SELF FROM VARIOUS PERSPECTIVES OF PHILOSOPHERS

SOCRATES
 Unlike the Pre-Socratics, Socrates was more concerned with another subject, the problem of
self.
 The first philosopher who ever engaged in a systematic questioning about the self – this has
become his life-long mission, the true task of the philosopher is to know oneself.
 Socrates thought that the worst that can happen to anyone: to live but die instead. (not
knowing who they are)

HIS VIEW ON SELF

 The self has body and soul

o Body- imperfect and impermanent
o Soul- perfect and permanent
 Ultimate wisdom comes from knowing oneself
 The goal of philosophy was to “Know thyself”
 Human choice was motivated by the desire for happiness
 The more the person knows, the greater his or her ability to reason and make choices that will
bring true happiness (biography.com & A&E Television Networks, 2017)
 “The unexamined life is not worth living”. Of all knowledge, “KNOWLEDGE THYSELF” is the core
and essence. It is the summary of his teachings.

PLATO
 Plato is a dualist – there is both immaterial mind (soul) and material body, and it is the soul that
knows the forms.
 Plato believed that soul exists before birth and after death. Thus, he believed that the soul or
mind attains knowledge of the forms as opposed to the senses.
 According to Plato, we should care about our soul rather than our body.

The soul has three parts

 The appetites- includes all myriad desires for various pleasures, comforts, physical satisfactions
and bodily ease.
 The spirited- the part that gets angry when it perceives an injustice being done. This is the part
that loves to face and overcome great challenges, the part that can steel itself to adversity, and
that loves victory, winning, challenge and honor.
 The mind- conscious awareness. This is the part that thinks, analyses, looks ahead, rationally
weighs options, and tries to gauge what is best and truest overall. (Dr. Kerns, T.)

Diagnosis – persons differ as to which part of their nature is predominant.

 Individual dominated by reason are philosophical and seek knowledge
 Individuals dominated by spirit/will/emotion are victory loving and seek reputation
 Individuals dominated by appetites are profit loving and seek material gain.
 ST. AUGUSTINE
 Augustine saw himself as a sinner in “a purest sense”
 Augustine agreed that man is of a bifurcated nature.
 An aspect of man dwells in the world and is imperfect and continuously yearns to be with the
Divine and the other is capable of reaching immortality.
 The body is bound to die on earth and the soul is to anticipate living eternally in a realm of
spiritual bliss in communion with God.
 (Even) “If I am mistaken, I am”
 The body can only thrive in the imperfect, physical reality that is the world, where as the soul
can also stay after death in an eternal realm with the all-transcendent God.
 The goal of every human person is to attain this communion and bliss with the Divine by living
life on earth in virtue.

RENE DESCARTES
 “Father of modern philosophy”
 If we can apply doubt to every thing and belief that we have our self and the world, is there still
something left that cannot anymore be doubted, i.e., indubitable?
 What is the sole indubitable fact on which we can base our knowledge? "The fact that I am
doubting ... cannot be anymore open to doubt."
 Cogito ergo sum “I think, therefore I am”
 The Self is a thinking being
 SENSE OF SELF- if he is capable of doubting, which is precisely what he is doing- then he must
exist. He may doubt everything else, may be deceived about the existence of all other things,
but he must necessarily exist.
 Dualism- reality and existence is divided into two parts
o Mind is separate from the Physical Body
 Self is also a combination of two distinct entities, the cogito, the thing that thinks, which is the
mind, and the extenza or the extension of the mind, which is the body.

JOHN LOCKE
 Holds that personal identity is a matter of psychological continuity
 Posits an “empty” mind, a tabula rasa, which is shaped by experience, and sensations and
reflections being the two sources of all our ideas
 Locke creates a third term between the soul and the body. For the brain, as the body and as any
substance, may change, while consciousness remains the same. Therefore, personal identity is
not in the brain, but in consciousness.
 Locke suggests that the self is “thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and
can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places ” and
continues to define personal identity simply as “the sameness of a rational being.
 So long as one is the same self, the same rational being, one has the same personality.
 DAVID HUME
 An empiricist who believes that one can know only what comes from the senses and
experiences.

 THERE IS NO SELF- he argues that the self is nothing like what his predecessors thought of it.
The self is not an entity over and beyond the physical body.
 Self is nothing else but a bundle of impressions.
o Ideas, on the other hand, are copies of impressions. Because of this, they are not as
lively and vivid as our impressions. When one imagines the feeling of being in love for
the first time, that still is an idea.
o Impressions are the basic objects of our experience or sensation. They therefore form
the core of our thoughts. When one touches an ice cube, the cold sensation is an
impression. Impressions therefore are vivid because they are products of our direct
experience with the world.
 For Hume, there is no mind or self. The perceptions that one has are only active when one is
conscious. “When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep, so long am I
insensible myself, and may truly be said not to exist.”
 In reality, what one thinks is a unified self is simply a combination of all experiences with a
particular person.

IMMANUEL KANT
 Kant thinks that the things that men are perceive around them are not just randomly infused
into the human person without an organizing principle that regulates the relationship of all
these impression.
 There is necessarily a mind that organizes the impressions that men get from the external world.
Kant calls these the apparatuses of the mind.
 The self is not just what gives one his personality. It is also the seat of knowledge and
acquisition for all human persons.
 In Kant’s thought, there are two components of the self.
Empirical Ego
How others identify us- this is our body, what we look like, how we sound, etc.
This is the self which makes us an individual
Transcendental Ego
How we identify our self- an activity of consciousness which Kant called
“Transcendental Unity of Apperception”
This is the ‘self’ that what makes us human
 SIGMUND FREUD
 Freud’s view of the self was multi-tiered, divided among the conscious, subconscious and
unconscious.
 Unconscious as the central core in Freud’s theory of the structure and dynamics of human
personality.

Two Levels of Human Functioning:

 Conscious
o Governed by the reality principle
o Behavior and experience are organized in ways that are rational, practical, and
appropriate to the social environment

 Unconscious
o Contains basic instinctual drives including sexuality, aggressiveness and self-destruction;
traumatic memories; unfulfilled wishes and childhood fantasies; thoughts and feelings
that would be considered socially taboo.
o Characterized by the most primitive level of human motivation and functioning. At this
level, the most basic instinctual drives seek immediate gratification.
o Governed by pleasure principle

GILBERT RYLE
 G. Ryle solves the mind-body dichotomy that has been running for a long time in the history of
thought by blatantly denying the concept of an internal, non-physical self.
 What truly matters is the behaviour that a person manifests in his day-to-day life.
 Self is not an entity one can locate and analyze but simply the convenient name that people use
to refer to all the behaviors that people make.

PAUL CHURCHLAND
 Materialism
o The belief that nothing but matter exists, if it is somehow cannot be recognized by the
senses, then it’s akin to a fairy tale.
 Eliminative Materialism
o Developing a new, neuroscience-based vocabulary that will enable us to think and
communicate clearly about the mind, consciousness and human experience.
o Argues that ordinary folk psychology of the mind is wrong. It is the physical brain and
not the imaginary mind that gives us our senses
 Churchland asserts that since the mind can’t be experienced by our senses, then the mind does
not really exist.
 MERLEAU-PONTY
 Is a phenomenologist who asserts that the mind-body bifurcation that has been going on for a
long time is a futile endeavour and an invalid problem.
 The mind and body are so intertwined that they cannot be separated from one another.
 One cannot find any experience that it is not an embodied experience. All experience is
embodied. One’s body is his opening toward his existence to the world. Because of these
bodies, men are in the world.
 Merleau-Ponty dismisses the Cartesian Dualism that has spelled so much devastation in the
history of man. For him, the Cartesian problem is nothing else but plain misunderstanding. The
living body, his thoughts, emotions and experiences are all one.

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF

What is the Self?

 The self consists of all statements made by a person, overtly and covertly, that include the
words “I”, “me”, “mine”, “myself” (Cooley, 1902).
 The self is an active agent that promotes differential sampling, processing, and evaluation of
information from the environment, and thus leads to differences in social behaviour
 “Separate, self-contained, independent, consistent, unitary and private” (Stevens, 1996)
o Separate- means that the ‘self’ is distinct from other selves. It is unique and has its own
identity. One cannot be other person.
o Self-contained- Its distinctness allows it to be self-contained with its own thoughts,
characteristics and volition.
o Independent- because in itself it can exist. The ‘self’ does not require any other self for it
to exist.
o Consistency- because it has a personality that is enduring and therefore can be expected
to persist for quite some time. Its consistency allows it to be studied, described and
measured. Consistency means that a particular self’s traits, characteristics, tendencies,
and potentialities are more or less the same.
o Unitary- being the centre of all experiences and thoughts that run a certain person. It is
like the chief command point in an individual where all processes, emotions and
thoughts converge.
o Private- each person sorts out information, feelings and emotions, and thought
processes within the self. This whole process is never accessible to anyone but the self.

PUBLIC, PRIVATE AND COLLECTIVE SELF

 Private Self- cognitions that involve traits, states or behaviours of the person
 Public Self- cognitions concerning the generalized other’s view of the self
 Collective Self- cognitions concerning a view of the self that is found in some collective
GEORGE HERBERT MEAD

He is well-known for his theory of the social self, which is based on the central argument that self is a
social emergent. A sociologist from the late 1800s, is well known for his theory of the social self, which
includes the concepts of 'self,' 'me,' and 'I.' Mead's work focuses on the way in which the self is
developed.

MEAD’S SOCIAL SELF

 The social conception of the ‘self’ entails that individual selves are the products of social
interaction and not the logical or biological preconditions of that interaction.
 It is not initially there at birth, but arises in the process of social experience and activity.
 For Mead, mind arises out of the social act of communication.

SELF IS DEVELOPED THROUGH

LANGUAGE

 Develops self by allowing individuals to respond to each other through symbols, gestures, words
and sounds
 Allows individuals to take on the “role of the other” and allows people to respond to his or her
own gestures in terms of the symbolized attitudes of others

PLAY

 Develops self by allowing individuals to take on different roles, pretend and express
expectations of others; develops consciousness
 During play, individuals take on the roles of other people and pretend to be those other people
in order to express the expectations of significant others.

GAMES

 Develop self by allowing individuals to understand and adhere to the rules of the activity. Self is
developed by understanding that there are rules in which one must abide by in order to win the
game or be successful at an activity
 In the game, the individual is required to internalize the roles of all others who are involved with
him or her in the game and must comprehend the rules of the game.

CONCEPT OF “ME” AND “I”

ME

 The ‘me' is considered the socialized aspect of the individual.

 It represents learned behaviours, attitudes, and expectations of others and of society.
 Sometimes referred to as the generalized other.
 The 'me' is considered a phase of the self that is in the past.
  The 'me' has been developed by the knowledge of society and social interactions that the
individual has gained.
I

 The 'I‘ is considered the present and future phase of the self.
 The 'I' represents the individual's identity based on response to the 'me.'
 The 'I' says, 'Okay. Society says I should behave and socially interact one way, and I think I
should act the same (or perhaps different),' and that notion becomes self.

How Mead matters today

 What others think of us, the perspective of others we gain from being a part of the conversation
of gestures, are absolutely necessary for us to even have a sense of self.
 We think of ourselves as individuals, to be sure, but we are only able to do so by virtue of being
a part of a larger social community.

CONCLUSION

 The SELF is the joining point between the individual and the society.
 Communication is the link that allows the intersection to occur.

SELF AS A PRODUCT OF MODERN SOCIETY

 The struggle for one’s individuality is only possible to modern western culture where religio-
theological traditions are gradually replaced by rational and scientific calculations; and the
intimate personal affiliations are replaced by exceedingly impersonal associations brought about
by urbanized way of life
 Self-made individual
 Free and his own master; dreaming his own dreams; entering the infinite space of the world.
Only gradually would he discover- and proclaim- that the modern world for all its infinite
possibilities stifled and repressed and destroyed the self in its own distinctive ways

PROBLEMS:

1. The newfound freedom threatens the very authenticity of the self

2. Alienation (Marx) – human beings haunted by the very images they have created.
 3. Objectification of the body (e.g. Medical Practice)

SOLUTION:

For the individual to discover the “true” and “authentic” part of herself and to realize her potentials-
thus, the need to abolish repressive social constraints.

SELF AS A NECESSARY FICTION

Self (Nietzche):
 sum of individual’s action, thoughts and feelings
 self as a representation
 the self is nothing more than a metaphor to understand the cause of human action
 the self is a necessary fiction- without which, social life is impossible

POST-MODERN VIEW OF THE SELF

 The self is a text, a complex narrative accomplishments suffused with discourses and it is
rewritten from moment to moment according to the demands of a multitude of social contexts
(Burr, 1999)
 Manifestations:
o Information Technology dislocates the self, thus, self is “digitalized” in cyberspace.
o Global migration produces multi-cultural identities
 Post-modern selves are “protean and “pluralized”

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE SELF

 Self is not discovered, it is made through the socialization process. BUT, individuals are not
just hapless victims of socialization.
 Individual is an active, strategizing agent that negotiates for the definition of himself.

SELF AS AN ARTISTIC CREATION

 Nietzche: Unity of the self is not pre-given but accomplished through conscious effort
 We can recreate ourselves to get hold of the present, forgive the past and plan the future
 Rorty: Contingencies of Selfhood – conceal the “ugly” by reinterpreting the over-all aesthetic
contours of the self.

SELF CREATION AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

Selves as bodies moving obtain their nature from cultural traditions, embodied in various social
institutions. These are preserved in collective narrative, which becomes the reservoir for the project of
self creation. The most important reservoir for self-identity is national identity.

 Self creation is formed within “imagined communities”

  Self creation along cultural lines must be done in maximum cultural recognition of
differences among and between individuals and cultural groups.

SELF CREATION AND THE STRUGGLE FOR CULTURAL RECOGNITION

 A challenge of self-identity amidst recognition of racial and ethnic identities

BEYOND SELF CREATION

 Search for self-identity is a product of modern society but this is complicated by the socio-
cultural sensibilities of post modernity, new information technologies and globalization. Yet
the project of self creation is embedded within imagined communities
 The self constantly lives in this paradox: to pursue self creation within pre-given, not willfully
chosen social circumstances.