Socrates &
Plato
Augustine &
Thomas
Aquinas
René Descartes
DavidHume
Immanuel Kant
Gilbert Ryle
Maurice
Merleau-Ponty
The Self Society
and Culture
Introduction • Across time and history, the self has
been debated, discussed, and
fruitfully or otherwise conceptualized
by different thinkers in philosophy.
Eventually, with the advent of the
social science, it became possible for
new way and paradigms to reexamine
the true nature of the self. People put
a halt on speculative debates on the
relationship between the body and
soul, eventually renamed body and
the mind.
My Self Through • Paste a picture of you when you were
the Years in elementary, in high school, and
now that you are in college.
Elementary Highschool College
Analysis • After having examined your “self” in
its different stages, fill out the table
below
Differences in my
Possible reasons
Similarities in all “self” across the
for the
stages of my “self” three stages of
differences in me
my life
Abstract : • The self, in contemporary literature
(What is the self?) and even common sense, is commonly
defined by the following
characteristics: “Separate, self
contained, independent, consistent,
unitary, and private” (Steve 1996). By
separate, it is meant that the self is
distinct from other selves.
Gender and self
• Another important aspect of the self is gender. Gender is one of those loci of the self that
is subject to alteration, change, and development. We have seen in the past years how
people fought hard for the right to express, validate, and assert their gender expression.
Many conservatives may frown upon this and insist on the biological. However, from the
point-of-view of the social science and the self, it is important to give one the leeway to find,
express and live his identity. This froms part of selfhood that one cannot just dismiss.
The Self and Culture
• Remain the same person and turning chameleon to one’s context seems paradoxical. However,
the French Anthropologist Marcel Mauss has an explanation for this Phenomenon. According
to Mauss, every self has two faces: Personne and moi. Moi refers to a person’s sense of who
he is, his body, and his basic identity, his biological givenness. Moi is a person’s basic identity
Personne, on the other hand, is composed of the social concepts of what it means to be who
he is. Personne has much to do with what it means to live in a particular institution, a
particular religion, a particular nationality, and how to behave given expectations and
and influences from others.
The Self and the Development
of the Social World
• So how do people actively produce their social worlds? How do children growing up
become social beings? How can a boy turn out to just a be like an ape? How do twins
coming out from the same mother turn out to be terribly different when given up for
adoption? More than his givenness (personality, tendencies, and propensities, among
others), One is believed to be in active participation in the shaping of the self. Most
often, we think the humans persons are just passive actors in the whole process of the
shaping of selves. That men and women are born with particularities that they can no
longer change.
Mead and Vygotsky
• For Mead and Vygotsky, the way that human persons develop is with the use of language
acquisition and interaction with others. The way that we process information is normally
a form of an internal dialogue in our head. Those who deliberate about moral dilemmas undergo
this internal dialog. “Should I do this or that?” “But if I do this, it will be like this.” “Don’t
I want the other option?” And so cognitive and emotional development of a child is always
mimicry of how it is done it is done in the social world, in the external reality where he is in
Self in families
• Apart from the anthropological and psychological basis for the relationship between the self
and the social world, the sociological likewise struggled to understand the real connection
between the two concepts. In doing so, sociologists focus on the different institutions and power
at play in the society. Among these, the most prominent is the family.
