Understanding the SELF

Philosophical
Perspectives

Arnel G. Perez, MS
Philosophical Views of Self: The philosophy of self
seeks to describe essential qualities that constitute a
person's uniqueness or essential being.
 Socrates (469-399 BC), ancient Athenian philosopher/
Plato’s teacher/ Socratic method/ Dualistic

 Apology (Plato)/ Angkop sa Tao (Ferriols, 1992)

 Nosce te ipsum (Know thyself)
 Socrates’ Ethos – “The goal of life is to know thyself
and to improve our souls through virtuous living”
 Unexamined life is not worth living (“Ang buhay na
hindi sinusuri ay hindi buhay tao”)
 What is SELF?

 Socrates as the first thinker in Western history

underscored the full power of reason on the
human self:
• who we are?;
• who we should be?; and
• who we will become?
 What is SELF?

• Changeable, transient, and

Physical Body
imperfect
Physical Realm

SELF Dualistic • Two dichotomous realms

Ideal Realm
Soul (Mind) • Unchanging, eternal, and
immortal
What is SELF?

Soul (Mind)
Physical Body
 Plato (c.429-c.347 BC), Greek philosopher/ disciple of
Socrates/ teacher of Aristotle/ Academy in Athens

 The first and best victory is to conquer self.

Philosophical  The essence of knowledge is Self-knowledge
writings:  Self-knowledge (from Charmides) is a practical task in life
 Apology which consists of self-examination about what one is
 Crito really doing in life/ acknowledging the limit
 Phaedo  Self-knowledge (from Phaedo) is a process of self-
 Republic recognition/ the real self is the soul (self-reflection and
 Sophist purification)
 Symposium  Self-control is knowing oneself
 What is SELF?

• Divine essence that allows us to think

Reason deeply, make wise choices, and achieve a
true understanding of eternal truths

• Basic biological needs such as hunger,

SELF Physical Appetite
thirst, and sexual desire

• Basic emotion such as love, anger,

Spirit (Passion) ambition, aggressiveness, and empathy
 What is SELF?

• I pursue a career in medicine because I have

Reason
excellent academic performance.

Physical • I pursue a career in medicine so that I can earn

SELF Appetite more to buy food, drinks, and other needs Career

Spirit • I pursue a career in medicine because I am

(Passion) compassionate to heal the sick people

Telos
 St. Augustine (354-430), doctor of church;
known as St. Augustine of Hippo; Bishop of Hippo in
North Africa in 396; writings (Confession and City of God)

 “You have made us for You, for our heart is restless, for they rest in You,
late that I have love You”.
 Self – “Man is rational, immortal and earthly soul using a body”
 Self – “ I am doubting, therefore I am”
 Self (The Confession) – individual identity (idea of the self); self-
presentation to self-realization
 Self (happiness and completeness) – omnipotent (having ultimate power
and influence) and omniscient (knowing everything)
 What is SELF?

Soul • Body (The body is united with the soul)

SELF Intellect • Desire (Natural Appetite)

• Over questioning, reason, uncertainty

Faith
 Rene Descartes (1596-1650), French philosopher,
mathematician and man of science. In mathematics, he developed the use of
coordinates to locate a point in two or three dimensions.

 Skepticism – the theory that certain knowledge is impossible

 Dualism (body and mind or soul) – a theory or system of thought that
regards a domain of reality in terms of two independent principles,
especially mind and matter (Cartesian dualism)
 He concluded that everything was open to doubt except conscious
experience and existence as necessary condition: “Cogito ergo sum”
(I think therefore I Am)
 Self is thinking not sensing.
John Locke (1632-1704), English philosopher;
founder of empiricism and political liberalism.

 Empiricism – the theory that all knowledge is derived from sense-

experience (phenomenalism – human knowledge is founded on the
realities)
 Tabula rasa (empty/ blank tablet) – having no innate ideas
 Human Understanding (1690) – he argued that all knowledge is
derived from sense-experience
 Self is identical with consciousness and consciousness is
accessible empirically (Azeri, 2011)
 The identity of the self depends on the consciousness of the person
 Consciousness – is an element that accompanies all acts of thinking
including the act of recollection.
 David Hume (1711-1776), Scottish
philosopher, economist, and historian. He rejected the
possibility of certainty in knowledge. “Skepticism”

 He reject the notion of identity over time and the idea that
there are no persons that continue to exist over time
Notable works: (impression)
 A treatise of  Argument against identity: “ All ideas are ultimately derived
human nature from impression. Hence, the idea of persisting self is
(1739-40) ultimately derived from impression but, no impression is a
 History of
persisting thing. Therefore, there cannot be any persisting
England (1754-
62) idea of self.”
 David Hume

 Self is constant, persisting, and stable thing.

 All Knowledge is derived from impressions which are transient and non-persisting
variable thing therefore, there is no self.
 Self is a bundle of impression or perception of others (individual impression)
 The bundle of impression is just a collection of variable and interrupted part.
 Identity – is just a union created in the imagination
 “ When the mind receives a series of uninterrupted impression that are similar, it
assumes that the only thing that is changing is time, and not the impression
themselves. The mind then infers mistakenly that this underlying series of impression
is itself, a persisting individual thing such as identity”
 Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), German
philosopher; central figure in modern philosopher
(metaphysic).

 He argued that the human mind creates the structure of human experience that
reason is source of morality; aesthetics arises from a faculty disinterested judgment;
space and time are forms of human sensibility; the world is independent of
humanity’s concepts of it.
 Critique of pure reason (1781) – He attempted to explain the relationship between
reason and human experience. He argued that our experiences are structured by
necessary features of our minds
 In his writing, he countered Hume’s skeptical empiricism by arguing that any
affirmation or denial regarding the ultimate nature of reality (noumenon) makes no
sense.
 Immanuel Kant’s
Metaphysics of the Self (Selbst)

 Kant’s metaphysics of the self (Marshall, 2010) – Wittgenstein claims that the self or
subject doesn’t belong to the world, but it is a limit of the world.
 Self is individuated as “I” (thinking) (whole man = body + soul); and “Am” (object of
inner sense and soul)
 Kant’s discussion on phenomena and noumena, he states that without the possibility
of a corresponding intuition, a concept has no sense, and is entirely empty of content;
that without empirical intuitions concepts have no objective validity at all, but are
rather a mere play
 Limits of our cognition: “We have no cognition of our selves as we are in ourselves;
We have no knowledge of any facts about ourselves outside of how we appear.”
 Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976), British philosopher;
known for his critique of Cartesian dualism (ghost in the
machine)

 The Concept of Mind (1949) – disagree on Descartes’ dualism

 Logical behaviorism – focused on creating conceptual clarity, not on developing
techniques to condition and manipulate human behavior
 Self (“ghost in the machine”) is thought to be spiritual, immaterial ghost rattling
around inside the physical body, conflicts directly with our everyday experience,
revealing itself to be a conceptually flawed and confused notion that needs to be
revised
 Ryle believes that the mind is a concept that expresses the entire system of
thoughts, emotions, actions, and so on that make up the human self.
 Gilbert Ryle

 Category mistake happens when we think of the self as existing apart from certain
observable behaviors, a purely mental entity existing in time but not space.
 Category mistake refers to a type of informal fallacy in which things that belong to
one grouping are mistakenly placed in another.
 Ryle claims that 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
(human behavior).
 Paul Churcland (Born on October 21, 1942),
Canadian philosopher known for his study in
neurophilosophy and philosophy of mind

 Physicalism – is the philosophical view that all aspect of the universe are composed of
matter and energy and can be fully explained by physical law
 The self is the brain (mental state = brain state)
 Philosophy of mind – studies the nature of the mind
 Neurophilosophy -
 Folk psychology – is a human capacity to explain and predict the behavior and mental
state of other people
 Eliminative materialism (eliminativism) – is the radical claim that our ordinary,
common-sense understanding of mind is deeply wrong and that some or all of the
mental state posited by common-sense do not actually exist.
 Self: Philosophical Perspectives

Philosopher Philosophy Philosophy of Self

Socrates Dualism/ Rationalism Know thyself (Nosce te ipsum)
Plato Dualism/ Rationalism Self-knowledge
Augustine Theology of self Individual identity/ Self-realization
Rene Descartes Skepticism Self is cognition (Cogito ergo sum)
John Locke Empiricism Self is identical to consciousness
David Hume Empiricism Self is a bundle of impression
Immanuel Kant Metaphysics Self is the limit of the world
Gilbert Ryle The Concept of the Mind Self refers to the human mind/ pattern of behavior

Paul Churchland Neurophilosophy Self refers to the mental state (Brain)

 The self is a The self is Personal
immortal soul thinking thing, identity is made
that exists over distinct from the possible by self- There is no self only
time body consciousness a bundle of
constantly changing
perceptions passing
through the theater
of our minds
Rene Descartes John Locke

Socrates, Plato, Augustine

David Hume

Immanuel Kant
What is Self?

The self is unlying

subject, an The self is the brain.
organizing The self is the Mental state will be
consciousness that way people superseded by brain
makes intelligible behave states
experience possible Gilbert Ryle Paul Churchland
#May4Ever