Socrates and Plato, Prior te Socrates, the Grog, thinkers, sometimes collectively calleg the Pre-Socratics to denote that some of them preceded Socrates while others existe around Socrates's time 2s wel, preoceupieg themselves with the question of the primary substratum, arché thal expla the mulipicy of things in the world, These men lie Thal, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, ang Empedocles, to name a few, were concemeg wit explaining what the world is really made monn Rate" Of why the word is So, and what expaing the changes that they observed around them. Tired of simply conceding to mythological accounts propounded by poet-neologians like Homer and Hesiod, these men endeavored to finally iocate an explanation about the nature of change, the seeming permanence despite change, and the unity of the world amidst is diversity. ‘After a series of thinkers fram all across the ancient Greek world who were disturbed by the same issue, 2 man came out to question something else. This man was Socrates. Unlike the Pre-Socratics, Socrates was more concerned with another subject, the problem of the self. He was the first philosopher who ever engaged in a systematic questioning about the self. To Socrates, and this has become his life-long mission, the true task ofthe philosopher is to know oneself. Pato claimed in his dalogs that Socrates affirmed thatthe unexamined Ife is not worth ving. During his tal for allegedly corructng the minds ofthe youth and for impiety, Socrates declered wihout regret that his being indicled wes brought about by his goirg around Athens engaging men, young and old, 1o question thelr presuppositions about themselves and about the world, particulary about who they are (Prato 2012). Socrates took it ugon himself to serve as @ “gedy’ that disturbed Athenian men ftom thelr slumber and shook them off in order to reach the truth and wisdom, Most men, in his reckoring, were really notfully aware of who they wore and the vitues that thay were supposed to attain in order to preserve thelr souls for the aiterlfa, Socrates thought that this is the worst that can happen to anyone: to tive but die inside. For Socrates, every man is composed of body and Soul, This means that every human person is dualistic, that is, he is composed of ‘wo Important aspects of his personhood, For Socrates, 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. Plato, Socrates's student, basically took off from his master and supported the idea that manis a dual nature of body and soul. In addition to what Socrates earlier espoused, Plato added that there are three components of the soul: the rational soul, the spirited soul, and the appettive soul, In his magnum opus, “The Republic’ (Plato 2000), Plato emphasizes that justice in the human person can only bo attained if the three parts of the soul are working harmoniously with one another, The rational ‘soul forged by reason and intellect has to govern the affairs of the human person, the spirited part which is in charge of emotions should be Kept at bay, and the appetitive soul in charge of base desires like eating, drinking, sleeping, and having ‘sex are controlled @s well. When this ideal state is attained, then the human person's soul becomes just and virtuous. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas ‘Augustine's view of the human person reflects the enti spint of the medieval wort when It comes to man, Following the ancient view of Plato and infusing il with the newfound doctrine of Christianity, Augustine agreed that man is of @ bifurcated nature. An aspect of man dwells in the world and is imperfect andi continuously yeams 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 ina realm Saba Damencommunion wth God. TH I DECAUEE The body an ony, vat ray that isthe world, wherea3 the SOU can aigg realm with the all4ranscandont God. The anay oy is communion and bliss with the Divine by, living ae 8 lta of spiritual Diss in an the imperfect. phys! after death in an eternal human person is to atiain this con earth in virtue. Thomas Aquinas, the most eminent thirteenty scholar and stalwert of the medieval Said ‘something to this Christian view, Adeneg ideas from Aristote, Aquinas said that indeed, man a } composed of two parts: matter and form, Matter, or hyle in Greek, refers to the “common stuf that makes up everyih 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 substance or thing.” tis what makes it what itis. In the case of the human person, the body of the human person is soodting that he shares even with animals. The cells in man’s body are more or fess akin to the cells of any other living, organic being in the world. However, what makes a humen person a human person and not a dog, or a tiger is his soul, his ‘essence. To Aquinas, just as in Aristotle, the soul Is what animates the bod what makes us humans. Descartes Rene Descartes, Father of Modern Philosopty, 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 whatwe think and believe are not infallible, they may tum out to be false. One should only believe that since which can pass the test of == doubt (Descartes 2008). If something is so clear and lucid 2 not to be even doubted, then that is the only time when one should actually buy 2 proposition. In the end, Descartes thought that the only thing thal 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, cogito ergo sum, “| think therefore, | am." The fact that ne thinks should lead one to conclude without a trace of doubt that he exists. Theself then for Descartes is also a combination of two distinct entities, the cogito, the thing that thinks, which is the mind, and the extenze or extension of the mind, ‘which Is the body, In Descartes's view, the body Is nothing else but a machine that 's attached to the mind, The human person has it but itis not what makes man @ man. If at all, that is the mind, Descartes says, “But what then, am 1? A thinking thing. It has been said. But what is @ thinking thing? il is @ thing thal doubts, understands (conceives), affirms, denies, wills, refuses; that imagines also, and percelves" (Descartes 2008). Hume David Hume, a Scottish philosopher, has a very unique Way of looking at man. As an empiricist who believes thal one can know only whet comes from the senses and experiences, 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. ‘One can rightly see here the empiricism that runs through his veins. Empiriciom 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. For example, Jack knows that Jil is another human person not because he has seen her soul. He knows she is just like him because he sees her, hears her, and touches her. To David Hume, the self is nothing else but a bundle of impressions. What are impressions? For David Hume, if one tries to examine his experiences, he finds that they can all be categorized into two: impressions and ideas. Impressions are the basic objects of our experience or sensation. They therefore form the core of our thoughts. When one louches an ice cube, the cold sensation is.an impression. 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. What is the self then? Self, according to Hume, is simply "a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.” (Hume and Steinberg 1992). Men simply want to believe that there is a unified, coherent self, a soul or mind justlike wnat the previous philosophers thought. In reality, vial one ata 's a Unifiog selfis simply a combination of all experiances with a ps p Kant Thinking of the "self" as a mere combination of impressions was problematic for Immanuel Kant, Kant recognizes the veracity of Hume's account that everything starts with porcoption and sensation of impressions, However, Kant 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 extemal World, Time and space, for example, are ideas that one cannot find in the world, but is 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 in relation tohis own existence. Kant therefore suggests that it is an actively engaged intelligence in man that synthesizes all knowledge and experience. Thus, the selfs not just what gives one his personality, In addition, it is also the seat of knowledge acquisition for all human persons. Ryle Gilbert Ryle solves the mind-body dichotomy that has been running fora tong time in the history of thought by blatantly denying the concept of an intemal, non-physical self. For Ryle, what truly matters is the behavior that a Porson manifests in his day-to-day life. For Ryle, looking for and trying to understand a Self as it really exists is like visiting your friend's university and looking for the “university.” One can roam around the campus, visit the library and the football field, and meet the administrators and faculty and still end up not finding the “university.” This is because the campus, the people, thesystoms, and the territory all form tho university. Ryle suggests that the “sell is not {an ently ono can locate and analyze but simply the convenient nama that people ‘us@ {0 rofer to all tho bohaviors that people make, Morleau-Ponty Merleau-Ponty is phenomenologist who asserts ? that the mind-body bifurcation that has been going on for a * longtime is @ futile endeavor and an invalid problem. Unlike Ryle who simply denies the “self,” Merieau-Ponty instead says that the mind and body are so intertwined that they cannot be separated from one another. One cannot find any experience that Is not an embodied experience. All experience is embodied. One's body is his opening toward his existence to the world. Because of these bodies, men are In the world. Merleau-Ponty dismisses the Cartesian |. — Dualism that has spelled so much devastation in the history of man. For him, the Cartesian problem Is nothing else but plain misunderstanding, The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and experiences are all one,