UTS Lesson 1 Philosophers PDF

# Understanding the Self ## Introduction The course deals with the nature of identity, as well as the factors and forces that affect the development and maintenance of personality identity. The directive to Know Oneself has inspired countless and varied ways to comply. Among the questions that ev...

# Understanding the Self ## Introduction The course deals with the nature of identity, as well as the factors and forces that affect the development and maintenance of personality identity. The directive to Know Oneself has inspired countless and varied ways to comply. Among the questions that everyone has had to grapple with at one time or other is "Who am I?". At no other period is this question asked more urgently than in adolescence - traditionally believed to be a time of vulnerability and great possibilities. Issues of self and identity are among the most critical for the young. This course is intended to facilitate the exploration of the issues and concerns regarding self and identity to arrive at a better understanding of one's self. It strives to meet this goal by stressing the integration of the personal with the academic - contextualizing matters discussed in the classroom and in the everyday experience of students making for better learning, generating a new appreciation for the learning process, and developing a more critical and reflective attitude while enabling them to manage and improve their selves to attain a better quality of life. The course is divided into three major parts: - **The first** seeks to understand the construct of the self from various disciplinal perspectives: philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and psychology - as well as the more traditional division between the East and West - each seeking to provide answers to the difficult but essential question of "What is the self?". And raising, among others, the question: "Is there even such a construct as the self?" - **The second part** explores some of the various aspects that make up the self, such as the biological, material and the more recent Digital Self. - **The third and the final part** identifies three areas of concern for young students: learning, goal setting, and managing stress. It also provides for the more practical application of the concepts discussed in this course and enables them the hands-on experience of developing self-help plans for self-regulated learning, goal setting, and self-care. This course includes the mandatory topics on Family Planning and Population Education. ## Part 1: The Self from Various Philosophical Perspectives **Learning Outcomes**: At the end of this section, you are expected to: 1. Discuss the different representations and conceptualizations of the self from various disciplinal perspectives. 2. Examine the different influences, factors and forces that shape the self. 3. Compare and contrast how the self has been represented across the different disciplines and perspectives. 4. Demonstrate critical and reflective thought in analyzing the development of one's self and identity by developing a theory of the self. ### Lesson 1: Philosophy **Introduction** Philosophy is a training guide for your mind, showing how you think in clear, analytic, and powerful ways. Studying philosophy in a serious and reflective way will change you as a person. Learning to think philosophically will inspire you to be more thoughtful, more open-minded, more attuned to the complexities and subtleties of life, more willing to think critically about yourself and all of life's important issues, and less willing to accept superficial interpretations and simplistic answers. And will help you develop the understanding and insight you will need to make intelligent choices and fulfill your potential as an individual. This is the special power of philosophy: to provide the conceptual tools required to craft a life inspiring in its challenges and rich in its fulfillment. Philosophy is not intended to limit your options or dictate your choices. Your responsibility as a student is to explore, to reflect, to think critically- and then to create yourself in the image you have envisioned. **Lesson Proper: Philosophy of the Self** Philosophy is often called the mother of all disciplines simply because all fields of study began as philosophical discourses. **What is Philosophy?** The study of acquiring knowledge through rational thinking and inquiries that involves in answering questions regarding the nature and existence of man and the world we live in. **What is Self?** It is defined as "a unified being, essentially connected to consciousness, awareness and agency (or, at least, with the faculty of rational choice). ### Philosophers **A. Socrates** - First martyr of education, knowledge, and philosophy. - His philosophy underlies the importance of the notion "knowing oneself". - A person's acceptance of ignorance is the beginning of acquisition of knowledge. - But, possession of knowledge is a virtue; ignorance is a depravity (evil, corruption, wickedness). - Knowing ourselves, lies in our own abilities, and wisdom. - Understanding ourselves is through internal questioning or introspection (understanding our strengths and weaknesses, like vs. Dislike) - His way of teaching called Socratic Method or Socratic conversation (role of both the teacher and the student is known to the world; asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presumptions). - However, he was charged with corruption of minors and died as a martyr that fought against ignorance and narrow-mindedness. - But for him, men's goal in life is to obtain happiness. It motivates us to act towards or avoid things that could have negative effects in our lives. As such, by fully knowing oneself a person will be able to achieve happiness. **B. Plato** - Student of Socrates that is the reason he followed the idea of Socrates in knowing thyself. - He was called the Father of academy (a place where learning and sharing of knowledge happens; Later became one of the pillars and basis of what schools and education is now in the present). - He also wrote several literatures that tackles politics, human nature and established the idea of virtue and intelligence. - According to Plato, a person who is a follower of truth and wisdom will not be tempted by vices and will always be correct/moral/ethical. - He believed in the division of a person's body and soul which forms the person as a whole aside from the material things and that could be observed and associated with a person. - He believed that the soul is divided into 3 different parts that has different views, leading to different behaviors: 1. **Appetitive soul:** The part of the person that is driven by desire and need to satisfy oneself. This satisfaction involves physical needs, pleasures and desires, objects, and situations. 2. **Spirited soul:** The courageous part of a person. One who wants to do something or to right the wrongs that they observe. This is very competitive and is very active. Competitiveness drives one to expect positive results and winning. 3. **Rational soul:** The drive of our lives. The part that thinks and plan for the future (the conscious mind). It decides what to do, when to do it and the possible results one could have depending on their actions. **C. St. Augustine** - A saint and a philosopher of the church. - He follows the idea that God encompasses us all, that everything will be better if we are with God. - He believed that God and his teachings affects various aspects in life (that everything is better if we devote ourselves in mending our relationship with God). - His idea of a man and how to understand who we are as a person is related to our understanding of who we are and how we question ourselves. - He also relates our existence to God being modelled in his likeness though being alive means that we are still far from god and has yet to be truly with him. - He rejected the doubtfulness of the academy in which one cannot or should not accept ideas from others. St. Augustine emphasized that we may not be able to give our agreement to everything other people tell us, but we can still agree to those who we are from our own perception. His believes that teaching the church and establishing our sense of self with God identifies the essence of our existence and role in the world (the reason for this is because our bodies are limited). **D. René Descartes** - A French philosopher known to be the father of modern philosophy because of his radical use of systematic and early scientific method to aid his ideas and assumptions. - He believed in modern dualism or the existence of body and mind and its importance to on e's existence were presented with the evidences from experiments as well as philosophical reasoning. - Descartes is known to be the proponent of the "methodical doubt" (continuous process of questioning) doubting, asking questions are part of one's existence. - He defined the roles of the mind and body to the notion of one's existence and sense of self. - He is known for the statement "cogito ergo sum" (I think therefore I am) and according to him, a person is comprised of mind (thinks and questions what the body has experienced) and body (perceives from the different senses). - The body and its perceptions cannot fully be trusted or can easily be deceived (for example: there are times that we feel that a dream is real before actually waking up or having different perception of size based on an objects distance from the viewer). Descartes believes that we should focus on the mind in order to perceive as who we are or the essence of our existence because we cannot always trust our senses. He explained that the more we think and doubt what we perceived from our senses and the answer that came from such thin king or doubting leads to better understanding of ourselves. He also emphasizes that being in constant doubt regarding one's existence is proof that a person exists. **E. John Locke** - An English philosopher and physician. - He is the Father of Classical Liberation. - His works paved the way to several revolutions to fight the absolute powers of monarchs and rulers of his time that led to the development of governance, politics, and economic system that we now know. - He works on the self is most represented by the concept "tabula rasa" (blank slate). - The experiences and perceptions of a person is important in the establishment of who that person can become. - Locke does not disregard the experiences of the person in the identification and establishment of who we are as a person. - He stated that a person is born with knowing nothing and that is susceptible to stimulation and accumulation of learning from the experiences, failures, references, and observations of the person. **F. David Hume** - A Scottish philosopher. - He focused his work in the field of empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism. - He explained that the Self is the accumulation of different impressions and does not exceed the physical realm. - For him, there is no permanent self because impressions of things are based from our experiences where we can create our ideas and knowledge. - Thus, it may improve or totally be replaced. **G. Immanuel Kant** - A German philosopher that is known for his works on empiricism and rationalism. - He established that the collection of impressions and different contents is what it only takes to define a person. - He believes that the awareness of different emotions that we have, impressions and behavior is only a part of ourselves. - He emphasizes that a person who fully understand the self has a certain level of consciousness or sense that uses our intuition which synthesizes all the experiences, impressions and perceptions of ourselves will pave the way to define and know who we are really are. - But he argued that the sense called "transcendental apperception" is an essence of our consciousness that provides basis for understanding and establishing the notion of self by synthesizing one's accumulation of experiences, intuition, and imagination. **H, Sigmund Freud** - An Austrian psychologist and physician. - The Father of psychoanalysis. - Freud is well known for his work on human nature and the unconscious. - He believed that man has different constructs of personality. - He conceptualized about the different levels of consciousness that provides an idea how a person develops a sense of self: **Man has 3 aspects of personality** 1. **Id**: the child aspect of a person; attention is on satisfaction of one's needs and self-gratification. Driven by pleasure principle. 2. **Super ego**: the conscience of one's personality. Has the inclination to uphold justice and do what is morally right and socially acceptable actions. Involved in the notion of right or wrong that is imparted to us by our parents or people that took care for us during childhood. 3. **Ego**: police or the mediator between id and super ego. Operates within the boundaries of reality, primary function is to maintain the impulses of the id to an acceptable degree. **Introduced the Levels of Consciousness** 1. **Conscious**: where minority of our memories are being stored and the memories that are in the conscious is easier to be to be tapped or accessed. 2. **Pre-conscious**: the middle part of the entirety of our consciousness; the memories stored in this area can still be accessed but with a little difficulty. 3. **Unconscious**: this area is where majority of our memories since childhood are deeply stored. It is very difficult to tap the memories. It would need a trained professional and several special techniques in order to make some memories resurface. He believed that we are a by-product of our experiences in the past and that are actions are driven by the idea of resisting or avoiding pain, and are molded from our need for pleasure or being happy. **I. Gilbert Ryle** - He used behavioristic approach to self. - According to him, self is the behavior presented by the person. - The behavior that we show, emotions, and actions are the reflection of our mind and as such is the manifestation of who we are. - He does not believe that the mind and body are two separate entities which is said to be evident in the unexplainable phenomenon or abilities of the mind where the soul is considered; however, to some they can co-exist. - He explained that the self is exemplified in his "ghost in the machine" view (man is a complex machine with different functioning parts, and the intelligence, and other characteristic or behavior of man is represented by the ghost in said machine). - His idea is saying that the things that we do, how we behave and react and all other components like the way we talk, walk and look is generally who we are as a person. **J. Paul Churchland** - A Canadian philosopher whose focus is on the idea that people should improve our association and use of worth in identifying the self. - The self is defined by the movement of our brain. - A constant movement of the brain can be the basis of who the person is (emphasized by Churchland and his wife in the statement "the brain as the self"). - He focuses on the philosophy of "eliminative materialism" and understanding the different neural pathways, how they work, and what implications are those movement to people is a measurable classification on one's behavior. **K. Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty** - A French philosopher. - He is known for his works on existentialism and phenomenology. - He coined the idea of phenomenology of perception (unity of the function of the mind and the body) which is divided into three division. - Merleau-Ponty regarded that the body and mind are not separate entities but rather those two components is one and the same. - His idea of perception follows the idea of Gestalt psychology (gives importance on the whole rather than the sum of its parts). - The perception guides our action based from our experiences. - The body perceives while our consciousness provides the meaning or interprets the various perception we have in the world and the self could be established by the perceptions we have in the world. - One's actions, behavior and language used could be said to be the reflection of our united perception of the world. **L. Thomas Aquinas** - The most eminent 13th century scholar and stalwart of the medieval philosophy, appended something to this Christian view. - He explained that Man is composed of two parts: Matter or hyle in Greek, refers to the "common stuff that makes up everything in the universe." and Form or morphe in Greek refers to the "essence of a substance or thing". In the case of human person, the body of the human person is something that he shares even with animals. The cells in man's body are akin to the cells of any other living, organic being in the world. However, what makes a human person a human person and not a dog, or a tiger is his soul, his essence. To Aquinas, the soul is what animates the body; it is what makes us humans. ### Summary The philosophical framework for understanding the self was first introduced by the ancient Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. In particular, Socrates: "Know thyself". But what exactly does "know thyself" mean that is self and the qualities that define it. The different views of prominent philosophers regarding the nature of the self are discussed and while there are disagreements in how philosophers view of the self, most of them agree that self-knowledge is a prerequisite to a happy and meaningful life.