UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

Course Description
The course is intended to facilitate the exploration of the issues and concerns
regarding self and identity to arrive at a better understanding of one’s self.
It strives to meet its goal by stressing the integration of the personal with
the academic – contextualizing matters discussed in the classroom and in the
everyday experiences of students –making for better learning, generating an
new appreciation for the learning process, and developing a more critical and
reflective attitude while enabling them to manage and improve their selves to
attain a better quality of life.
Course Description
The course is divided into three major parts: The first part seeks to
understand the construct of self from various disciplinal perspectives:
philosophy, sociology, anthropology and psychology – as well as the more
traditional division between the East and the West – each seeking to provide
answer to difficult but essential question – “What is the Self?”. And raising,
among others, the question: “Is there even a construct of the Self?”. The
second part explores some of the various aspects that make up the self; such
as the biological and material up to and including the more recent Digital Self.
The third and final part identifies three areas of concerns for young
students: learning, goal setting, and managing stress. It also provides for the
more practical application of the concepts discussed in this course and enables
them the hands-on experience of developing self-help plans for self-regulated
learning, goal setting and self care.
Course Description
This course includes mandatory topics on Family Planning and Population
Education. (CMO No.20, s.2013)

Course Credit
3 Units
 Course Outcomes
1. Discuss the different representations and conceptualization of the
self from various disciplinal perspectives.
2. Compare and contrast how the self has been represented across
different disciplines and perspectives.
3. Examine different influences, factors and forces that shape the self.
4. Demonstrate critical and reflective thought in analyzing the
development of one’s self and identity by developing a theory of the
self.
5. Explore the different aspects of self and identity.
 Course Outcomes

6. Demonstrate critical and reflective thought in integrating the

various aspects of self and identity.
7. Identify the different forces and institutions that impact the
development of various aspects of self and identity.
8. Examine one’s self against the different aspects of self-discussed in
class.
9. Understand the theoretical underpinnings for how to manage and
care for different aspects of the self.
10. Acquire and hone new skills to one’s self and functioning for a
better quality of life.
 CHAPTER I

DEFINING THE SELF: PERSONAL AND

DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVES
ON SELF AND IDENTITY
 Lesson 1

The Self from Various Philosophical Perspectives

Lesson Objectives
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

1. Explain why it is essential to understand the self;

2. Describe and discuss the different notions of the self from the points-
of-view of the various philosophers across time and place;
3. Compare and contrast how the self has been represented in different
philosophical schools; and
4. Examine one's self against the different views of self that were
discussed in class.
Socrates and Plato
Socrates was more concerned with the
subject, the problem of the self.
The first philosopher who ever engaged in a
systematic questioning about the self.
Affirmed that the unexamined life is not
worth living.
Socrates Every man is composed of body and soul, and
that every human is dualistic.
All individuals have an imperfect,
impermanent aspect (body), perfect and
permanent (soul).
 Supported Socrates, of the idea that man is a dual nature of
body and soul.
Three components of the soul: the rational soul, the spirited
soul, and the appetitive soul.
In his magnum opus , "The republic" (Plato 2000), he
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
Plato the affairs of the human person.
The spiritual soul, in charge of emotions.
The appetitive soul, base on desires like eating, drinking,
sleeping, and having sex.
When the ideal state is attained, the human person's soul
becomes just and virtuous.
Augustine & Thomas Aquinas
Augustine's view of the human person reflects the
entire spirit of the medieval world when it comes to
man.
Agreed to the view of Plato, that man is 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
Augustine
immortality.
The body is bound to die on earth and the soul is to
anticipate living eternally in a realm of spiritual bliss
in communication with God.
 Most eminent 13th century scholar and stalwart of
the medieval philosophy.
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, or morphe in Greek refers to the " essence
of a substance or thing". It is what makes it what it
Thomas Aquinas is.
A human person is a human person and not an animal,
is his soul, his essence.
To Aquinas, just as in Aristotle, the soul is what
animates the body; it is what makes us humans.
 Rene Father of Modern Philosophy, conceived that the
human person as having a body and mind.
Descartes In his famous treatise, The Meditations of First
Philosophy, he claims that there is so much that we
should doubt.
Only one 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. - cogito ergo
sum, " I think therefore, I am".
Combination of two distinct entities, the cogito, the
thing that thinks (mind), & the extenza or extension of
mind (body), the body is nothing but a machine
attached to the mind.
David Hume As an empiricist, he believes that one can know
only what comes from the senses and
experiences.
Argues that the self is nothing like what his
predecessors thought of it.
Men can only attain knowledge by experiencing.
Self 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 & Steinberg 1992)
Immanuel
Kant thinks that the things that men perceive
Kant around them are not just randomly infused into the
human person without an organizing principle that
regulates the relationship of all these impressions.
There is necessarily a mind that organizes the
impressions that men get from the external world
(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.
Gilbert Ryle
For Ryle, what truly matters is the behavior
that a person manifests in his day-to-day life.
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
Ponty says that the mind and body are so
intertwined that they cannot be
separated from one another.
All experiences is embodied.
The living body, his thoughts, emotions,
and experiences are all one.
QUESTIONS?
LESSON 2: The Self, Society, and Culture