Understanding the Self: Philosophy PDF

Understanding the Self LESSON 2  The Self according to Philosophy LESSON 2  Defining 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...

Understanding the Self LESSON 2  The Self according to Philosophy LESSON 2  Defining 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.  Defining PHILOSOPHY Various thinkers for centuries tried to explain the natural causes of everything that exist specifically the inquiry on the self preoccupied [these philosophers] in the history. The Greek philosophers were the ones who seriously questioned myths and moved away from them in attempting to understand reality by exercising the art of questioning that satisfies their curiosity, including the questions about self.  Socrates A philosopher from Athens, Greece and said to have the greatest influence on European thought.  According to the history 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 who became one of the greatest philosophers of his time. Socrates had a unique style of asking questions called Socratic Method.  Socrates The foundation of Socrates philosophy was the Delphic Oracle’s that command to “Know Thyself”. Here, Socrates would like to emphasize that knowing or understanding oneself should be more than the physical self, or the body. Socrates According to Socrates, self is dichotomous which means composed of two things: The physical realm or the one that is changeable, temporal, and imperfect. The best example of the physical realm is the physical world. The physical world is consisting of anything we sense; see, smell, feel, hear, and taste. It is always changing and deteriorating. The ideal realm is the one that is imperfect and unchanging, eternal, and immortal. This includes the intellectual essences of the universe like the concept of beauty, truth, and goodness. Moreover, the ideal realm is also present in the physical world. One may define someone as beautiful or truthful, but their definition is limited and imperfect for it is always relative and subjective. It is only the ideal forms themselves that are perfect, unchanging, and eternal. Socrates 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 ideal realm for it survives the death. Socrates also used the term soul to identify self. The self, according to Socrates is the immortal and unified entity that is consistent over time. For example, a human being remains the same person during their childhood to adulthood given the fact that they undergone developmental changes throughout their lifespan.  Plato A student of Socrates, who introduced the idea of a three-part soul/self that is composed of reason, physical appetite and spirit or passion.  Plato The Reason enables human to think deeply, make wise choices and achieve a true understanding of eternal truths. Plato also called this as divine essence. The Physical Appetite is the basic biological needs of human being such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire. And the spirit or passion is the basic emotions of human being such as love, anger, ambition, aggressiveness and empathy.  Plato Plato also illustrated his view of the soul/self in “Phaedrus” in his metaphor: 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 two independent-minded horses.  St. Augustine He is considered as the last of the great ancient philosophers whose ideas were greatly Platonic. In melding philosophy and religious beliefs together, Augustine has been characterized as Christianity’s first theologian.  St. Augustine Augustine believed that the physical body is different from the immortal soul. Early in his philosophical development he described body as “snare” or “cage” of the soul and said that the body is 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”. According to St. Augustine, the human nature is composed of two realms: 1. God as the source of all reality and truth. Through mystical experience, man is capable of knowing eternal truths. This is made possible through the existence of the one eternal truth which is God. He further added that without God as the source of all truth, man could never understand eternal truth. 2. The sinfulness of man. The cause of sin or evil is an act of mans’ freewill. Moral goodness can only be achieved through the grace of God.  St. Augustine He also stated that real happiness can only be found in God. For God is love and he created humans for them to also love. Problems arise because of the objects humans choose to love. Disordered love results when man loves the wrong things which he believes will give him happiness. Furthermore, he said that if man loves God first and everything else to a lesser degree, then all will fall into its rightful place.  Rene Descartes A French philosopher, mathematician, and considered the founder of modern philosophy.  Descartes, famous principle the “cogito, ergo sum”, “I think, therefore I exist” established his philosophical views on true knowledge and concept of self.  Rene Descartes He explained that in order to gain true knowledge, one must doubt everything even own existence. Doubting makes someone aware that they are thinking being thus, they exist. 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 personal identity. The essence of self is being a thinking thing.  Rene Descartes He declared that the essential self or the self as the thinking entity is radically different from the physical body. 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.  John Locke An English philosopher and physician and famous in his concept of “Tabula Rasa” or Blank Slate that assumes the nurture side of human development.  John Locke An English philosopher and physician and famous in his concept of “Tabula Rasa” or Blank Slate that assumes the nurture side of human development.  1. To discover the nature of personal identity, it is important to find out what it means to be The self, according to Locke a person. is consciousness. In his essay 2. A person is a thinking, intelligent being entitled On Personal Identity who has the abilities to reason and to (from his most famous work, reflect. Essay Concerning Human 3. A person is also someone who considers Understanding) he discussed themself to be the same thing in different the reflective analysis of times and different places. 4. Consciousness as being aware that we how an individual may are thinking, always accompanies thinking, experience the self in and is an essential part of the thinking everyday living. process. 5. Consciousness makes possible our belief that we are the same identity in different times and different places.  David Hume He was a Scottish philosopher and also an empiricist.  His claim about self is quite controversial because he assumed that there is no self. In his essay entitled, On Personal Identity (1739) he said that, if we carefully examine the contents of [our] experience, we find that there are only two distinct entities, "impressions" and "ideas". Impressions are the basic sensations of our experience, the elemental data of our minds: pain, pleasure, heat, cold, happiness, grief, fear, exhilaration, Ideas are copies of impressions and so on. 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.  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 unconscious self is governed by pleasure principle. The conscious self is governed It is the self that is by reality principle. Here, the aggressive, destructive, self is rational, practical, and unrealistic and instinctual. appropriate to the social environment. The conscious self has the task of controlling the constant pressures of the unconscious self, as its primitive impulses continually seek for immediate discharge.  Freud proposed how mind works, he called this as provinces or structures of the mind. By illustrating the tip of the iceberg which according to him represents conscious awareness which characterizes the person in dealing with the external world. The observable behavior, however, is further controlled by the workings of the subconscious/unconscious mind. Subconscious serves as the repository of past experiences, repressed memories, fantasies, and urges. 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. Morality of actions is largely dependent on childhood upbringing particularly on rewards and punishments. According to Freud, there are two kinds of instinct that drive individual behavior: the eros or the life instinct and the thanatos of the death instinct. The energy of eros is called libido and includes urges necessary for individual and species survival like thrist, hunger, and sex. In cases that human behavior is directed towards destruction in the form of aggression and violence, such are the manifestations of thanatos.  Gilbert Ryle A British analytical philosopher. He was an important figure in the field of Linguistic Analysis which focused on the solving of philosophical puzzles through an analysis of language.  Gilbert Ryle According to Ryle, 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. Kant is widely regarded as the greatest philosopher of the modern period. Immanuel Kant Kant maintained that an individual self makes the experience of the world comprehensible because it is responsible for synthesizing the discreet data of sense experience into a meaningful whole.  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. If the self failed to do this synthesizing function, there would be a chaotic and insignificant collection of sensations. Immanuel Kant Transcendental apperception happens when people do not experience self directly, instead as a unity of all impressions that are organized by the mind through perceptions. Kant concluded that all objects of knowledge, which includes the self, are phenomenal. That the true nature of things is altogether unknown and unknowable (Price, 2000).  Paul and Patricia Churchland Churchlands’ central argument is that the concepts and theoretical vocabulary that people use to think about the selves: using such terms as belief, desire, fear, sensation, pain, joy and actually misrepresent the reality of minds and selves. He claims that the self is a product of brain activity.  Paul and Patricia Churchland Neurophilosopy was coined by Patricia Churchland, the modern scientific inquiry looks into the application of neurology to age-old problems in philosophy. The philosophy of neuroscience is the study of the philosophy of science, neuroscience, and psychology. It aims to explore the relevance of neurolinguistic experiments/studies to the philosophy of the mind. 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 is really Paul Churchland is one of the many responsible for man’s thoughts, philosophers and psychologists that feelings, and behavior. viewed the self from a materialistic point of view, contending that in the final analysis mental states are identical with, reducible to, or explainable in terms of physical brain states. This assumption was made due to the physiological processes of the body that directly affecting the mental state of the person.  Maurice Merleau- Ponty According to him, the division between the mind and the body is a product of confused thinking. The self is experienced as a unity in which the mental and physical are seamlessly woven together. This unity is the primary experience of selves and begin to doubt it when an individual use their minds to concoct abstract notions of a separate mind and body.  Maurice Merleau- Ponty 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. According to him, the world and the sense of self are emergent phenomena in the ongoing process of man’s becoming.  Maurice Merleau- Ponty Perception is not purely the result of sensations nor it is purely interpretations. Rather consciousness is a process that includes sensing as well as interpreting/reasoning.  References Arcega, A M., Cullar, D. S., Evangelista, L. D. & Falculan, L. M. (2018). Understanding the Self. Malabon City: Mutya Publishing House Inc. Gazzingan, L. B. et al. (2019). Understanding the Self. Muntinlupa City: Panday-Lahi Publishing House, Inc. Alata, E.J.P., Caslib, B.N., Serafica, J.P.J., Pawilen, R.A. (2018). Unsertanding the Self. Rex Book Store Inc., Sta Mesa Heights, Quezon City, Philippines