THINKING SELF:

Philosophical View of
Self According to
various philosophers
and scholars

Retreived from
https://www.britannica.com/story/aristo
tle-at-2400

MODULE 1
At the end of the topic, the
students will be able to:
1. Identify and discuss the different views on “self” by
various philosophers across time and space.
2. Compare and contrast how the self has been
discussed and explained by various philosophers.
3. Explain why is it necessary to understand the self
4. Demonstrate how various philosophical views can be
applied to understand oneself.
LEARNING GUIDE

• To facilitate your learning of the lesson in general, it is

beneficial that you answer the following questions as
you read through the lessons:

• 1. How do ancient philosophers view the development

of man?

• 2. How do other philosophers view the development of

man?

• Some of the questions for review are posted in middle of

the lesson. So feel free to read through tehm.
Introduction

Before the lesson begins. Ask yourself this two

questions.

What’s in a name?
Does our name represent who we are?
Introduction
Our names represent us, before we even had to be in
any formal institution of learning, we were first taught
as kids to articulate and write down our names, our
names signify us.

But we are more than our names. Who we are or what

we call “self” is a broader idea.

The self is something that a person perennially molds,

shapes, and develops, it is not a static thing that one is
simply born like a mole on one’s face.
Socrates
470-399BC
Laid the foundation for
Western philosophy
Became known as the
“wisest man in all of
Greece”
Most of what is known
about Socrates is
derived from information
of different sources.
■ Plato
■ Xenophone Retrieved from
https://www.tes.com/lessons/qaVdkxS5AsIQGQ/city
■ Aristophanes -states-athens-vs-sparta
■ Aristotle
Socrates

Socrates was the first philosopher who ever

engaged in a systematic questioning about
the self.
It was his life-long mission to know oneself,
that every man is composed of body and soul.
Every human person is dualistic, all individuals
have an imperfect-impermanent aspect, the
body while maintaining that there is also a soul
that is perfect and permanent.
Review

How do you
think
Socrates view
the self?
Retrieved from https://www.tes.com/lessons/qaVdkxS5AsIQGQ/city-
states-athens-vs-sparta
Plato
427-347 BC
Real name is Aristocles
Founder of the Academy

Retrieved from
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08vwn6h
Plato
Socrates’ student took
off from his master and
supported the idea that
man is a dual nature of
body and soul.

In his magnum opus, The

Republic (Plato 2000), he
added that there are
three components of the
soul, the rational, spirited
Retrieved from
and appetitive soul, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08vwn6h
working harmoniously
with one another.
Plato
Rational soul forged by the reason and intellectual
affairs

Spirited soul is in charge of emotions that is kept at

bay

Appetitive soul is charge of desires and sexual

intercourse that is well controlled.
The desires for essential things should be
limited by other sections of the soul, while
illegitimate desires ought to be limited entirely
by other elements of soul.

The rational soul on the other hand is the

thinking element in every human being, which
decided what is factual and merely obvious,
judges what is factual and what is untrue, and
intelligently makes sensible decisions.
Finally, the spirited soul produces the desires
that love victory and honor. In the just soul, the
spirit acts as an implementer of the rational
soul, making sure that the rules of reason are
adhered to. Emotions like indignation and
anger are the impact of the disappointment
of the spirit. Someone might respond to the
claim that the soul comprises of three parts.
For a more in-depth discussion of Plato’s
explanation of the soul please read the
following reference:

https://philosophycourse.info/platosite/3scha
rt.html
Review

How do you think Plato view the

the self?

Retrieved from
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08vwn6h
Augustine the Hippo

Retrieved from
https://www.goodreads.com/author
/show/6819578
Augustine

He agreed that man is a

bifurcated nature, that there
is an aspect of a man which
dwells in the world, that is
imperfect and continuously
yearns with the divine while
the other is reaching
immortality.
The body is bound to die on
earth and the soul is living
eternally in a realm of
spiritual bliss in communion
with God. Retrieved from
https://thegreatthinkers.org/augustine/biography/
 Thomas Aquinas
1225 - 1274
•Known as the greatest Christian
medieval theologian-philosopher, he
single-handedly stemmed the tide of
Islamic Aristotelianism into Europe
•His friends playfully called him “the
dumb ox” Retrieved from
•He produced over ninety works in a http://fountainofelias.blogspot.com/2019/01/praying-with-
little over two decades st-thomas-aquinas.html
•Summa Theologica
•Summa Contra Gentiles
•The Ways of God: For Meditation and •He stands at the top of the group of
Prayer thinkers known as Scholastics
•At age 48 he suddenly stopped
writing
•Maybe he suffered a brain hemorrhage
•Maybe he had a vision that academic
learning was not the most important
thing
•“All that I have written seems like straw
to me,” he told a friend
•A year later, he died on the road to a
church council
Thomas Aquinas
Adopting some ideas from Aristotle, he said
that man is composed of two parts; matter
and form.
Matter or hyle in Greek, man’s body is part
of the common stuff that makes up
everything in the universe hence, form or
morphe in Greek, refers to the essence of a
substance or thing that makes it what it is.
Soul is what animates the body, it is what
makes us humans.
Review

How do you
think St.
Augustine
and Thomas
Aquinas view
the the self?
Retrieved from
http://fountainofelias.blogspot.com/2019/01/praying-with-
st-thomas-aquinas.html
Rene Descartes
(1596 – 1650)

Father of Modern Philosophy

Human person is having a body
and mind
Retrieved from
Claims that there is so much https://medium.com/@hot.gaming/d
oubt-like-rené-descartes-
f9b7f99aa66c
doubt of what we think and
believe because they are not
infallible, and may turn out to
be false.
Descartes
In his famous cognito ergo sum or I think
therefore, I am.
The cognito or the thing that thinks, which is
the mind; extenza or extenson of the mind
which is the body.
Body is nothing else but a machine that is
attached to the mind.
Descartes 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” (Descartes
2008).
To help us understand how Descartes looks into the “self” as a
view, read the “The Philosopher’s view : Thinking about profound
ideas” by John Chaffee,
https://philocyclevl.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/john-chaffee-
the-philosopher_s-way_-thinking-critically-about-profound-ideas-
5th-edition-pearson-2015.pdf

Descartes modern perspective shows that the thinking man is a

seeker of the truth. Therefore, it is necessary that at least once in
your life you doubt, as far as possible.
Review

How do you think Descartes view

the self?

Retrieved from
https://medium.com/@hot.gaming/doubt-like-rené-
descartes-f9b7f99aa66c
David Hume
(1711 – 1776)
Scottish philosopher, an empiricist
Men can only attain knowledge by
experience. Retrieved from
https://www.iep.utm.edu/h
ume/

The self is not an entity over and beyond the

physical body, but a bundle of impressions.
David Hume

Impressions are the basic object of our

experience or sensation, it is core of our
thoughts.
The self is simply “a bundle or collection of
different perceptions, succeed each other
with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a
perpetual flux and movement” (Hume and
Steinberg 1992).
David Hume

Perceptions ’ are divided by Hume into ‘impressions ’

and ‘ ideas’, the difference between the two being by
marked by a difference of ‘forcefulness’ and
‘vivacity’, so that impressions relate roughly to
feeling’ (or ‘sensing’) and ideas to ‘thinking’. ‘
Feeling’ here should be understood broadly, and
hume, again following Locke, divides impressions
into those of ‘sensation’ and those of ‘reflection’
Impressions of sensation derive from our senses,
impressions of reflection derive from our experience
of our mind, e.g. feeling emotions.
For a more in-depth understanding of Hume’s
ideas, please read: Impressions and Ideas at
http://documents.routledge-
interactive.s3.amazonaws.com/9781138
793934/A2/Hume/ImpressionsIdeas.pdf
Review

How do you think Hume view the

self?
Immanuel Kant

§ Born: April 22, 1724.

§ He lived his entire life in and
around Königsberg in
East Prussia
(Now Kaliningrad, Russia)
never traveled more than
50 miles from his birthplace.

Retrieved from
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Immanu
el_Kant
Kant

It is necessary that a mind organizes the

impressions that men get from the external
world, time and space this are the ideas
that one cannot find in the world but is built
in our minds; he calls these the apparatus of
the mind.
Self is an actively engaged intelligence in
man that synthesizes all knowledge and
experience.
 Gilbert Ryle
Ò Gilbert Ryle (19 August 1900, Brighton –
6 October 1976, Oxford), was a British
philosopher, a representative of the
generation of British ordinary language
philosophers that shared Wittgenstein's
approach to philosophical problems,[1]
and is principally known for his critique of
Cartesian dualism, for which he coined
the phrase "the ghost in the machine".
Retrieved from
https://movingonfrombowlby.wordpress Ò Some of his ideas in the philosophy of
.com/2014/03/06/gilbert-ryle-and-the- mind have been referred to as
brain/ "behaviourist."
Ò Ryle's best known book is The Concept of
Mind (1949), in which he writes that the
"general trend of this book will
undoubtedly, and harmlessly, be
stigmatised as 'behaviourist'."
Ryle

Behaviors of the person manifests in his day

o day life activity.
Self is not an entity on can locate and
analyze but simply the convenient name that
people use to refer to all the behaviors that
people make.
 Maurice Marleau-Ponty

Died in 1961, at the time rivaled Sartre as

most influential academic
Still existential, but much more concerned
with matters of perception
Perception has to come from a body
What does it mean to have a body?
What does it mean to see versus to think?

Retrieved from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
/Maurice_Merleau-Ponty
Marleau-Ponty

He insisted that mind and body are so

intertwined and cannot be separated from
one another, a body is the opening toward
his existence to the world.
Living body, his thoughts, emotions, and
experiences are all in one.
Review

What is the difference between

Hume, Ryle and Marleau-Ponty’s
view of the self?
References
Alata, E., Caslib, Jr., B., Serafica,J., and Pawilen, R.A., (2018).
Understanding the Self. First Edition. Rex Bookstore, Manila,
Philippines.
Chaffee, J. (2015). “The Philosopher’s view : Thinking about
profound ideas” Last cited at
https://philocyclevl.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/john-chaffee-
the-philosopher_s-way_-thinking-critically-about-profound-
ideas-5th-edition-pearson-2015.pdf
Kerns, T. ,. “Plato’s Three part of the Soul”. Last cited at
https://philosophycourse.info/platosite/3schart.html
Lacewing, M. - Impressions and Ideas. Last cited at
http://documents.routledge-
interactive.s3.amazonaws.com/9781138793934/A2/Hume/Impr
essionsIdeas.pdf
References

https://www.scribd.com/doc/
https://www.slideshare.net/
The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy 2nd
Edition. Ed. Robert Audi.
The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Ed. Ted
Honderich. Oxford, UK:
Faculty.washington.edu
Instruct.uwo.ca
The End