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UTS 200: Understanding the Self LECTURE 1: THE PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE MAAM FREJANEH TIMOGAN 1st SEMESTER | A.Y. 2022-2023 SELF - For him,...

UTS 200: Understanding the Self LECTURE 1: THE PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE MAAM FREJANEH TIMOGAN 1st SEMESTER | A.Y. 2022-2023 SELF - For him, there was soul first before - A unified being, essentially man's body. Man's existence was connected to consciousness, first in the realm of ideas and exists awareness, and agency as a soul or pure mind. This soul has knowledge by direct intuition, and all Philosophically, discussion of the self is a these are stored in his mind. basic search for meaning and purpose of life. - However, once he came to the Determination, rationalization, and material world or the world of identification of the self-set the direction senses, he forgot most of what he from which an individual travels to fulfill his knew. This resulted in lack of or her purpose in life. knowledge or ignorance which causes problems to man. The inability to define oneself leads to a lot of contradictions within the self later on; Dialectic Method / Socratic Method hence, it is one of the many imperatives in life to know oneself and to go on with the - Exchange of question and answer business of leading a life charted by oneself. that aims to make the person remember all the knowledge that he Socrates has forgotten, including his former omniscient self Know Thyself - Answers will always be subjective - Left no known writings, but his highly and there is no right or wrong answer regarded student, Plato, wrote to the questions; The quality and extensively about him. quantity of answers are dependent on the person answering. - Posited that if a person knows who he / she is, all basic issues and Self – knowledge difficulties in life will vanish and everything will be clearer and simpler - Means knowing one's degree of understanding about the world and - Argued that the ruler of the body is knowing one's capabilities and the soul; soul pre - existed the body, potentials. and it is what makes the body alive - It is only through self - knowledge Universe -> Our Existence in The Universe that oneself emerges. Therefore, the self emerges and not just discovered, "An unexamined life is not worth living." something to work on and not a product of a mere realization.  UTS 200: Understanding the Self LECTURE 1: THE PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE MAAM FREJANEH TIMOGAN 1st SEMESTER | A.Y. 2022-2023 Plato Augustine If we are ever to have pure knowledge of But my sin was this, that I looked for anything, we must get rid of the body and pleasure, beauty, and truth not in Him but in contemplate things by themselves with the myself and his other creatures, and the soul by itself. search led me instead to pain, confusion, and error. - one of the first philosophers who believed in an enduring self that is - According to him, our world (world of represented by the soul materials) is not our final home but just a temporary home where we are - argued that the soul is eternal and just passing through. constitutes the enduring self, because even after death , the soul - Our real world is where there is continues to exist permanence and infinity - that's the world where God is. Ideal World / World of Forms - Time is something that people - permanent, unchanging reality as opposed measure within their own memory. to the world of Materials which keeps on Time is not a feature or property of changing. the world, but a property of the - Soul mind. Material World He believed that the times present of things past, present, and future coexist in the soul: - what we see around us; replica of the real world found in the world of Forms. the time present of things past is - Body memory The body is seen as some sort of a the time present of things present is prison. We can free ourselves from the experience imprisonment of our bodily senses though contemplation. the time present of things future is expectation We continue to exist even in the absence of our bodies because we are Souls only. - He emphasized that the memory of the past is significant in anticipation of the future and presence if the present. However, time past and time future are not real in  UTS 200: Understanding the Self LECTURE 1: THE PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE MAAM FREJANEH TIMOGAN 1st SEMESTER | A.Y. 2022-2023 themselves, but they are only real as whole essence or nature is merely long as they exist in the mind or thinking “. It is nothing else but a consciousness. mind - body dichotomy. Thought (mind) always precedes action - The existence of past and future is (body). Humans think first about only possible through memory and doing something and then do it. expectation. He argued that as far as consciousness can be extended John Locke backward to any past action or forward to actions to come, it What worries you, masters you. determines the identity of the person. - believed that consciousness is the perception of what passes in a man's Rene Descartes mind. - rejected that brain has something to I think, therefore; I am. do with consciousness as the brain , as well as the body may change , - The mind and the body are separate while consciousness remains the and very distinct from one another, same. but he believes that the mind is - concluded that personal identity is conjoined with the body in such an not in the brain but in one's intimate way that they casually act consciousness. upon each other. tabula rasa - The body can be described in a precise, structured manner, but the - posits that everyone started as a mind is not contained like that, and blank slate, and the content is it's allowed to pursue its own provided one's experiences over thoughts. time. - One can always doubt about the David Hume certainty of things but the very fact that one doubts is something that Reason is and ought only to be the slave of cannot be doubted. This is what " I the passions and can never pretend to any think, therefore I am "means. other office than to serve and obey them. Whichever thought a person chooses is the one that is carried over his / her - stressed that there is no stable thing “I am. " called self, for the self is nothing but a complex set of successive - Descartes believed that the self is a " impressions or perceptions thinking thing, or a substance whose  UTS 200: Understanding the Self LECTURE 1: THE PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE MAAM FREJANEH TIMOGAN 1st SEMESTER | A.Y. 2022-2023 - views the soul as a product of - argues that for us to know our duty , imagination; there is no primordial we have to rationally deliberate on it substance that houses the self; any and not expect a higher authority will concept of the self is simply memory hand it automatically to us, and and imagination certainly we cannot let the arbitrariness of emotion guide us. - rejected the idea that personal identity is reflected by the Consciousness is formed by the following association of the self with an senses: enduring body. Inner Sense The mind is divided into two: - comprised of one's psychological state and intellect IMPRESSIONS - things we perceive - moods, feelings, sensations , etc. through our senses as we experience - empirical self – consciousness them Outer Sense IDEAS - things that we create in our - consists of one's senses and the minds even though we are no longer physical world experiencing them - transcendental apperception (allows the self and the world to - Whenever we think of simple ideas, it come together) must have, as a basis, a simple impression. Complex ideas happen Sigmund Freud when we combine simple ideas by arranging and rearranging them. The ego is not he master in its own house. Immanuel Kant - Devised a structure that defines man according to his biological structure All our knowledge begins with senses, and the influence of his socio-cultural proceeds then to the understanding, and environment. ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason. Tripartite Division of the Man’s Mind: - believes that man is a free agent, ID – pleasure principle; represents capable of making a decision for man’s biological nature, the impulses himself; man is gifted with reason and bodily desires. and free will but necessity of his being free is tested in his decision to EGO – reality principle; its role is to be moral. maintain equilibrium between the demands of id and superego in  UTS 200: Understanding the Self LECTURE 1: THE PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE MAAM FREJANEH TIMOGAN 1st SEMESTER | A.Y. 2022-2023 accordance with what is best and Eliminative Materialism practical in reality. - A radical claim that ordinary, SUPEREGO – morality principle; common sense understanding of the represents the ethical component of mind is deeply wrong and that some the personality and provided moral or all the mental states posited by standards by which the ego operates. common sense do not actually exist. Gilbert Ryle - Therefore, the self is contained entirely in the physical brain. I act, therefore I am Maurice Marleau-Ponty - Maintained that the mind is not separate from the body; it consists of I am my body. dispositions of people based on what they know, what they feel, what they - Approaches the idea of self as a want, etc. continuous flow of movement and expression from infancy to - Supported the basic notions of adulthood. Our perception of who behavioristic psychology; states that we are is strictly tied to our own mental concepts can be understood bodily development. through observable events. - Believed that mind and body are Paul Churchland essentially correlated and is not possible to understand subjectivity We do have an organ for understanding and without taking into account this recognizing moral facts. It is called a brain. essential correlation. - Stressed that it is false to claim that The body is distinguished into two types: folk psychology, or common-sense psychology, is the capacity to explain Subjective body – as lived and mental states of people. experienced. - Argues that talk of mental states Objective Body – as observed and would eventually be abandoned in scientifically investigated. favor or a radically different view of how the brain works not identified with mental states.