Philosophical

• Explain why it is essential to understand the self

• Describe and discuss the different notions of the
self from the points of view of various
philosophers across time and place;?
• Compare and contrast how the self has been
represented in different philosophical schools;
and?
• Examine oneself against the different views of the
self that were discussed in class
 Came from the two Greek words:
Philia (φιλο) means “love”
Sophia (σοφία) means “wisdom”
Therefore, it literally means, love of wisdom.
 ACADEMIC DEFINITION

“Scientia rerum omnium per

causas altissimas,
naturali ratione comparata.”

(The science of all things

through the highest causes
obtained by natural reason).
 PHILOSOPHY CAN BE DIVIDED INTO:?

MAIN BRANCHES
• Metaphysics
• Epistemology
• Axiology
MAIN DIVISIONS
• Theoretical
• Practical
METAPHYSICS
• Refers to the branch of
philosophy that deals the
nature of reality.
• Ontology is the study of
the nature of the
existence of things. Also
referred to as the theory
of being.
 Epistemology
(meaning study of
knowledge) It refers to
the study of validity of
human knowledge.

• empiricism (experience) or rationalism (by the mind prior to

experience) – and verification or confirmation of knowledge.
• Skepticism - The mind cannot attain the truth because it is
prone to error and ergo one needs to suspend his / her belief.
Axiology refers to the philosophical study
of value and as humans we value two
things: beauty and human conduct.

• Aesthetics is concerned with the

analysis of aesthetic experience
and the idea of what is beautiful
(objective beauty).
• Ethics (ethos), meaning "habit,
custom“ is concerned with moral
conduct.
Other Divisions of Philosophy
Theoretical
• Cosmology
• Ontology
• Metaphysics
• Psychology
• Theodicy
• (Philosophy of
• Religion)
• Epistemology
 COSMOLOGY
The study of the origin, evolution, and ultimate fate of the
entire universe. Cosmologists deal with the questions
regarding the origin of the universe in a scientific and
philosophical manner.
 PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology is
defined as a science
that studies human
and animal behavior
 THEODICY
Theodicy investigates the
nature, being, and attributes
of God not based on the bible
and divine revelation but by
logical abstractions and
reasoning.
SEMANTICS
The study of the
meaning of words in
its linguistic forms,
their functions and
their relationship to
other words.
 HERMENUETICS
Hermeneutics as the
methodology of
interpretation is concerned
with problems that arise
when dealing with meaningful
human actions and the
products of such actions,
most importantly texts.
LOGIC
Logic came from the Greek
word "logos", which has a
variety of meanings including
word, thought, idea, argument,
account, reason or principle. It
is defined as the science of
correct reasoning.
 The rich history of philosophy is
replete with men and women who
inquired into the fundamental nature
of the 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.
It was the Greeks who questioned myths
and moved away from them in
attempting to understand the reality and
respond to perennial questions of
curiosity, including the question of self.

The diverse perspectives on the self can

be best seen and understood then by
revisiting its prime movers and identify
the most vital conjectures made by the
great thinkers form the ancient time
until to the contemporary era.
 An Unexamined life
is not worth living

• A Greek philosopher credited as one of the

founders of Western philosophy
• For Socrates the self is synonymous with the
soul. He believes that every human
possesses an immortal soul that survives the
SOCRATES
physical body. Socrates was the first to focus
on the full power of reason on the human
self.
 An Unexamined life
is not worth living

• Socrates explains that the essence of the self

(soul) is the immortal entity. The soul strives
for wisdom and perfection, and reason is the
soul’s tool to achieve this exalted state.
• But then as long as the soul is tied to the
SOCRATES
body, the quest for wisdom is inhibited by
the imperfection of the physical realm,
where it wanders and is confused.
SOCRATES THUS SUGGESTS THAT MAN MUST
LIVE AN EXAMINED LIFE AND A LIFE OF
PURPOSE AND VALUE.
• The individual person can have a
meaningful and happy life only if he can
become virtuous and knows the values
himself that can be achieved through
incessant soul-searching.
• He must begin at the source of all
knowledge and significance-the self.

SOCRATES
PLATO

THE SELF IS AN IMMORTAL

SOUL

• Like Socrates , Plato

PLATO
believes that the self is
synonymous with the soul.
• He also introduces the idea
of a three-part soul/self
;reason, physical appetite,
and spirit.
 These 3 elements are in a dynamic relationship with one another,
sometimes in conflict. When conflict occurs, Plato adheres that it is
the responsibility of the Reason to sort things and restore the
equilibrium among the 3 elements of the self.
• In additional, in his Theory of
Forms, he introduces the concepts
of the two worlds.
• The world of forms (non physical
ideas) and the world of sense
(reality).
• Plato claims that the sensible
world is dependent on the ideal
world where the concept of the
soul belongs.
• Thus, the soul is regarded as
something permanent, man should
give more emphasis to it than the
physical body which resides in the
world of sense.
ARISTOTLE

• THE SOUL IS THE ESSENCE OF THE

SELF
• Aristotle believes that the soul is
merely a set of defining features and
does not consider the body and soul as
separate entities. He suggests that
anything with life has a soul. Aristotle
holds that the soul is the essence of all
living things. Thus, the soul is the
essence of the self.

ARISTOTLE
• Also, he introduces three
kind of soul: vegetative,
sentient and rational.
• The vegetative soul
includes the physical body
that can grow. Sentient soul
includes sensual desires.
Lastly, the rational soul is
what makes man human.
 • St. Augustine is regarded as a
saint in the Roman Catholic
Church.
• He integrates the ideas of Plato
and the teachings of
Christianity. He claimed to
view the body as “spouse” of
the soul.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

 ST. AUGUSTINE: THE SELF
HAS AN IMMORTAL SOUL
• He believes that the body is united
with the soul so that man may be
entire and complete.
• Nevertheless, as a religious
philosopher, he contemplates on
the nature of man with emphasis on
the soul as an essential element of
man.
• He believes that the soul is what
governs and defines man.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS:
MAN IS COMPOSED OF TWO
PARTS: MATTER AND FORM
• St. Thomas Aquinas, the most
eminent 13th century scholar and
stalwart of the medieval era.
Adopting some ideas from
Aristotle, Aquinas said that man is
composed of 2 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. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS:
MAN IS COMPOSED OF TWO
PARTS: MATTER AND FORM

• On the other hand, form, or

morphe in Greek refers to the
essence of the substance. It is
what makes it what it is.
• To Aquinas, just as for Aristotle,
the soul is what animates the
body, it is what makes us
human.
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
 COGITO ERGO SUM:
I THINK, THEREFORE, I AM

• French philosopher Rene

Descartes is the father of
modern philosophy. He has
brought an entirely new
perspective to philosophy and
the self. He wants to penetrate
the nature of reasoning
process and understand its
relationship to human self.
RENE DESCARTES
 COGITO ERGO SUM:
I THINK, THEREFORE, I AM

• The Latin phrase Cogito ergo sum

- “I think therefore I am” is the
keystone of his concept of self.
• For him, the act of thinking about
the self - of being self conscious -
is proof there is a self.
• For him, this is the essence of the
human existence - a thinking
entity that doubts, understands
and analyzes questions and
RENE DESCARTES reasons.
 THE SELF IS THE
CONSCIOUSNESS
• For John Locke, an English philosopher,
the human mind at birth is tabularasa
ora blank slate.
• He feels that the self is constructed
primarily from the self experience.
These experiences shape and mold the
self throughout a person’s life.
• He also believes that the essence of the
self is its conscious awareness of itself
as thinking, reasoning and reflecting
identity.

JOHN LOCKED
 THE SELF IS THE
CONSCIOUSNESS
• He contends that consciousness
accompanies thinking and makes
possible the concept people have of
the self.
• Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human
Understanding” (1689) outlined a
theory of human knowledge, identity
and selfhood that would be hugely
influential to Enlightenment thinkers. To
Locke, knowledge was not the
discovery of anything either innate or
outside of the individual, but simply the
accumulation of “facts” derived from
sensory experience. JOHN LOCKED
 DAVID HUME:
THERE IS NO SELF

• David Hume suggests that if people

examine their experience through
introspection, they will discover that
there is no self.
• For him what people experience is just
bundle of alter perceptions.

• Hume maintains that if people examine

the contents of their experience, they
will find that there are only distinct
entities: impressions and ideas.
 DAVID HUME:
THERE IS NO SELF
• IMPRESSIONS ARE THE BASIC
SENSATIONS OF MAN SUCH AS LOVE,
HATE, GRIEF, COLD AND HEAT.
IMPRESSIONS ARE VIVID
PERCEPTIONS AND ARE STRONGLY
AND LIVELY.
• Ideas, however, are thoughts and
images from impressions so they are
less lively and vivid.
• Hume’s skeptical claim on the issue is
that people have no experience of the
self. Thus, the idea of personal identity
is just a result of imagination.
 IMMANUEL KANT:
WE CONSTRUCT THE SELF
• For German philosopher Immanuel
Kant, it is the self that makes
experiencing an intelligible world
possible because it is the self that is
actively uniting and synthesizing all our
thoughts and perceptions.

• Kant believes that the self is an organizing principle that

makes a unified and intelligible experience possible.
• In other words, the self is constructing its own reality,
actively creating a world that is familiar, predictable, and
most significantly, mine.
 IMMANUEL KANT:
WE CONSTRUCT THE SELF

The self is a regulative value of the self that

sets the experience by making unified
experiences possible.
 GILBERT RYLE:
THE SELF IS THE WAY PEOPLE BEHAVE
British Philosopher Gilbert Ryle believes
that the self is best understood as a pattern
GILBERT RYLE

of behavior, the tendency or disposition of

a person to behave in a certain way in
certain circumstances.

• Ryle’s concept of the human’s self

provides the philosophical principle, “I
act therefore I am”
• Ryle considers the mind and body to
be intrinsically link in complex and
intimate ways.
 PAUL CHURCHLAND:
THE SELF IS THE BRAIN
Canadian philosopher Paul Churchland
advocates the idea of eliminative
materialism or the idea that the self is
inseparable from the brain and the
physiology of the body.

• All person has is the brain, and so if

the brain is gone, there is no self. For
him, the physical brain gives people
the sense of self.
• The mind does not really exist
because it cannot be experienced by PAUL CHURCHLAND
the senses.
 MAURICE MERLEAU- PONTY
The self is embodied subjectivity
• French thinker Merleau- Ponty
argues that all knowledge about the
self is based on the phenomena of
experience.
• He further articulates that when
people examine the self at central
level of directexperience, people will
find that the mind and body are
unified.
MAURICE MERLEAU- PONTY He note in his book, Phenomenology of
Experience, that everything that people
are aware of is contained within the
consciousness.
 MAURICE MERLEAU- PONTY
The self is embodied subjectivity

• CONSCIOUSNESS IS A DYNAMIC
FORM RESPONSIBLE FOR ACTIVELY
STRUCTURING CONSCIOUS AND
PHYSICAL BEHAVIOR.
For him, perception is not merely a
consequence of sensory experience;
rather, it is conscious experience. Thus,
MAURICE MERLEAU- PONTY the self is embodied subjectivity.
PHILOSOPHICAL
PERSPECTIVE
“PHILOSOPHY, LIKE ALL OTHER
KNOWLEDGE, AIMS PRIMARILY AT
KNOWLEDGE. THE KNOWLEDGE THAT
IT AIMS FOR IS THAT KIND WHICH
RESULTS FROM OR A CRITICAL
EXAMINATION OF THE GROUNDS OF
CONVICTIONS, PREJUDICES AND
BELIEFS.”

Bertrand Russel
 • Countless years philosophizing
have yielded various philosophies
simply because human persons
perceive and appreciate things
differently.

The story illustrates how the blind men, describing

the same elephants, arrived at different conclusion as
to what creature is. Though everything that they said
about the elephant is true, their claim to the truth is
only partial as they were only too able to describe
the aspect of the animal.
 • It adhere in the superiority of “mind” over
“matter”.
• This dualistic outlook identifies authentic
knowledge with thoughts and ideas; rejects
those that arise from the schools of thoughts
that rely on the material world for knowledge.

MAIN TENET
• Primacy of Ideas and Dichotomy of “Mind”
and “Matter”

Plato George Immanue F.W.J. G.W.F.

Berkerl l Schelin Hegel
y Kant g
 PRAGMATISM
This philosophy holds that experience is the ultimate
basis of reality and stresses that practical consequences
constitute the essential criteria in determining truth, or
values.
• 19th century philosophy, popular among
Americans.

• Main Tenet
⚬ Experience: Ultimate Basis of Reality
⚬ Truth as Whatever Works

• Philosophers
⚬ Charles Sanders Peirce
⚬ John Dewey
⚬ William James
⚬ Hilary Putnam
 EXISTENTIALISM
Refers to the focus on the question of human existence and the feeling that
there is no purpose at the core of existence, existentialism holds that the
only way to rise above the essentially absurd condition of humanity is by
exercising personal freedom and choice.
• The most widely influential philosophical orientation from 1945 to the
1970s.

• Main Tenet
⚬ Experience: Ultimate Basis of Reality
⚬ Truth as Whatever Works

• Philosophers
⚬ Soren Kierkegaard
⚬ Friedrich Nietzche
⚬ Jean-Paul Sartre
⚬ Martin Heidegger
 TAKE HOME TASK
Instruction: Write an essay on the philosophical perspectives of the self.
Consider the following questions in writing your essay.
1. Explain how each philosophy of the self impacts your self-understanding
2. Which philosophy relates to your own belief?
3. What is your philosophy of the self?
4. What is significance of having a philosophy of the self?
5. Describe who you are, the essence of your existence, and how to achieve
happy and successful life
 REFERENCE
Alata, E., Caslib, Jr., B., Serafica, J. and Pawilen, R.A. (2018). Understanding the
Self. Rex Book Store Inc.

Brawner, D. and Arcega, A. (2018). Understanding the Self. C&E Publishing, Inc.