Activity 2

BIO DATA
Insert
picture of a beautiful earth, global warming,
melting of Planet earth…
BIO-DATA
1,000 Citizens
Which part of the Bio-Data
form is the easiest to
answer?

How about the most

difficult?
What do you have in mind
while writing your Bio Data?

Which part did you answer

first, why?
How did you
feel while
writing your
Bio-Data?
What were your
realizations after
completing your
Bio Data?
The activity taught us to…

take time to know ourselves better and deeper than

anyone else
question what distinguishes us and what
individualizes us from others
realize that it is not only about assessing the factual
information but also pulling over what is truly
essential about ourselves.
Objectives:

a)articulate the various philosophical views about

the self;
b)examine one’s thoughts & experiences
according to the philosophical views of the self
through a cooperative learning activity;
c)propose an answer to the question “Who am I?”
Chapter 1 – The Self from
various Perspectives

Philosophical Perspective
“Know Thyself”

…first an Imperative and

then a requirement
Thinking Circles

Assign head 1 - 8
SOCRATES

“I know that I do not know”

The soul…

is the core essence of a living

being, but argued against its
having a separate existence.
If a knife had a soul, the act of
cutting would be that soul,
because 'cutting' is the
essence of what it is to be a
knife.
Socrates
Man has to look at
himself.
Two fundamental
questions:
1.To find what?
2.By what means?
2.By what means? HOW?

The knowledge of oneself can

be achieved only through
SOCRATIC method, that is the
dialogue between the soul and
itself, or between a student and
his teacher.
Socrates is as often in the role
of “questioner”.
Why ask questions acc. to Socrates?

Socrates questions because he knows nothing, has

nothing to learn, but it can help its followers to
discover the truths they have in them.
Without this work on yourself, life is worthless
according to Socrates:
“An unexamined life is not worth living”
You have to know yourself to improve your life.
 “The goal of life is to be HAPPY ”

How do we become happy?

A virtuous man is a happy man, and that virtue
alone is the one and only supreme good that will
secure happiness.
Virtue: moral excellence (courage, temperance,
prudence and justice)
Death is a trivial matter.
Socrates’ Idea of the self:

1. The soul is immortal.

2. The care of the soul is
the task of philosophy.
3. Virtue is necessary to
attain happiness.
PLATO
“Good actions give strength
to ourselves and inspire
good actions in others”
Plato

was the student of

Socrates
Ideal self should be like a
philosopher, rational
and wise, seeking
knowledge.
For Plato, the psyche is composed of 3 elements:
“The ideal self or individual would be one in
so far that the mind rules over spirit and
appetite.”

Be a self-controlled man.
ST. AUGUSTINE
“All knowledge leads
to God”
St. Augustine

The sense of self is relation to

God, both in his recognition of
God’s love and his response to it –
achieved through self-
presentation, then self-realization.
One could not achieve inner
peace without finding God’s
love
“You have made us for Yourself, O Lord,
and our heart is restless until it finds rest
in You”
RENE DESCARTES

Cogito ergo sum

“ I think therefore I am”
~Rene Descartes

Rationalism: reason rather

than experience
Rene Descartes’ claims about the self:

1. Itis constant; it is not prone to

change, and it is not affected
by time.
2. Only the immaterial soul
remains the same throughout
time.
3. The immaterial soul is the
source of our identity.
Distinctions between the body and the soul:

SOUL
It is a conscious, BODY
thinking substance
that us unaffected It is a material
by time. substance that changes
through time.
Distinctions between the body and the soul:

SOUL
It is known only to itself
(only you know your own
BODY
mental event and others
cannot correct your It can be doubted; the public
mental states. can correct claims about the
body.
 Distinctions between the body and the soul:

SOUL
It is not made up of parts. It
BODY
views the entirety of itself
with no hidden or separate
compartments. It is both It is made up of
conscious and aware of itself
at the same time. physical, quantifiable,
visible parts.
JOHN LOCKE

“Human mind @ birth is a

tabula rasa, which means that
knowledge is derived from
experience.”
JOHN LOCKE

“Tabula Rasa” –
knowledge is derived from
experience
Personal identity (the self)
“depends on consciousness,
not on substance nor on the
soul”
JOHN LOCKE
Self-identity is not based on
the soul. One soul may have
various personalities. Neither
is self-identity founded on the
body substance, argues Locke,
as the body may change while
the person remains the same.
Last meeting

Plato – knowing that you don’t know

Socrates – doing good, tripartite self
St. Augustine – Knowing God
Rene Descartes – I think therefore I am
John Locke – The self is based on human experience
DAVID HUME

“All knowledge is derived

from human senses”
Hume’s assumptions:

abandoned the concept of the

self and of the soul.
His impression of what we
might call the self is our
constant shifting impressions
of the world we live in which
disappears when we sleep.
Impressions
are everything that originate from our senses.
Ideas

arejust feeble images of thinking and reasoning based on our

impressions.
IMMANUEL KANT

“REASON is the final authority of

morality. Morality is achieved only
when there is absence of war because
of the result of enlightenment.”
Kant’s Assumptions

The “self” is transcendental.

The self is outside the body, and does
not have the qualities of the body.
It is knowledge that bridges the “self”
and the material things together.
Apperception

How we mentally
assimilate new ideas into
old ones.
Occurring through
rational reasoning, it's
how we make sense of
new things.
Kant’s Two components of the self:

A.Inner self. The “self” by B.Outer Self. Includes your

which you are aware of
alterations in your own
state. This includes your
rational intellect and
psychological state, such as
moods, feelings, sensations
and pain.
senses and the physical
world. It gathers
information from the
external world through the
senses, which the inner self
interprets & coherently
expresses
SIGMUND FREUD

“Wish fulfillment is the

road to the unconscious”
Three levels of human psyche

Conscious

Preconscious

Unconscious
 Freud’s Assumptions of human psyche:

Anindividual gets motivated by the unseen forces,

controlled by the conscious and rational thought.
SIGMUND FREUD

“Wish fulfillment is the road

to the unconscious”
 Id
Unconscious energy that
drives us to satisfy basic
sexual and aggressive
drives.
Id operates on the
pleasure principle,
demanding immediate
gratification.
Superego
Part of personality
that represents
our internalized
ideals.
Standards of
judgment or our
morals.
Ego
The boss “executive”
of the conscious.
Its job is to mediate
the desires of the Id
and Superego.
Called the “reality
principle”.
GILBERT RYLE

“I Act, therefore I am”

Ryle’s Assumptions

Rejected Descartes’ notion that

mental states are separable from
physical states.
There is NO hidden identity or
ghost called “soul” inside the mind.
Where then do we get our
sense of self?

It is from our behaviors

and actions.
Ryle’s Assumptions

For example:
–You think yourself as a kind
person because of your acts
of kindness.
–Your actions define your own
concept of “self”.
PAUL CHURCHLAND
“The physical brain NOT the
imaginary mind gives us our
sense of self”
Ryle’s Assumptions

Stands on a materialistic
view of the belief that
noting but MATTER exists.
If something can be seen,
felt, tasted, heard, touched
or seen, then it exists.
Ryle’s Assumptions

Itis technically wrong to say

that depressed people are out
of their minds because
Ifthe mind were a
neuroscientist found that brain
activity, and even brain shape, separate entity, the
appears to be associated with depressed individual
severe mood disorders. should retain
personality despite the
damage to the brain.
“The sense of self originated from the brain itself,
and that this “self” is a product of electrochemical
signals produced by the brain”

~PAUL CHURCHLAND
MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY

“Physical body is an
important part of the self ”
Maurice-Ponty Assumptions

The body is the o Embody: a verb that means to give

primary site of to the body
o Subjectivity: state of being a
knowing the world.
subject, an entity that possesses
Embodied conscious experiences (feelings,
subjectivity beliefs and desires).
o Object: a subject that acts upon or
affects some entity
Maurice-Ponty Assumptions

A subject therefore exists, can take actions and cause

real effects (or an object).
Mind and body are intrinsically motivated.
The body acts what the mind perceives as a unified
one.
Summary
 Plato – knowing that you don’t know  Immanuel Kant – Inner vs. Outer Self
 Socrates – doing good, tripartite self  SigmundFreud – Id, Ego &
Superego
 St.
Augustine – Knowing God to know
yourself  Gilbert Ryle – I act, therefore I am
 Rene Descartes – I think, therefore I am  Paul Churchland – Physical brain &
self
 John
Locke – The self is based on
human experience  Merleau-Ponty – Physical body &
self
 David Hume- Impressions & Ideas
Questions?
Assignment 1: My Philosophy of the Self

In a short bond paper do the following:

Provide an illustration or symbol of the self.
Below your drawing, answer these guide questions:
–What is the “self” made of? Explain your concept of
the self.
–How can one truly discover the “self”? What does it
take for an individual to access his/her real identity?