MATI DOCTORS COLLEGE

CITY OF MATI

GEC 1
Understanding the Self

Chapter 1- Defining the Self: Personal and Developmental Perspectives on

Self and Identity

Lesson 1: The Self from Various Philosophical

Perspectives Lesson 2: The Self, Society, and Culture

Lesson 3: The Self as Cognitive Construct

Lesson 4: The Self in Western and Eastern Thoughts

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Subject GEC 1 - Understanding the Self

Chapter 1 Defining the Self: Personal & Developmental

Perspective on Self and Identity

Lesson 1 The Self from Various Philosophical Perspectives

Objectives At the end of the learning module you shall 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 point-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

the self that were discussed.

Abstraction The history of philosophies with men and women

who inquired into the fundamental nature of self. Along
with the question of the primary substratum that defines
the multiplicity of things in the world, the inquiry on the
self has preoccupied the earliest thinkers in the history
of philosophy: the Greeks. The Greek were the one who
seriously questioned myths and moved away from them
in attempting to understand reality and respond to
perennial question of curiousity, including the question
of the self. The different perspective and views in the self
can be best seen and understood by revisiting its prime
movers and identify the most important conjectures
made by philosophers from the ancient time to the
contemporary period.

Socrates & Plato

Prior the Socrates, the Greek thinkers, sometimes

collectively called the Pre-Socratics to denote that some
of them preceded Socrates while others existed around
Socrates’s time as well, preoccupied themselves with the
question of the primary substratum, arche the
explains the multiplicity of things in the world. These

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men like Thales, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus,
and Empedocles, to name a few, were concerned with
explaining what the world is really made up of, why the
world is so, and what explains the changes that they
observed around them. Tired of simply conceding to
mythological accounts propounded by poet-theologians
like Homer and Hesiod, these men endeavored to finally
locate an explanation about the nature of change, the
seeming permanence despite change, and the unity of
the world amidst its diversity.

After a series of thinkers from all across the ancient

Greek world who were disturbed by the same issue, a
man came out to question something else. This man was
Socrates, and this has become his life-long mission, the
true task of philosophers is to know oneself.

Plato claimed in his dialogs that Socrates affirmed

that the unexamined life is not worth living. During his
trial for allegedly corrupting the minds of the youth and
for impiety, Socrates declared without regret that hos
being indicated was brought about by his going around
Athens engaging men, young and old, to question their
presumptions about themselves and about the world,
particularly about who they are. Socrates took it up to
himself to serve as a “gadfly” that disturbed Athenian
men from their slumber and shook them off in order to
reach the truth and wisdom. Most men, in his reckoning,
were really not fully aware of whom they were and the
virtues that were supposed to attain in order to preserve
their souls for afterlife. Socrates though that this is the
worst that can happen to anyone: to live but die inside.

For Socrates, every man is composed of body and

soul. This means that every human person is dualistic,
that is, he is composed of two important aspects of his
personhood. For Socrates, this means all individuals
have an imperfect, impermanent aspect to him, and the
body, while maintaining that there is also a soul that is
perfect and permanent.

Plato, Socrates’s student, basically took off from

his master and supported the idea that man is dual

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nature of nature of body and soul. In addition to what
Socrates earlier espoused, Plato added that there are
three components of the soul: the rational soul, the
spirited soul and the appetitive soul. In his magnum
opus, “The Republic”, Plato 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 the affairs of the human person, the spirited part
which is in charge of emotions should be kept at bay, and
the appetitive soul in charge of base desires like eating,
drinking, sleeping and having sex are controlled as well.
When this ideal state is attained, then the human
person’s soul becomes just and vitreous.

Augustine & Thomas Aquinas

Augustine’s view of the human person reflects the

entire of the medieval world it comes to man. Following
the ancient view of Plato and infusing it with the
newfound doctrine of Christianity, Augustine agreed that
man is of 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
immortality.

The Body is bound to die on earth and the soul is

to anticipate living eternally in a realm of spiritual bliss
in communion with God. This is because the body can
only thrive in the imperfect, physical reality that is the
world, whereas the soul can also stay after death in an
eternal realm with the all-transcendent God. The goal of
every human person is to attain this communion and
bliss with the Divine by living his life on earth in virtue.

Thomas Aquinas, the most eminent thirteenth

century scholar and stalwart of the medieval philosophy,
appended something to this Christian view. Adapting
some ideas from Aristotle, Aquinas said that indeed, 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 on the other hand, or
morphe in Greek refers to the “essence of a substance

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or thing.” It is what makes it what it is. In the something
that he shares even with animals. The cells in man’s body
are more or less akin to the cells of any other living,
organic being in the world. However, what makes a
human person a human person and not a dog or a tiger
is his soul, his essence. To Aquinas, just as in Aristotle,
the soul is what animates the body; it is what makes us
humans.

Descartes

Rene Descartes, Father of Modern Philosophy,

conceived of the human person as having a body and a
mind. In his famous treatise, The Meditations of First
Philosophy, he claims that there is so much that we
should doubt. In fact, he says that since much of what
we think and believe are not infallible, they may turn out
to be false. One should only believe that since which can
pass the test of doubt. If something is so clear and lucid
as not to be even doubted, then that is the only time
when one should actually buy a proposition. In the end,
Descartes thought that the only thing that one cannot
doubt is the existence of the self, for even if one doubts
oneself, which only proves that there is a doubting self,
a thing that thinks and therefore, that cannot be
doubted. Thus his famous, cogito ergo sum, “I think
therefore, I am.” The fact that one thinks should lead one
to conclude without a trace of doubt that he exist. The
self then for Descartes is also a combination of two
distinct entities, the cogito, the thing that thinks, which
is the mind, and the extenza or extension of the mind,
which is the body. In Descartes’s view the body is
nothing else but a machine that is attached to the mind.
The human person says, “But what then, am I? A
thinking thing. It has been said. But what is a thinking
thing? It is a thing that doubts, understands (Conceives),
affirms, denies, wills, refuses; that imagines also, and
perceives”

Hume

The self is not an entity over and beyond the

physical body. Men can only attain knowledge by
experiencing. Self, according to Hume, is simply “a
bundle or collection of different perceptions, which

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 succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and
are in a perpetual flux and movement.”

Immanuel Kant

Things that men perceive 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. Time and space are ideas that one cannot
find in the world, but is built in our minds; he calls these
the apparatuses of the mind. The self is not just what
gives one his personality; it is also the seat of knowledge
acquisition for all human persons.

Gilbert Ryle

Blatantly denying the concept of an internal, non-

physical self; what truly matters is the behavior that a
person manifests in his day-to-day life. “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

The mind and body are so intertwined that they

cannot be separated from one another. One cannot find
any experience that is not an embodied experience. All
experience is embodied; one’s body is his opening
toward his existence to the world. The living body, his
thoughts, emotions, and experiences are all one.

APPLICATION Activity 1.1 – The Self

AND
ASSESSMENT In your own words, state what “self” is for each of the
philosophers enumerated below. After doing so, explain
how your concept of “self” is compatible with how they
conceived of the “self.”

1. Socrates
2. Plato
3. Augustine
4. Descartes

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 5. Hume
6. Kant
7. Ryle
8. Merleau-Pont

Activity 1.2 – My Self

Answer the following questions about yourself as fully

and precisely as you can.

1. How would you characterize yourself?

2. What makes you stand out from the rest? What

makes yourself special?

3. How has your self-transformed itself?

4. How is yourself connected to your body?

5. How is yourself related to other selves?

What will happen to yourself after you die?

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Subject GEC 1 - Understanding the Self

Chapter 1 Defining the Self: Personal & Developmental

Perspective on Self and Identity

Lesson 2 The Self, Society, and Culture

Objectives At the end of the learning module you shall be able to:

1. Explain the relationship between and among the

self, society, and culture;

2. Describe and discuss the different ways by which

society and culture shape the self;

3. Compare and contrast how the self can be

influenced by the different institutions in the
society; and

4. Examine one’s self against the different views of

self that were discussed in the class.

Abstraction What Is the Self?

The self, in contemporary literature and even common

sense, is commonly defined by the following
characteristics:

- Separate means that the self is distinct from other

selves. The self is always unique and has its own
identity.

- Self-contained and independent because in

itself it can exist. Its distinctness allows it to be
self-contained with its own thoughts,
characteristics, and volition.

- Consistency means that a particular self’s traits,

characteristics, tendencies, and potentialities are
more or less the same.

- Unitary in that it is the center of all experiences

and thoughts that run through a certain person

- Private means that each person sorts out

information, feelings and emotions, and thought

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 processes within the self. This whole process is
never accessible to anyone but the self.

The Self and Culture

- According to Marcel Mauss, every self has two

faces:

Moi refers to a person’s sense of who he is, his body,

and his basic identity, his biological givenness.

Personne is composed of the social concepts of what it

means to be who he is.

- Language is another interesting aspect of this

social constructivism; it is a salient part of culture
and ultimately, has a tremendous effect in our
crafting of the self.

- If a self is born into a particular society or

culture, the self will have to adjust according to
its exposure.

The Self and the Development of the Social World

- More than his givenness (personality, tendencies,

and propensities, among others), one is believed
to be in active participation in the shaping of the
self.

- Men and women in their growth and

development engage actively in the shaping of
the self.

- The unending terrain of metamorphosis of the self

is mediated by language.

Mead and Vygotsky

- For Mead and Vygotsky, the way that human

persons develop is with the use of language
acquisition and interaction with others.

- Both Vygotsky and Mead treat the human mind as

something that is made, constituted through
language as experienced in the external world

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 and as encountered in dialogs with others.

Self in Families

- The kind of family that we are born in, the

resources available to us (human, spiritual,
economic), and the kind of development that we
will have will certainly affect us.

- Human beings are born virtually helpless and the

dependency period of a human baby to its parents
for nurturing is relatively longer than most other
animals.

- In trying to achieve the goal of becoming a fully

realized human, a child enters a system of
relationships, most important of which is the
family.

- Human persons learn the ways of living and

therefore their selfhood by being in a family. It is
what a family initiates a person to become that
serves as the basis for this person’s progress.

Gender and the Self

- Gender is one of those loci of the self that is subject

to alteration, change, and development.

- The sense of self that is being taught makes sure

that an individual fits in a particular environment,
is dangerous and detrimental in the goal of truly
finding one’s self, self-determination, and growth
of the self.

- It is important to give one the leeway to find,

express, and live his identity.

- Gender has to be personally discovered and

asserted and not dictated by culture and the
society.

APPLICATION Activity 1.3 – My Self Through the Years

AND
ASSESSMENT Paste a picture of you when you were in elementary, in
high school, and now that you are in college. Below the

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picture, lists down your salient characteristics that you
remember.

After having examined your “self” in its different stages,

fill out the table below:

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Subject GEC 1 - Understanding the Self

Chapter 1 Defining the Self: Personal & Developmental

Perspective on Self and Identity

Lesson 3 The Self as Cognitive Construct

Objectives At the end of the learning module you shall be able to:

5. Identify the different ideas in psychology about

the “self”;

6. Create your own definition of the “self” based on

the definitions from psychology; and

7. Analyze the effects of various factors identified in

psychology in the formation of the “self.”

Abstraction There are various definitions of the “self” and other

similar or interchangeable concepts in psychology.

Other concepts similar to self are identity and self-

concept:

 Identity is composed of personal characteristics,

social roles, and responsibilities, as well as
affiliations that define who one is.

 Self-concept is what basically comes to your mind

when you are asked about who you are.

Self, identity, and self-concept are not fixed in one time

frame.

Carl Rogers captured this idea in his concept of self-

schema or our organized system or collection of
knowledge about who we are. Theories generally see the
self and identity as mental constructs, created and
recreated in memory.

Freud saw the self, its mental processes, and one’s

behavior as the results of the interaction between the Id,
the Ego, and the Superego. There are three reasons why
self and identity are social products:

1. We do not create ourselves out of nothing.

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 Society helped in creating the foundations of who
we are.

2. Whether we like to admit it or not, we actually need

others to affirm and reinforce who we think we are.

3. What we think is important to us may also have

been influenced by what is important in our social
or historical context.

Social interaction and group affiliation are vital factors in

creating our self-concept especially in the aspect of
providing us with our social identity; There are times
when we are aware of our self-concepts; this is also
called self-awareness; Carver and Scheier identified two
types of self that we can be aware of:

1. the private self or your internal standards and

private thoughts and feelings; and

2. the public self or your public image commonly

geared toward having a good presentation of
yourself to others.

Self-awareness also presents us with at least three other

self-schema:

 The “actual” self is who you are at the moment

 The “ideal” self is who you like to be

 The “ought” self is who you think you should be

Self-awareness may be positive or negative depending

on the circumstances and our next course of action.

Our group identity and self-awareness also has a great

impact on our self-esteem, defined as our own positive
or negative perception or evaluation of ourselves.

One of the ways in which our social relationship affects

our self-esteem is through social comparison:

 The downward social comparison is the more

common type of comparing ourselves with others,

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 by comparing ourselves with those who are worse
off than us.

 The upward social comparison which is

comparing ourselves with those who are better off
than us.

Social comparison also entails what is called self-

evaluation maintenance theory, which states that we can
feel threatened when someone out-performs us,
especially when that person is close to us.

In the attempt to increase or maintain self-esteem, some

people become narcissistic, a “trait characterized by
overly high self-esteem, self-admiration, and self-
centeredness.”

There is a thin line between high self-esteem and

narcissism and there are a lot of tests and measurements
for self-esteem like the Rosenberg scale.

Though self-esteem is a very important concept related

to the self, studies have shown that it only has a
correlation, not causality, to positive outputs and
outlook.

Programs, activities, and parenting styles to boost self-

esteem should only be for rewarding good behavior and
other achievements and not for the purpose of merely
trying to make children feel better about themselves or
to appease them when they get angry or sad.

APPLICATION
AND Activity 1.4 – Success Stories
ASSESSMENT
Think of two or three success stories that you have
experience, explain it cogently but honestly through
video recording/presentation.

What does this say about who you are and what’s
important to you?

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Subject GEC 1 - Understanding the Self

Chapter 1 Defining the Self: Personal & Developmental

Perspective on Self and Identity

Lesson 4 The Self in Western and Eastern Thoughts

Objectives At the end of the learning module you shall be able to:

8. Differentiate the concept of self-according to

Western thought against Eastern/Oriental
perspectives;

9. Explain the concept of self as found in Asian

thoughts; and

10. Create a representation of the Filipino self.

Abstraction Eastern thoughts:

- Sees the other person as part of yourself as well as

the things you may create, a drama in which
everyone is interconnected with their specific roles

- Asian culture is called a collectivistic culture as the

group and social relations that is given more
importance than individual needs and wants.

Western thoughts:

- Looks at the world in dualities wherein you are

distinct from the other person, the creator is
separate from the object he created, in which the
self is distinguished and acknowledged

- The Western culture is what we would call an

individualistic culture since their focus is on the
person.

Confucianism

- A code of ethical conduct, of how one should

properly act according to his/her relationship with
other people

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 - The identity and self-concept of the individual are
interwoven with the identity and status of his/her
community or culture, sharing its pride as well as
its failures.

- Self-cultivation is seen as the ultimate purpose of

life.

- The cultivated self in Confucianism is what some

scholars call a “subdued self” wherein personal
needs are repressed (subdued) for the good of
many, making Confucian society also hierarchal for
the purpose of maintaining order and balance in
society.

Confucianism

- A code of ethical conduct, of how one should

properly act according to his/her relationship with
other people

- The identity and self-concept of the individual are

interwoven with the identity and status of his/her
community or culture, sharing its pride as well as
its failures.

- Self-cultivation is seen as the ultimate purpose of

life.

- The cultivated self in Confucianism is what some

scholars call a “subdued self” wherein personal
needs are repressed (subdued) for the good of
many, making Confucian society also hierarchal for
the purpose of maintaining order and balance in
society.

Taoism

- Living in the way of the Tao or the universe

- Rejects having one definition of what the Tao is

- Rejects the hierarchy and strictness brought by

Confucianism and would prefer a simple lifestyle
and its teachings thus aim to describe how to

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 attain that life

- The self is not just an extension of the family or

the community; it is part of the universe.

- The ideal self is selflessness but this is not

forgetting about the self; it is living a balanced life
with society and nature, being open and accepting
to change, forgetting about prejudices and
egocentric ideas and thinking about equality as
well as complementarity among humans as well as
other beings.

Buddhism

- The self is seen as an illusion, born out of

ignorance, of trying to hold and control things, or
human-centered needs; thus, the self is also the
source of all these sufferings.

- To forget about the self, forget the cravings of the

self, break the attachments you have with the
world, and to renounce the self which is the cause
of all suffering and in doing so, attain the state of
Nirvana.

Application & Activity 1.5 – My Self as Filipino Culture

Assessment
Create a representation, diagram, or concept map of the
SELF according to Filipino culture.

Provide a brief explanation of your output. You can also

cite books and researches about Filipino culture, self, and
identity to further elaborate on the topic.

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 ACTIVITIES AND EXERCISE

GENERAL RULE: Place your answers on a clean short bond paper with the
inclusion of your name, Course and Year Level, the Subject, and the email
address you are using (if applicable) in every part of the paper. Copy the
question and be content wise in answering.

Example:

FOR SUBMISSION

For Soft Copy: Send it to [email protected] following the subject

format (Course Code/Family Name/Course and Year Level /Monthly Period).
SUBMIT YOUR OUTPUT ONCE ONLY! And on time!
Example:

 Submission will only be on WEEKDAYS, 8AM to 5PM ONLY!

FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE

INSTRUCTIONS WILL LEAD TO
INVALIDATION
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