Lesson 1: The Self According to the Philosophers PDF

**Lesson 1** **The Self According to the Philosophers** **Learning Outcomes**: At the end of this lesson, you are expected to: 1. Examine one's self as presented from the different views of the philosophers and 2. Formulate a better understanding of the self. **Time Frame: 3 hours** **I...

**Lesson 1** **The Self According to the Philosophers** **Learning Outcomes**: At the end of this lesson, you are expected to: 1. Examine one's self as presented from the different views of the philosophers and 2. Formulate a better understanding of the self. **Time Frame: 3 hours** **Introduction** This lesson talks about the idea of the self from various thoughts of the philosophers across all periods. It is encouraged that we can describe and discuss the different notions of the self from different points-of-view as well as compare and contrast same so as to better understand the deep rooted meaning of the self or perhaps a holistic definition of the self as read, experienced, and encountered. This lesson allots 3 hours for it is believe that knowing and being familiar with some philosophers would take a while and sometimes being engrossed by their thoughts are inevitable. **Abstraction** Let's find out how the philosophers define or describe self during the early and modern times. They are the prime movers on the different views of the self*.* I. **Socrates** a. Some of his ideas are: i. The soul is immortal ii. The care of the soul is the task of philosophy iii. Virtue is necessary to attain happiness b. He believed that philosophy has a very important role to play in the lives of the people. His most quoted phrase is *"the unexamined life is not worth living."* He said that: self-knowledge or the examination of one's self, as well as the question about how one ought to live one's life, are very important concerns because only by knowing yourself can you hope to improve your life. One should consciously contemplate, turn your gaze inward, and analyse the true nature and values that are guiding in life. Self-knowledge would open your eyes to your true nature. Your real self is not even your body. The state of your inner being determines the quality of your life. c. Socrates said existence is of two kinds: iv. Visible- it changes; this is the state of human being; seen by the naked eye like the body. v. Invisible- constant; the mind; the soul d. The goal of life is to be happy. How does one become happy? A virtuous man is a happy man. Virtue is defined as moral excellence, and an individual is considered virtuous if his/her character is made up of the moral qualities that are accepted as virtues, i.e. courage, temperance, prudence, and justice. e. Death, for Socrates is a trivial matter for the truly virtuous has realized that the most important thing in life is the state of his/her soul and the acts taken from taking care of the soul through self-knowledge. II. **Plato** f. The *"soul"* according to him is the most divine aspect of the human being. His concept of divine is not a spiritual being but rather one that has an intellectual connotation. g. The three parts of the soul: vi. The appetitive (sensual) -- enjoys sexual experiences like food, drink and sex. vii. The rational (reasoning) -- use of reason viii. The spirited (feeling)- understands the demands of passion; loves honor and victory. III. **St. Augustine** h. The aspects of the soul/ soul according to St. Augustine are: ix. It is able to be aware of itself x. It recognizes itself as a holistic one xi. It is aware of its unity i. St Augustine espoused the following contentions: xii. Human beings through the senses could sense the material, temporal objects as we interacted with the material world; xiii. The immaterial but intelligible God would only be clear or obvious to the mind if one tune into his/her immaterial self/soul; xiv. Human beings who is both soul and body is meant to tend to higher, divine and heavenly matters; xv. A person is similar to God as regards to the mind and its ability IV. **Rene Descartes** j. Rene Descartes made these significant contributions: xvi. Doubt is a principal tool for disciplined inquiry; this method is called hyperbolical/metaphysical doubt/ or methodological scepticism. A systematic process of being sceptical about the truth of one's belief in order to determine which beliefs could be ascertained as true. xvii. Known for his famous line of "Cogito ergo sum" -- I think, therefore, I am. He asserted that everything perceived by the senses could not be used as proof of existence because human senses could be fooled. Doubting once existence can be done so that a thinking entity is there and doing the act of doubting. xviii. His claims about the self are- constant, not prone to change and not affected by time; only the immaterial soul is the source of our identity. Table 1. *Some distinctions between the soul and the body as described by Descartes* The Soul The Body ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- It is a conscious, thinking substance that is unaffected by time It is a material substance that changes over time It is known only to self (only you know you own mental event and others cannot correct your mental states It can be doubted; the public can correct claims about the body It is not made up of parts. Its views the entirely of itself with no hidden or separate compartments. It is both conscious and aware of itself at the same time It is made up of physical, quantifiable divisible parts V. **John Locke** k. Locke expanded the definition of the "self" to include the memories of that thinking thing. He believed that the "self" is identified with consciousness and this "self" consists of sameness and consciousness. l. His contentions are: xix. The self consists of memory xx. The person existing now is the same person yesterday for he/she remember the thoughts, experiences or actions of the earlier self xxi. A person's memories provide a continuity of experience that allows him/her to identify the same person over time. xxii. The person can be held accountable for past behaviors for as long as he/she can remember xxiii. Punishing behaviors one had no recollection of doing is equivalent to punishing the person for actions that was never performed. xxiv. A person who cannot remember as the same as that of a person who never committed the act which means the person is ignorant. VI. **David Hume** m. To David Hume, the self is nothing else but a bundle of impressions. He categorizes it into two -- impressions and ideas. Impressions are the basic objects of our experience or sensation. They form the core of our thoughts. Impressions are vivid because they are products of our direct experience with the world. Ideas are copies of impressions. n. Self, per Hume is simply "a bundle of collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement." VII. **Immanuel Kant** o. Two kinds of consciousness of self (rationality): xxv. Consciousness of oneself and one's psychological states in inner sense, and; xxvi. Consciousness of oneself and one's states by performing acts of apperception. (Apperception is the mental process by which a person makes sense of an idea by assimilating it to the body of ideas one already possesses). p. Two components of the "self": xxvii. Inner self- The "self" by which you are aware of alternations in your own state, xxviii. Outer self- It includes your senses and the physical world. q. He also proposed that the "self" organizes information in three ways: xxix. Raw perceptual input, xxx. Recognizing the concept, and xxxi. Reproducing in the imagination. VIII. **Sigmund Freud** r. Three levels of consciousness: xxxii. Conscious which deals with awareness of present perceptions, feelings, thoughts, memories, and fantasies at any particular moment; xxxiii. Pre-conscious/subconscious which is related to data that can readily be brought to consciousness, and; xxxiv. Unconscious which refers to data retained but not easily available to the individual's conscious awareness or scrutiny. s. He also proposed existence of unconsciousness: xxxv. A repository for traumatic repressed memories; and xxxvi. The source of anxiety-provoking drives that is socially or ethically unacceptable to the individual. t. He also structured the mind/ psyche intro 3 parts: xxxvii. Id- operating on pleasure principle; if unpleasurable, there is tension xxxviii. Ego- operating on reality principle; if it fails, anxiety is experienced xxxix. Superego- it incorporates the values and morals of society; controls the Id impulses; persuades the ego to choose moralistic goals and strive for perfection rather than simply realistic ones. u. Two systems of the Superego: xl. Conscience- if the ego gives in to the Id's demands, the superego may make the person feel bad through guilt. xli. Ideal Self- an imaginary picture of how you ought to be. It represents career aspirations; how to treat other people; and how to behave as a member of society. v. These are all products of the Psychoanalytic Theory of Freud. Where a personality theory is based on the notion that an individual gets motivated by unseen forces, controlled by the conscious and rational thought. IX. **Gilbert Ryle** X. **Paul Churchland** w. His idea is called eliminative materialism or the claim that people's common sense understanding of the mind is false, and that certain classes of mental states which most people believe in do not exist. XI. **Maurice Merleau-Ponty** x. The body and mind are so intertwined that they cannot be separated from one another. y. He dismissed the Cartesian Dualism that has spelled so much devastation in the history of man. To him, the Cartesian problem is nothing else but plain misunderstanding. The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and experiences are all one. **Application** Who Believed? 1. He believed that the most important thing in life is the state of an individual's soul. 2. He believed that human being is both a soul and body. 3. He asserted that "self" does not exist; instead, he stressed that perceptions are only active for as long as an individual is conscious. 4. He proposed for the existence of the unconscious. 5. He believed that there are parts of the soul, namely, appetitive, rational, and spirited. 6. He claimed that human knowledge is derived from experience. 7. He believed that self is not in the body, and he stressed that the body and its qualities are rooted to the self 8. He viewed that the immaterial soul does not exist because it cannot be experienced by the senses. 9. He believed that an individuals' actions define his/her own concept of the self. 10. He asserted that the soul is distinct from the body. **Closure** Congratulations you made it. There might still be some confusion in the mind but nonetheless a clear distinction is made. Some further readings are also made available to deeper our understanding and widen our perspectives of the self from the different philosophers. We are now ready to proceed to Lesson 2. As we embrace our concept of self and identity, there are other factors that define us. This is the whole idea of Lesson 2.