GED 101: Understanding the Self Notes PDF

GED 101 / UNDERSTANDING THE SELF **WEEK 1** Understanding oneself is essential to understand behaviors and beliefs that affects ourselves and others, specifically in becoming effective and successful person in life, work and relationship. Self-understanding provides: 1. Provides a sense of purp...

GED 101 / UNDERSTANDING THE SELF **WEEK 1** Understanding oneself is essential to understand behaviors and beliefs that affects ourselves and others, specifically in becoming effective and successful person in life, work and relationship. Self-understanding provides: 1. Provides a sense of purpose; 2. Leads to a healthier relationship; 3. Helps harness your natural strength; 4. Promotes confidence. **Personality /** pagkatao - **"persona" "per" "sonare" -- to sound through.** - Have no single definition but according to **Roberts and Mroczek, 2008)** personality is a relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to a person's behavior. - Plays a key role in affecting how people shape their life, relationship of people with their environment, cope and adjust through life, how they respond to demands of physical and social challenges. - Overall pattern of integration of person's structure, modes of behavior, attitudes, aptitudes, interests, intellectual abilities and etc. - Total person in his/her overt and covert behavior. - Components of Personality: - Physical self - Intelligence - Character traits - Attitudes - Habits - Interest - Personal discipline - Moral values - Principles and philosophies of life. **Determinants of Personality / 4 Factors of Personality** 1. Environmental factors of personality -- surroundings of an individual. 2. Biological factors of personality -- a. Heredity factors -- inherited from their parents. b. Physical features -- physical structure of a person. c. Brain -- preliminary results from the electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB). 3. Situational factors of personality -- person's behavior and response from time to time. 4. Cultural factors of personality -- beliefs, values and techniques. Traditionally considered as the major determinants of an individual personality. **Personality traits** - Reflect people's characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviors. **THE FIVE-FACTOR MODEL OF PERSONALITY / THE BIG FIVE (OCEAN)** Goldberg, 1990; McCrae & John, 1992; McCrae & Costa, 1987) **O --** openness / new ideas / open minded / close minded **C --** conscientiousness / organize / careful **E --** extraversion / talkative / sociable / perfectionist / extrovert **A --** agreeableness / go with the flow / people pleaser / manipulator **N --** neuroticism / negative emotions / calm / unemotional Neurotic -- emotions sensitive **Self-concept --** understanding of who you are as a person. - Tends to be more malleable when people are younger and still going through the process of self-discovery and identity information. - Collection of beliefs one holds about oneself and the responses of others. **Self-understanding --** understanding what your motives are when you act. As people age, self-perception becomes much more detailed and organized as people form a better idea of who they are and what is important to them. According to the book *Essential Social Psychology* by Richard Crisp and Rhiannon Turner: - Individual self consists of attributes and personality traits that differentiate us from other individuals. (introvert, extrovert) - Relational self is defined by our relationships with significant others. (friends, siblings) - The collective self reflects our membership in social groups. (gay) **WEEK 2: THE SELF ACCORDING TO PHILOSOPHY** **Philosophy** is defined as the study of knowledge or wisdom from its Latin roots, **philo** (love) and **Sophia** (wisdom). This field is also considered as "**The Queen of all Sciences**" because every scientific discipline has philosophical foundations. **SOCRATES** - A philosopher from Athens, Greece and said to have the greatest influence on European thought. - He was not able to write any of his teachings and life's account instead, he is known from the writings of his student Plato. - Socrates had a unique style of asking questions called **Socratic Method or Dialectic Method"** which involves the search for the correct/proper definition of a thing. - **"Know Thyself"** -- Socrates would like to emphasize that knowing or understanding oneself should be more than the physical self, or the body. - **Self is dichotomous** which means composed of two things: 1. the **physical realm** or the one that is changeable, temporal, and imperfect. Ex**.** Physical world (sense) 2. The **ideal realm** is the one that is imperfect and unchanging, eternal and immortal. Ex. Intellectual essences of the universe like beauty, truth and goodness. - 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 the ideal realm for it survives the death. - The self, according to Socrates is the immortal and unified entity that is consistent over time. - The body belongs to the physical realm and the soul belongs to the ideal realm. **PLATO** - A student of Socrates, who introduced the idea of three-part soul/self that is composed of reason, physical appetite and spirit or passion. 1. **Reason --** enables human to think deeply, make wise choices and achieve a true understanding of eternal truths. Plato also called this as **Divine essence.** 2. **Physical Appetite --** is the basic biological needs of human being such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire. 3. **Spirit or passion --** is the basic emotions of human being such as love, anger, ambition, aggressiveness and empathy. - According to Plato, it is always the responsibility of the reason to organize, control, and reestablish harmonious relationship between these three elements. - "**Phaedrus" --** the soul is like a winged chariot drawn by two powerful horses: a **white horse, representing Spirit, and a black horse, embodying appetite.** - The **charioteer is reason,** whose task is to guide the chariot to the eternal realm by controlling the independent-minded horses. - Those charioteers who are unable to control their horses and keep their chariot on track are destined to experience personal, intellectual and spiritual failure. **ST. AUGUSTINE** - He is characterized as Christianity's first theologian. He is considered as the last of the great ancient philosophers whose ideas were greatly platonic. - Augustine believed that the physical body is different from the immortal soul. - He described **body as "snare" or "cape" of the soul** and said that the body is like a "**slave"** of the soul he even characterized that "**the soul makes war with the body".** Later on he came to view the body as "**spouse"** of the soul, with both attached to one another by a **"natural appetite".** He concluded, "**That the body is united with 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 reality and truth. 2. The sinfulness of man. - He also stated that real happiness can only be found in God. **RENE DESCARTES** - A French philosopher, mathematician, and considered the founder of modern philosophy. - Famous principle: **the "cogito, ergo sum--- I think, therefore I exist"** established his philosophical views on "**true knowledge"** and the concept of self. - He explained that to gain true knowledge, one must doubt everything even own existence. - The essence of existing as a human identity is the possibility of being aware of our selves: being self-conscious in this way is integral to having a personality identity. The essence of self is being a thinking thing. - The self is 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 thinking self or soul is a non-material, immortal, conscious being, independent of the physical laws of the universe while the physical body is a material, mortal, non-thinking entity, fully governed by the physical laws of nature. - If people are sleeping or comatose, their bodies continue to function even though their minds are not thinking, much like the mechanisms of a clock. - Physical self as part of nature, governed by the physical laws of the universe, and the conscious self (mind, soul) is a part of spiritual realm**.** **JOHN LOCKE** - An English philosopher and physician and famous in his concept of **"Tabula Rusa"** or **Blank State** that assumes the nurture side of human development. - The self, according to Locke is consciousness. - His essay called On Personal Identity **(**Essay Concerning Human Understanding). He provided the following key points: 1. To discover the nature of personal identity, it is important to find out what is means to be a person. 2. A person is a thinking, intelligent being who has the abilities to reason and to reflect. 3. A person is also someone who considers themselves to be the same thing in different times and different places. 4. Consciousness as being aware that we are thinking---always accompanies thinking and is an essential part of the thinking process. 5. Consciousness makes possible our beliefs that we are the same identity in different times and different places. - For Locke, personal identity and the soul is substance in which the personal identity is situated are two very different things. - The bottom line of his theory on self is that self is not tied to any particular body or substance. It only exists in other times and places because of the memory of those experiences. **DAVID HUME** - He was a Scottish philosopher and also an empiricist. - His claims about self is quiet controversial because he assumed that there is no self. - His essay entitled "On Personal Identity" (1973) he said that, if we carefully examine the contents of \[our\] experience, we find that there are only two distinct entities, **"impressions" and "ideas".** 1. **Impressions** are the basic sensations of our experience, the elemental data of our minds: plain, pleasure, heat, cold, happiness, grief, fear, exhilaration, and so on. 2. **Ideas** are copies of impressions that include thoughts and images that are built up from our primary impressions through a variety of relationships, but because they are derivative copies of impressions, they are once removed from reality. - Hume considered that the self does not exist because all of the experiences that a person may have are just perceptions and this includes the perceptions of self. - "Fictional self" is created to unify the mental events and introduce order into an individual life, but this "self" has no real existence. **SIGMUND FREUD** - A well-known Australian psychologist and considered as the Father and Founder of Psychoanalysis. - The dualistic view of self by Freud involves the **conscious self and unconscious self.** - The **conscious self** is governed by reality principle. The self is rational, practical, and appropriate. Has the task of controlling the constant pressures of the unconscious self, as its primitive impulses continually seek of immediate discharge. - The **unconscious self** is governed by pleasure principle. It is the self that is aggressive, destructive, unrealistic and instinctual. - He proposed how mind works, he called this as provinces or **structure of the mind.** - The three levels of the mind are: 1. **Id.** This is primarily based on the pleasure principle. It demands immediate satisfaction and is not hindered by societal expectations. 2. **Ego.** The structure that is primarily based on the reality principle. This mediates between the impulses of the id and restraints of the superego. 3. **Superego.** This is primarily dependent on learning the difference between right and wrong, thus it is called moral principle. - There are two kinds of instincts that drive individual behavior: 1. **Eros** or the life of instinct. The energy of eros is called **libido** and includes urges necessary for individual and species survival like thirst, hunger, and sex. 2. **Thanatos** of the death instinct. In cases that human behavior is directed towards destruction in the form of aggression and violence, such are the manifestation of Thanatos. **GILBERT RYLE** - A British analytical philosopher. - According to him, the self is best understood as a pattern of behavior, the tendency or disposition for a person to behave in a certain way in certain circumstances. **IMMANUEL KANT** - A German Philosopher who made great contribution to the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. - According to him, it is the self that makes consciousness for the person to make sense of everything. It is the one that help every individual gain insight and knowledge. - Kant's self is not the object of consciousness, but it makes the consciousness understandable and unique. - Kant emphasized that people should always see duty as a divine command (Prince, 2000). **PAUL AND PATRICIA CHURCHLAND** - An American philosopher interested in the fields of philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, cognitive neurobiology, epistemology, and perception. - Selves-using such terms as belief, desire, fear, sensation, pain, joy actually misrepresent the reality of minds and selves. He claimed that the self is a product of brain activity. - Patricia Churchland claimed that man's brain is responsible for the identity known as self. - The biochemical properties of the brain according to this philosophy of neuroscience are really responsible for man's thoughts, feelings, and behavior. **MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY** - A French philosopher and phenomenologist. - According to him, the division between the "mind" and the "body" is a product of confused thinking. - Developed the concept of self-subject and contended that perceptions occur existentially. Thus, the consciousness, the world, and the human body are all interconnected as they mutually perceive the world.