UNDERSTANDING

THE

SELF
F.L. VARGAS COLLEGE
SY 2019-2020
DEFINING THE SELF:

PERSONAL AND
DEVELOPMENTAL
PERSPECTIVES ON
SELF AND IDENTITY
CHAPTER 1
THE SELF FROM
VARIOUS
PHILOSOPHICAL
PERSPECTIVES
LESSON 1
 PHILOSOPHY
Study of the fundamental nature
of knowledge, reality, and
existence, especially in an
academic discipline.
A particular theory that
someone has about how to live
or how to deal with a particular
situation.

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 PHILOSOPHY
Academic discipline concerned
with investigating the nature of
significance of ordinary and
scientific beliefs.
Investigates the legitimacy of
concepts by rational argument
concerning their implications,
relationships as well as reality,
knowledge, moral judgement,
etc.
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Much of the philosophy
concerns with the fundamental
nature of the self
The Greeks were the ones who
seriously questioned myths and
moved away from them to
understand reality and respond to
perennial questions of curiosity,
including the question of the self.

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 The following are discussions of
different perspectives and
understandings of the self
according to its prime movers.
From philosophers of the ancient
times to the contemporary period.
 The Pre-Socratics
(Thales, Pythagoras,
Parmenides, Heraclitus,
Empedocles, etc.) were concerned
with answering questions such as:

What is the world really made up

of?
Why is the world the way it is?
What explains the changes that
happen around us?

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 THE PRE-SOCRATICS

• ARCHE- origin or source/the “soul”/ the primal

matter
• The soul’s movement is the ultimate arche of all
other movement
• Arche has no origin outside itself and cannot be
destroyed
• Explains the multiplicity of things in the world
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DO YOU AGREE THAT THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE BODY AND THE
SOUL?

DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE BOTH?

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO?

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SOCRATES
The first philosopher who ever engaged in a
systematic questioning about the self.
• Concerned with the problem of the self
• The true task of a philosopher is to know oneself.
• “What is the way we ought to live?”
• According to Socrates, the examination of this question is very important as it is
through striving for answers to it that one can hope to improve their life. One of the
reasons why most do not consciously contemplate this question is because it requires
that one attain self knowledge, or in other words, turn their gaze inward and analyze
both their true nature and the values which guide their life. And such knowledge is
perhaps the most difficult knowledge to obtain.
• The unexamined life is not worth living.
• Examining one’s self is the most important task one can undertake, for it alone will
give us the knowledge necessary to answer the question ‘how should I live my life’. As
Socrates explained: “…once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for
ourselves, but otherwise we never shall.” (First Alcibiades)
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 “One’s true self, is not to be identified with what we own, with
our social status, our reputation, or even with our body.
Instead, Socrates famously maintained that our true self is
our soul.”
• Underwent a trial for ‘corrupting the minds • All human beings naturally strive after
of the youth.’ happiness for happiness is the final end in life
and everything we do we do because we think
• Succeeded made people think about who it will make us happy. We therefore label what
they are. we think will bring us happiness as ‘good’, and
• It is the state of our soul, or our inner being, those things we think will bring us suffering
which determines the quality of our life. Thus and pain as ‘evil’. So it follows that if we have a
it is paramount that we devote considerable mistaken conception of what is good, then we
amounts of our attention, energy, and will spend our lives frantically chasing after
resources to making our soul as good and things that will not bring us happiness even if
beautiful as possible. we attain them.
• The next step in the path towards self • man=body+soul
knowledge was to obtain knowledge of what • Individual=imperfect/permanent
is good and what is evil, and in the process (body)+perfect/permanent(soul)
use what one learns to cultivate the good
within one’s soul and purge the evil from it.
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 Virtue is defined as moral excellence, and an individual is considered virtuous
if their character is made up of the moral qualities that are accepted as
virtues. In Ancient Greece commonly accepted virtues included courage,
temperance, prudence, and justice.

 To summarize this idea it is useful to express it  PLATO, Socrates' student, added that there are
in a simple formula: THREE components of the SOUL:
knowledge=virtue=happiness. When we
arrive at knowledge of virtue we will become  Rational Soul-forged by reason and intellect and
virtuous, i.e., we will make our souls good and has to govern the affairs of the human person
beautiful. And when we perfect our souls, we  The Spirited Soul-in charge of emotions should be
will attain true happiness. kept at bay
 As A.E. Taylor explains: “Evil doing always  Appetitive Soul-in charge of base desires like
rests upon a false estimate of goods. A man eating, drinking, sleeping, and having sex are
does the evil deed because he falsely expects controlled as well.
to gain good by it, to get wealth, or power, or
enjoyment, and does not reckon with the fact He emphasizes that justice in the human person can
that the guilt of soul contracted immeasurably only be attained if the three parts of the soul are
outweighs the supposed gains.” (Socrates, A.E. working harmoniously with one another.
Taylor)
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•WHAT HAPPENS TO A PERSON WHOSE
3 COMPONENTS OF THE SOUL ARE
IMBALANCED?

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 ST. AUGUSTINE
• ‘Spirit of man’ in medieval philosophy
• Following the view of Plato but adds Christianity
• Man is a bifurcated nature
• Part of man dwells in the world (imperfect) and yearns to
be with the Divine
• Other part is capable of reaching immortality
• Body-dies on earth; soul-lives eternally in spiritual bliss
with “God”
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•DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE CONCEPT
OF THE SOUL COMING TO HEAVEN
AFTER DEATH?

•WHAT MAKES US PEOPLE

DIFFERENT FROM ANIMAL?

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 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
• Man = matter + form
• Matter (hyle) – “common stuff that
makes up everything in the universe
• Form (morphe) – “essence of a
substance or thing” (what makes it
what it is) ST. THOMAS
• The body of the human is similar to AQUINAS
animals/objects, but what makes a
human is his essence
• “The soul is what makes us humans”
 MODERN
PHILOSOPHY

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 Rene DESCARTES
 Father of modern philosophy
 Human person = body+mind
 “there is so much that we should doubt”
 “if something is so clear and lucid as not to be doubted, that’s the only time one should
believe.
 The only thing one cant doubt is existence of the self.
 “I think, therefore I am.”
 The self = cognito (the thing that thinks) + extenza (extension of mind/body)
 The body is a machine attached to the mind
 It’s the mind that makes the man
 “I am a thinking thing… a thing that doubts, understand, affirms, denies, wills, refuses,
imagines, perceives.
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 DAVID HUME
 Disagrees with all the other aforementioned philosophers
 “one can only know what comes from the senses and experiences” (he is an
empiricist)
 “the self is not an entity beyond the physical body”
 You know that other people are humans not because you have seen their soul,
but because you see them, hear them, feel them, etc.
 “the self is nothing but a bundle of impressions and ideas
 Impression – basic objects of our experience/sensation
- forms the core of our thoughts
 Idea – copies of impressions
- not as “real” as impressions
- feeling mo lang yun!

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 David HUME
• SELF = a collection of different perceptions which rapidly
succeed each other
• SELF = in a perceptual flux and movement
• We want to believe that there is a unified, coherent self,
soul, mind, etc. But actually it is all just a combination of
experiences.

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 Immanuel KANT
• Agrees with HUME that everything starts with
perception/sensation of impressions
• There is a MIND that regulates these impressions
• “time, space, etc. are ideas that one cannot find in the world, but
is built in our minds
• “apparatus of the mind”
• The self organizes different impressions that one gets in relation to
his own existence
• We need active intelligence to synthesize all knowledge and
experience
• The self is not only personality but also the seat of knowledge

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GILBERT RYLE
Denies the internal, non-physical self
“what truly matters is the behavior that a
person manifests in his day-to-day life.”
Looking for the self is like entering LU and
looking for the “university” (explain)
The self is not an entity one can locate and
analyze but simply the convenient name that
we use to refer to the behaviors that we make
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 MERLEAU-PONTY

o A phenomenologist who says the mind-body bifurcation is an

invalid problem
o Mind and body are inseparable
o “one’s body is his opening toward his existence to the world”
o The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and experiences are all
one.
o If you hate this subject, Merleau-Ponty understands you.

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THANK YOU

HONEY LEI B. RIVERA, RPm

0927-844-9863

bhoneyleirivera@gmail.com