UND_SELF.pdf

UND_SELF UNDERSTANDING THE SELF UST College of Information and Computing Sciences A.Y. 2024 - 2025, First Term...

UND_SELF UNDERSTANDING THE SELF UST College of Information and Computing Sciences A.Y. 2024 - 2025, First Term ○ “Our soul strives for wisdom UND_SELF: Understanding the Self and perfection” ○ Believes in Soul: Coverage: Soul is the capacity to Unit 1: The Self from Various Perspectives think and choose; essence of humans is to Lesson Transcript by: Nikki Grace Alcarde think and will Also, is the essence of Professor (Materials Utilized): the human person Asst Prof. Myreen P. Cleofe, PhD, RGC, RPSy, (thinking and willing). It LPT is the responsible agent in knowing and acting UNIT 1: The Self from Various Perspectives rightly and wrongly. PHILOSOPHY Socrates’ beliefs ★ “love of wisdom” We need to take good care of our soul/self to attain good life ★ The self in a philosophical paradigm ★ Consists of: Ancient Philosophy, The Life is geared towards good knowledge of Post-Aristotelians, Medieval good life Philosophy, Modern Philosophy, and Good life means being wise and virtuous Contemporary Philosophy. Good life is attained through the acquisition of knowledge, wisdom and ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY virtue We need to devote considerable amount of 1000 BC - 500 AD energy, attention and resources to making our soul as good and as beautiful as THE ANCIENT TRIUMVIRATE possible ★ SOCRATES ★ PLATO ○ “Know thy Self” ○ 3-Part Soul/self (Psyche) = ○ “An unexamined life is a life not REASON, PHYSICAL APPETITE worth living.” & SPIRIT/PASSION ○ Dualistic Reality: Body and Soul ○ Rational soul (located in the head) - intellect and free will UND_SELF: Understanding the Self 1  ○ Spiritual soul (located in the ○ The Stoics think that the only chest) - man is capable of thing we can effectively control happiness, anger and other is our mind and how it can emotions; perceive the world. ○ Appetitive soul (located in the ○ “It’s not the accident that abdomen) - part of the soul that distresses this person… It is the drives man to experience judgment which he makes physical pain, hunger, thirst and about it.” other physical wants ★ Hedonism ★ ARISTOTLE ○ “Eat, drink, and be happy. For ○ The mind (self) is a tabula rasa tomorrow, you will die.” (a blank tablet) ○ They believe that pleasure is the ○ Self is composed of matter and only good in life, and pain is the form only evil, and our life’s goal ○ The Process of Completion is should be to maximize pleasure through experiences and minimize pain. ○ Soul - form of the body which ○ Pleasure is the highest human allows activities such as value thinking, imagining, perceiving; ○ Pleasure or pain motivate us it is the principle of life that ○ You only live once. causes the body to live. ○ All livings beings have soul: ★ Epicureanism Vegetative soul - plants ○ Moderate Pleasure Sensitive soul - animals ○ Being content with the simple Rational soul - highest things in life ensures that you level of soul, present only will never be disappointed in man ○ Epicureanism is an ancient philosophical belief that THE POST-ARISTOTELIANS happiness comes from moderation, simplicity, ★ Stoicism friendship, and community. ○ Philosopher: Epictetus ○ It is an approach to life that ○ Apathy or indifference to stresses finding happiness pleasure through living simply. ○ Embracing Adversity ○ It is a philosophy designed to MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY make you more resilient, happier, more virtuous and ★ 500 AD - 1350 AD more wise-and as a result, better people, better parents, and THEO-CENTRIC better professionals. UND_SELF: Understanding the Self 2  ★ From the scientific investigation on around us (objects in our nature and search for happiness to the environment) question of life and salvation in ○ The labels we attribute to another realm, in a better world (i.e., ourselves are taken from the the afterlife) things we encounter in our ★ There was an aim to merge philosophy environment. and religion (Christian, Jewish, Muslim) ○ “The things that we love tell us what we are” ★ ST. AUGUSTINE ○ Integrates Platonic ideas with ST. THOMAS AQUINAS’ BELIEFS the tenets of Christianity ○ The self strives to achieve union Man is created in the image and likeness of with God through faith and God reason ○ He believes that humans were Purpose of man is to know and love God created in the image of God and Man is composed of body and soul that the essence of humanity lies in his soul Soul is the source of our free will which ○ Man is composed of body and allows us to make choices soul Body - mortal Human beings possess freedom Soul - immortal Freedom is necessary for living a virtuous life ST. AUGUSTINE’S BELIEFS Experiencing that something exists doesn’t The soul is the seat of reason, will, and tell us what it is emotion, human consciousness, and self-awareness Knowing and learning about a thing requires a long process of understanding; Human condition is brought about by same with the mind and the self - with original sin and the sinful nature of man experience and reason separates us from God. Moral and spiritual decay can be remedied by God’s grace. MODERN PHILOSOPHY Evil was the result of humanity’s free will ★ 14th Century - early 20th Century Man must be responsible for actions ANTHROPOCENTRIC ★ Human beings are the central or most ★ ST. THOMAS AQUINAS important element of experience ○ Self-knowledge is dependent on our experience of the world UND_SELF: Understanding the Self 3  ○ Thinkers began to reject the memories, emotions, scholastics’ (medieval thinkers) thoughts, sensations) excessive reliance on authority ○ Period of radical, social, political, ★ IMMANUEL KANT and intellectual developments. ○ The self is a unifying subject, an organizing consciousness that ★ RENE DESCARTES makes intelligible experience ○ The self is a thinking thing, possible. distinct from the body, ○ The self acts as a unifying ○ “I think therefore I am” principle: integrates and Body - material (physical) synthesizes experiences and Soul - immaterial different sensory information. (consciousness) ○ Self-recognition/awareness ★ Gilbert Ryle Thinking or reflecting on ○ The self is the way people one’s existence is what behave constitutes the self. ○ The self is a pattern of behavior, Existence in the moment, one’s dispositions, or tendency situation. to behave in certain ways ★ JOHN LOCKE ★ Pau & Patricia Churchland ○ Personal identity is made ○ The self is the brain. Mental possible by self-consciousness; states will be superseded by continuity of consciousness brain states. ○ Mind accumulates experiences ○ Thoughts, emotions, and which contributes to one’s experiences can be explained identity and understand through the ○ Consciousness and personal processes and activities of the reflection - helped in shaping brain (brain states) one self. ★ DAVID HUME CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY ○ There is no “self”, only a bundle of constantly changing ★ Late 19th Century perceptions passing through the theater of our minds. CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHERS ○ Knowledge is derived from sense of experience ★ EDMUND HUSSERL Denies the existence of ○ We experience our self as UNITY permanent, unchanging which the in MENTAL AND self PHYSICAL are seamlessly woven Self is a bundle of together perception (such as UND_SELF: Understanding the Self 4  ★ MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY ○ The self is embodied subjectivity EMBODIED SUBJECTIVITY ★ Both Husserl and Merleau-Ponty agree that our living body is a natural synthesis of mind and biology PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH ★ Describe the phenomena of the lived experience (reducing biases) by describing what your immediate responses are - physically, emotionally, cognitively. UND_SELF: Understanding the Self 5