UNIVERSITY OF CALOOCAN CITY

Biglang Awa St., Corner Catleya St., EDSA, Caloocan City

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

SUBJECT CODE: GE001
TOPIC OR LESSON 1: THE SELF FROM VARIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES
WEEK: 2
SUB-TOPIC/S: Sociology, Anthropology, and Psychology

OVERVIEW OF THE TOPIC

This module focuses on the different notions of the self from the perspectives of
various philosophers. Viewpoint from other disciplines which all try to answer the question
“Who am I?” will be also discussed. It deals with the fundamental concepts, theories and
principles relative to the self and identity.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Upon completion of this module, the student will have reliably identify philosophers
and the key characteristics of their viewpoint about the self, and conscientiously apply
the basic principles in understanding oneself.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a) explain why it is essential to understand the self;

b) describe and discuss the different notions of the self from the points-of-view of the
various philosophers across time and place;
c) compare and contrast how the self has been represented in different
philosophical schools; and
d) examine one’s self against the different views of self that were discussed in class.

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 ENGAGE

Provide the students a copy of the Self-Awareness Sheet using this link:
https://studylib.net/doc/15591216/self-awareness---worksheet-1

Processing
Self-Awareness happens through reflection. You can have numerous experiences
in your life, but still lack self-awareness. You need to take the time to step outside of your
experiences and reflect on them. The key areas for self-awareness include our personality
traits, personal values, emotions, habits, and the psychological needs that motivate our
behaviors.

Self-awareness and/or Self Discovery is about knowing and understanding:

 your beliefs and principles
 what you value and what is important to you
 what motivates you
 your own emotions
 your thinking patterns
 your tendencies to react to certain situations
 what you want out of life

Questions:
1. How do you feel about the activity?
2. What have you realized about yourself in each category?
a. physical self-care
b. psychological self-care
c. emotional self-care
d. spiritual self-care
e. self-care at work/school
f. balance
3. What are your 3 greatest strengths? Why?
4. What are your 3 biggest weaknesses? Why?
5. What/Who might have influenced your thoughts, states and practices? Why do
you say so?
6. What do you consider the top 3 most important categories or practices? Why?

EXPLORE

Kindly watch the video entitled “Who am I? A Philosophical Inquiry” using this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHwVyplU3Pg

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 Share your view and perspective towards it in a concise manner (maximum of
three to five sentences). Note that in this part you are encouraged to be factual with
what you perceive. You may cite theories, prominent people and terms to support your
thoughts.

Sharing will be done during the synchronous meeting. This will be recorded as
your recitation.

EXPLAIN

The history of philosophy is replete with men and women who inquired into the
fundamental nature of self. Along with the question of the primary substratum that defines
the multiplicity of the things in the world, the inquiry on the self has preoccupied the
earliest thinkers in the history of philosophy: the Greeks. The Greeks were the ones who
seriously questioned myths and moved away from them in attempting to understand
reality and respond to a perennial questions of curiosity, including the question of the self.
The different perspectives and views on the self can be best seen and understood by
revisiting its prime movers and identify the most important conjectures made by
philosophers from the ancient times to the contemporary period.

THE SELF FROM VARIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES

Socrates and Plato

Prior the Socrates, the Greek thinkers, sometimes collectively called the Pre-
Socratics to denote that some of them preceded Socrates while other existed around
Socrates’s time as well, preoccupied themselves with the question of the primary
substratum, arché that explains the multiplicity of things in the world. These men like
Thales, Phytagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Empedocles, to name a few, were
concerned with explaining what the world is really made up of, why the world is so, and
what explains the changes that they observed around them. Tired of simply conceding
to mythological accounts propounded by poet-theologians like Homer and Hesiod,
these men endeavoured to finally locate an explanation about the nature of change,
the seeming permanence despite change, and the unity of the world amidst its diversity.

After a series of thinkers from all across the ancient Greek world who were
disturbed by the same issue, a man came out to question something else. This man was
Socrates. Unlike the Pre-Socratics, Socrates was more concerned with another subject,
the problem of the self. He was the first philosopher who ever engaged in a systematic
questioning about self. To Socrates, and this has become his life-long mission, the true
task of the philosopher is to know oneself.

Plato claimed in his dialogs that Socrates affirmed that the unexamined life is not
worth living. During his trial for allegedly corrupting the minds of the youth and for impiety,

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Socrates declared without regret that his being indicted was brought about by his going
around Athens engaging men, young and old, to question their presuppositions about
themselves and about the world, particularly about who they are (Plato 2012). Socrates
took it upon himself to serve as a “gadfly” that disturbed Athenian men form their slumber
and shook them off in order to reach the truth and wisdom. Most men, in his reckoning,
were really not fully aware of who they were and the virtues that they were supposed to
attain in order to preserve their souls for the afterlife. Socrates thought that this is the worst
that can happen to anyone: to live but die inside.

For Socrates, every man is composed of body and soul. This means that every
human person is dualistic, that is, he is composed of two important aspects of his
personhood. For Socrates, this means all individuals have an imperfect, impermanent
aspect to him, and the body, while maintaining that there is also a soul that is perfect
and permanent.

Plato, Socrates’s student, basically took off from his master and supported the idea
that man is dual nature of the body and soul. In addition to what Socrates earlier
espoused, Plato added that there are three components of the soul: the rational soul,
the spirited soul, and the appetitive soul. In his magnum opus, “The Republic” (Plato 2000),
Plato emphasizes that justice in the human person can only be attained if the three parts
of the soul are working harmoniously with one another. The rational soul forged by reason
and intellect has to govern the affairs of the human person, the spirited part which is in
charge of emotions should be kept at bay, and the appetitive soul in charge of base
desires like eating, drinking, sleeping, and having sex are controlled as well. When this
ideal state is attained, then the human person’s soul becomes just and virtuous.

Augustine and Thomas Aquinas

Augustine’s view of the human person reflects the entire spirit of the medieval
world when it comes to man. Following the ancient view of Plato and infusing it with the
newfound doctrine of Christianity, Augustine agreed that man is of a bifurcated nature.
An aspect of man dwells in the world and is imperfect and continuously yearns to be with
the divine and the other is capable of reaching immortality.

The body is bound to die on earth and the soul is to anticipate living eternally in a
realm of spiritual bliss in communion with God. This is because the body can only thrive in
the imperfect, physical reality that is the world, whereas the soul can also stay after death
in an eternal realm with the all-transcendent God. The goal of every human person is to
attain this communion and bliss with the Divine by living his life on earth in virtue.

Thomas Aquinas, the most eminent thirteenth century scholar and stalwart of the
medieval philosophy, appended something to this Christian view. Adapting some ideas
from Aristotle, Aquinas said that indeed, man is composed of two parts: matter and form.
Matter, or hyle in Greek, refers to the “common stuff that makes up everything in the
universe. “Man’s body is part of this matter. Form on the other hand, or morphe in Greek
refers to the “essence of a substance or thing.” It is what makes it what it is. In the case of
the human person, the body of the human person is something that he shares even with
animals. The cells in man’s body are more or less akin to the cells of other living, organic

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being in the world. However, what makes a human person a human person and not a
dog, or a tiger is his soul, his essence. To Aquinas, just as in Aristotle, the soul is what
animates the body; it is what makes us humans.

Descartes

Rene Descartes, Father of Modern Philosophy, conceived of the human person as

having a body and a mind. In his famous treatise, The Meditations of First Philosophy, he
claims that there is so much that we should doubt. In fact, he says that since much of
what we think and believe are not infallible, they may turn out to be false. One should
only believe that since which can pass the test of doubt (Descartes 2008). If something is
so clear and lucid as not to be even doubted, then that is the only time when one should
actually buy a proposition. In the end, Descartes thought that the only thing that one
cannot doubt is the existence of the self, for even if one doubts oneself, that only proves
that there is a doubting self, a thing that thinks and therefore, that cannot be doubted.
Thus, his famous, cogito ergo sum, “I think therefore, I am.” The fact that one thinks should
lead one to conclude without a trace of doubt that he exists. The self then for Descartes
is also a combination of two distinct entities, the cogito, the thing that thinks, which is the
mind, and the extenza or extension of the mind, which is the body. In Descartes’s view,
the body is nothing else but a machine that is attached to the mind. The human person
has it but it is not what makes man a man. If at all, that is the mind. Descartes says, “But
what then, am I? A thinking thing. It has been said. But, what is a thinking thing? It is a
thing that doubts, understands (conceives), affirms, denies, wills, refuses: that imagines
also, and perceives” (Descartes 2008).

Hume

David Hume, a Scottish philosopher, has very unique way of looking at man. As an
empiricist who believes that one can know only what comes from the senses and
experiences, Hume argues that the self is nothing like what his predecessors thought of it.
The self is not an entity over and beyond the physical body. One can rightly see here the
empiricism that runs through his veins. Empiricism is the school of thought that espouses
the idea that knowledge can only be possible if it is sensed and experienced. Men can
only attain knowledge by experiencing. For example, Jack knows that Jill is another
human person not because he has seen her soul. He knows she is just like him because
he sees her, hears her, and touches her.

To David Hume, the self is nothing else but a bundle of impressions. What are
impressions? For David Hume, if one tries to examine his experiences, he finds that they
can all be categorized into two: impressions and ideas. Impressions are the basic objects
of our experience or sensation. They therefore form the core of our thoughts. When one
touches an ice cube, the cold sensation is an impression. Impressions therefore are vivid
because they are products of our direct experience with the world. Ideas, on the other
hand, are copies of impressions. Because of this, they are not as lively and vivid as our
impressions. When one imagines the feeling of being in love for the first time, that still is an
idea.

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 What is the self then? Self, according to Hume, is simply “a bundle or collection of
different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and
are in a perpetual flux and movement.” (Hume and Steinberg 1992). Men simply want to
believe that there is a unified, coherent self, a soul or mind just like what the previous
philosophers thought. In reality, what one thinks is a unified self is simply a combination of
all experiences with a particular person.

Kant

Thinking of the “self” as a mere combination of impressions was problematic for

Immanuel Kant. Kant recognizes the veracity of Hume’s account that everything starts
with perception and sensation of impressions. However, Kant thinks that the things that
men perceive around them are not just randomly infused into the human person without
an organizing principle that regulates the relationship of all these impressions. To Kant,
there is necessarily a mind that organizes the impressions that men get from the external
world. Time and space, for example, are ideas that one cannot find in the world, but it is
built in our minds. Kant calls these the apparatuses of the mind.

Along with the different apparatuses of the mind goes the “self.” Without the self,
one cannot organize the different impressions that one gets in relation to his own
existence. Kant therefore suggests that it is an actively engaged intelligence in man that
synthesizes all knowledge and experience. Thus, the self is not just what gives one his
personally. In addition, it is also the seat of knowledge acquisition for all human persons.

Ryle

Gilbert Ryle solves the mind-body dichotomy that has been running for a long time
in the history of thought by blatantly denying the concept of an internal, non-physical
self. For Ryle, what truly matters is the behavior that a person manifests in his day-to-day
life.

For Ryle, looking for and trying to understand a self as it really exists is like visiting
your friend’s university and looking for the “university.” One can roam around the
campus, visit the library and the football field, and meet the administrators and faculty
and still end up not finding the “university.” This is because the campus, the people, the
systems, and the territory all form the university. Ryle suggests that the “self” is not an entity
one can locate and analyze but simply the convenient name that people use to refer to
all the behaviors that people make.

Merleau-Ponty

Merleau-Ponty is a phenomenologist who asserts that the mind-body bifurcation

that has been going on for a long time is a futile endeavour and an invalid problem.
Unlike Ryle who simply denies the “self,” Merleau-Ponty instead says that the mind and
body are so intertwined that they cannot be separated from one another. One cannot
find any experience that is not an embodied experience. All experience is embodied.
One’s body is his opening toward his existence to the world. Because of these bodies,
men are in the world. Merleau-Ponty dismisses the Cartesian Dualism that has spelled so

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much devastation in the history of man. For him, the Cartesian problem is nothing else
but plain misunderstanding. The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and experiences
are all one.

PHILOSOPHERS ACROSS DISCIPLINES

John Locke

Contrary to the primacy of reason as proposed by Descartes, one British

philosopher and politician, John Locke, suggested another way of looking at the self.
Locke opposed the idea that then only reason is the source of knowledge of the self. His
proposition is that the self is comparable to “tabula rasa", an empty space, where
everyday experiences contribute to the pile of knowledge that is put forth on that empty
space. Experience, therefore, is an important requirement in order to have sense data
which, through the process of reflection and analysis, eventually becomes sense
perception.

These sense data are further categorized by Locke according to primary qualities
such as numbers, solidity, figure, motion, among others, and also secondary qualities such
as color, odor, temperature and all other elements that are distinguishable by the
subjective individual. Sense perception becomes possible when all these qualities are put
together in the faculty of the mind.

It has to be noted here that the validity of sense perception is very subjective.
Perception is changing from one individual to another. Perception therefore, is very
subjective to Locke.

This provides the most lenient leeway for every individual to be independent in
self-examination, self-management and self-control. The individual person, for Locke, is
not only capable of learning from experience but also skilful enough to process different
perceptions from various experiences to form a more complex idea. These ideas then will
become keys to understand complex realities about the self and the world.

Sigmund Freud

Just as the philosophers celebrate the “Unity” of the self as achieved by Kant,
psychologist Sigmund Freud lamented the victory and insisted on the complexity of the
self. Freud, refusing to take the self or subject as technical terms, regarded the self as the
“I” that ordinarily constitute both the mental and physical actions (I run, I eat, I refuse to
cheat because it is wrong, etc.). Admittedly, the question “Who am I?” will not provide a
victorious unified answer but a complicate diverse features of moral judgements, inner
sensations, bodily movements and perceptions. The “I” will never be the same and it will
continue to change overtime. In other words, Freud sees the “I” as a product of multiple
interacting processes, systems and schemes. To demonstrate this, Freud proposed two
models: The Topographical and Structural Models (Watson, 2014).

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 Topographical Model. According to Freud’s concept of hysteria, the individual
person may both know and do not know certain things at the same time. We may say,
for example, that we know the disadvantage and perils of missing classes without any
reason, but we are not really sure why we still do it anyway. We are certain about many
wrongs that may be brought about premarital sex, ie. early pregnancy, sexually
transmitted infections, ruined relationships and depression, but we never understand why
there is this something somewhere inside us that makes many of us do what we know is
wrong.

Freud’s solution to this predicament is to divide the “I” into conscious and the
unconscious. The unconscious keeps what it knows by what Freud calls “censorship” so
that the conscious will be left on its own. Clearly, the self for Freud will never be arbitrarily
taken as a unified whole. There will always be fragments and discontinuity and struggle
inside the same “I”.

Structural Model. Similar to the disintegration of the self in Topographical Model,

Freud’s Structural Model will also represent the self in three different agencies. This is
particularly known as the id, ego and the superego. the id is known as the primitive or
instinctive component. The ego is described by Freud as that part of the id which has
been modified by the direct influence of the external world. Many interpreters of Freud
see the ego as the “I” and the super ego as “above I.” The superego synthesizes the
morals, values and systems in society in order to function as the control outpost of the
instinctive desires of the id (McLeod, 2007).

We often equate the ego as the self, the subject or the “I.” However, Freud does
not readily approve this equation because while the three agencies are distinct from one
another, oftentimes, the ego is not able to control the instincts of the id, and cannot even
manipulate the thoughts of the superego. This even leaves the ego as only a marginal
and impotent agency of the mind – not the ideal philosophical self or soul that we want
to figure out, Freud remarked that it is even the id – this devil, instinctual, unthoughtful,
fearless and primitive agency of the mind – that is the core of our being (Freud, 2011).

The sensationalization of the self as unifying agent and a powerful command

center of the other agencies simply do not exist in Freud’s Structural Model. Although the
ego initiates the command, it simply lacks the power to control and put limits to the rage
of the id. Moreover, the ego will only content itself with the very limited information
revealed by the cast databank of information in the unconscious. The ego owns a scanty
knowledge about the unconscious which oftentimes are incomplete and inaccurate.

Paul Churchland

Couple Paul and Patricia Churchland promoted the position the called
“eliminative materialism” which brings forth neuroscience into the fore of understanding
the self. For centuries, the main concern of philosophy and even of psychology is the
understanding of the state of the self, and still they failed to provide satisfactory position
in the understanding of the self. For the Churchlands, these philosophical and
psychological directions will eventually be abandoned only to be replaced by a more
acceptable trend in neuroscience that provides explanation of how the brain works.

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 This position is a direct attack against folk psychology. Eliminative materialism sees
the failure of folk psychology in explaining basic concepts such as sleep, learning, mental
illness and the like. Given the length of time that these sciences have investigated these
concepts and yet there is no definitive explanation offered to understand the mind is
tantamount to “explanatory poverty” (Weed, 2018). It is not remotely impossible that folk
psychology will be replaced by neurobiology. As the Churchlands wanted to predict,
when people wanted to ask what is going on with themselves, they might as well go for
MRI scan or CT scan to understand the present condition of the brain and hot it currently
works.

Modern versions of eliminative materialism claim that our common-sense

understanding of psychological states and processes is deeply mistaken and that some
or all of our ordinary notions of mental states will have no home, at any level of analysis,
in a sophisticated and accurate account of the mind. In other words, it is the view that
certain common-sense mental states, such as beliefs and desires, do not exist.

ELABORATE

Think-Pair-Sharing:

Pair with one of your classmates and answer each of the following questions:

1. Compare and contrast the how the self has been represented by:
a. Plato and St. Augustine
b. Descartes and Locke

2. For Hume, what is it that makes “your” perceptions inaccessible to “me” and
vice versa?

Students will have to work on this during the asynchronous time. For clarifications and
questions, feel free to send a message via Facebook messenger. Submission shall be
made through Google classroom, messenger/email, whichever is accessible, before
the end of the meeting/class.

RUBRIC FOR ESSAY/ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS SCORE

3 – The 2 – The 1 – The 0.5 – The 0–
explanation is explanation is explanation is explanation is not Has no
RELEVANCE

directly relevant relevant to the quite relevant to clear and has a explanation
to the topic. Every topic. Most of the the topic. Only few very rough
detail points details contribute of the details transition of idea.
toward the topic. to the contribute to the The details are
development of development of not relevant to
the topic. the topic. the topic.

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 3 – The 2 – The 1 – The 0.5 – The 0–
ARGUMENT
EVIDENCE/ explanation shows explanation explanation shows explanation Has no
at least 9 shows at least 6 at 3 to 5 shows at most 2 explanation
correct/valid to 8 correct/valid correct/valid correct/valid
evidences to evidences to evidences to evidences to
support his/her support his/her support his/her support his/her
answer. answer. answer. answer.
2 – The 1.5 – The 1 – The 0.5 – The 0–
explanation is explanation is explanation is explanation is not Has no
CLARITY

clear, has a very clear, has a good somewhat clear clear and has a explanation
good flow of transition, most of and has a rough very rough
discussion, every the details are transition from one transition of
detail is connected to idea to another. ideas.
connected to each other.
each other.
2 – The 1.5 – The 1 – The 1.5 – The 0–
TECHNI-

explanation has explanation has 1 explanation has 3 explanation has Has no

CALITY

no error in to 2 errors in to 4 errors in at least 5 errors in explanation

grammar, spelling, grammar, grammar, spelling, grammar,
and punctuations. spelling, and and punctuations. spelling, and
punctuations. punctuations.
OVERALL SCORE:

EVALUATE

On a short bond paper, create a symbol or a representation of oneself based on one or

two perspective/s discussed in this module which you strongly adhere to or believe in.
Provide a handwritten brief explanation of your output below your drawing. You may
use another sheet of bond paper if necessary.

Take a clear photo/picture of your output. Submission shall be made through Google
classroom, messenger/email, whichever is accessible. Due next meeting.

NOTE: This will be part of your Final Paper (Portfolio).

RUBRIC FOR SYMBOLIC DRAWING

Category 5 – Very Good 3 – Good 1 – Fair Score
Idea Student picks an Student has tried to pick Student picks an excerpt
appropriate selection from an appropriate idea to from the text that is not
the text that displays base his/her drawing on. easily represented by a
understanding of imagery The thought and drawing, and the idea has
to base his/her drawing originality could be not been well thought
about. better. out.
Creation Student creates an artistic Student creates an Student creates an
representation that clearly artistic representation artistic representation
displays connections to that has some that has little or no
imagery and their scene connections to their application to his/her
from the text. The scene and imagery. scene and imagery.
creation is creative, neat, Creation lacks somewhat Creation is thrown
and well executed. in planning and together and lacks
creativity. thought, planning,
neatness and originality.
Explanation Student can give an in- Student gives an Student is lacking an
depth explanation as to explanation as to why explanation of how and
why the drawing and the drawing and imagery why she/he created the

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 imagery relate. (Can give are related. Explanation drawing to represent the
sufficient details to is lacking some detail scene and imagery.
support this) and depth, but thought Shows little or no
Shows great was demonstrated in the comprehension of the link
comprehension of the link project. Shows decent between text and
between ideas and comprehension of the imagery.
imagery and symbolism link between simple
and why they are used in ideas and imagery and
art and literature. symbolism.
OVERALL SCORE

REFERENCES

Understanding the Self 1st ed., E.J. Alata, B.N. Caslib Jr., J.P.J. Serafica, & R.A. Pawilen. Rex Book Store Inc.
Manila, Philippines. 2018

Understanding the Self. S.L. Villafuerte, A.F. Quillope, R.C. Tunac, & E.I. Borja. Nieme Publishing House Co. LTD.
2018

John Locke.2018. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Substantive Revision May 1, 2018.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/

Paul Churchland.2004. Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind. Updated May 2004.

https://sites.google.com/site/minddict/churchland-paul

Eliminative Imperialism.2013. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Archive. Substantive Revision April

16,2013.
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/materialism-eliminative/

The Preconscious, Conscious, and Unconscious Minds.2019. Kendra Cherry. Medically Reviewed by Steven
Gans,MD September 28, 2019.
https://www.verywellmind.com/the-conscious-and-unconscious-mind-2795946

ADDITIONAL
MATERIALS

N/A

PREPARED BY:

Prof. Cielito Y. Sullivan

Instructor III, UCC North Campus

Prof. Maria Cecilia M. Saenz

Guidance Specialist/Instructor, UCC South Campus

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