Lesson 2: The Self According To Philosophy PDF

Lesson 2: The Self According To Philosophy By: Sir Daniel  Philosophy ► Philosophy is defined as the study of knowledge or wisdom from its Greek roots, philo (love) and sophia (wisdom). This field is also considered as “The Queen of All Sciences” b...

Lesson 2: The Self According To Philosophy By: Sir Daniel  Philosophy ► Philosophy is defined as the study of knowledge or wisdom from its Greek roots, philo (love) and sophia (wisdom). This field is also considered as “The Queen of All Sciences” because every scientific discipline has philosophical foundations. ► Various thinkers for centuries tried to explain the natural causes of everything that exist specifically the inquiry on the self preoccupied these philosophers in the history. The Greek philosophers were the ones who seriously questioned myths and moved away from them in attempting to understand reality by exercising the art of questioning that satisfies their curiosity, including the questions about self. Socrates ► Pre-Socratics, group of early Greek philosophers, most of whom were born before Socrates, whose attention to questions about the origin and nature of the physical world has led to their being called cosmologists or naturalists. ► Unlike the Pre-Socratics, Socrates was more concerned with another subject, the problem of the self. ► He was the first philosopher who ever engaged in systematic questioning about the self. ► To Socrates, and this has become his life-long mission, the true task of the philosopher is to know oneself. “The Unexamined life is not worth living.” ► Socratic Method - the method of inquiry and instruction consisting of a series of questionings the object of which is to elicit a clear and consistent expression of something supposed to be implicitly known by all rational beings. ► According to Socrates, self is dichotomous which means composed of two things: The physical realm or the one that is changeable, temporal, and imperfect. The best example of the physical realm is the physical world. The ideal realm is the one that is imperfect and unchanging, eternal, and immortal. This includes the intellectual essences of the universe like the concept of beauty, truth, and goodness. Moreover, the ideal realm is also present in the physical world. One may define someone as beautiful or truthful, but their definition is limited and imperfect for it is always relative and subjective. ► For Socrates, a human is composed of body and soul, the first belongs to the physical realm because it changed, it is imperfect, and it dies, and the latter belongs to ideal realm for it survives the death. ► The self, according to Socrates is the immortal and unified entity that is consistent over time. For example, a human being remains the same person during their childhood to adulthood given the fact that they undergone developmental changes throughout their lifespan. Plato Three components of the soul: ► The Reason enables human to think deeply, make wise choices and achieve a true understanding of eternal truths. Plato also called this as divine essence. ► The Appetite is the basic biological needs of human being such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire. ► And the Spirit is the basic emotions of human being such as love, anger, ambition, aggressiveness and empathy. These three elements of the self works in every individual inconsistently. According to Plato, it is always the responsibility of the reason to organize, control, and reestablish harmonious relationship between these three elements. Rene Descartes ► A French philosopher, mathematician, and considered the Father of Modern Philosophy. ► Descartes, famous principle the “cogito, ergo sum “I think, therefore I am” established his philosophical views on “true knowledge” and concept of self. ► He explained that in order to gain true knowledge, one must doubt everything even own existence. Doubting makes someone aware that they are thinking being thus, they exist. ► The essence of self is being a thinking thing. ► The self is a dynamic entity that engages in mental operations – thinking, reasoning, and perceiving processes. In addition to this, self-identity is dependent on the awareness in engaging with those mental operations. ► The Self then for Descartes is also a combination of two distinct entities, the cogito, the thing that thinks, which is the mind, and the extenza or extension of the mind which is the body. ► The body is nothing else but a machine that is attached to the mind. The human person has it but it is not what makes man a man. If at all, that is the mind. St. Augustine ► He is considered as the last of the great ancient philosophers whose ideas were greatly Platonic. In melding philosophy and religious beliefs together, Augustine has been characterized as Christianity’s first theologian. ► He concluded, “That the body is united with the soul, so that man may be entire and complete, is a fact we recognize on the evidence of our own nature.” ► According to St. Augustine, the human nature is composed of two realms: 1. God as the source of all reality and truth. Through mystical experience, man is capable of knowing eternal truths. This is made possible through the existence of the one eternal truth which is God. He further added that without God as the source of all truth, man could never understand eternal truth. This relationship with God means that those who know most about God will come closest to understanding the true nature of the world. 2. The sinfulness of man. The cause of sin or evil is an act of mans’ freewill. Moral goodness can only be achieved through the grace of God. He also stated that real happiness can only be found in God. For God is love and he created humans for them to also love. Problems arise because of the objects humans choose to love. Disordered love results when man loves the wrong things which he believes will give him happiness.