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## Self from Various Perspectives ### Plato * **Three-part self**: * **Reason**: The rational part of the self. Knows reality and makes decisions. * **Appetite**: Irrational and instinctive part of the self. Basic physical needs like hunger, thirst and sex. * **Spirit**: Emotions like a...
## Self from Various Perspectives ### Plato * **Three-part self**: * **Reason**: The rational part of the self. Knows reality and makes decisions. * **Appetite**: Irrational and instinctive part of the self. Basic physical needs like hunger, thirst and sex. * **Spirit**: Emotions like anger, love and empathy. * The three parts are dynamic and interact with each other. * It's like a chariot pulled by two winged horses. * The charioteer is **reason**. * The two horses are **appetite** and **spirit**. * **Reason** must be able to control the horses. * This achieves **harmony**. * Has similarities with Sigmund Freud's view of the structures of the mind. ### Augustine of Hippo * The true self is within our mind. This is capable of consciousness. * By knowing ourselves, we are able to know God. * We are like animals in that we are able to perceive the physical world, but higher than animals because we are aware of ourselves. * This inner knowledge of our existence must consist of the true self. * Like Socrates and Plato, he believed that we have an inner knowledge (truth) which we need to seek out to know the self. * We can know ourselves through interiority (the Socratic method of questioning). * He didn't agree that the self is the mind alone. He believed that the self is both body and soul. * This is unified just like the Trinity is unified. * As man is made in the image and likeness of God, knowing yourself leads to knowing God. ### Rene Descartes * Father of Modern Philosophy. * Formally proposed the mind-body dualism. * Like predecessors, believed the true self is within the soul. * We must discover it through scientific inquiry and scientific method. * Because we are capable of doubting our own existence, it must mean that we are capable of thinking. * Because we are capable of thinking, we must exist. * "Dubito ergo cogito, cogito ergo sum." * To have beliefs about the self, one must doubt their beliefs until they are capable of achieving beliefs that are their own (not provided by authorities). * Subscribed to Augustine's proposition that while the true self is within the mind, this doesn't mean that the body is not part of the self. * It only means that the body is secondary to the mind, but is still a distinct dimension of the self. * The mind and the body are intermingling and united. * The pineal gland (in the brain which produces hormones like melatonin). ### John Locke * "Tabula rasa" or blank slate. * Our consciousness is the self, giving us a sense of continuity over time. * Disputed the idea that we have an inner knowledge which we were born with.
