CABUBAS, DANIEL DALAGUIT

BSBA HRM 1-1 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

ASSIGNMENT 1

PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy is the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence,
especially in an academic discipline. It is a particular theory that someone has about how
to live or how to deal with a particular situation. It is also the academic discipline
concerned with investigating the nature of significance of ordinary and scientific beliefs.
It investigates the legitimacy of concepts by rational argument concerning their
implications, relationships as well as reality, knowledge, moral judgment, etc. The Greeks
were the ones who seriously questioned myths and moved away from them to understand
reality and respond to perennial questions of curiosity, including the question of the self.

Among the Greeks, the rejection of myths as a means of explaining natural phenomena
was seriously questioned and moved away from them in order to understand the reality
that gave answers to the existing question of curiosity, including the question of the self.

The following are discussions of different perspectives and understandings of the self
according to different philosophers.

Socrates (470 BC – 399 BC)

Socrates was concerned with the problem of the self. He proclaimed the true task of the
philosopher is to know oneself, and that the "unexamined life Is not worth living.” Socrates
was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher accredited as one of the founders of Western
philosophy and as the first moral philosopher of the Western ethical tradition of thought.
An elusive figure, he wrote nothing, and is chiefly known through the accounts of classical
writers, especially his students Plato and Xenophon, writing after his death.
Understanding of the self: “An unexamined life is not worth living” is a quote by Socrates
summarizing his philosophy on how one can live good and virtuous lives. Socrates gave
his take on what he conceived as the right way in which man should have lived his life in
order for man to acquire the happiness he wants, called the Attitudinal Level of Human
Nature. Socrates was concerned about understanding one’s self before manipulating the
things that surround us. For him, knowing the self first can lead people to what man can
be in this world. He believed that each of us is composed of two parts such as the body
and the soul. The body is the one that others might recognize, and it is up to the individual
what kind of body he wants others to remember. Socrates believed that the body is
imperfect and impermanent because it can change from time to time. On the other hand,
the soul is the one left after death, and this will ultimately be with God. To Socrates, the
soul is the reverse of the body because it will still continue to exist even when death shows
up. Socrates emphasized on the importance of philosophy as a path towards knowing
one’s self. He also put emphasis on how man should be wise and be able to use his
reason in living his day-to-day life—meaning, one’s access to happiness is thus
conditional in a sense that it could only reach if he will dwell on philosophizing instead of
focusing on earthly things.

Plato ( 428/427 – 348 BC)

Plato, a prominent philosopher of Classical Greece, established the Academy in Athens,

the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. His profound contributions have
cemented his place as a pivotal figure in the development of Western philosophy.
Alongside his teacher, Socrates, and his renowned student, Aristotle, Plato laid the
groundwork for Western philosophy and science. His influence extends beyond these
fields, as he is often recognized as a foundational figure for Western religion and
spirituality.

Understanding of the self: Plato emphasized the importance of self-knowledge, arguing

that understanding oneself is paramount before venturing into the world. He believed that
every human being should strive for truth and wisdom. He further proposed that each
individual comprises an imperfect, transient body and a perfect, eternal soul, which
elevates one’s humanity. Plato asserted that eternal truths reside not in the physical world
but in the realm of Ideas, which he termed “Idealism.” These truths can exist in our minds
but cannot be observed or perceived through our senses in the physical world. This
physical world, bound by the laws of physics and comprised of objects with mass, Plato
referred to as the “sensible” world, meaning the world perceived by the senses. In
essence, Plato believed that true reality, or truth, cannot be found in the world we
experience with our senses.

Aristotle (384 – 322 BC)

Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira,
Chalkidiki in the northern part of Greece. Along with Plato, he is considered the <Father
of Western Philosophy.” Aristotle provided a complex and harmonious synthesis of the
various existing philosophies prior to him, including those of Socrates and Plato, and it
was from his teachings that the West inherited its fundamental intellectual lexicon, as well
as problems and methods of inquiry. As a result, his philosophy has exerted a unique
influence on almost every form of knowledge in the west and it continues to be central to
the contemporary philosophical discussion.

Understanding of the self: Aristotle is the first philosopher who had incorporated Ethics,
Aesthetics, Politics, Logic and Science that made a comprehensive and systematic
philosophy. According to him, human souls have the combination of lower forms of souls.
He also stated that there is a hierarchy of living for souls because he believed that aside
from humans, animals and plants (and other living organisms) have their souls too. He
stated that man is an animal, an intelligent animal since humans know how to rationalize.
He also stated that we are what we repeatedly do and we develop morality through
repetition of ethical and spiritual manner.

St. Augustine (354 BC - 430 BC)

Saint Augustine of Hippo was a Roman African, early Christian theologian and
philosopher from Numidia whose writings influenced the development of Western
Christianity and Western philosophy. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius in North Africa
and is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity for his
writings in the Patristic Period. Among his most important works are The City of God, On
Christian Doctrine and Confessions.

Understanding the self: St. Augustine believed that humans are unique in their ability to
think, and that these forms of humans were ideas in the mind of God. He saw humans as
divided, with one part imperfect and constantly seeking connection with the divine, while
another part possesses the capacity for immortality.

Augustine emphasized free will, stating that humans have the choice to choose between
good and evil. However, he argued that God, the ultimate creator, did not create evil.
Instead, evil exists as a test for humanity, a way to determine who is worthy of joining
God. Augustine believed that humans have a responsibility to strive for union with God.

Despite free will, Augustine acknowledged that humans aren’t completely free to do
whatever they desire. He believed that rules and laws were necessary, divinely ordained
testaments to guide humanity. He further distinguished between two types of evil: physical
and moral. Physical evil encompasses things that harm the body, such as disease, natural
disasters, and accidents. Moral evil, on the other hand, stems from a deviation from the
norm of just and good actions. This involves humans consciously choosing to act in ways
they know are wrong.

St. Thomas of Aquinas (1225 – 1274)

Saint Thomas Aquinas OP was an Italian Dominican friar, Catholic priest, and Doctor of
the Church. He was an immensely influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the
tradition of scholasticism, within which he is also known as the Doctor Angelicus and the
Doctor Communis.
He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology and the father of Thomism;
of which he argued that reason is found in God. His influence on Western thought is
considerable, and much of modern philosophy developed or opposed his ideas,
particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory. Unlike
many currents in the Church of the time, Thomas embraced several ideas put forward by
Aristotle whom he called “The Philosopher” and attempted to synthesize Aristotelian
philosophy with the principles of christianity.

Understanding of the Self: St. Thomas Aquinas, a prominent philosopher, held a unique
perspective on faith. He believed that faith is not reliant on physical evidence or
observation, but rather a matter of belief without requiring explanation. He argued that
those who acknowledge God’s existence need not seek further proof, while those who
doubt will remain confused due to their limited view of ”seeing is believing.” Aquinas
proposed that human beings are composed of two parts: matter and form. Matter
represents the physical body, while form embodies the soul, which defines our essence.
As an influential figure in Christian philosophy, he believed in the immortality of the soul.
Upon death, the soul continues to exist and ascends to heaven, the kingdom of God, a
destination desired by all. He also emphasized that God, the creator of all, fashioned
humanity in his image.

Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650)

RenÈ Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. He theorized

that in order for knowledge to be perfected, it must necessarily be deduced from first
causes; so that to study for its acquisition, one must begin by searching for these first
causes. He then called this process philosophizing which needed first causes, or
Principles. These Principles must meet two conditions: first, they must be so clear and so
evident that the human mind cannot doubt of their truth when it attentively considers them;
and second, the knowledge of other things must depend upon these Principles in such a
way that they may be known without the other things, but not vice versa.

These principles are the following:

 1. Existence of his own mind. Descartes realized that even though he could doubt
the existence of the physical world and even his own body, he couldn’t doubt the
existence of his own mind. This is because doubting itself is an act of thinking, and
thinking requires a mind.

2. Existence of a perfect being (God)

Descartes argued that existence is a perfection. Since the idea of a perfect being
includes the idea of existence, this perfect being must exist. He concluded that this
perfect being is God, the creator of everything.

3. God created everything.

Descartes believed that God, being perfect, must have created everything. This is
because creating is a more perfect act than not creating.

4. Whatever we clearly and distinctly perceive is true. Descartes asserted that the
mind, not the senses, is the source of truth. He argued that the senses can be
deceptive, leading to illusions, dreams, and hallucinations. Since God is perfect
and created our minds, he would not create a mind that is prone to deceiving us.
Therefore, whatever we perceive clearly and distinctly must be true.

Understanding of the Self: First, Descartes thought that the Scholastics’ (Medieval
philosophers) method was prone to doubt given their reliance on sensation as the source
for all knowledge. Second, he wanted to replace their final causal model of scientific
explanation with the more modern, mechanistic model. Descartes attempted to address
the former issue via his method of doubt. The “hyperbolic doubt” then serves to clear the
way for what Descartes considers to be an unprejudiced search for the truth. He
discovered that “I think therefore, I exist” is impossible to doubt and therefore, absolutely
certain. According to him, there is a mind and body problem where the mind does exist
while the body is doubtful and the mind can exist without the body.

Descartes also founded the modern Rationalism. He pressed it to the forces of reason
and evidence in order to achieve the real safely, the purpose of knowledge is to “make us
like the master and possessors of nature.” He discovered that “I think therefore, I exist” is
impossible to doubt and therefore, absolutely certain. Just like when we are unsure of
things, we usually doubt it because we have the mind to think. According to him, there is
a mind and body problem where the mind does exist while the body is doubtful and the
mind can exist without the body

David Hume (1711 - 1776)

David Hume was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, and

essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of philosophical
empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism. Hume strve to create a total naturalistic science
of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature. Against philosophical
rationalists, Hume held that passion rather than reason governs human behaviour. Hume
argued against the existence of innate ideas, positing that all human knowledge is
founded solely in experience.

Understanding of the Self: David Hume, unlike the other philosophers mentioned,
believed that knowledge comes solely from our senses and experiences. He rejected the
notion of a separate, unchanging self or soul, arguing that the self is simply a collection
of impressions and ideas. Hume explained that impressions are the raw materials of our
experience, like sensations, feelings, and perceptions. Ideas, on the other hand, are
copies of these impressions, and therefore less real. The self, for Hume, is a constantly
changing stream of these impressions and ideas, a bundle of experiences rather than a
fixed entity. Hume further argued that human beings form impressions through their
Interactions with the world and each other. These impressions are then used to create
ideas. He saw this continuous process of experiencing and thinking as fundamental to
what makes us human. It is through this constant growth and change that we develop our
understanding of the world and ourselves.

Karl Marx ( May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883)

Karl Marx was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist,
journalist and socialist revolutionary. He was born in Trier, Germany. His best-known titles
are the 1848 pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto, and the three-volume Das Kapital.
His political and philosophical thought had enormous influence on subsequent
intellectual, economic and political history and his name has been used as an adjective,
a noun and a school of social theory.

Understanding of the Self: Marx believed that work, while necessary for survival, can
also lead to a sense of disconnect from oneself and society. He advocated for a
philosophy that actively seeks to address these issues and create a more just and
equitable society.

Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976)

Gilbert Ryle is a British philosopher whose ideas in philosophy of mind have been called
behaviorist. He challenged the traditional distinction between body and mind As
delineated by RenÈ Descartes. Ryle analyzed propositions that appear irreconcilable, as
when free will is set in opposition to the fatalistic view that future specific events are
inevitable. He believed that the dilemmas posed by these seemingly contradictory
propositions could be resolved only by viewing them as the result of conceptual confusion
between the language of logic and the language of events.

Understanding of the self: Ryle denies the internal, non-physical self. He believed that
“what truly matters is the behavior that a person manifests in his day-to-day life.”
According to him, the self is not an entity one can locate and analyze but simply the
convenient name that we use to refer to the behaviors that we make.
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

He is best known as the leading exponent of existentialism in the 20 th century. Sartre took
over the phenomenological method, which proposes careful, unprejudiced description of
the phenomena of conscious experience.

Existentialism is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human

existence and centers on the experience of thinking, feeling, and acting. The individual’s
starting point has been called “the existential angst,” a sense of dread, disorientation,
confusion, or anxiety in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world.
Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and
value of human existence.

Understanding of the self: Sartre believed in the essential freedom of individuals, and
he also believed that as free beings, people are responsible for all elements of
themselves, their consciousness, and their actions. That is, with total freedom comes total
responsibility. He believed that even those people who wish not to be responsible, who
declare themselves not responsible for themselves or their actions, are still making a
conscious choice and are thus responsible for anything that happens as a consequence
of their inaction. Sartre’s moral philosophy maintains that ethics are essentially a matter
of individual conscience. Sartre reveals much about his own ethics in his writings about
oppressive societal structures and the ways in which individuals might ideally interact with
each other to affirm their respective humanities, but he is dismissive of any version of
universal ethics. He is clear in his belief that morals are always first and foremost a matter
of subjective, individual conscience. Sartre defines two types, or ways, of being: en-soi,
or being-in-itself, and pour-soi, or being-foritself. He uses the first of these, en-soi, to
describe things that have a definable and complete essence yet are not conscious of
themselves or their essential completeness. Trees, rocks, and birds, for example, fall into
this category. Sartre uses pour-soi to describe human beings, who are defined by their
possession of consciousness and, more specifically, by their consciousness of their own
existence4and, as Sartre writes, by their consciousness of lacking the complete, definable
essence of the en-soi. This state of being-for-itself is not just defined by
selfconsciousness4it would not exist without that consciousness.

Democritus of Abdera (460 BC-370 BC)

Democritus was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher primarily remembered today

for his formulation of the atomic theory of the universe. He was also known as “The
Laughing Philosopher.” Democritus was born in Abdera, Thrace, around 460 BC. His
speculation on atoms, taken from his mentor Leucippus, bears a passing and partial
resemblance to the 19thCentury understanding of atomic structure that has led some to
regard Democritus as more of a scientist than other Greek philosophers.

Understanding of the self: Democritus of Abdera was a Greek philosopher who

indicated the importance of happiness by ridiculing human folly. According to him, men
must always remember those things that make lives delightful and fresh. However, with
failures and stupidities surrounding an individual, he focused on the positive aspects of
life. He held that positivity would always triumph over negativity, and even upon loss and
disappointment, it should not be plunged into surrender or defeat. Democritus also held
the conviction that the world operates in reference to natural laws. He expanded on his
teacher Leucippus’s ideas by presenting the atomic theory. This theory postulates that
everything in the universe is composed of small indivisible particles known as “atoms,”
which never stay in a state of rest.

Heraclitus (6th-5th BC)

Heraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, and a native of the city of
Ephesus, then part of the Persian Empire. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is
known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a
pioneer of wisdom. From the lonely life he led and his stress upon the heedless
unconsciousness of humankind, he was called “The Obscure” and the “Weeping
Philosopher”.

Understanding of the self: Aside from what Thales and Anaximenes believed that all
things are form through water and air, Heraclitus proposed the theory of flux and fire
wherein he believed that this world is constantly changing like a fire and all things are in
flux which means that everything is in motion and transforming eternally. He connected
his belief to the river paradox and said that we cannot step twice into the same river,
meaning, human beings will never have a chance to go back to the past and can only
move forward. Heraclitus also added the “The Problem of Change” wherein he stated that
humans are afraid to change, afraid of what others might think, and afraid of the kind of
response that will be received in the face of change. He believed that man should not be
afraid to change because this leads to being a better individual. Heraclitus theorized that
we are living in a constant flux where we, humans, are susceptible to changes as we are
surrounded by a dynamic environment. The only key to go with the flow is to embrace
these changes since the only thing constant in this world is change.

Anaximenes (6th – 5th BC)

Anaximenes of Miletus was an Ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosopher active in the latter
half of the 6th century BC. The details of his life are obscure and undocumented because
none of his work has been preserved. Anaximenes’s ideas and philosophies are known
today because of comments made by Aristotle and other writers on the history of Greek
Philosophy.

Understanding of the self: According to him humans are continuously alive and
breathing because of our primary need for air that can be found everywhere, because of
that, Anaximenes concludes that air is the origin of everything. Anaximenes believed that
the body is condensed air, and that the compression of air or rarefied air is what makes
up the soul and that it is the sign of one’s selfexistence and why human beings continue
to live. Once any of these vanish, it may be the reason why the self is about to leave this
world.
Thales (624 BC – 546 BC)

Thales of Miletus, was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

from Miletus in Asia Minor (present-day Milet in Turkey). He was one of the Seven Sages
of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regarded him as the first philosopher in the Greek
tradition, and he is otherwise historically recognized as the first individual in Western
civilization known to have entertained and engaged in scientific philosophy.

Understanding of the self: Thales thought that all living things has begun from one thing
in common and by his interest in studying the geography and any scientific explanation
of the world, he realized and suggested that water is the substance that everything in
nature is made out of and because of the fact that this world has a large portion of water,
it helped him to support his theory. The basis of his philosophy is by considering that the
earth floats on water, wherein, water is a permanent existential part of the world and that
it provides life and stability. For Thales, water is the urstuff, the primordial principle or the
basic element that provides life and stability.