Understanding The Self - Philosophy 101 PDF

UNDERSTANDING THE SELF Reflect of the following: ❑ What do we even mean by the “SELF”? ❑ Are we souls, organic bodies or merely a figment of another’s imagination? ❑ Are we just minds or a combination of body and mind? ❑ Will I survive bodily death because I am more than a body or when my bod...

UNDERSTANDING THE SELF Reflect of the following: ❑ What do we even mean by the “SELF”? ❑ Are we souls, organic bodies or merely a figment of another’s imagination? ❑ Are we just minds or a combination of body and mind? ❑ Will I survive bodily death because I am more than a body or when my body is dead, that’s really the end? UNDERSTANDING THE SELF  Or maybe… I am actually controlled by some entity? “WHO AM I?” UNDERSTANDING THE SELF HOW WELL DO YOU WHY IS GETTING KNOW YOURSELF TO KNOW NOW? YOURSELF SO IMPORTANT? UNDERSTANDING THE SELF The Tao the Ching says... “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich” UNDERSTANDING THE SELF  CHAPTER 1 THE SELF FROM VARIOUS PERSPECTIVES UNDERSTANDING THE SELF WHAT IS A PHILOSOPHER? Traditionally, he is thought of a lover of wisdom. An intellectual who has devoted time to study the meaning of life. U N D E R S UT N AND ED RI N S TG A N THD EI N SGE LTFH E S E L F  1. Socrates 7. David Hume 2. Plato 8. Immanuel Kant 3. Augustine of Hippo 9. Sigmund Freud 4. Thomas Aquinas 10. Gilbert Ryle 5. Rene Descartes 11. Paul Churchland 6. John Locke 12. Maurice Merleau Ponty UNDERSTANDING THE SELF SOCRATES : Know Thyself. The true task of a philosopher is to know oneself. He was the first philosopher who ever engaged in a systematic questioning about the self. DUALISTIC - every man is composed of Body and Soul. For him, there was soul before man’s body. “Unexamined life is not worth living” “One thing only I know, and that is that I know NOTHING.” UUNNDDEERRSSTTAANNDDI INNGG TTHHEE SSEELLFF  PLATO Student of Socrates Dichotomy FORMS & MATERIALS 1. World of Forms- the permanent, unchanging reality self. 2. World of Materials- keeps on changing. It is what we see around us, and for him, this-where we live, is just a replica of the real self found in the world of Forms. THREE COMPONENTS OF SOUL 1. Rational soul - reason 2. Spirited Soul - neutral 3. Appetitive soul - desire UNDERSTANDING THE SELF AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO Man is of a bifurcated nature The body is bound to die on earth and the soul is to anticipate living eternally. The body can ONLY thrive in the imperfect, physical reality - WORLD, whereas the soul can also stay after death in an eternal realm with GOD. Our World (World of Materials) Real World (God) UUNNDDEERRSSTTAANNDDI INNGG TTHHEE SSEELLFF AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO SOUL is fully real-as the unchanging, permanent being and he sees God as the ultimate expression of love. Man has an immortal soul whose main pursuit is to have an everlasting life with God. MORAL LAW – distinction between right and wrong. ETERNAL LAW – Universal law from God. UNDERSTANDING THE SELF THOMAS AQUINAS Man is composed of two parts: matter and form. Matter or hyle in Greek - “common stuff that makes up everything in the universe.” (Man’s body) Form or morphe in Greek - “essence of a substance or thing.” (Soul) “The soul is what animates the body; it is what makes us humans.” UNDERSTANDING THE SELF RENE DESCARTES Father of the modern Philosophy. “I think, therefore, I am” or Cogito ergo sum – he doubts the existence of everything physical, including his own body. For him, the existence of the body is not a proof that YOU exist. The body is nothing else but a machine attached The mere fact that I can to the mind. DOUBT, is the evidence that I exist. UNDERSTANDING THE SELF RENE DESCARTES The body can be described in a precise, structured manner (Physical self) but the mind is not contained like that, and it’s allowed to pursue its own thoughts. When the body is gone, the mind may continue to exist and function. UNDERSTANDING THE SELF JOHN LOCKE His starting point is the claim that all knowledge must come from experience. There are no innate ideas. Tabula rasa – blank slate Unlike the first few philosophers discussed, he thinks that our identity is not locked in the mind, soul, or body ONLY. He included the concept of a person’s memory in the definition of the self. He subscribes to the memory theory that holds we are the same person as we were in the past for as long as we can remember something from the past. UNDERSTANDING THE SELF DAVID HUME SELF is just a combination of ALL experiences. a. Impressions- those things we perceive through our senses as we experience them. b. Ideas- are those that we create in our minds even though we are no longer experiencing them. The “I” will be constantly changing because the different experiences one has for every constant change will affect and reshape that person. There is no permanent and unchanging self. A person is a bundle of perception. UNDERSTANDING THE SELF IMMANUEL KANT Kant believes that man is a FREE AGENT, capable of making decisions for himself. A MORAL person is one who is driven by duty and acts towards the fulfillment of that duty. For us to know what is our duty, we have to rationally deliberate on it and not expect that a higher authority will hand it automatically to us. In refuting Hume’s idea, he (1781) said that since man is gifted with reason and free we can have a good idea of the SELF. UNDERSTANDING THE SELF  SIGMUND FREUD father of psychoanalysis. One of his famous ideas was the tripartite division of man’s mind: a. ID- represents man’s biological nature; the impulses and the bodily desires. b. EGO- the self; the reality principle c. SUPEREGO- represents ethical component of the personality and provides the moral standards by which the ego operates. UNDERSTANDING THE SELF GILBERT RYLE Denies the existence of internal, non- physical self; what truly matters is the behavior that a person manifests in his day-to-day life. “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 people make. We can only know a person through how a man behaves, their tendencies and reactions in certain circumstances. UNDERSTANDING THE SELF  PAUL CHURCHLAND In partnership with his wife, Churchland believes that the self is the brain. The term “mind”, our moods emotions, actions, consciousness are deeply affected by the state of our brain. It is only a matter of time before we can fully comprehend how the brain works for us to understand how it creates the Self. UNDERSTANDING THE SELF  MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY To be a self is to be more than one’s body. It includes all the things that I will do with my body, how I will act on it and how I will make it act in consonance with other human beings. The SELF is the sum of ALL the things that you do. UNDERSTANDING THE SELF