Perspectives About Self

David Humes
An Empiricist (Person who believed that all knowledge is based on experiences derived from senses.)
➢ There is no self because it is merely composition of successive impressions.

➢ Bundle Theory of Self
• Self is a non-substantial bundle or collection of interconnected perceptions.
• Self is just an illusion, not a real entity.
➢ Identity depends upon the three relations of Resemblance, Contiguity, and
Causation. It follows from these principles that the notion of personal identity
proceeds from the “smooth and uninterrupted progress of the thought” by its
continuity. The resemblance or causal connection within the chain of our
perceptions give rise to an idea of oneself, and memory extends this idea past our
immediate perceptions.
Gilbert Ryle
An Analytic Philosopher. (Focused on the solving of philosophical puzzles through an analysis of language.)
➢ The Self is how you behave in a certain way in certain circumstances.

➢ The workings of the mind are not distinct from the actions of the body but are one
and the same.
➢ Self is defined in terms of the behavior that is presented to the world, a view that
is known in psychology as Behaviorism.
• Logical behaviourism therefore holds that any mental term can be
understood in terms of observable physical processes or events.
Immanuel Kant
A German Philosopher. (Synthesized early modern rationalism and empiricism.)
➢ The self is transcendental activity that continually uses the categories of mind to
filter, order, relate, organize, and synthesize sensations and thoughts into a unified
and intelligible whole.
➢ It is not a “content” of consciousness but rather the invisible “thread” that ties the
contents of consciousness together.
➢ It constructs its own reality, actively creating a world that is familiar, predictable,
and, most significantly from own perspective and can call “Mine”.
John Locke
A Bristish Philosopher
➢ The self is consciousness.
➢ The self exists because of memory. Human mind at birth is a complete, but
receptive, blank slate (scraped tablet or “tabula rasa”) upon which experience
imprints knowledge.
➢ Personal identify is made possible by self-consciousness. We are the same person
insofar as our consciousness now is the same as it was in the past. Memory of a
past life would be sufficient proof of reincarnation
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
A Phenomnologists. (Perception is fundamental in our knowledge of the world and consciousness is a dynamic form
that actively structures our experiences.)
➢ The Self is embodied subjectivity.

➢ Subjectivity as embodied regard to the body movements, accounts for how the
body acts in the world in turn. In this way, force relations are not just unidirectional
from the mind onto the materiality of the body, but bidirectional from the body onto
the mind and the world in general.
➢ “I live in my body” which mean includes our lived body and lived-situation in the
world. This gives rise to the distinction between the “body as object” on the one
hand, and, on the other, the “lived body” that can never be objectified or known in
a completely objective sort of way.
Patricia Churchland
A NeuroPhilosopher.
➢ The Self is the brain.

➢ The physical brain gives us sense of self. She thinks that it is the moral center.
➢ Our cognitive functions, our feelings and emotions, our perceptions, are really
operations of the physical brain based on Neuroscience.
➢ The physical and mental dimensions of the self are qualitatively different realms,
each with its own distinctive vocabulary, logic, and organizing principles.
Plato
A Philosopher in classical Greece and founder of Academy of Athens.
➢ Man has soul and it has three aspects namely: reason, physical desire/ appetite,
and spirit.
➢ Man in this world is an illusion. The real man is the idea of man. There is no self
in reality. The self of an individual man in this world is immersed in the universal
idea of man.
• What your seeing is the form but not the form itself. We don’t see what’s
beneath the form.
Rene Descartes
A French Philosopher and the Founder of Modern Philosophy.
➢ Self is divided into two (2) parts: mind and physical body
➢ The essential self, the self as thinking entity, is radically different than the self as
physical body. The thinking self (soul/ mind) is a non-material, immortal, conscious
being, independent of the physical laws of the universe. The physical body is a
material, mortal, non-thinking entity, fully governed by the physical laws of nature.
➢ Your soul and your body are independent of one another, and each can exist and
function without the other.
➢ “I think ,therefore I am” meaning doubting yourself is the reason why you should
believe that you exist and are capable.
Sigmund Freud
A Psychologist
➢ Self is consists of Conscious and Unconscious Self

➢ The unconscious contains basic instinctual drives including sexuality,
aggressiveness, and self-destruction; traumatic memories; unfulfilled wishes and
childhood fantasies; thoughts and feelings that would be considered socially taboo.
➢ Conscious self is governed by the “reality principle” (rather than the “pleasure
principle”), and at this level of functioning, behavior and experience are organized
in ways that are rational, practical, and appropriate to the social environment.
➢ Freud believed that events in our childhood have a great influence on our adult
lives, shaping our personality. For example, anxiety originating from traumatic
experiences in a person's past is hidden from consciousness and may cause
problems during adulthood (in the form of neuroses).
➢ Used Psychoanalysis
•
Approach to therapy and theory of personality.
•
Emphasizes unconscious motivation – main cause of behavior lie in
unconscious mind.
➢ Freud have three divisions of soul/self.
• Id – Pleasure Principle
• Ego – Reality Principle
• Superego – Moral Principle
St. Augustine of Hippo

An Algerian-Roman philosopher and theologian of the late Roman / early Medieval period.
➢ The soul is superior to the body. The body is united with the soul, so that man
may be entire and complete, is a fact we recognize on the evidence of our own
nature.
➢ “Only some divinity can show man what is true.” It is by the illumination of God, by
“divine light,” that we can have knowledge. [“If I am mistaken, I am”]
➢ Used Skepticism
• The view that says that no knowledge is possible beyond what one knows
by immediate sense experience, and, in some extreme positions, that even
knowledge based sense experience is impossible.
References
Pearson eTextbooks (n.d.). Who am I? Consciousness, Identity and the Soul.
Retrieved from:
https://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/samplechapter/0/1/3/0/013048069X.pdf
The Basic of Philosophy (n.d.) David Hume. Retrieved from:
https://www.philosophybasics.com/philosophers_hume.html
The Basic of Philosophy (n.d.) Gilbert Ryle. Retrieved from:
https://www.philosophybasics.com/philosophers_ryle.html
Sirswal, D. R. (2008). Hume’s Discussion on Personal Identity. Retrieved from:
https://niyamak.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/human-beings-have-no-identical-self/
Sirswal, D. R. (2010). The Concept of the Self in David Hume and the Buddha.
Retrieved from: https://niyamak.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/the-concept-of-the-self-
in-david-hume-and-the-buddha.pdf

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David Humes

➢ There is no self because it is merely composition of successive impressions.

➢ The Self is how you behave in a certain way in certain circumstances.

➢ The Self is embodied subjectivity.

➢ The Self is the brain.

➢ Self is consists of Conscious and Unconscious Self

St. Augustine of Hippo

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