Socrates and Plato Philosophy

• Philosophy comes from the Greek words PHILOS, meaning "LOVE", and SOPHIA, meaning "WISDOM"
• Philosophy deals with the rationality employed by individuals in learning
• Philosophers are continuously baffled and challenged by the question, "Who Am I?"

Socrates

• Socrates believed in a distinction between the body and the soul.
• The soul is the immortal, rational, and essential part of a person
• The body is the physical, mortal part which distracts or hinders the soul from achieving wisdom and virtue.
• Socratic Method: "The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living"

Plato

• For Plato, the self has an immortal soul which originated from the ideal World of Forms.
• Soul=Psyche
• Physical Appetite refers to the basic biological needs such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire
• Reason refers to the divine essence that enables a person to think deeply, make wise choices and achieve a true understanding of eternal truths
• Spirit or Passion refers to basic emotion such as love, anger, ambition, aggressiveness, and empathy
• The three elements of our selves work together in a dynamic relationship.
• When conflict occurs, Plato believes it is the job of our Reason to fix things out and exert control.

Patristic and Medieval Philosophies

• Patristic and Medieval Philosophies are characterized by theocentric views.
• Philosophy was used by the patristic and medieval thinkers to provide reason-based support to defend the faith, specifically Christianity.

ST. AUGUSTINE

• For St. Augustine, the Self is a great mystery.
• A person can have a great and mysterious life, regardless of their sins, through the mercy and forgiveness of God.
• The self must continue to search for the truth in order for his/her soul to be rested
• Augustine was convinced that Platonism and Christianity were natural partners
• He enthusiastically adopted Plato's vision of a bifurcated universe in which "there are two realms, an intelligible realm where truth itself dwells, and this sensible world which we perceive by sight and touch," but then adapted this metaphysic to Christian beliefs
• St. Augustine's perspective centers on religious conviction and belief and one should turn to religious beliefs as a guide towards a better understanding of oneself.

RENE DESCARTES

• Introduced the Modern Perspective of the Self, which focuses on humans and their capacity for reasoning which could be used to determine things in the natural world.
• Pioneer of Rationalism which states that knowledge is possible even if one does not have experience and the Methodic Doubt
• "Cogito ergo Sum" translated as "I think therefore I am"

JOHN LOCKE

• Advocate of Empiricism
• The Self compared is to an empty space (Tabula Rasa).
• The Self is Consciousness

DAVID HUME

• THERE IS NO SELF
• A "bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.”

IMMANUEL KANT

• The "WHY NOT BOTH"
• The self is always TRANSCENDENTAL
• The self is the product of reason
• The self as a regulative principle which "regulates" experience by making unified experience possible.

SIGMUND FREUD

• The Self is Multi-layered

GILBERT RYLE

• The Self is HOW YOU BEHAVE

PAUL AND PATRICIA CHURCHLAND

• The Self is the Brain.

MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY

• The Self is embodied SUBJECTIVITY
• Phenomenology of Perception is derived from the conviction that all knowledge of the self and the world is based on the "phenomena” of experience