Republic of the Philippines

Camarines Norte School of Law

COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION
Talisay, Camarines Norte

THE SELF FROM VARIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE

Lesson 1

Objectives:

At the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

1. State the importance of understanding one’s self;

2. Explain the various notions of the self from different
philosophical perspectives;
3. Examine one’s self in relation to the philosophical
perspectives of the self.

Discussion

Before we even had to be in any formal institution of learning, among the

many things we were taught as kids was to articulate and write our
names. Growing up, we were told to refer to this name when discussing
ourselves. Our parents painstakingly thought about our names. Should we
be named after a celebrity, a respected politician or historical personality,
or even a saint? Were you named after one? Our names represent who we
are. It has not been a custom to just randomly pick a combination of
letters and numbers like zhjk756!! to denote our being. Human beings
attach names that are meaningful to birthed progenies because names
are supposed to designate us in the world. Thus, some people get
baptized with names such as “precious,” “beauty,” or “lovely.” Likewise,
when our parents call our names, we are taught to respond to them
because our names represent who we are. As a student, we are told to
always write our names on our papers, projects, or any output for that
matter. Our names signify us. Death cannot even stop this bond between
the person and her name. Names are inscribed even into one’s
gravestone.

PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF

The history of philosophy is replete with men and women who inquired
into the fundamental nature of the self. Along with the question of the
primary substratum that defines the multiplicity of things in the world, the
inquiry on the self has preoccupied the earliest thinkers in the history of
philosophy: the Greeks. The Greeks were the ones who seriously
questioned myths and moved away from them in attempting to
understand reality and respond to perennial questions of curiosity,
including the question of the self. The different perspective and views on
the self can be best seen and understood by revisiting its prime movers
and identify the most important conjectures made by philosophers from
the ancient times to the contemporary period.

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 Republic of the Philippines
Camarines Norte School of Law
COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION
Talisay, Camarines Norte

List of Philosophers to encounter:

1. Socrates
2. Plato
3. St. Augustine
4. St. Thomas Aquinas
5. Rene Descartes
6. John Locke
7. David Hume
8. Immanuel Kant
9. Gilbert Ryle
10. Maurice Merleau-Ponty
11. Paul Churchland

1. Socrates (469 – 399 BCE)

He believed that the philosopher has to know oneself.
To live without knowing who you are and what virtues you can attain is
the worst that can happen to a person. Thus, he noted that an
“unexamined life is not worth living”
For him, every man is composed of body and soul. This means that
every human person is dualistic, that is, he is composed of two
important aspects of his personhood. This means all individuals have
an imperfect, impermanent aspect to him, and the body, while
maintaining that there is also a soul that is perfect and permanent.

2. Plato (428-347 BCE)

Socrates’ Student, basically took off from his master and supported
the idea that man is a dual nature of body and soul. He expounded on
the idea of the soul by stating that the soul has three components:
and appetitive soul, rational soul, and spirited soul.

 The appetitive soul in charge of base desires and cravings of

person like eating, drinking, sleeping, and having sex are
controlled as well.
 The rational soul forge by reason and intellect has to govern the
affairs of the human person. It is the thinking, reasoning, and
judging aspect.
 The spirited soul is accountable for emotions and also makes
sure that the rules of reason is followed in order to attain victory
and/or honor.

In his magnum opus, “The Republic”, He emphasizes that the three

parts of the soul must work harmoniously to attain justice and virtue
in a person.
For Plato, when this ideal state is attained, then the human person’s
soul becomes just and virtuous.

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 Republic of the Philippines
Camarines Norte School of Law
COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION
Talisay, Camarines Norte

3. Augustine’s (354-430 CE)

His view of the human person reflects the entire spirit of the medieval
world when it comes to man.
Following the ancient view of Plato and infusing it with the newfound
doctrine of Christianity, Augustine agreed that man is of a bifurcated
nature.
An aspect of man dwells in the world and is imperfect and
continuously yearns to be with the divine and the other is capable of
reaching immortality.
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.
This is because 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 an all-transcendent God.
The goal of every human person is to attain this communion and bliss
with the divine by living his/her life on earth in virtue.

4. Thomas Aquinas (13th century) the most eminent 13th century

scholar and stalwart of the medieval philosophy appended something
to this Christian view.

He adopt some ideas and philosophical thoughts of Aristotle, Aquinas

said that indeed, man is composed of two parts: Matter and form.

 Matter, or hyle in Greek, refers to the “common stuff that makes

up everything in the universe.” Man’s body is part of this matter.
 Form on the other hand, or morphe in Greek refers to the
“essence of a substance of thing.” It is what makes it what it is.

In the case of the human person, the body of the human person is
something that he shares even with animals. The cells in man’s body
are more or less akin to the cells of any other living, organic being in
the world.
What makes a human person a human person and not a dog, or a tiger
is his soul, his essence.

For Aquinas, just as in Aristotle, the soul is what animates the body, it
is what makes us humans.

5. Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650)

He was the father of the modern philosophy conceived of the human

person as having a body and a mind. In his famous treatise, the
meditations of first philosophy, he claims that there is so much that we
should doubt. In fact, he says that since much of what we think and
believe are not infallible, they may turn out to be false. One should
only believe that since which can pass the test of doubt. If something

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 Republic of the Philippines
Camarines Norte School of Law
COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION
Talisay, Camarines Norte

is so clear and lucid as not to be even doubted, then that is the only
time when one should buy a proposition. In the end, Descartes thought
that the only thing that one cannot doubt is the existence of the self,
for even if one doubts oneself, that only proves that there is a
doubting self, a thing that thinks and therefore, that cannot be
doubted. Thus, his famous quote “Cogito ergo sum” (I think
therefore, I am.)

For Descartes, the self is a combination of two distinct entities:

1. The cogito - the thing that thinks, which is the mind.

2. The extenza - extension of the mind, which is the body

In Descartes’ viewpoint, the body is nothing else but a machine that is

attached to the mind. The human person has it but it is not what
makes man a man. Descartes says, “but what then, am I? A thinking
thing. It has been said. But what is thinking thing? It is a thing that
doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses; that imagines also,
and perceives.”

6. John Locke (1632 – 1704)

He was an English philosopher, political theorist, and physician. His

works as a physician provided him with an idea that deviated from the
duality of the body and soul.

A person’s mind is a blank slate or tabula rasa at birth. It is through

experiences that this blank slate is filled, and a personal identity or
“self” is formed. This “self” cannot be found in the soul nor the body
but in one’s consciousness.

However, this consciousness is not the brain itself. It is something that

goes beyond the brain, and thus, for Locke, the consciousness and the
“self” that comes with it can be transferred from one person or body to
another.

7. David Hume (1711-1776)

He was Scottish philosopher, has a very unique way of looking at man.
As an empiricist who believes that one can know only what comes
from senses and experience, Hume argues that the self is nothing like
what his predecessors thought of it. The self is not an entity over and
beyond the physical body. Empiricism is the school of thought that
espouses the idea that knowledge can only be possible if it is sensed
and experienced. Men can only attain knowledge by experiencing.

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 Republic of the Philippines
Camarines Norte School of Law
COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION
Talisay, Camarines Norte

The self is nothing else but a bundle of impressions.

Impressions is defined as “if one tries to examine his experiences, he
finds that they can all be categorized into two: Impressions and Ideas.
 Impressions are basic objects of our experience or sensation.
They therefore form the core of our thoughts. Impressions
therefore are vivid because they are products of our direct
experience with the world.
 Ideas, on the other hand, are copies of impressions. Because of
this, they are not as lively and vivid as our impressions. When
one imagines the feeling of being in love for the first time, that
still is an idea.

Self is “a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed

each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux
and movement.”

8. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

One of the most influential philosophers in Western Philosophy. He

contributed to the fields of metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics among
others.

Thinking of the “self” as a mere combination of impressions was

problematic for him. He recognizes the veracity of Hume’s account
that everything starts with the perception and sensation of
impressions. He thinks that the things that men perceive around them
are not just randomly infused into the human person without an
organizing principle that regulates the relationship of all these
impressions.

To Kant, there is necessarily a mind that organizes the impressions

that men get from the external world. Time and space, for example,
are ideas that one cannot find in the world but are built in our minds.
Kant calls these the apparatuses of the mind.

Along with the different apparatuses of the mind goes the “self.”
Without the self, one cannot organize the different impressions that
one gets concerning his existence. Kant suggests that it is an actively
engaged intelligence in man that synthesizes all knowledge and
experience. Thus, the self is not just what gives one his personality. In
addition, it is also the seat of knowledge acquisition for all human
persons. It can do such a thing because it is independent of sensory
experience. It is something that transcends or is above even our
consciousness.

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 Republic of the Philippines
Camarines Norte School of Law
COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION
Talisay, Camarines Norte

9. Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976)

A British philosopher mainly associated with the Ordinary Language
Philosophy Movement. He proposed that we should instead focus on
the observable behavior of a person in defining the “self.”
One of the things that the duality approach seems to state is that
there can be a private, unobservable aspect of a person and a
different public and observable part. One can describe one’s self as
good but do otherwise in real life.
Ryle does not adhere to this idea and sees the self as an entirety of
the thoughts, emotions, and actions of a person that relate to
observable behavior. We get to know others by observing their
behavior and inferring about their “selves.” We can apply the same
observation and reflection on ourselves.

10. Maurice Jean Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961)

A leading French existentialist and phenomenologist contributes to the
idea by stating that mind and body are interconnected with each
other and therefore cannot be separated. Our body is our connection
to the external world, including other people, thus all experiences are
embodied. This also includes the thoughts and emotions of a person.

11. Paul Churchland (1942- )

He utilized knowledge from other academic and research fields to talk
about the self as well as the mind. He was one of those who proposed
the use of “eliminative materialism” or “eliminativism,” which claims
that the old terms we use to describe the mind are outdated if not
mere “folk psychology,” thus the need to use more accurate and
scientifically proven terms, especially based on neuroscience research.

Neuroscience somehow shows a connection of what we call mental

states to that of the physical activities of the brain, and that the
actions of the mind or the self are processes of the brain.

Thus, the dual perspective of the “self” continues to exist, perhaps

because our brains are programmed to think of dualities. Our religious
beliefs, that of the mortal body and an immortal soul, also affect such
continuity. However, new ideas from other academic fields as well as
findings from technological advances are being considered and
incorporated in this debate and the discovery of the self. Being open to
such new ideas may help us know more about our own “self”.

Evaluation

Read the poem Invictus and answer the following questions.

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 Republic of the Philippines
Camarines Norte School of Law
COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION
Talisay, Camarines Norte

(see attached activity sheet 1)

References:

Alata, Eden Joy, et. al. 2021. A Course Module for Understanding the Self.
Manila: Rex Bookstore Inc.

Alata, Eden Joy, et. al. 2018. Understanding the Self. Manila: Rex Bookstore
Inc.

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