wisdom  He claims that there are so
 He said that the worst thing many things that we should
that could ever happen to doubt
man is “ to live but die inside”  In fact, he said that much of
 According to him, there are what we think and believe.
two compositions of the body;
 Because they are infallible  Locke was a representative
may turn out to be false. realist about the external
 His famous cogito ergo sum (I world and placed great
think therefore, I am) means confidence in the ability of the
that if one doubts oneself, senses to inform us of the
that only proves that there is properties that empirical
a doubting self, a thing that objects really have in
thinks, therefore that cannot themselves. Locke had also
be doubted. argued that the mind is a
 He also stated that there are blank slate, or a tabula
two distinct entities in the rasa, that becomes
self: cogito, the thing that populated with ideas by its
thinks (mind) and extenza, interactions with the world.
the extension of the mind Experience teaches us
(body) everything, including
concepts of relationship,
IMMANUEL KANT identity, causation, and so on.
 He is an empiricist.  John Locke holds that
Empiricism asserts that personal identity is a matter
knowledge is only attained of psychological continuity.
through the senses. In other He considered personal
words, seeing is believing. If identity (or the self) to be
something can't be seen, founded on consciousness
tasted, touched, heard, or (memory), and not on the
physically experienced then it substance of either the soul or
is not true. the body.
 According to him, we humans  Locke creates a third term
have both an inner and an between the soul and the
outer self which unify to give body, and Locke’s thought
us consciousness. The inner may certainly be meditated
self is comprised of our by those who, following a
psychological state and our scientist ideology, would
rational intellect. The outer identify too quickly the brain
self includes our sense and with consciousness. For the
the physical world. brain, as the body and as any
 Kant argues that the blank substance, may change, while
slate model of the mind is consciousness remains the
insufficient to explain the same. Therefore, personal
beliefs about objects that we identity is not in the brain, but
have; some components of in consciousness.
our beliefs must be brought
by the mind to experience. DAVID HUME
 Hume in his theory has put
JOHN LOCKE forward the premise of
 understanding the
‘impression’ and ‘identity’ we THE CHRISTIAN/ BIBLICAL
have of ourselves before we VIEW OF THE SELF
dwell into the questions of
‘the self’. According to Hume, AUGUSTINE
as human beings we tend to  Follows the ancient view of
think of ourselves as selves— Plato and infusing it with the
who are stable entities that newfound doctrine of
exist over time but no matter Christianity.
how closely we examine our  Augustine agreed that man is
own experiences, we never of a bifurcated (divided)
observe anything beyond a nature.
series of transient feelings,  There is an aspect of man
sensations, and impressions. which dwells in the world that
is imperfect and continuously
 Hume mention’s that we yearning to be divine (the
cannot observe ourselves, or body).
what we are, in a unified  The other aspect is capable of
manner. There is no holistic reaching immortality (the
impression of the “self” that soul).
ties our individual  The goal of every person is to
impressions together which attain bliss and salvation by
goes on to explain that we living life on earth in virtue.
are never directly aware of
ourselves but only of what
we are experiencing at a
particular moment.

 In this light, David Hume