Philosophical Perspectives on the Self PDF

01 Module 1: The Self from Various Perspectives LESSON 1 PHILOSOPHICAL...

01 Module 1: The Self from Various Perspectives LESSON 1 PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE SELF Understanding the Self INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOME Distinguish the different philosophical perspectives on the self. Presentation designed by: Maica S. Pineda, RPsy, RPm, MAPsy COURSE LEARNING OUTCOME Discuss the different representations and conceptualizations of the self from various disciplinal perspectives  02 Module 1: The Self from Various Perspectives Philosophy Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental questions about existence, Understanding the Self knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. "Philosophy" means, "love of wisdom." Presentation designed by: Maica S. Pineda, RPsy, RPm, MAPsy It is an activity people undertake when they seek to understand fundamental truths about themselves, the world in which they live, and their relationships to the world and to each other.  03 Module 1: The Self from Various Perspectives Socrates Who was he? - No historical document if her really existed - 469-399 B.C.E. - There were no known writings - Plato highly regarded him Understanding the Self - He is credited for his many contributions to philosophy Gnothi seauton - Know thyself - an ancient Greek aphorism credited to Socrates - Socrates pointed out that if an individual knows who she or he is, all the basic issues and difficulties in life will vanish and everything will be clearer Technique in Asking Questions (The Socratic Method) Presentation designed by: Maica S. Pineda, RPsy, RPm, MAPsy - Who am I? - What is the purpose of my life? What am I doing here? - What is justice? Self-knowledge - means knowing one's degree of understanding about the world and knowing one's capabilities and potentials - Self is achieved and is something to work on  04 Module 1: The Self from Various Perspectives Socrates Possession of knowledge is virtue and ignorance is vice One must first have the humility to acknowledge her or his ignorance so as to acquire knowledge Socrates was a Dualist Understanding the Self He raised the question, "What is it that when in a body makes it living?" He believed that man has soul, which is divine, immortal, intelligible, uniform, indissoluble, and ever self- consistent and invariable. He argued that the ruler of the body is the soul. For him, the soul pre-existed the body, and soul is what makes the body alive. If the soul gives life to the body, it makes the body and soul dependent on each other. However, their striking difference shows that they are two different Presentation designed by: Maica S. Pineda, RPsy, RPm, MAPsy substances united in the body as the soul gives life to it. The soul controls emotions and actions through judgment and reason. For the body, according to Socrates, is human, mortal, multiform, unintelligible, dissoluble and inconsistent. Death is the release of the soul from the body.  05 Module 1: The Self from Various Perspectives Plato Who was he? - Ancient Greek Philosopher - Student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle - 428-247 B.C.E. Understanding the Self Plato's Idealism He insisted that the empirical reality we experience in the experiential world is fundamentally unreal and is only a shadow or a mere appearance while ultimate reality is real as it is eternal and constitutes abstract universal essences of things. All things that exist in the physical world are therefore unreal as they are immaterial blueprints or copies of abstract Presentation designed by: Maica S. Pineda, RPsy, RPm, MAPsy universal and eternal essences. Plato added that ideas are objects of the intellect known by reason alone and are objective realities that exist in a world of their own. In terms of the concept of the self, Plato was one of the first philosophers who believed in an enduring self that is represented by the soul. He argued that the soul is eternal and constitutes the enduring self, because even after death, the soul will continue to exist.  06 Module 1: The Self from Various Perspectives St. Augustine Who was he? - He was canonized by popular acclaim, and later recognized as a Doctor of the Church in 1898 by Pope Boniface VIII. St. Augustine's Reflections His reflections on the relations between time and memory greatly influenced many fundamental doctrines of psychology. Understanding the Self Time is something that people measure within their memory. Time is not a feature or property of the world, but a property of the mind. He believed that the times present of things past, present, and future coexist in the soul. The Time Present of things Past is MEMORY The Time Present of thing Present is DIRECT EXPERINCE The Time Present of things Future is EXPECTATION Presentation designed by: Maica S. Pineda, RPsy, RPm, MAPsy He emphasized that the memory of the past is significant in anticipation of the future and presence of the present. In St. Augustine's method of Introspection (awareness of one's own mental processes), memory is the entity through which one can think meaningfully about temporal continuity. This continuity is possible only by and through memory. The idea of that Past and Future could be seen as equivalent entities that exist. Time past and time future are not real in themselves, but they are only real as long as they exist in the mind or consciounsess.  07 Module 1: The Self from Various Perspectives St. Augustine Memory and Expectations The existence of past and future for St. Augustine is only possible through memory and Understanding the Self expectations. Introspection became one of the important idea in psychology which pertains to the inquire of the soul then of the mind, consciousness and thought. This confirms the superiority of humans Presentation designed by: Maica S. Pineda, RPsy, RPm, MAPsy over other organisms since humans have self- consciousness. St. Augustine argued that as far as consciousness can be extended backward to any past action or forward to actions to come. It determines the identity of the person.  08 Module 1: The Self from Various Perspectives René Descartes Who was he? - A French philosopher and Mathematician - 1596-1650 C.E. - Cogito, ergo sum - "I think, therefore I am" - Fun fact: he allegedly never left bed before 11 AM. But he Understanding the Self invented analytic geometry and the Cartesian Coordinate System, and discovered some basic laws of optics. He was a tutor of Queen Christina of Sweden. Cogito, ergo sum The existence of anything that you register from your sense can be doubted. One can always doubt about the certainty of things but the very fact that one doubts is Presentation designed by: Maica S. Pineda, RPsy, RPm, MAPsy something that cannot be doubted. Only humans have the hubris (excessive pride) - of thinking such irreverent questions on existence and purpose of life. Humans have satisfied themselves with their own answers to their own thinking. Humans have the audacity and impertinence to try to figure out the meaning of life and are actually self- aware of their own existence.  09 Module 1: The Self from Various Perspectives René Descartes Self He believed that the self is: "A thinking thing or a substance whose whole essence or nature is merely thinking." Understanding the Self The self is real and not just an illusion. He also reassured that the self is different from the body. Hence, self and body exist but differ in existence and reality. The self is a feature not of the body but of the mind and thus, a mental substance rather than a physical substance. Presentation designed by: Maica S. Pineda, RPsy, RPm, MAPsy Mind and Body For Descartes, the self is nothing else by a mind-body dichotomy. Thought (mind) always precedes action (body). Humans are self-aware and they are the masters of their own universe. Western Philosophy is largely influenced by Descartes  10 Module 1: The Self from Various Perspectives Patricia and Paul Churchland Who were they? Paul was born on October 21, 1942 in Vancouver, Understanding the Self Canada, while Patricia was born on July 16, 1943 in Oliver, British Columbia, Canada. They are Canadian-American philosophers whose work has focused on integrating the disciplines of philosophy of mind and neuroscience in a new approach that has been called Neurophilosophy. Presentation designed by: Maica S. Pineda, RPsy, RPm, MAPsy Eliminative Materialism "A radical claim that ordinary, common sense understanding of the mind is deeply wrong and that some or all of the mental states posited by common sense do not actually exist."  11 Module 1: The Self from Various Perspectives Patricia and Paul Churchland Folk Psychology Or common sense is something that is FALSE. Understanding the Self Most people think that we have a stream of consciousness that contains images and conception of things about the world and of ourselves is a direct representation of how the world is formed. Self Presentation designed by: Maica S. Pineda, RPsy, RPm, MAPsy For the Churchlands, self is nothing else but the BRAIN, or simply the self is contained within the physical brain. In Patricia Churchland's book entitled: "Touching the Nerve: The Self as Brain (2013), she mentioned that to understand the self, one must study the brain, not just the mind.  12 Module 1: The Self from Various Perspectives Maurice Merleau-Ponty Who was he? - March 14, 1908-May 03, 1961. - French Phenomenological philosopher Understanding the Self - The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interest Body - He distinguished the body into two types: Subjective Body - lived and experienced Objective Body - observed and scientifically investigated - These two are not different bodies, they are correlated with one another Presentation designed by: Maica S. Pineda, RPsy, RPm, MAPsy Self as Embodied Subjectivity - Sees human beings neither as disembodied minds (existing without body) nor as complex machines - We are living creatures whose subjectivity (consciousness) is actualized in the forms of our physical involvement with the world - The body is a general medium for having a world and we know it is not through our intellect but through our experiences  13 Module 1: The Self from Various Perspectives Maurice Merleau-Ponty Subject (a Self) Essentially Requires a Body Consciousness cannot simply be immaterial but Understanding the Self must be embodied. Rather than using, "I think," we use "I can," which we can go somewhere else as a being possessing a body. Mind and Body are essentially correlated. Consciousness is both perceiving and engaging. Presentation designed by: Maica S. Pineda, RPsy, RPm, MAPsy "I am my body" Merleau-Ponty accepts the idea of mental states but he also suggests that the use of the mind is inseparable from our body, situated in physical nature.