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SELF-LEARNING MODULE

MODULE 2

Course Title: Understanding the Self

Semester: Second Semester, SY 2023-2024
Topic: The Self from Various Perspective
(Philosophical Perspective of the Self)

I. WHAT’S NEW
1.Objectives:
a. Determine the varied philosophical ideas about the nature of the self
b. Identify the differences in these perspective
c. Use these perspectives in forming of own insights about the “self”.

II. GET HOOK

Thoughts to ponder upon

1.Do I really exist? What if I am just a product of the imagination of someone’s highly
intelligent being?
2. What is life? Is it an end to itself or a means towards an END?
3. Is there really such a thing as SELF? How can I know that a thing/entity of SELF do
exist? If it does exist, what is its ultimate purpose? Or it just exists out of nothingness
and a product of freak accidents of complex biological and chemical interactions?

III. LET’S ENGAGE

PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF

Philosophers differ in their view about the self. Their views or concepts are discussed briefly
as follows.

1. Socrates (470-399 BC) – He posits the following philosophical thought with regards to his
view of the self

-1st Philosopher who ever engaged in a systematic questioning about the self

-He assert that “the true task of the philosopher is to know ONESELF”

-He posits that “the true task of the unexamined life is NOT worth living”

-He notes that every woman/man is composed of body and soul

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-He explained that “All individuals have an imperfect, impermanent aspect, the body, while
maintaining that there is also a soul that is perfect and permanent.

2. Plato (424-347) – Student of Socrates, he has his own philosophical views of self which
are;

-He argues that man/woman is dual nature and soul which has 3 components
(1) the Appetitive soul
(2) the spirited soul
(3) the rational soul

-In his work The Republic, Plato emphasizes that “justice in the human person can only be
attained if the three parts of the soul are working harmoniously with one another.

-Under the usual haphazard method of childrearing, accidents of birth often restrict the
opportunities for self-development

-Faculty upbringing prevents ourselves from achieving everything of which they are capable

-The promise of easy fame or easy wealth distracts some of the most able and young people
from the rigors of intellectual pursuits.

-Men with the best ability and natural disposition must receive the best education, engaging in
a regimen of mental discipline that grows stricter with every passing year of their lives.

-The highest goal of the self in education is knowledge of the Good. Good is directly
apprehended by intuition.

-The fundamental capacity of human reason is to comprehend the nature of reality.

3. Aristotle ( 384-322 BC) He is an ancient Greek Philosopher, a student of Plato and a

teacher of Alexander the Great. He is a polymath, and he posits the concepts of the self as
follows;

-Ultimate reality in ideas is knowable only through reflection and reason. Ultimate reality in
physical objects is knowable through experiences.

-In living creatures, form is identified with the soul; plants has the lowest kind of souls,
animals had higher souls which could feel and humans alone had rational, reasoning souls.

-The universe had never had a beginning and would never end; it is eternal, but the self has
an end

-Everything in nature has its end and function and nothing is without its purpose. The self is
created for a purpose.
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-Mind and body are unified but they are not the products of physiological conditions of the
body, the soul manifests its activity in certain faculties which corresponds with stages of
biological development. In human, the soul manifests its activity in human reason.

-Reasons deals with the abstract and ideas aspects. Reason is the source of general ideas
but it is only potentially. Senses deal with the concrete and material aspect of phenomena.
Active reason, not passive reason, makes the world intelligible and makes ideas accessible to
thought.

-Human aspirations and desires have some final pursuit-the chief end is happiness. True
happiness lies in the outworking of the true soul and self-continued throughout lifetime.
-The soul has an irrational element which is shared with animals (desire) and a rational
element which is distinctly human. The irrational element is the vegetative faculty (nutrition
and growth) and the appetitive faculty (emotions and desires such as joy, grief etc). The
rational element is the ability to control these desires with the help of reason.

-The doctrine of the mean states that moral virtues are desire regulating character traits
which are at mean between more extreme character traits.

-The truly good self is a person with a perfect insight and a person of perfect insight is also
perfectly good.

-A slave is a piece of live property having no existence of “self” except in relation to his
master.

-Wealth is everything whose value can be measured in terms of money but it is the use of the
money than the possession of the commodities which constitute riches.

4. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) He was a philosopher, theologian and the most eminent
13th century scholar and stalwart of the medieval philosophy. He is the proponent of natural
theology and is best known for his works Summa Theologiae. His views on the self were;

-Man is composed of two parts (1) matter and (2) form

-Matter refers to the common stuff that makes up everything in the universe while form refers
to the essence of a substance or thing; it is what makes it what it is.

-In the case of human person, the body of a human person is something that he/she shares
even with animals.

-What makes a human person a human person and not an animal is his/her soul his/her
essence

-The soul is what animates the body, it is what makes us humans.

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-The reality is, we all lack self-knowledge to some degree, and the pursuit of self-knowledge
is a lifelong quest-often a painful one.

-All our self-knowledge is dependent is dependent on our experience of the world around us.

-The mind is dark and formless; but in the moment of acting, it is lit up to itself from the inside
and sees itself engaged in the act.

-Experiencing something doesn’t mean we instantly understand everything about it.

Experiencing that something exist doesn’t tell us what it is.

-We are able to know God through his creation

-Man must observe 4 cardinal virtues as prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude.

-Rational thinking and the study of nature are valid ways to understand God, for God reveals
Himself through nature, so for a man to study nature is to study God.

-Man uses his reason to grasp the truth about God and to experience salvation through that
truth.

-The goals of self-existence is union and fellowship with God. This goal can be achieved
through beatific vision-an event in which a person experiences perfect unending happiness by
comprehending the very essence of God.

-A person’s will must be ordered toward right thing such as charity, peace and holiness as a
way to happiness.

5. St. Augustine (354-430 BC) otherwise known as Augustine of Hippo authored the
philosophical and theological books Confession, On Free Will, On Christian Doctrine, On
Baptism, Against the Doctrines on the Trinity, On Nature and Grace and Homilies. His views
on self were;

-Man is of bifurcated nature

-The body is bound to die on earth and the soul is to anticipate living internally in a realm of
spiritual bliss in communion with God

-The goal of every human person is to attain this communion and bliss with the Divine by
living his life on earth in virtue.

6. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) believed to be the Father of Modern Philosophy. He is a

French scientific thinker, mathematician and philosopher who developed the Cartesian
Philosophy which holds that mental acts determined physical acts. His thoughts of self were;

-Conceived that the human person as having a body and mind

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-He claims that there is so much that we should doubt; in fact he says that much of what we
think because they are infallible, may turn out to be false.

-He thought that the only thing one cannot doubt is the existence of the SELF

-He states that if even if one doubt himself, that proves that there is doubting self, a thing that
thinks and therefore, cannot be doubted. Thus, it results to his famous line “COGITO ERGO
SUM”

-The self is a combination of two distinct entities (1) the cogito or that thing that thinks is the
MIND (2) the extenza or the extension of the mind, which is the body.

7. David Hume (1711-1776) a prime mover in western philosophy is a Scottish philosopher

known for his insights on the psychological basis of human nature where he posited that
passion rather reason governs human behavior. His other thought of self was;

-One can know only what comes from the senses and experiences

-The SELF is not an entity over and beyond the physical body.

-Argues that men/women can only attain knowledge by experiencing

-Insist that SELF is nothing else but a bundle of impressions; in addition, the SELF is also a
bundle or collection of different perceptions which succeed each other with an inconceivable
rapidly and are in perpetual flux and movement.

8. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) He is a great contributor in modern Western Philosophy. The

following are his thoughts about the self;

-Thinking of THE SELF as a mere combination of impressions was problematic to Kant. For
him the things that men perceive around them are not just randomly infused into the hum an
person without an organizing principles that regulates the relationship of this impressions.

-Without the SELF, one cannot organize the different impressions that one gets in relation to
his own existence.

-He suggest that the SELF is an actively engaged intelligence in man that synthesizes all
knowledge and experience.

-The SELF is not just what gives one his personality; it is also the seat of knowledge
acquisition for all human persons.

9. Francis Bacon (1561-1621) An English Philosopher, lawyer, essayist, historian, and

champion of modern science. His concepts of the Self were;
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-Knowledge of self is power of establishing the dominion of man earth for knowledge is power

-To arrive at knowledge, the self must study nature with the intention of grasping their forces.
Natures are the natural phenomenon of heat, sound light etc., forms are imminent forces of
the natural phenomenon.

-Human mind must be free of all prejudices and pre-conceived attitudes because they prevent
successful study of natural phenomena. There are four prejudices of the human mind;
1. Prejudices arising from human nature (idols of the tribe)
2. Prejudices coming from the psychic condition of the human soul (idols of the cave)
3.Prejudice resulting from social relationships (idols of the marketplace)
4. Prejudices from false philosophical systems (idols of the theatre)

10. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) An English Philosopher famous for his works Leviathan,
Human Nature, De Corpore Politics and The Elements of Law. His basic concepts of Self
were;

-In the natural condition of mankind, some men may be stronger or more intelligent that
others. None is so strong and smart as to go beyond a fear of violent death. When threatened
with death man in his natural state cannot help but defend himself in any way possible. Self-
defense against violent death is the highest human necessity and rights are borne out of
necessity.

-In a state of nature, all ourselves have the right or license to everything in the world. Due to
the scarcity of things in the world, there is a constant and right-based war of all against all- the
survival of the fittest.

-Man’s life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

-Man as self has a self-interested and materialistic desire to end war. The passion that
inclines men to peace are fear of death, desire of such things as are necessary to
commodious living, and a hope of their industry to obtain them.
-Men form peaceful societies by entering into social contract. Society is a population beneath
an authority; to whom all men in that society covenant just enough of their natural right for the
authority, to be able to ensure internal peace and a common defense.

-As long as the self does no harm to any other, the sovereign should keep its hands off him.

11. John Locke (1632-1704) a prominent thinker during the Age of Reason. He is an English
Philosopher and physician. He is considered as the Father of Liberalism. His philosophical
taught about the self were;
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-He developed the concept of TABULA RASA, he pointed onto the theory that at birth, the
mind is a blank slate without innate ideas, and it is experience that provides us knowledge
provided by sensory experiences and reflections.

-Personal identity or the self is found in the consciousness.

-Identified the brain as comprising the consciousness which has one’s identity.

-Alleged that life is a quest for the understanding of what is after death and immortality

-Argued that a person may be judged for the acts of his body and is only liable for the acts of
which he is conscious.

12. Gilberth Ryle (1900-1976) was a British Philosopher a behaviorist who coined the praise
“the ghost in the machine”. He wrote the book THE CONCEPT OF THE MIND which had a
dramatic impact on Western thought. His views of the self were;

-The mental phenomena are explained by observing public behavior, thus the mental states
are inseparable to physical states.

-Every human being has both physical body and non-physical mind which are ordinarily
“harnessed together” while we are alive.

-The physical body is subjected to mechanical laws; the mind on the other hand, is not
accessible to the public and definitely never subjected to mechanical laws.

-His famous quotation was “A person therefore lives through two collateral histories, one
consisting of what happens in and to his mind. The first is public, the second is private”.

13. Patricia Churchland – A neuro-philosopher at the University of California at San Diego,

says our hopes, loves and very existence are just elaborate functions of complicated mass of
grey tissue. Accepting that can be hard, but what we know should inspire us, not scare us.
Her book is Touching the Nerve: The Self as Brain. Her thought about the self were;

-When we are conscious and make decisions, these are just functions of the physical brain

-The wonderful thing in reality is that science allow us to know

-Neuroscience is liberating because it allows ourselves to see our connections to other

biological things.

-We have no adequate or satisfying neural explanations for a lot of higher functions, including
consciousness, problem solving, decision making, sleep and dreaming

-The existence of the soul and life after death are challenged by neuroscience
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-Brains exhibit self-control

-It is the free will that works when we decide something

-Understanding something about the nature of the brain encourages us to be sensible.

14. MAURICE MERLEU PONTY – a French Philosopher who wrote the book
Phenomenologie de La Perception in 1945 and expounded his thesis on “The Primacy of
Perception” where he revealed how the body is central to one’s perception. His view of the
self were;

-The mind and body are so intertwined that they cannot be separated from one another

-That is, one cannot find any experience that is not embodied experienced; all experience is
embodied; one’s body is his/her opening towards his/her existence to the world.

IV. ASSESSMENT

Direction: Explain your insights about the following philosophical statements

1. “Know Thyself”
2. “I Think Therefore I am”
3. Nothing but matters exist
4. We are a ghost in the machine

Reflection Paper Rubric

Criteria Exemplar (5) Satisfactory (4) Developing (3) Beginning (2)

Response demonstrates Response demonstrates a Response demonstrates Response demonstrates a

an in-depth reflection on, general reflection on, and a minimal reflection lack of reflection on, or
and personalization of, personalization of, the on, and personalization personalization of, the
the theories, concepts, theories, concepts, and/or of, the theories, theories, concepts,
Depth of and/or strategies strategies presented in the concepts, and/or and/or strategies
Reflection presented in the course course materials to date. strategies presented in presented in the course
materials to date. Viewpoints and the course materials to materials to date.
Viewpoints and interpretations are date. Viewpoints and Viewpoints and
interpretations are supported. Appropriate interpretations are interpretations are
insightful and well examples are provided, as unsupported or missing, inappropriate,
supported. Clear, detailed applicable. supported with flawed and/or unsupported.
examples are provided, as arguments. Examples, Examples, when
applicable. when applicable, are applicable, are not
not provided or are provided.
irrelevant to the
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assignment.
Response includes all Response includes all Response is missing Response excludes
components and meets or components and meets all some components essential components
exceeds all requirements requirements indicated in and/or does not fully and/or does not address
indicated in the the instructions. Each meet the requirements the requirements
Required instructions. Each question or part of the indicated in the indicated in the
Components question or part of the assignment is addressed. instructions. Some instructions. Many parts
assignment is addressed All attachments and/or questions or parts of of the assignment are
thoroughly. All additional documents are the assignment are not addressed minimally,
attachments and/or included, as required. addressed. Some inadequately, and/or not
additional documents are attachments and at all.
included, as required. additional documents,
if required, are missing
or unsuitable for the
purpose of the
assignment.
Writing is clear, concise, Writing is mostly clear, Writing is unclear Writing is unclear and
and well organized with concise, and well organized and/or disorganized. disorganized. Thoughts
excellent with good Thoughts are not ramble and make little
sentence/paragraph sentence/paragraph expressed in a logical sense. There are
construction. Thoughts construction. Thoughts are manner. There are numerous spelling,
are expressed in a expressed in a coherent and more than five spelling, grammar, or syntax
Structure coherent and logical logical manner. There are grammar, or syntax errors throughout the
manner. There are no no more than five spelling, errors per page of response.
more than three spelling, grammar, or syntax errors writing.
grammar, or syntax errors per page of writing.
per page of writing.

Response shows strong Response shows evidence Response shows little Response shows no
evidence of synthesis of of synthesis of ideas evidence of synthesis evidence of synthesis of
ideas presented and presented and insights of ideas presented and ideas presented and
insights gained gained throughout the insights gained insights gained
Evidence and throughout the entire entire course. The throughout the entire throughout the entire
Practice course. The implications implications of these course. Few course. No implications
of these insights for the insights for the respondent's implications of these for the respondent's
respondent's overall overall teaching practice insights for the overall teaching practice
teaching practice are are presented, as applicable. respondent's overall are presented, as
thoroughly detailed, as teaching practice are applicable.
applicable. presented, as
applicable.

References: Rating:

Prepared by:

DR. MARJORIE Z. RONDILLA

Professorial Lecturer II