Understanding-The-Self-Module 2

DR.
AURELIO MENDOZA
MEMORIAL COLLEGES
Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay
2021-2022
Prepared by
APPLE JAN G. FLORES
Week 2
LEARNING OBJECTIVES for the Week
At the end of the week, the students must 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
various philosophers across time and space.
3. Compare and contrast how the self has been represented in different philosophical
schools.
4. Examine one’s self against the different views of self that were discussed.
5. Describe the life and works of the different philosophers.
6. Explain the different philosophical perspectives about the self of the different
philosophers.
7. Relate the different philosophical perspectives to one’s personal life and experience.
TOPIC OUTLINE for the Week
Week 2: The Self from the Various Philosophical Perspectives
2.1 Socrates and Plato

2.2 Augustine and Thomas Aquinas
2.3 Descartes
2.4 Hume
2.5 Kant
2.6 Ryle
2.7 Merleau-Ponty
Dr. Aurelio Mendoza Memorial Colleges

Understanding the Self / Module for First Semester 2021-2022
Prepared by Apple Jan G. Flores 1
Week 2
THE SELF
FROM THE VARIOUS
PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES
GUIDE FOR DISCUSSION:
1. How would you characterize your “self”?

2. What makes you stand out from the rest? What make your “self”?
3. How has your “self” transformed itself?
4. How is your “self” connected to your body?
5. How is your “self” related to other selves?
6. What will happen to your “self” after you die?
7. IS THE “SELF” THE “SOUL” OR THE “BODY”?
READINGS: You may read the following for additional information. Just click the link
provided. Offline students may seek for hard copy of the reading material.
1. Cuevo, Faith Medenilla et al. (2018) Understanding the Self. St.

Andrew Publishing House. pp 1-12 ( reflected in the Lesson Proper)

LESSON PROPER
The Self from Various Philosophical Perspectives

By Dr. Faith Cuevo, Dr. Donna De Guzman, Dr. Ronaldo Larioque, and Mariel Tapadera,
pp 1 – 12 (reflected in the List of Readings)
Who am I? Many people would ask this question to themselves. They would try to
internalize the question and begin to answer based on from the things that their minds could
grasp. Some would start from simple things until they would come to the point thinking of
complex things and everything becomes unclear. You may be dumbfounded when you think
that you have already found the answer, but later on see yourself raising more questions.
Philosophers of the past and modern times have devoted much of their time in searching for
answers to the same question.
In this lesson, you will be introduced to different perspectives that will help you to
realize the meaning of who you really are, what influences you as a person, how society
shapes you, and many other questions.
Socrates
Socrates had a unique way of teaching end exploring subjects. He would ask
questions, and then discuss possible answers. The answers would lead to more questions
and eventually lead to more understanding of a subject. This logical process of using
questions and answers to explore a subject is known today as the Socratic Method.
Socrates believes that man is composed of body and soul. He argued that the human
body (appetites and desires for food, comfort, wealth, and physical things) does not define us
as men and women, but in fact, interfere with developing our fullest humanity.
What then is the soul? It is the person’s core identity, his/her unique spirit that makes
one distinct. Soul is the source of one’s deepest thoughts and highest aspirations, the unique
life force that shapes and defines itself through the choices made on a daily basis.
Socrates’ teachings indicate that we are uniquely defined through our ability to think
and question our own existence. For him, we are rational beings, thus we can distinguish
virtue, knowledge from ignorance. Humans are able to know good, and by knowing it, we can
follow it, for no one who truly knows the good would deliberately choose to follow the evil.

Socrates was convinced that every person has a moral obligation to achieve full
human potential, “actively exercising our soul’s powers”, which is the Greek definition of
happiness (eudemonia). When one lives life unreflectively, not actively exploring deeper
questions such as “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of life?” then that person’s life has
diminished value. The gift of human reason provides individuals with the extraordinary ability
not just to live, but to critically examine their lives to make them as productive and worthwhile
as possible. If one has to become human in the fullest sense, achieving distinctive potential
and genuine happiness, then one must live “an examined life.”
Plato
Plato is a dualist, same with Socrates. He also believed that man is composed of body
and soul. Plato believed the soul exists before birth and after death. Thus he believed that
the soul or mind attains knowledge of the forms, as opposed to the senses. Needless to say,
we should care about our soul rather that our body. According to Plato, soul is composed of
3 parts:
Reason – our divine essence that enables us to think deeply, make wise choices, and
achieve a true understanding of eternal truths.
Physical Appetite – our basic biological needs such as hunger, thirst, and sexual
desire.
Spirit or Passion – our basic emotions such as love, anger, ambition,

aggressiveness, and empathy.
According to Plato, each of us is driven by three different parts of our soul. Each and
every action we make is driven by one of these three parts of our soul – and we need all three.
The problem however is that we often use the wrong art of our ‘soul’ to make decisions, which
leads to less than desirable consequences. How then should a person balance the three?
Plato believed in reason and rationality above all. He then believed that each part should have
an equal say in one’s life, but that the mind should lead and have the final say in any decision;
the rational part should be in charge of the others and should make decisions as to which part
to give reign to and when to give reign to neither. Neither the reason nor the spirit should be
governed by the wishes of the appetite.

Saint Augustine
Augustine took from Plato the view that the human self is an immaterial soul that can
think. Plato held that after death, the souls of those who most love the forms would rise to
contemplate the eternal truths, a sort of heaven beyond space and time. Augustine said that
these forms were ideas in the mind of the perfect eternal God. He said that what was required
was that we love the perfect eternal God.
While Plato emphasized the importance of perfecting reason and following it,
Augustine emphasized the importance of the will, the ability to choose between good and evil.
The fundamental religious duty is to love and serve God; if a person can succeed in this, that
person will also choose the good and avoid the evil.
Human nature, as created by God, is good, and the free will that God originally gave
us places us higher in the metaphysical ladder of beings that nonhuman animals or plants.
(The angels and, of course, God, are above humans.)
Originally, according to Augustine, humans were equally free to choose good or evil.
But humans are now constantly attracted to evil, that is, toward excessive satisfaction of our
lower desires for material things and pleasures. (As he explains it, this derives from our having
inherited original sin from our first parents. Adam and Eve disobeyed God when they ate the
forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.) Humans can only escape from inherited sinfulness if
they receive grace from God, and there is no way they can earn such grace, or force God to
give it to anyone just by being good.
A quick glance on Augustine’s view:
• Ethically, the most important part of the mind is not the intellect (or reason) but
the will.
• The most important part of a person is the inner person, i.e., the mind.
• The orientation of the will determines whether we love lower goods (such as
bodily goods, wealth, and reputation) or higher goods (virtue and, above all,
God).
• Although originally neither good nor bad, the human will become corrupted, so
that it is in most cases inclined to love lower rather than higher goods.
• Good persons are those whose will and reason are subordinated to faith in God
and devotion to God’s will (i.e., that we should live righteously).
• Faith is a gift that we cannot command, but only receive when it comes.

• God’s grace may work on us when we are studying Scripture, but much study
of Scripture is no guarantee of receiving it.
Rene Descartes
Descartes claimed that there is an essential distinction between the mind (or soul) and
body. Proceeding from his famous maxim, “I think, therefore I am,” (cogito ergo sum) he
concluded that the first thing a person can be certain is his/her own existence. Even if one
doubts his/her own existence, the fact that there is an “I” to do the doubting proves that the
person truly exists.
For Descartes, being human means being certain of one’s self as an individual.
Thought, reason and rationalism are the tools we use to apprehend knowledge and the world.
Each person has a triadic existence: a mind in a body in the world.
Descartes believed that being human starts with the self. This would seem to indicate
that Descartes meant that knowledge does not depend on the external world. Knowledge is
a product of the rational mind. The mind and the body interact, but they are separate.
For Descartes, then, the essence of your self – you are a “thinking thing,” a dynamic
identity that engages in all of those mental operations we associate with being a human self.
For example:
• You understand situations in which you find yourself.

• You doubt the accuracy of ideas presented to you.
• You affirm the truth of a statement made about you.
• You deny an accusation that someone has made.
• You will allow yourself to complete a task you have begun.
• You refuse to follow a command that you consider to be unethical.
• You imagine a fulfilling career for yourself.
• You feel passionate emotions toward another person.

John Locke
If Descartes is considered an archetypal proponent of the rationalist view of

knowledge, Locke is then an archetypal advocate of the empiricist view of knowledge. Locke
believed that humans by nature are good. He believed that people are naturally reasonable
and moral. Humans are born naturally good and are later corrupted by society. Humans are
born with minimal influence. As we grow, that influence grows with friends, school, books,
media, etc. Behaviour is learned, people are either influenced to do good or bad. “We are like
chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character from those who are around
us.” (Locke).
At a young age, we do not have the mentality to commit evil or even now what evil is
because we have not been exposed to it yet. Locke believed that everything we know comes
from experience of the senses. Although humans are born good, they do have a sense of
right and wrong.
To differentiate the rationalist from the empiricist, below is an explanation:
Rationalist - the view that reason is the primary source of all knowledge and that only
our reasoning abilities can enable us to understand sense experience,
and reach accurate conclusions.
Empiricist - the view that sense experience is the primary source of all knowledge
and that only a careful attention to sense experience can enable us to
understand the world and achieve accurate conclusions.
Sigmund Freud
Though the conscious self also has important role to play in our lives, it is the
unconscious self that holds the greatest fascination for Freud, and which has the dominant
influence in our personalities.
According to Freud, these two levels of human functioning differ radically in their
content and in the rules and logic that govern them. The unconscious contains basic
instinctual drives including sexuality, aggressiveness, and self-destruction; traumatic
memories; unfulfilled wishes and childhood fantasies; thoughts and feeling that would be
considered socially taboo. At this level, the most basic instinctual drives seek immediate

gratification or discharge. Unheedful of the demands and restrictions of reality, the naked
impulses at this level are governed solely by the “pleasure principle.”
In contrast, the conscious self is governed by the “reality principle”, and at his level of
functioning, behaviour and experience are organized in ways that are rational, practical, and
appropriate to the social environment. To this end, the conscious self has the task of
controlling the constant pressures of the unconscious self, as its primitive impulses
continually seek for immediate response.
Looking for evidence of your unconscious? According to Freud, there is an

opportunity for you to look for evidence of unconscious functioning and that is through the
following:
• Slips of the tongue: think about a time in which you unexpectedly said what
you really thought rather that what you intended to say: for example, “I think
your new haircut looks atrocious” instead of your intended “I think your new
haircut looks attractive.”
• Dreams: Describe a particularly disturbing dream, or a recurring dream, that

expressed surprising or disturbing themes. What do you think the dream
really mean?
• Neurosis: Describe one sort of neurotic behaviour in which you engage.

(Don’t worry, everyone has at least one neurosis). For example, do you have
a compulsion to check and recheck locks? To eat too much or too little? To
be overly suspicious (“paranoid”) about others’ intentions? To feel excessively
guilty about something? To be chronically depressed? What do you thing is
the origin of this neurosis?

ASSESSMENT TASKS
Do the following tasks below. Follow instructions on page 5. You can also answer directly in
the Form posted in the Google Classroom. Deadline: Wednesday, September 23,
2020 at 5pm.
Be creative in accomplishing these tasks. You can use your computer or

you can cut out strips of paper to make your worksheet creative. You can
also submit your output in soft copy (computerized or handwritten)
through your Google Class Assignment.
Follow these instructions for the submission of these activities:
1. You may answer these activities by submitting printed or hand-written

output, or just use the worksheet provided.
2. Please follow instructions on pages 5-6.
3. Late submissions will not be accepted.

Ipil, Zamboanga
Sibugay 1st Semester
2021-2022
Understanding the Self
SELF-IMPROVEMENT PLAN
Name: _ _ _ _ _ _ Program/Year: _ _ _ Score: _ _
Below is a list of aspects about you that may need improvement. Applying what you have
learned from the current lesson, what do you think can you do in order to improve them?
Choose between these states: Poor, Adequate, and Good. (Number 1 is an example.)
Current Desired
Target Aspect Improvement Strategies
State State
TAke A bAth, brush my
Personal AdequAte Go
teeth,
Hygiene od
chAnge clothes
Spending my
past time
Making
decisions
Life goals
Material
possessions
Study habits
Relationship with
friends and
family
Spirituality

Ipil, Zamboanga
2021-2022
TRACKING MY MINDFULNESS
Name: _ _ _ _ _ _ Program/Year: _ _ _ Score: _ _
Recall and describe your state of mind this past week

and fill up the following spaces with your answer.
Look at the diagram as a guide. Emotional Wise Reasonable
Mind Mind Mind
Emotional Mind
Start your answer with this: One example of Emotional Mind this week was… please describe your
thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
Reasonable Mind
Start your answer with this: One example of Reasonable Mind this week was… please describe your
thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
Wise Mind
Start your answer with this: One example of Wise Mind this week was… please describe your thoughts,
emotions, and behaviors.

Ipil, Zamboanga
2021-2022
WORKSHEET NO. 1
Name: _ _ _ _ _ _ Course/Year: _ _ _ Score: __ _ _
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. What does Socrates mean with “The unexamined life is not worth living”?
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2. Discuss the different parts of the Tri-Partite Soul by Plato. Do you agree? Disagree?
Why or why not?
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3. Explain freedom according to Augustine.

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4. According to Descartes, you are a “thinking thing”. Elaborate.
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5. According to Locke, “We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our
moral character from those who are around us.” Illuminate.
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6. Elucidate the “unconscious self” according to Freud.

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WEEKLY CHECKPOINT
Make sure to submit your requirements before the deadline. Remember, late
submission without valid reason will not be accepted.
SUMMARY OF YOUR LEARNINGS:
You may write here a short summary of your learnings for the week.
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Congratulations!Congratulations! You have

You have successfully successfully
finished Week One!finished
You Week Two!
are now ready for Week
You are now ready for Week Three.


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DR.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES for the Week

At the end of the week, the students must be able to:

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

TOPIC OUTLINE for the Week

Week 2: The Self from the Various Philosophical Perspectives

2.1 Socrates and Plato

Dr. Aurelio Mendoza Memorial Colleges

GUIDE FOR DISCUSSION:

1. How would you characterize your “self”?

1. Cuevo, Faith Medenilla et al. (2018) Understanding the Self. St.

Dr. Aurelio Mendoza Memorial Colleges

The Self from Various Philosophical Perspectives

Dr. Aurelio Mendoza Memorial Colleges

Spirit or Passion – our basic emotions such as love, anger, ambition,

Dr. Aurelio Mendoza Memorial Colleges

A quick glance on Augustine’s view:

Dr. Aurelio Mendoza Memorial Colleges

• You understand situations in which you find yourself.

Dr. Aurelio Mendoza Memorial Colleges

If Descartes is considered an archetypal proponent of the rationalist view of

To differentiate the rationalist from the empiricist, below is an explanation:

Dr. Aurelio Mendoza Memorial Colleges

Looking for evidence of your unconscious? According to Freud, there is an

• Dreams: Describe a particularly disturbing dream, or a recurring dream, that

• Neurosis: Describe one sort of neurotic behaviour in which you engage.

Dr. Aurelio Mendoza Memorial Colleges

Be creative in accomplishing these tasks. You can use your computer or

Follow these instructions for the submission of these activities:

1. You may answer these activities by submitting printed or hand-written

Dr. Aurelio Mendoza Memorial Colleges