Chapter 1 (Lesson 1)

The Self from
Various
Philosophical
Perspectives
• Before we even had to be in any formal institution of learning,
among the many things that we first taught as kids is to
articulate and write our names. Our parents painstakingly
thought about our names. Should we be named after a
famous celebrity, a respected politician or historical
personality, or even a saint? Thus some people baptized
with names such as “precious,” Beauty,” or “lovely”. Likewise,
when our parents call our names, we taught to respond to
them because our names represent who we are.
• A name is not the person itself no matter how intimately
bound it is with the bearer. A person who was named after a
saint most probably will not become an actual saint. He may
not even turn to be saintly! The self is thought to be
something else than the name. the self is something that a
person perennially molds, shapes, and develops. Everyone is
tasked to discover one’s self. Have you truly discovered
yours?
Do you truly know yourself?
Questions:
1. How would you characterize your self?

2. What makes you stand out from the rest? What makes
your self special?
3. How has your self transformed itself?
4. How is your self connected to your body?
5. How is your self related to other selves?
6. What will happen to your self after you die?
Points of view of
Various Philosophers
• The history of Philosophical is replete with men
and women who inquired into them fundamental
nature of the self. Along with the question. 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 perspectives 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?
The
Philosophers
Socrates Plato
Was a Greek philosopher from Athens who ancient Greek philosopher, student of Socrates
is credited as the founder of Western (c. 470–399 BCE), teacher of Aristotle (384–322
philosophy and as among the first moral BCE), and founder of the Academy.
philosophers of the ethical tradition of
thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates
authored no texts and is known mainly
through the posthumous accounts of
classical writers, particularly his students
Plato and Xenophon.
Socrates and Plato:
after a series of thinkers from all across the ancient Greek
world who were disturbed by the same issue, a man came out to
question something else. This man was Socrates. Socrates was more
concerned with another subject, the problem of the self. He was the
first philosopher who ever engaged in systematic questioning about
the self. To Socrates, and this has become his life-long mission, the
true task of the philosopher is to know oneself.
For Socrates, 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. 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.
Socrates and Plato:
Plato, Socrates’s student, basically took off from his master and
supported the idea that man is 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 appetitive soul. 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.
1. The rational soul – forged by reason and intellect has govern the
affairs of the human person.
2. The spirited soul – charge of emotions should be kept at bay
3. The appetitive soul – charge base desires like eating, drinking,
sleeping, and having sex are controlled as well.
When this ideal state is attained, then the human person’s soul becomes just and
virtuous.
Augustine Thomas Aquinas
Aurelius Augustinus
Was an Italian Dominican friar and
Hipponensis; also known as
priest, an influential philosopher
Saint Augustine, was a
and theologian, and a jurist.
theologian and philosopher of
Berber origin and the bishop
of Hippo Regius in Numidia,
Roman North Africa.
- Augustine’s view of the human person reflects the
entire spirit of the medieval world. 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 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 the all-transcendent God. The goal of every
human person is to attain communion and bliss with the
divine by living his life on earth in virtue.
Thomas Aquinas, the most eminent thirteenth
century scholar and stalwart of the medieval philosophy,
appended something to this Christian view. Adapting some
ideas from Aristotle. Aquinas said that indeed, man is
composed of two parts: Matter and form.
Matter: or hyle in Greek, refers to “common stuff that
makes us everthing 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 or thing.” it is what makes it what
it is.
What makes a human 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 body; it
is what makes us humans.
Descartes:
Rene Descartes, Father of Modern Philosophy, conceived of the
human person as having a body and a mind. He claims that there is
so much that we should doubt. In fact, he says that since much of
what we think can pass the test of doubt. If something is so clear as
not even doubted, then that is the only time when one should actually
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.
His famous, cogito ergo sum, “I think therefore, I am” the

fact that one thinks should lead one to conclude without a trace of
doubt that he exists. Descartes is also a combination of two distinct
entities, the cogito, the thing that thinks, which is the mind. And the
extenza or extension of the mind, which is the body. In Descartes
view, 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.
what is a thinking? It is a thing that doubts, understand (conceives),

affirms, denies, wills, refuses; that imagine also, and perceives.
Hume:
David Hume, a Scottish Philosopher, has a very unique way of
looking at man. As an empiricist who believes that one can know only
what comes from the senses and experiences. Empiricism is the
school of thought that espouses the idea that knowledge by
experiencing.
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 of core of our thoughts. When one touches 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 our 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.
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 perception ad sensation of
impressions. To Kant, there is necessarily a mind that
organizes the impressions that men get from the external
world. For example, are ideas that one cannot find in the
world, but is built in our mind. 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 to his own
experience. Kant therefore suggests that it is an actively
engaged intelligence in man that synthesizes all
knowledge and experience.
Ryle:
Gilbert Ryle solves the mind-body dichotomy that
has been running for a long time in the history of thought
by blatantly denying the concept of an internal, non-
physical self. For Ryle, what truly matters is the behavior
that a person manifests in his day-to-day life.
Ryle suggest that the “self” is not an entity one can
locate and analyze but simply the convenient name that
people use to refer to all the behaviors that make.
Merleau-Ponty:
Merleau Ponty is a phenomenologist who asserts
that the mind-body bifurcation that has been going to for
an long time is a fertile endeavor and an invalid problem.
Unlike Ryle who simply denies the “self”, Merleau-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. Because of these
bodies, men are in the world. The living body, his
thoughts, emotions, and emotions are all one.
Activity:
In your Activity Notebook;
which Philosopher do you agree
with in terms of defining the self?
What made your concept of self
compatible with that philosopher?

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Chapter 1 (Lesson 1)

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The Self from

1. How would you characterize your self?

What makes a human person a human person and

His famous, cogito ergo sum, “I think therefore, I am” the

what is a thinking? It is a thing that doubts, understand (conceives),

Impressions, are the basic objects of our experience or sensation.

Along with the different apparatuses of the mind

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