Understanding the Self (Philosophy) PDF

Unit I. Philosophy Understanding the Self  Agenda Definition Ancient Philosophy Modern Philosophy Contemporary Philosophy Assessment Presentation title...

Unit I. Philosophy Understanding the Self  Agenda Definition Ancient Philosophy Modern Philosophy Contemporary Philosophy Assessment Presentation title 2 Who are You? Who Am I?  Ask yourself: 1. How would you characterize yourself? 2. What makes you stand out from the rest? What makes yourself special? 3. How is yourself connected to your body? 4. How is yourself related to others selves? 5. What will happen to yourself when you die? Presentation title 5  What is Philosophy? Philosophy comes from the Greek words philos (meaning love) and sophia (meaning wisdom) It seeks to answer the fundamental questions about existence, knowledge truth, morality, nature of man, and other aspects of life through the use of rational and logical thinking (Alata et al., 2018). It provides a platform in which you can explore the depths of your insights. Presentation title 6  Lesson 2: Ancient Philosophy Ancient Philosophy is antiquity, or before the end of the Roman Empire. It usually refers to ancient Greek Philosophy. Ancient philosophies are deeply rooted religious traditions/beliefs. Presentation title 7  He was known as the wandering philosopher. Claims that he does not know the answer to all questions but believes that he is wiser than most people because he admits he does not know.  He held that ignorance stems from assertion of knowing. Ignorance is the not knowing that opens up to philosophical wonder, to scientific discovery, and to human wisdom.  An arrogant and ignorant person will fool himself believing that he knows all the answers to all questions but a wise person who admits his limits/weaknesses will have room for improvement, development and growth.  Because of his unconventional method, Socrates became very popular among the younger generation, but was detested by academicians. Because of this, he was accused of corrupting the minds of the youth and was forced to drink poison.  Believes that the self exists in two parts: one that is tangible, mortal and constantly changing and one that is believed to be immortal. He believes that mankind is innately good and that evilness stems from not knowing the self. Furthermore, if you know that you are “good”, it will follow that you will do your best to avoid “evil deed” because this is not part of your nature. Proposed the method of introspection as a way to know who we really are. Introspection the examination or observation of one’s own mental and emotional processes.  Once we get a grasp of how we process things, this will eventually lead to the knowledge of our own strengths, weaknesses, our capabilities and areas for improvement, as well as our way of doing things. Simply put, Socrates believes that a person who is “self-aware” can maximize his/her potential and use that potential to do things that are true to his nature – which is good. Presentation title 15  Socrates’ greatest student Also believes on the dual nature of man. His Theory of Forms asserts that everything that we see in the world of senses (physical world) existed because of their existence in the world of ideas, where every single matter in the physical world has a perfect form. Have you ever asked yourself, how did we know that a square should be a square? Where did the “idea” of a square come from?  According to Plato, all “ideas” or knowledge existed even before we got out physical form – in the world of ideas. When we were born, however, and our soul entered our physical body, most of what we know was forgotten. This is because our soul which is “infinite, perfect, and eternal” inhabited a body that is “limited, flawed, and corruptible.” Therefore, it is our goal to rediscover the things that we have “forgotten” through the process of self-awareness. Plato believed that our soul is divided into three parts: appetite, will/spirit/ and reason (Meinwald, 2020) Appetite Refers to physical urges such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire Will Includes passion, aggression, and emotions. Reason gives us the faculty to make sound judgements, make wise choices and understand eternal truths. Presentation title 19 These three parts either interact with each other in agreement or in conflict. The will and spirit can either work with reason so we can arrive at self-knowledge or it can be pulled by appetite making us slaves of materialistic pleasures of the world. These three parts clearly play different roles but Plato emphasized that reason should rule to restore the harmony in our mind. Therefore, achieving harmony through reason is the only way to know ourselves. Presentation title 21 St. Augustine: The Medieval Philosopher  The Medieval Ages When the Greek civilization flourished and made history in the scientific realm, the medieval period took history at an opposite direction. When the Roman Empire fell, the kingdoms went to the Church for protection and guidance, hence, the Catholic Church the most powerful element in the European society. Presentation title 23  The Medieval Ages Literacy was limited to memorizing prayers and the doctrines of the Church. The Church destroyed most of the writings of the ancient civilization. Books of Plato and other Greek philosophers were banned. Presentation title 24  A Catholic Bishop that was exposed to the teachings of the Ancient Greek philosophers while he was studying to become a priest. Proved that philosophy can be used to understand God and religion can be integrated to the wisdom of ancient philosophers. Realized that Plato’s Theory of Forms could be the “missing link” to finally reconcile the dispute between faith and knowledge.  In knowing the self, the human person can only achieve enlightenment and true knowledge of the self by seeking God first.  Likened the world of senses to the material or physical world where everything was bound to perish and the soul, which is perfect and immutable. In Plato’s philosophy, he called the world of ideas as the source of truth and knowledge and that we can only achieve our perfect form or get to know ourselves better, if we reach this world through logic. “In knowing the self, the human person can only achieve enlightenment and true knowledge of the self by seeking God first.” Presentation title 29  Modern Philosophy Known as the age of Enlightenment. Called also as the Age of Reason- refers to the of guiding intellectual movement where it advocates reason as a means to establishing an authoritative system of aesthetics, ethics, government, and even religion, which would allow human beings to obtain objective truth about the whole of reality. Enlightenment thinkers argued that could free humankind from superstition and religious authoritarianism that had brought suffering and death to millions in religious wars. Presentation title 30 1. Rene Descartes- Known to be the “ Father of Modern Philosophy” The rationalist conceived that human person as having a body and mind. The “cogito”, the thing that thinks, which is the mind, and the “extenza” or extension of the mind which is the body. Believed that we can only see the truth or the answers to our self through independent rational thinking and not based on decrees handed down by the authority.  the body is nothing else but a machine that is attached to the mind. He asserts that in this world there is so much that we could doubt. In the end, Descartes thought the only thing that one cannot doubt is the existence of the self. 2. David Hume- a Scottish Philosopher, has a very unique way of looking at man. He is considered as Empiricist He believes that one that there is no self, and that self is nothing more bundle of different perceptions in inconceivable rapid successions in perpetual flux and movement. The idea of personal identity is a result of imagination. The self does not exist, the self is only a product of our imagination. 3. John Locke- The self is consciousness. Locke theorized that when babies are born, all babies know absolutely nothing. In essence he argued that the inside of a baby’s brain was empty – ready to learn everything through experience. 3. John Locke-(Empiricist philosopher) believe that the mind is a tabula rasa or blank slate when we are born. For the thoughts and ideas we acquire are products of our own experience. The self therefore is something that is shaped by our conscious experience of the world. Believes that the self is not embedded in a single identity like the mind. Instead, the self exists in space and time. Says that the your self identity exists because of your memory of the experiences that you had. 4. Immanuel Kant- contest the philosophy of Locke and Hume. He contest that our experience with the world is not disconnected ( simple collection of experiences) but is actually continuous like flowing stream of consciousness. Kant believes that we have an innate mechanism that helps organize our experiences that makes it intelligible. This mechanism is called as priori concepts.  Through the priori concepts, we are able to organize our experience in the environment and make meaning out of those experiences. Meaning we are the ones who construct the self. The self actively organizes all sensations and thoughts into a picture that makes sense to each one of us. 5. Gilbert Ryle The self is the way people behave. He rejected altogether the notions about the unconscious, consciousness, souls, and inner selves because these thing cannot be measured, cannot be directly observed. To know a person, we have to observe his/her behavior. 5. Gilbert Ryle I act therefore I am, in short, the self is the same as bodily behavior.  Paul Churchland- stands in the materialistic belief that nothing but matter exist, meaning that anything that can be seen, felt, heard, tasted or smelled exist, nothing beyond what our senses can experience. The self is the brain. All we have is the brain and so, if the brain is gone, there is no self  Contemporary Philosophy Contemporary philosophy goes beyond the mind-body problem and even finds it unnecessary. They argue that life is more than identifying how the mind and body work but rather, it is living through life and finding meaning as we live it. The contemporary philosophers emphasize the importance of free will and our ability to make choices for ourselves. Presentation title 41  Maurice Merleau- Ponty: The Phemonologist A French philosopher who believed that the mind and body should not be subjected to a competition because both the thoughts and ideas in our mind as well as our physical body comprise the whole person.  Merleau –Ponty considers the self as the sum of all your experience in the past or on the present, your thoughts emotions and your behavior. A firm believer of phenomelogy, the field of study that emphasizes lived- experiences. Lived experience is the only source of knowledge about the world. The self is embodied subjectivity.  Assessment Choose two of the 10 philosphers we have discussed that you “relate” to their definition of the self. Make a personal reflection on how their definitions of the self would guide you to become a better student of this University and a better person outside of the university. In your own words, define the self. Presentation title 44 Sociology and Anthropology Presentation title 46  Ho Van Long Presentation title 47  Learning Outcomes: Differentiate the sociological view of the self from the anthropological view of the self; Identify the SOGIE of an individual based on a given scenario; and Apply the different concepts of Sikolohiyang Pilipino in your own life. Presentation title 48  What is Sociology and Anthropology? Anthropology – the study of humans and what makes us human. It looks into the origins of our species, and the evolution of our existence. Sociology – the study of societal organizations, societies, people’s social lives, and culture. Sociology wants to know how people affect other people, how the culture of a certain society affects the behavior of its members and how different societies are related with one another (Alata et. al. 2018) Presentation title 49  Lesson 2: The Development of the Self 2.1 Sociology and the Development of the Self George Herbert Mead – is a sociologist who advanced the idea that the development of the self is influenced by significant persons in one’s life. For Mead the self develops in a chronological or stages wherein one has to undergo the first stage before proceeding to the next stage. Presentation title 50  Mead’s Stages of Development The self develops in three stages: 1. Preparatory Stage – The child imitates the behavior of others. 2. Play Stage – the child begins to formulate the role expectations: playing house, cops, robbers, etc. 3. Game Stage – the child learns there are rules that specify the proper and correct relationships among the players. Presentation title 51 Presentation title 52  2.2 Anthropology’s Conception of the Self Clifford Geertz A French anthropologist was one of the best anthropologist in the 21st century. He emphasized the importance of studying the cultural context of a certain behavior to understand it. Presentation title 53  Dr. Prospero Covar Acknowledges the importance of knowing the Filipino culture in understanding Filipino identity. Presentation title 54 Presentation title 55  The Self as a Product of the Social World The family plays a significant role in our acquisition of culture. Our family is our first experience of the social world and the culture embedded in it making it one of the most important elements of society. The family is where we first learn gender roles or the expected behaviors based on one’s biological or perceived sex. Presentation title 56  What do you know or think you know about SOGIE? Have you ever thought about your own sexual orientation, gender identity, or how you express yourself? How important do you think it is to understand and respect differences in SOGIE? Presentation title 57  What is SOGIE? During Pride Month, we hear a variety of letters and terminology related to gender and sexuality: SOGIE or SOGIESC; LGBT, LGBTQ+, LGBTQ, or LGBTTQQIAAP (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, pansexual). However, as our understanding of human sexuality evolves, we discover that we are not bound to this binary—the notion has always existed, we simply didn't have labels for it until now. In this brief explanation, we aim to provide the groundwork for how we interpret sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual characteristics (SOGIESC). Presentation title 58 Presentation title 59  Sexual orientation is linked to who a person emotionally, romantically, and sexually wants. Attraction can be directed toward someone of the same sex (homosexual), one of the two sexes—but not both—but not simultaneously (bisexual), or the opposing sex (heterosexual). Homosexual people can be lesbians, which means that someone who identifies as a woman falls in love with another woman, or homosexual, which means that someone who identifies as a male falls in love with another guy. A pansexual is someone who has emotional, romantic, and sexual feelings towards persons of any gender. Gender identity is frequently viewed as non-binary by them. The first three letters of the abbreviation LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual) represent a person's sexual orientation. T, or transgender, relates to a gender identity. Presentation title 60  The A in the LGBTQIA+ acronym stands for asexuality and aromanticism, however these are only two of the "a-spec" (asexual spectrum) identities on the spectrum. An asexual is someone who is not sexually attracted to anyone, but may or may not be romantically drawn to someone—in this sense, sexual attraction and romantic attraction may be separate. There's also gray-asexuality and gray-romanticism, which fall somewhere between asexual and sexual, or aromantic and romantic; demisexuality or demiromantic, which refers to people who don't experience primary attraction (first impression), but do experience secondary attraction (develops over time); and so on. Presentation title 61 Presentation title 62  Gender identity is a personal and psychological idea of self, as opposed to sexual traits, which are biological attributions. It all starts with how a person identifies: man, woman, neither/neither. When a person's gender identification matches the sex given at birth, that individual is referred to be cisgender, whereas a transgender person has non-alignment of gender identity and sex. Furthermore, a queer person identifies as neither male nor woman, or as both men and women—or, in other words, does not fit the binary concepts of being a man or a woman. Queer is also used as an umbrella word to encompass gender identities, gender expressions, and sexual orientations that differ from those of a cisgender heterosexual individual. Presentation title 63 Presentation title 64  Gender expression operates within a cultural framework, whereas sex is biological and gender identity is personal or psychological. It refers to a person's conduct, mannerisms, hobbies, and physical appearance as they relate to how a culture perceives categories of femininity or masculinity. Gender expression is best represented as a spectrum, with manly or masculine on one end, neutral or androgynous in the middle, and womanly or feminine on the other. A person who regularly wears a dress, for example, may have a feminine gender expression since society links dresses with femininity. Presentation title 65 Presentation title 66  Sexual characteristics, or sex, are biological qualities associated to a person's genitals and chromosomal sequences. When a baby is born, the first thing a doctor looks at is what's between their legs: the penis for males and the vagina for females. As a result, sex is frequently referred to as "sex assigned at birth," as determined by a medical practitioner and documented in an infant's Certificate of Live Birth. Chromosomes (XY for male and XX for female) and sex hormones (testosterone for male and estrogen for female) also play a part in establishing a person's gender. However, some newborns are born with sex traits that do not correspond to the binary concepts of male or female bodies: this is known as intersex. They may have both genitals, a sex hormone that does not correspond to their genitals, or both types of chromosomes in their body. Intersex has yet to be recognized as a genuine sex characteristic in legal forms, particularly in the Philippines. Presentation title 67 Presentation title 68 Presentation title 69 Presentation title 70  The Self as Embedded in Culture A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next. Culture is always dynamic and changing. The norms and standards of behavior in a society change through time. Time is an element of the changes in culture is a widely recognized fact. The evolution of culture is likely dependent on what the members of the organization values. Language is another aspect that influences the development if the self in the context of culture. You must know the language to participate in the culture. And to understand language also means to understand the cultural context. Presentation title 71  Cultural Diversity The concept of cultural relativism accentuates the idea that understanding the self is a process that involves knowing one’s culture instead of other unfamiliar cultures. Cultural relativism emphasizes that no culture is dominant over the other – just different. The most apparent between Western culture and Eastern culture is the degree to which individual needs and goals are preferred over the needs and goals of the group. Presentation title 72  Sikolohiyang Pilipino Virgilio G. Enriquez – the father of Sikolohiyang Pilipino. According to him, unlike the individualist culture of Western countries, the Filipino always acts in relation to “others”. The heart of Enriquez’ Sikolohiyang Pilipino is the Filipino understanding of Kapwa, the selves outside of the self. Kapwa has two categories: Ibang Tao and Hindi Ibang Tao. Presentation title 73  Kapwa Ibang Tao Hindi Ibang Tao Pakikitungo Pakikipagpalagayang-loob Pakikisalamuha Pakikisangkot Pakikilahok Pakikipagkaisa Pakikibagay Pakikisama Presentation title 74 Thank you!