UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
1ST SEMESTER S.Y 2025-2026
PHILOSOPHICAL SOCRATES (470-399 B.C.)
1
PERSPECTIVE
● Every man is composed of body and
soul
The philosophy of self is the study of the ● To know yourself – to bring his inner
many conditions of identity that make one self to life
subject of experience distinct from other ● “The man who does not follow good
experiences. The self is sometimes fails to do so because he does not
recodnize it”
understood as a unified being essentially ● Virtue - deepest and most basic
connected to consciousness, awareness, propensity of man
and agency. ● Self-knowledge - source of all
wisdom
PHILOSOPHY
- An academic discipline concerned
PLATO (428/27 or 424/23-348/47 B.C.)
with investigating the nature of
significance of ordinary and scientific ● THE IDEAL SELF, THE PERFECT
beliefs. SELF
- Investigates the legitimacy of ● 3 components of the soul
concepts by rational argument ○ RATIONAL SOUL
concerning their implications, Reason and intellect to govern
affairs
relationships, as well as reality,
○ SPIRITED SOUL
knowledge, moral judgement, etc. Emotions should be kept at
- A particular set of ideas about bay
knowledge, truth, the nature and ○ APPETITIVE SOUL
meaning of life. Basic desires (food, drink,
GREEKS sleep, sexual needs, etc.)
- Seriously questioned myths and ● When these are attained the human
person’s soul becomes just & virtuous
moved away from them to
● Man is a dual nature of body and soul
understand reality and respond to ● The soul is immortal
perennial questions of curiosity, ● Reason (divine essence)
including the question of the self. Spirit or passion (basic motions), and
Physical appetite (basic biological
SOCRATES (470-399 B.C.)
needs)
● KNOW YOURSELF ● If human beings do not live in
● Concerned with the problem of the accordance to their nature/function
self the result will be injustice.
● “The true task of the philosopher is ● Man - omniscient or all-knowing
to know oneself” before he came to this world
● “The unexamined life is not ● Contemplation - allows man to
worth living” regain perfections
● Underwent a trial for corrupting the ● Happiness - fruit of virtue; attained by
minds of the youth contrant imitation of the divine
● Succeeded made people think exemplar of virtue.
about who they are.
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
1ST SEMESTER S.Y 2025-2026
ST. AUGUSTINE (354-430 B.C.) ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
● IF I AM MISTAKEN, I AM ● Theory of self-knowledge - all our
● “Si fallor, sum” self-knowledge is dependent on our
● “Spirit of man” in medieval experience of the world around us
philosophy ● Rejects a view that the mind is
● Following view of plato but adds “always on,” never sleeping,
christianity subconsciously self-aware in the
● Man is of a bifurcated nature background
● Part of the man dwells in the world ● Argues that our awareness of
(imperfect) and yearns to be with ourselves is triggered and shaped by
the divine our experiences of objects in our
● The self seeks to be united with environment.
God through faith and reason
● Other part is capable of reaching
immortality RENE DESCARTES (1596-1650)
● It is by the illumination of God, by
“divine light,” that we can have ● I THINK, THEREFORE I AM
knowledge ● “Cogito, ergo sum”
● Body - dies on earth ● Father of Modern Philosophy
● Soul - lives eternally in spiritual ● Human person = body + mind
bliss with “God” ● “There is so much that we should
● Described that human kind is doubt”
created in the image and likeness ● “If something is so clear and lucid as
of God not to be doubted, that’s the only time
● Believed that God is transcendent one should believe”
and everything created by God ● The only thing one can’t count is the
who is all good is good. existence of the self
● “Only some divinity can show man ● Man - thinking entity distinct from the
what is true” body
● I am doubting, therefore I am ○ Must use his mind and
thinking abilities to investigate
and develop himself
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS ● Thinking self (soul, non-material)
● Physical body (material, non-thinking
● SELF-KNOWLEDGE entity)
● Man = matter + form
● Matter (hyle) - common stuff that
makes up everything in the DAVID HUME (1711-1776)
universe
● Form (morphe) - essence of a ● THE SELF IS THE BUNDLE
substance or thing; what makes it THEORY OF MIND
what it is ● Disagrees with all other
● The body of a human is similar to aforementioned philosophers
animals/objects, but what makes a ● “One can only know what comes from
human is his essence the sense and experience”
● “The soul is what makes us ● An empiricist
humans” ● “The self is not an entity beyond the
physical body”
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
1ST SEMESTER S.Y 2025-2026
DAVID HUME (1711-1776) IMMANUEL KANT (1724-1804)
● You know that other people are ● Man - only creature who governs and
humans not because you have directs himself and his actions
seen their soul, but because you ○ should not be used as tool
see them, hear them, feel them, ○ Should be treated equally
etc. ● We construct the self
● “The self is nothing but a bundle of ● The self transcends experience
impressions and ideas” ● The self makes experiencing an
● Man - has no “clear and intelligible word possible
intelligible” idea of the self
● Self - bundle or collection of
different perceptions which GILBERT RYLE (1900-1976)
succeed each other
● Impressions - basic objects of our ● THE SELF IS HOW YOU BEHAVE
experience/sensation ● Denies the internal, non-physical self
- forms the core of our ● “What truly matters is the behavior
thoughts that a person manifests in his
● Idea - copies of impressions day-to-day life”
- not as “real” as ● Looking for the self is like entering LU
impressions and looking for the “University”
- feeling mo lang daw ● Summarizes the essential elements of
● The idea of personal identity is a the dualistic view of the self – mind
result of imagination and body ass distinct entities
● The self is not an entity one can
locate and analyze but simply the
IMMANUEL KANT (1724-1804) convenient name that we sue to refer
to the behavior that we make
● RESPECT FOR SELF ● The self is the way people behave
● Agrees with Hume that everything ● I act, therefore I am
starts with perception/sensation of ● The self is the same as bodily
impressions behavior
● There is a MIND that regulated
these impressions
● Time, space, etc. are ideas that MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY (1908-1961)
one cannot fin in the world but is
built in our minds ● THE SELF IS EMBODIED
● “Apparatus of the mind” SUBJECTIVITY
● The self organizes different ● A phenomenologist who says the
impressions that one gets in mind-body bifurcation is an invalid
relation to his own existence problem
● We need active intelligence to ● Mind and body are inseparable
synthesize all knowledge and ● “One’s body is his opening toward his
experience existence to the world”
● The self is not only personality but ● The living body, his thoughts,
also the seat of knowledge emotions, and experiences are all one
● The division between the mind and
the body is a product of confused
thinking
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
1ST SEMESTER S.Y 2025-2026
MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY
(1908-1961)
● The mind and body are so
intertwined that they cannot be
separated from one another
● The consciousness, the world, and
the human body are intricately
intertwined in knowing the world.
ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.)
● The soul is the essence of self
● Self-realization is attained by
fulfilling man’s threefold nature:
○ Vegetative
○ Sentient
○ Rational
SIGMUND FREUD (1856-1939)
● The self consists of three layers:
○ Conscious (reality
principle)
○ Unconscious (basic
instinctual)
○ Preconscious (located
between the first two)
PAUL CHURCHLAND (1942)
● The self is the brain
● The self is inseparable from the
brain and the physiology of the
body
● The physical brain gives us our
sense of self