The Self From Various Philosophical Perspectives - Cavite State University

THE SELF FROM VARIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES Prepared by: Krizia E. Casaba, RPm Reference: Gazzingan, L. B. et al., (2018). Understanding The Self.  1. discuss the different representations and conceptualizations...

THE SELF FROM VARIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES Prepared by: Krizia E. Casaba, RPm Reference: Gazzingan, L. B. et al., (2018). Understanding The Self.  1. discuss the different representations and conceptualizations of self from various disciplinal perspective; 2. compare and contrast how the self has been LEARNING represented across different disciplines and perspectives; OBJECTIVES 3. examine the different influences, factors and forces that shape the self; and At the end of the lesson, you should be able to: 4. demonstrate critical and reflective thought in analyzing the development of one’s self and identity by developing a theory of the self.  Greeks – chose to seek natural explanations to events and phenomena around him instead of seeking for supernatural explanations from the gods as what was passed down through the generations. SOCRATES  “THE SOCRATIC METHOD” He was the first In using this method, the philosopher who ever questioner should be skilled at detecting misconceptions engage in a systematic and at revealing them questioning about by asking the right the self. questions. “KNOW THYSELF”  When the Delphi Oracle named Socrates the wisest of all men, he became confused. “All I know is that I know nothing.” PLATO  Student of Socrates. Socrates did not write anything but Plato wrote more than twenty dialogues with Socrates as protagonist in most of them.  REASON In addition, he added that there are three SPIRITED components of the soul. APPETITES  Rational and is the motivation for goodness REASON and truth.  Non-rational and is the will or the drive toward action. SPIRITED SOUL “Neutral”  Irrational and lean towards the desire for pleasures APPETITIVE of the SOUL body.  In his magnum opus, “The Republic” he emphasized that justice in the human person can only be attained if the 3 parts of the soul are working “Allegory harmoniously of the Cave” with one another.  1. Love is the force that paves the way for all beings to ascend to higher stages of self-realization and perfection. 2. Love begins with a feeling or experience that What is there is something lacking. 3. Love is the way of knowing and realizing the Love? truth. 4. The greater the love, the more intellectual component it will contain. 5. To love the highest is to become the best. St. augustine  Initially rejected Christianity for it seemed to him then that Christianity could not provide him answers to “Real questions that happiness can interested him. only be found in God.”  God as the 1 source of all reality and truth. St. Augustine’s View of Human Nature The sinfulness 2 of man.  1. Love of physical objects leads to the sin of greed. 2. Love for other people is not lasting and excessive The role love for them is the sin of jealousy. of Love 3. Love for the self leads to the sin of pride. 4. Love for God is the supreme virtue and only through loving God can man find real happiness. Rene descartes  Father of Modern Philosophy He conceived of the human person having a body and “mind and mind. body dualism”  INTUITION Through Math, he discovered that the human mind has two powers: DEDUCTION  The ability to apprehend direction of certain INTUITION truths.  The power to discover what is known by progressing in an orderly way from what is DEDUCTION already known.  He thought The that the only Meditations thing that one of First Philosophy cannot doubt is the existence of “Cogito ergo sum” the self… “I think therefore I am.” In Descartes’ view, the body is nothing else but a machine that is attached to the mind. The Mind-Body Problem JOHN LOCKE  SENSATION Locke believed that knowledge results from ideas produced a “posteriori” or by objects that were experienced. REFLECTION  Objects are experienced through senses. SENSATION  The mind “looks” at the objects that were experienced to discover relationships that may exists between REFLECTION them.  LAW OF OPINION Three Laws according to CIVIL LAW Locke DIVINE LAW  Where actions that are praiseworthy are called ‘virtues’ and LAW OF those that are OPINION not are called ‘vice.’  Where right actions are enforced by people in CIVIL LAW authority.  Set by God on the actions of man. Eternally true and the one law DIVINE LAW that man should always follow. DAVID HUME  An empiricist who believes that one can only know He lost his faith. what comes from After reading the the senses and philosophy of experiences. Locke, he never again entertained any belief in religion.  Empiricism The school of thought that espouses the idea that knowledge can only be possible if it is sensed or experienced. Men can only attain knowledge by experiencing.  IMPRESSIONS To Hume, the mind receives materials from the senses and calls it ‘perceptions’ IDEAS  Immediate sensations of external reality. These are more vivid than the ideas it produces. When one touches an ice IMPRESSIONS cube, the cold sensation is an expression.  When one imagines the feeling of being in love for the first time, that still is an idea. IDEAS Recollections of these impressions. Immanuel kant  Contrary to what the Time and space, for example, are ideas that empiricists believed; one cannot find in the Kant argued that the mind is world, but is built in our not just a passive receiver of mind. sense experience but rather actively participating in knowing the objects it experiences. “Transcendental Apperception”  Without the self, one Along cannot organize the with the different impressions that one gets in relation different to his existence. apparatuses of the mind goes the It is also the seat of knowledge “self” acquisition for all human persons. SIGMUND FREUD  To Freud, people are motivated to seek pleasure and to reduce tension and anxiety. ▪ PROVINCES OF THE MIND Has no morality; it cannot make value It demands judgments or immediate distinguish between good and evil. satisfaction and is not hindered by societal “Pleasure expectations. ID Principle” ▪ PROVINCES OF THE MIND Becomes the Mediates decision-making or executive branch of between the personality. impulses of the id and the restraints of the “Reality superego. EGO Principle” ▪ PROVINCES OF THE MIND Represents the The last structure moral and ideal to develop and is aspects of personality. primarily dependent on learning the difference between SUPER “Moralistic right and wrong. EGO Principle” GILBERT RYLE  He solved the mind-body dichotomy that has been running for a For Ryle, what truly matters is the behavior long time in the that a person manifests history of thought. in his day-to-day life.  Ryle suggests that the “self” is not an entity one can locate and analyze but simply the convenient name that people use to refer to all the behaviors that people make. PATRICIA AND PAUL CHURCHLAND  Man’s brain is responsible for the identity known as the self. The biochemical properties of the brain according to this philosophy of neuroscience is really responsible for man’s “Neurophilosophy” thoughts, feelings and behavior. MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY  He asserted that mind and body Says that mind bifurcation is a and body are so futile endeavor and an invalid intertwined that problem. they cannot be separated from one another.  One cannot find any experience that is not an embodied experience. One’s body is his opening toward his existence to the world. TO A NEW CHAPTER.