LESSON 1

The Self from Various

Philosophical Perspectives
At the end of the lesson, the learner will 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 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.
ACTIVITY 2: What is in a NAME?

Rationale: Very often the first piece of information

we have about a person is their name. It’s often the
first thing you learn about someone. Sometimes it
convey their personalities.

Instructions: In a piece of paper, kindly write your

given name. Explain why did your parents give you
that name? What is the origin and meaning of your
name? You may share it to the class.
 Trigger Questions

• 1. Does your name represent who you are as a person? In

what way does it represent you?
• 2. If you change your name, does it change also your SELF?
Will you still remain YOU despite the changing of your name?
• 1. How would you characterize your “self ”?
• 2. What makes you stand out from the rest? What makes
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?
• Note: A name, no matter how
intimately bound it is with the
bearer, however, is not the
person. It is only a signifier. A
person who was named after a
saint most probably will not
become an actual saint. The
SELF is thought to be something
else than the name. The SELF is
something that a person
perennially molds, shapes, and
develops. Everyone is tasked to
discover one’s self.
• The history of philosophy is replete with men and women who inquired into the
fundamental nature of the self. The different perspectives and views on the SELF can be
best seen and understood then by revisiting the important conjectures made by
philosophers.
 Subject Matter

PHILOSOPHY is man’s attempt to think most

speculatively, reflectively, and systematically about the
universe in which he lives and his relationship to that
universe.
…such questions will be “Who am I?”, “What is the
meaning of life?”, “Where do we come from?”, Why is
there something instead of nothing?”.
Why use epochal in understanding the different
philosophical perspectives of the SELF ?
• In the history of the philosophy,
philosophers are classified and
organized based on their epoch.
• Their philosophy is somehow
identified based on the influences of
the prevailing characteristics of the
era
• the evolutionary phase or
development of the human mind in
the history
 EPOCHS OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

Pre-Socratic Medieval Modern

Ancient Early Modern Contemporary

Major Figures
in the History
of Philosophy
Pre-Socratic Philosophy

• is characterized by the
rejection of the
mythological explanation
on the nature and
phenomena in the universe.
• search for the “true essence
of things” through looking
on the basic stuff that
composed everything.
 Pre-Socratic Philosophy

THALES (624-546 BC)

❖ He became known for positing that water is
the single element that comprised all things
in the universe.
❖ He also made famous the aphorism, “The
most difficult thing in life is to know
yourself.”
 Pre-Socratic Philosophy
ANAXIMENES
• He designated air as the primary substance
from which all things come from.

• RAREFACTION AND CONDENSATION

• “Although air is invisible, we live only as long

as we can breathe, and just as our soul,
being air, holds us together, so do breath and
air encompass the whole world.”
 Pre-Socratic Philosophy
HERACLITUS
• THE PROBLEM OF CHANGE (All things are in
flux)
• You cannot step twice into the same river.
(SOUL)

• FLUX AND FIRE: To describe change as unity in

diversity, Heraclitus assumed that there must
be something which changes, and he argued
that this something is FIRE.
 Pre-Socratic Philosophy
Democritus of Abdera (460—
370 B.C.E.)
• He is known as “the laughing philosopher”
– that he never appeared in public with out
expressing his contempt of human follies
while laughing;
• expanded the atomic theory of Leucippus.
He maintained the impossibility of dividing
things, ad infinitum.
 Ancient Philosophy

Ancient Greek philosophy opened the

doors to a particular way of thinking that
provided the roots for the Western
intellectual tradition.

“Great Greek Triumvirate”

 Ancient Philosophy
Socrates (469-399 BC) “All I know is
that I know
nothing.”
• Unlike the Pre-Socratics, Socrates was
more concerned with another subject,
the problem of the SELF.
• He was more concerned with
understanding one SELF rather than how
the world works.
Socrates affirms that the unexamined
life is not worth living.
• He is challenging everyone to
question their presuppositions about
themselves and about the world,
particularly who they are. He
challenges everyone to KNOW
THYSELF.
• Socrates took it upon himself to serve
as a gadfly that disturbs Athenian
men from their slumber and shakes
them off in order to reach the truth
and wisdom.
• For Socrates, every man is composed of
body and soul.
• It means that every human person is
dualistic, that is, he is composed of two
important aspects of personhood.
• This means all individual have an
imperfect, impermanent aspect, the
body, while maintaining that there is
also a soul that is perfect and
permanent.
 “Wise men speak

Plato (428-348 BC)

because they have
something to say; fools,
• was a student of Socrates who became because they have to
known through his dialogues which contained say something.”
the presentation of his ideologies and
theories in conversational form.
“Man is the soul enclosed in a body.”

In addition to what Socrates earlier

espoused, Plato added that there are parts
or three components to the soul: the
rational soul, the spirited soul, and the
appetitive soul.
 Plato’s Concept of the Soul
In the Republic, Plato describes the soul as having three parts.

REASON (awareness of a
goal or a value)
SPIRIT (drive toward
action)
APPETITE (desire for the
things of the body)
 Virtue as Fulfillment REASON (WISDOM)
of Function SPIRIT (COURAGE) JUSTICE
APPETITE (TEMPERANCE)
• The GOOD LIFE is the life of
inner harmony , of well-being, of
happiness.

• Each part of the soul has a

REASON SPIRIT
special FUNCTION. If one will
use reason to control the spirit
and appetite, one can cultivate
the virtues of wisdom (reason),
spirit (courage), and appetite
(temperance)
APPETITE
 Ancient Philosophy
“We are what we
repeatedly do.”
Aristotle (384-322 BC)
▪ was a student of Plato and became known as the first
thinker to create a comprehensive system of philosophy,
encompassing Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics, Metaphysics,
Logic and Science.

The human soul combines in itself all the lower forms

of soul, the vegetative, nutritive, and sensitive, having
in addition to these the rational soul.

Man is a rational animal.

 • Two composition of soul:
Rational and Irrational.
• The conflict between the two
elements in man is what
raises the problems and
subject matter of morality.

• Morality involves action.

(Olympics)
• Human action should aim for
proper end (the ultimate end
or the final end).
• Happiness is a working of the
FUNCTION OF MAN soul in the way of excellence
or virtue.
VIRTUE as the
GOLDEN
MEAN

• Virtue is
formed
through
performing
good habits.
 Medieval Philosophy
This period was predominantly composed of philosophers who were concerned
with proving the existence of God and with reconciling Christianity/Islam with
the classical philosophy of Greece particularly that of Aristotle.
St. Augustine
• Following the ancient view of Plato and
infusing it with the newfound doctrine of
Christianity, he agreed that man is of
*bifurcated nature.
• There is an aspect of man, which dwells in
the world, that is imperfect and
continuously yearns to be with the divine
while the other is capable of reaching
immortality.

*Bifurcated – divided into two branches or parts

 Philosophy of Man

• God created man as his beloved

creation with rationality and free will.

• God has given as the option to freely

return to him through moral actions
prescribed by the Church.

• Man has the responsibility to be with

God.
The Problem of Evil
• Evil is the absence of good. Thus,
God, who is the creator of all that is
good did not create evil.

• There are two types of evil: (1)

physical evil and (2) moral evil.
The latter serves to be our daily
decisions to do what is good and
avoid what is evil
 Man must attain the higher
The Higher Good who is God and avoid
Good focusing on temporary
pleasures.

One must concentrate his

reason and faith to God
because God can only give
us perfect happiness.
 Medieval Philosophy

St. Thomas of Aquinas (1225

- 1274)
• was an Italian philosopher and theologian who
became a great influence on subsequent
Christian philosophies, particularly that of the
Roman Catholic Church.
“To one has faith, no explanation is
necessary. To one without faith, no
explanation is possible.”
 He is the most eminent 13th century scholar and
stalwart of the medieval philosophy, appended
something to this Christian view.
Adopting some ideas from Aristotle, he said that
man is composed of two parts: matter and form.
St. Thomas
Aquinas Matter, or hyle in Greek, refers to the common
stuff that makes up everything in the universe.

Form, or morphe in Greek, refers to the essence

of a substance or thing. Essence is what makes a
thing what it is.
 • In the case of the human
person, the body is something
that he shares even with
animals.
St. Thomas • However, what makes a human
Aquinas person is his SOUL, his essence.
• To Aquinas, just as for Aristotle,
the SOUL is what animates the
body, it is what makes us
humans.
 “God created man according to his
image and likeness.”

1. There is a God who is the creator.

A. IDEA
ABOUT MAN
2. There is a man who is created by God.

3. The creation bears the characteristics

of his creator who is God.
 Modern Philosophy
The rise of Modern Philosophy can be attributed to certain
historical and cultural changes that happened between the Age
of Reason during the 17th century and the Age of
Enlightenment during the 18th century.
Early Modern Philosophy
“We do not describe the
world we see, we see the
world we can describe…”

RENE DESCARTES (1596 -

1650)
• French philosopher, mathematician, scientist
and writer of the Age of Reason. He has been
called the "Father of Modern Philosophy"
RENE DESCARTES
-a great mathematician and
the father of Modern
Philosophy

-On Meditations, he was not able to

distinguish what is real between the
DREAMING STATE AND his WAKING
LIFE.

He doubted the existence of

EVERYTHING and the FOUNDATION
OF KNOWLEDGE.
“I really don’t know anymore what is
real. I don’t know if a devil is
manipulating my mind to see
external objects or myself as real and
true.”

However, the only thing that I can be sure

of is that I am DOUBTING right now. One
can not DOUBT if you are not THINKING.
If I am THINKING, then there must be a
person who is considered to be the
THINKER. I am sure that I am the thinker.

“I think therefore, I exist.

(Cogito ergo sum)”
• I think therefore, I am. (cogito ergo sum)

“I am thinking about the chair.

Therefore, the chair exists.”

MIND AND BODY PROBLEM

• Mind does exist while body is doubtful.
• MIND (SELF) can exist without the body.
SOLIPSISM AND EGOCENTRIC PREDICAMENT
Given our seemingly intimate knowledge of ourselves,
we might wonder whether we can ever really know if the
experiences we have in our minds in fact correspond to the
world outside us—the problem of skepticism. This problem also
gives rise to the awful possibility of solipsism, the view that only
one’s own mind exists. What, then, of other people? This odd
question has been designated by philosophers as the
egocentric predicament.

SOLIPSISM is the view or theory that the self is all

that can be known to exist.
SOLIPSISM AND EGOCENTRIC PREDICAMENT
Egocentric because it begins with the claim that the
individual self is at the center of all our experience;
predicament because it is indeed an intolerable idea that we
cannot ever get beyond our own self to know the existence
of others. In recent Anglo-American philosophy, the same
problem has been called the “problem of other minds,”
which is, essentially, “How can I ever know of the existence of
any mind other than my own?”

IMPLICATIONS:
1. Nobody can tell me that they truly understand what I am thinking and feeling
right now.
2. Nobody can know the real “me”. What is the use of getting to know each other
if we can know the other person through our own interpretation.
Early Modern Philosophy

David Hume (1711—1776)

• Scottish philosopher and empiricist who argues that
the SELF is not an entity over and beyond the
physical body.
• The SELF is nothing but bundle of impressions. If
one tries to examine his/her experiences, he finds
that they can all be categorized into two:
impressions and ideas.
Early Modern Philosophy

David Hume (1711—1776)

1. Impressions are the basic object of our experience or
sensation. They form the core of our thoughts. They are vivid
because they are products of our direct experience with the
world.

2. Ideas are copies of impressions. They are not as lively and

vivid as our impressions. When one imagines the feeling of
being in love for the fist time, that still is an idea.
Early Modern Philosophy

David Hume (1711—1776)

The SELF is simply “a bundle or collection of different
perceptions, which succeed each other with an
inconceivable rapidity, and are in perpetual flux and
movement”

Men don’t have a unified, coherent SELF. In reality, what

one thinks as unified SELF is simply a combination of all
experiences with a particular person.
Modern Philosophy
Karl Marx (1818–1883)
• best known not as a philosopher but as a
revolutionary, whose works inspired the foundation
of many communist regimes in the twentieth
century; known for his criticism of the capitalist
society
• “The philosophers have only interpreted the world,
the point is to change it”
• Communism is a society in which each person should
contribute according to their ability and receive
according to their need.
 HUMAN NATURE AND
ALIENATION
• Human labor is what makes and gives
dignity and worth.
• It claims that man’s work, place of work,
time of work, and nature of work
determine his humanity.
• Marx is suspicious of capitalism because it
alienates man from his work.
• Alienation - the state or experience of being isolated from a group or
an activity to which one should belong or in which one should be
involved.
• loss or lack of sympathy; estrangement.
• (in Marxist theory) a condition of workers in a capitalist economy,
resulting from a lack of identity with the products of their labor and a
sense of being controlled or exploited.
1. ALIENATION TO SELF
• The workers are not called by name, but
by numbers.

• Man is reduced to a mere number.

(numerical value)

• Success is determined by numbers.

2. ALIENATION TO NATURE

•Man is a social being.

 Man is a working animal.

 • In the workplace,
individual
productivity is
In a capitalist
greater than
economy, workers
socialization.
must compete with
each other for jobs
• The social
and animal
raises.
is domesticated
3. ALIENATION TO OTHERS to be alone.
4. ALIENATION TO PRODUCTS OF THEIR LABOR
• The commodities that workers produce through their labor is not
their own but ultimately belongs to another and is produced for
another.
 • If labor or work gives the essence
of being a man, it is therefore a
necessary condition to make
everything related to work
desirable.
WHAT IS A
GOOD MAN? • Elimination of the factors of
alienation

• “WORKERS of all nation unite,

you have nothing to lose except
your chains.”
 Contemporary Philosophy

The present period in the history of

Western philosophy beginning at the
end of the 19th century with the
professionalization of the discipline.
Major school of thoughts: rise of
analytic and continental philosophy,
postmodernism, structuralism, etc.
 Contemporary Philosophy
Jean Paul-Sartre (1905-
1980)
• He is commonly considered the father of
Existentialist philosophy, whose writings set the
tone for intellectual life in the decade immediately
following the Second World War.
• Characterized by a development of
classic phenomenology, but his reflection diverges
from Husserl’s on methodology, the conception of
the self, and an interest in ethics.
• Known for his dictum: “Hell is other people.”
 “Existence precedes essence.”
-Sartre
“Man is challenged to create his meaning with the
choice he is going to make.”
Contemporary Philosophy

Martin Heidegger (1889—

1976)

In being involved with the things in the

world, a person is either being involved
with or along these things or entities.
1. being with = subjects
2. being along = equipment
Gazing towards death opens up new
possibilities for imagining our being.
-Heidegger

• Death is the end of dasein (man).

We are born without meaning. It is
up to us to create our definition
before we die. Knowing that all of us
are going to die, it creates a sense of
urgency to create our own definition.
 Long Quiz 1: Epochal Timeline
1. With your respective group, create a epochal timeline of the
different philosophical perspectives of the SELF Prezi. (There is a
free option that you can use)
2. In your own words, state what is the meaning of SELF for each of
the following philosophers based on discussion in the Prezi timeline
(1st paragraph). After doing so, explain how your concept of SELF
is compatible with how the philosophers conceived the self (2nd
paragraph). Additional points will be added to those who will
include philosophies that are not included in the discussion (but is
in this PPT). You may use symbols and things to represent as such.
3. Please send the LINK of your the Prezi presentation on the CANVAS
assignment tab. Only the LEADER of the group should submit.
Indicate the members’ names on the Prezi presentation.