Basketball has Michael Jordan, golf has Tiger Woods, cooking has Julia Child and western philosophy

has Immanuel
Kant. Since I'm guessing you're here to learn about philosophy, we'll stick to Immanuel Kant and his views on self.
However, I must warn you that trying to understand Kant is on par with attempting a half-court shot, a hole in one,
or the perfect roast duck!
Relating this to our lesson, let's take a look at what Kant thought of self and being. Stated simply, how do we get
our knowledge of self?
To begin, Immanuel Kant was an uber-famous 18th-century Prussian philosopher. During his era, much of
philosophy centered on self-knowledge. In other words, how do we know what we know and where does this
knowledge come from. Is it internal or external?

Empiricism(outer self) & Rationalism(inner self)

Keeping things simple, empiricism or outer self asserts that knowledge is only attained through the senses. In
other words, seeing is believing! If something can't be seen, tasted, touched, heard, or physically experienced, it
might as well be a unicorn!
Scene 1:
Actor1: Does God exists? How can I know that God exists?
Actor2: Yes, God exists. It was written in the Bible.
Actor1: But can we apply this proof for God’s existence? Do you see Him, have you touch Him? Do you
experience Him? How could I know whether what is written in the Bible was true or not?
Actor2: Someday, when you died, you’ll understand that God is real. There is God; I have seen him in my
dream through prayers before and what I saw has really come through in my life. I have not seen Him but
my thinking makes it easy for me to believe that He exists.
Actor1: There is no god: dreams are not real, rather they are a creation of your mind.
If you *see* god in your dreams that does not mean that God is real.
Also prayers tends to be self-fulfilling because you’ll try to make the prayer come true knowingly or
unknowingly. The same goes with prophecies-if someone knows that someone else made a prophecy that
he is believing in, he will try to make the prophesy come true .
There for there is a lack of evidence for the existence of a god and that is why I don’t believe in one.
Actor2: God lives whether we believe it or not, He will continue to be God whether we like it or not . He is
a majestic, powerful being whether we have seen Him or not. He is mysterious in His ways and faithful in
His love whether we receive it or reject it.

Standing in opposition to empiricism, many of Kant's cronies espoused rationalism. Rationalism or inner self is the
theory that reason, rather than experience, is the foundation of all knowledge. For instance, my eyes might tell me
that a 3-D monster is jumping out of a screen, but my rational mind lets me know it's not! Seeing isn't believing!
Reasoning is!
Scene 2:
Magician: hey guys, please watch me while i am doing magic tricks and performing black arts.(magmagic kunwari)
Audience1: wow. How di he do that?
Audience2: that’s cooool. You are goood. It is a miracle.
Audience3: it is not a miracle, it is just a fancy illusion. He is just tricking us, it was just a clever trick, there is some
way to do that “magic thing”.
Narrator: Miracles and magic tricks are somehow believable because it blows our minds and seems to be
true but seeing is not believing, it’s only seeing. And this is what rationalism or outer self means.

Working to find a middle ground in this debate on self-knowledge and perception was Immanuel Kant. According
to him, we humans have both an inner and an outer self which unify to give us consciousness. The inner self is
comprised of our psychological state and our rational intellect. The outer self includes our sense and the physical
world.
To explain his views a bit more, we need to get into pretty heady and nebulous terms. They are apperception and
representation.
Kant argued that apperception occurs in the inner self. In a nutshell, apperception is how we assimilate new ideas
into old ones. Occurring through rational reasoning, its how we make sense of new things.

Scene 3: iact nyo na lang to kunyare may aso. hehehe

For an example of aperception. We can use me and my dog, weighing in at about 200lbs, my dog is huge. For this
reason, when i meet a 8-lb dog, i dont consider it to be big. However, to a person who spends all day with a tiny
little chihuahua, the same 80lb dog would seem immense. In other words, my rational thoughts on big are based
on my already formed apperceptions of my big beast, while theirs are based on teacup-sized canines. Neither is
right or worng, they are just based on internal reasoning that can’t be experienced through the senses.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Scene 1
Nag alarm ang clock – 4am na.
Aaron needs to wake up to go to his work early.
Aaron’s Body(Aaron) – (shutting down the alarm), (going back to sleep again)
But his mind(konsensya) speaks
Aaron’s Mind(kumuha ng ibang mag aact, magsasalita as konsensya) - Oh no, it’s time to get up. You
have an important appointment that you can’t be late for”
Aaron’s Body(Aaron)- (still yawning) but I’m still sleepy. (stands up then face at the mirror)
Aaron’s Mind – What are you going to do now?? Take a bath, prepare yourself and eat your breakfast.
Lets go!!1
Aaron’s Body – Wait, i want to sleep again. I will call my secretary to cancel my meetings this morning. I
am lack of sleep. I am not fit to work. (get his cp, and try to call his secretary)(dialing)(but still his mind
speaks for him)
Aaron’s Mind – No, we will make it today. We have plans, we have to finish those shits.
Aaron’s Body – Ok fine, i will prepare. Got to go. Lets embrace this positive morning.

Narrator: The simple fact is, we experience our self as a unity in which the mental and physical are
seamlessly woven together. In other words, our “living body” is a natural synthesis of mind and biology,
and any attempts to divide them into separate entities are artificial and nonsensical.

Interestingly, we can find an answer in today's lesson as we explore the works of Patricia
Churchland, specifically her theories on self and the brain. Since Churchland is a modern-day
philosopher who studies the brain, let's first take a look at some older philosophical theories on the
subject.
For much of history, dualism is the idea that the mind and the body are separate.

In other words, we all have a physical brain, but we also have a separate mind. Adding to this
distinction, dualists have historically asserted the mind is the seat of our consciousness. On the
contrary, the brain is really just an organ similar to the heart or lungs.
Because the mind is the seat of our consciousness, it's what gives us our identity. No, we can't see
it, taste it, or touch it, but it does exist. Not only does it exist, but it is what makes self, self.
Scene1
Characters:
Body, Mind, and brain.

Body: i have a question for you guys, Why do people say 'read my mind' instead of 'read my
brain'? Along the same lines, why is it 'brain surgery' instead of 'mind surgery'?
Mind: When it comes to discussing human life, me(mind) and brain are separate. So why people
always think we are the same.
Brain: we are separate, i am just an organ similar to the lungs or heart.
Mind: and i am the seat of man’s consciousness, i gave them identity. I does exist and i make your
self.
Brain: No, it is me that gives man the sense of self.

Narrator:
In other words, we all have a physical brain, but we also have a separate mind. And that’s what
Churchland trying to tells us.