Learning Module 1

Understanding the Self

Learning Packet 1

Philosophical Perspective
 NGEC 0213 Understanding the Self

Learning Packet 1

Philosophical Perspective
Introduction

This learning packet is intended to discuss the philosophical perspectives on the nature
of the self. It also includes the ways of the philosophers in studying the nature of the
self through the activities that are provided. They are designed for you to learn at least
few of the technical processes in philosophizing performed by the philosophers.

Objectives
At the end of the learning packet, you will be able to discuss the different
representations and conceptualization of the self from various disciplinal perspectives.,
Compare and contrast how the self has been presented across different disciplines and
perspectives and realize the various philosophical perspective in understanding the self.

Learning Management System

(Provide the link for the class as used in Google Classroom. Likewise, share links of
other learning materials stored using the Google Drive. In the event that a commercial
LMS will be made available by the University, links shall be refreshed/updated and also
be shared.)

Duration
• Topic 01: Philosophical Perspective = 3 hours (1.5 hours self-directed learning
with practical exercises and 1.5 hours
assessment)
Delivery Mode
This learning packet will be delivered through online, both asynchronous and
synchronous.

Assessment with Rubrics

A short essay will serve as your assessment at the end of this learning packet. You can
access the rubrics for the assessment below.

Requirement with Rubrics

A short essay will serve as your assessment at the end of this learning packet. You can
access the rubrics for the assessment below.

Readings
Suggested Readings: Access them on the internet just follow the link:

1. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-soul/#toc Read Segment 1,2 and 3

2.https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes/#toc Read Segment 3 A new Metaphysics
3. https://iep.utm.edu/neoplato/#SH4b Read the nature of the soul
4. https://iep.utm.edu/kantmind/#SSH2cii Read Self Consciousness
5. https://iep.utm.edu/locke/#H5 Read The account of knowledge
6. https://iep.utm.edu/hume-rel/#H4 Read The immortality of the soul
7. https://iep.utm.edu/freud-r/#H1 Read Sigmund Freud Religion
8. https://iep.utm.edu/dualism/ Read Criticism of the Mind as a Thinking Being

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9. https://iep.utm.edu/hard-con/ Read Underlying Reason for the problem

10. https://iep.utm.edu/merleau/ Read Early Philosophy

It is important that you read the required reading above for you to have a better
idea on the concepts associated with philosophical perspective in understanding the
self.

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Introduction
Key Points:
Philosophy is the pursuit of understanding the underlying
principles of all things using enlightened reason. Many ∙ Philosophy
thinkers like ancient Greek and the oriental philosophers in
Definition of Terms:
Asia pondered about the world/nature and they included in
their quest the nature of a person. Philosophers use Philosophy is the
reasoning as a tool for their inquiry. Some say that pursuit of
philosophy is more on the abstraction of ideas extracted understanding the
from the world and by means of processing these ideas and underlying principles
with the enlightened reason it will result in assumptions. of all things using
Many assumptions harmonized with the other assumptions enlightened reason
but some assumptions clash with the other assumptions.
But contradictions that may emerge in their inquiries still School of thought –
provide positive results because they became a reference refers to the group of
for the proceeding inquiry. And that is the important role of people having the
same belief.
doing philosophizing in the history of human inquiry. The
term “self” has a relation to the concept of a human person. Materialism – is a
We also refer this to as the identity or characteristics of a school of thought
person. Thinkers focused on the attributes and who believes that the
characteristics that are inherent or can be acquired by a material things are
human person. These attributes can be used as a reference the real thing
in order for us to understand the self. Many thinkers used
the terms soul, mind, spirit, and brain in describing the true Immaterialism – is a
nature of a human person. As time goes by many belief that the
philosophers until the present time still relying on these immaterial things are
terms used by the early thinkers in explaining the self or the eternal and the most
real
human person. There are a lot of philosophical perspectives
that are focused on the nature or characteristics of humans

Pre-Assessment

Choose the best answer:

1. To whom is this saying “The unexamined life is not

worthily living”?
o Socrates
o Plato
o Immanuel Kant

2. What is the soul according to Aristotle?

o It is immaterial
o It is divided into different parts
o It is a material thing

3. What is the soul according to Plato?

o It is related to the social function
o The soul can be found anywhere
o Soul is immaterial

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4. What is the thinking of St. Augustine about the human

person?
o Human is evil in nature
o The body is not the real identity of a person
o Man is composed of body and soul

5. What is the meaning of Res Cogitans?

o The thinking being
o The material being
o The soul

6. Which of these ideas describes Tabula Rasa?

o Knowledge is innate to a human person
o Knowledge is everywhere
o Knowledge can be learned through experiences

7. What is thinking of David Hume about the self?

o It has properties
o It is a collection of perceptions
o The self has the soul

8. What use of transcendental apperception?

o It connects the material world with the
metaphysical
o It is an experience
o It is the concept of the self

9. What is the function of Ego according to Sigmund

Freud?
o The instinct that seeks pleasures and avoids pain
o The mediator of ego and superego
o The one who recognizes moral principles

10. To whom the quote is this, “I act therefore I exist”?

o Rene Descartes
o Gilbert Ryle
o Ponty

Lesson Proper

● Review.

From your senior high school subject Philosophy of Man,

we learned that there are philosophers who philosophized
about the human person. These ideas helped us to
understand the nature of a human person. Some of them
like Plato, Aristotle, Rene Descartes, and Sigmund Freud
gave a great contribution to answering the questions about
the nature of a human person. Philosophers in

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understanding the world/nature were divided into two

major schools of thought these are the materialism and
immaterialism. School of thought that are under
materialism believes that what is real is the material world
and some schools of thought under immaterialism
consider that the immaterial thing is the real thing. For us
to have an idea of why they are divided into two, let us do
the following activity.

● Activity.

Write Material if this thing/concept is material and

Immaterial if immaterial

1. Brain ____
2. Thoughts ____
3. Neuron`s C-fiber fire ___
4. Imagination ___
5. Memory___
6. Body___
7. Spirit ___
8. Electric current ___
9. Air ____
10. Plants and animals___

1. Name a material thing. How do you know that it is a

material thing? Is this thing existing? Why?
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
____________________________________
2. Name an immaterial thing. How do you know that it is
immaterial? Is this thing existing? Why?
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________

● Processing of the Activity.

Philosophers made a distinction between the

immaterial and material things. Some of them considered
that there exists two substances or things e.g. the material
world and the immaterial world, we called it Substance
Dualism. There is also some philosophers' belief that there
is only one substance that existing, it is either the

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immaterial thing or the material thing, we called

it Substance Monism. In materialism, a kind of substance
monism considered that there is only one thing that existing
and that is the material world while in some schools of
thought like Platonism they considered that the real world
is immaterial e.g. the world of ideas or forms. To
summarize the ideas, material things that are possible to
perceive by our five senses are the real thing for the
materialist, on the other hand, immaterial things are not
visible to our senses e.g. imagination and thinking are also
considered existing thing and are considered as being for
immaterialist.

● Brief Lesson.

Socrates
Socrates considers that the true self is the soul
possessed by the human body. (Chaffee, 2014, p. 107)
Socrates also considered that we need to become aware of
our soul as he mentioned “the unexamined life is not worth
living” it means that the reasoning (must be used) and
function (must be performed well) it’s a must bring justice
for these philosophers also emphasized the importance of
the existence of justice in the world. But the term soul is not
related to any religion`s concept of soul. Some philosophers
interpret the definition of Socrates` term soul to the actions,
function, and thinking of a person.

Plato
A student of Socrates proposed the idea that the world
is composed of two substances e.g. the material and
immaterial being. To him the soul is divided into three parts
namely:
Rational Soul – the rational function of a person
Spirited Soul – courageous part of a person who wanted to
do good and avoid bad
Appetitive Soul – is a part of a person who is inclined to
pleasures.

Plato also relates these different souls to the social classes

Rational soul – Leaders, Kings, and Philosophers

Spirited soul – Soldiers
Appetitive soul – peasant

St. Augustine
A priest and one of the medieval philosophers who
consider that a human person is composed of two substances
namely body and soul. The concept of the soul here changed
into the concept of an immaterial being. He believes that

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among the living things human has a freewill coming from

God and the decisions made by human construct his/her
identity.

Rene Descartes
He is a mathematician and philosopher who
considers that human is composed of body and mind. Rene
defines these two substances as the res cogitans – the
thinking being and res extensa the measurable thing. To
Rene Descartes, the unseen mind controls human actions. In
his claim “I think, therefore, I exist” describes that the
person's true self is his/her thinking. These thinking and
actions define a human person. He is also considered as one
of the rationalists. This idea of Descartes about the mind
provides a distinctive meaning between the mind and soul.

John Locke
He is considered as one of the empiricists. Empiricism
is a school of thought who believes that knowledge about
the world came from experiences (e.g. the five senses). He
considered that knowledge is not innate but can be learned
using our five senses. The self is a blank sheet of paper and
the experiences of five senses serve as a pencil to construct
the self, this thinking is also called Tabula Rasa Theory.

David Hume
As an empiricist, he considers that the concept about
the self came from the collection or bundle of perceptions or
apprehension. Once the body that contains the five senses
disintegrated the concept about the self will vanish. So him
there is no stable self.

Immanuel Kant
The self, in the form of consciousness, utilizes
conceptual categories (or “transcendental rules”) such as
substance, cause and effect, unity, plurality, possibility,
necessity, and reality to construct an orderly and “objective”
world that is stable and can be investigated scientifically.
(Chaffee, 2014, p. 135) Through perception or sense
experience, understanding the reasoning we can grasps least
idea about the transcendental self. These faculty of human
mind/self-there brought an awareness on the existence of the
self.

Sigmund Freud
Freud`s philosophy about the self became a theory in
psychology. To him the self is divided into three points of
responses namely:

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Id – the instinct that seeks pleasure and avoids a pain

Ego – the mediator between the self-oriented pleasure self
and the Super Ego
Super Ego – is the one who learned and recognizes moral
principles.

Gilbert Ryle
Gilbert Ryle`s statement “I act therefore I exist”
describes that a human person`s identity is seen through his
action, in other words, a person`s action is his/her identity.
As a materialist, he also concludes that the death of the body
is also the end of the self.

Paul Churchland and Patricia Churchland

These neurologists believe that all immaterial things
e.g. mental states do not exist. They considered that the
brain is the true identity of a person. To understand the self-
according to them we need to study the brain of a person.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Ponty believed that the mind and body are not
disembodied things. It means in order to grasp ideas and
knowledge mind needed the body. Same as the body in order
to call it a human person needed a mind. The self can be
understood through looking at the lived subjective life and
experiences of the self.

There are a lot of thinkers and philosophers provided

assumption on the existence of human person or self. But
these sets of thinkers contribute influence to those who
followed the path of inquiry in knowing the true nature of a
human person.

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● Enhancement Activity.

● Generalization.

We cannot deny the importance of the existence of the body

and the existence of the mind in order to understand the self
or a person. Each of them still contributes to the
establishment of the self. We cannot learn things about the
material world without our five senses. We cannot also gain
knowledge from the mere experiences of the five senses.
Body and mind composed the totality of human existence.
Senses are important in order to access this material world.
They also help us to gain knowledge for we learn from our
experiences. The mind or rationality of a person is also
crucial for the development of his/her thinking. Not only

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that thoughts are also used for reflection on the existence

of things that we are experiencing including the existence
of the self.

● Application.

In your own perspective, how do you think the concept of

philosophy is significant to your major/field or to your
future profession.

Learning Packet Discussion Forum

It is highly encouraged to post questions on the discussion

forum. Please raise your questions and other concerns in
our Google Classroom.

Post-Assessment
Answer the following questions:

Choose the best answer:

11. To whom is this saying “The unexamined life is not

worthily living”?
o Socrates
o Plato
o Immanuel Kant

12. What is the soul according to Aristotle?

o It is immaterial
o It is divided into different parts
o It is a material thing

13. What is the soul according to Plato?

o It is related to the social function
o The soul can be found anywhere
o Soul is immaterial

14. What is the thinking of St. Augustine about the human

person?
o Human is evil in nature
o The body is not the real identity of a person
o Man is composed of body and soul

15. What is the meaning of Res Cogitans?

o The thinking being
o The material being
o The soul

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 NGEC 0213 Understanding the Self

16. Which of these ideas describes Tabula Rasa?

o Knowledge is innate to a human person
o Knowledge is everywhere
o Knowledge can be learned through experiences

17. What is thinking of David Hume about the self?

o It has properties
o It is a collection of perceptions
o The self has the soul

18. What use of transcendental apperception?

o It connects the material world with the
metaphysical
o It is an experience
o It is the concept of the self

19. What is the function of Ego according to Sigmund

Freud?
o The instinct that seeks pleasures and avoids pain
o The mediator of ego and superego
o The one who recognizes moral principles

20. To whom the quote is this, “I act therefore I exist”?

o Rene Descartes
o Gilbert Ryle
o Ponty

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 NGEC 0213 Understanding the Self

Activity Sheet

Choose the best answer:

1. To whom is this saying “The unexamined life is not worthily living”?

a. Socrates
b. Plato
c. Immanuel Kant
2. What is the soul according to Aristotle?
a. It is immaterial
b. It is divided into different parts
c. It is a material thing
3. What is the soul according to Plato?
a. It is related to the social function
b. The soul can be found anywhere
c. Soul is immaterial
4. What is the thinking of St. Augustine about the human person?
a. Human is evil in nature
b. The body is not the real identity of a person
c. Man is composed of body and soul
5. What is the meaning of Res Cogitans?
a. The thinking being
b. The material being
c. The soul
6. Which of these ideas describes Tabula Rasa?
a. Knowledge is innate to a human person
b. Knowledge is everywhere
c. Knowledge can be learned through experiences
7. What is thinking of David Hume about the self?
a. It has properties
b. It is a collection of perceptions
c. The self has the soul
8. What use of transcendental apperception?
a. It connects the material world with the metaphysical
b. It is an experience
c. It is the concept of the self
9. What is the function of Ego according to Sigmund Freud?
a. The instinct that seeks pleasures and avoids pain
b. The mediator of ego and superego
c. The one who recognizes moral principles
10. To whom the quote is this, “I act therefore I exist”?
a. Rene Descartes
b. Gilbert Ryle
c. Ponty

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Assessment

Assessment 01: Answer the following questions

1. Compare the concept of St. Augustine and Rene Descartes about the
self/human person?
2. Describe the thinking of Freud about the self/human person.
3. Describe the thinking of Ponty about the self/human person.
4. Describe the thinking of Churchland about the self/human person.

Rubrics:
Category 19-20 10-18 1-9

The arguments The arguments

The arguments
and thoughts of and thoughts of
and thoughts of
the student are the student are
the students are
Organization and very well somewhat
not organized
Structure organized and organized and
and the question
the question was the question was
was not
completely mostly
answered.
answered. answered.

The student
The student
moves from one The student lacks
Sentence moves smoothly
idea to the next clear connections
Fluency form one idea to
but there is little between ideas.
the next.
variety.

The student
The student The student
makes more than
Grammar and makes no errors makes 1-2 errors
3 errors in
Spelling in grammar or in grammar or
grammar and
spelling. spelling.
spelling.
Based from: https://sites.google.com/a/dmps.k12.ia.us/part-time-indian-final-
project/evaluation/essay-rubric

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References

Alata, Eden Joy P.Caslib, Bernardo Nicolas Jr., Serafica, Janice Patria J.
et.al.(2018 1st Edition). Understanding the Self. Published 2018 Rex Book
Store. Sampaloc, Manila.

Brawner, Dalisay G. (2018). Understanding the Self. Published 2018, C&E

Publishing Inc. Quezon City
Charles_Horton_Cooley.jpg (2014) Retrieved from https://sociologysound.word
press.com/famous-sociologist /cooley/

Cherry, K.(2021). Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development. Retrieved from

https://www.verywellmind.com/kohlbergs-theory-of-moral-development-2795071

Corpuz, Ronald M., Estoque, Ronan S., Tabotabo, Caludio V. (2019). Understanding
the Self. Published 2019. C&E Publishing Inc. Quezon City
Crossman, Ashley. (2020, August 27). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.
Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/the-presentation-of-self-in-everyday-
life-3026754

Davis, B. (2020). What is Carol Gilligan Theory of Moral Development? Retrieved

from https://www.mvorganizing.org/what-is-carl-gilligan-theory-of-moral-
development/
Gergen, K. J. (1991). The saturated self: Dilemmas of identity in contemporary life.
Basic Books.

Granger. (2016). A photo of George Herbert Mead (1863-1931).jpg. Retrieved from

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/george-herbert-mead-1863-1931-granger.html

Macionis, J.J. (2006). Society: The basics, 10th edition. New Jersey: Pearson
Education, Inc.

McLeod, S. A. (2019, October 24). Social identity theory. Simply Psychology.

https://www.simplypsychology.org/social-identity-theory.html
OpenStax College, Introduction to Sociology. OpenStax
College. 21 June 2012.
Restak, R. (1991). The World is Too Much with Us. The Saturated Self by Gergen.
Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1991/
04/14/the-world-is-too-much-with-us/89a813b6-cb98-4b05-b81c-4202ddb73d83/

Tajfel, H., Turner, J. C., Austin, W. G., & Worchel, S. (1979). An integrative theory
of intergroup conflict. Organizational identity: A reader, 56-65.
Turner, J. C., & Tajfel, H. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior.
Psychology of intergroup relations, 7-24.

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https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/individuals-and-society/self-
identity/v/charles-cooley-looking-glass-self

McLeod, S. (2019). The Zone of Proximal development and Scaffolding. Simply

Psychology.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/Zone-of-Proximal-Development.html

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