Understanding the Self: Philosophical Perspectives

Vocabulary flashcards covering various philosophical perspectives on self and identity from ancient to modern thinkers.

Philosophy

The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, and an academic discipline concerned with investigating beliefs through rational argument.

The Pre-Socratics

Early Greek thinkers who questioned myths to understand reality, focusing on what the world is made of, where it comes from, and what explains change.

Archē

The origin, source, or primal matter defined by the Pre-Socratics as an indestructible ultimate source of all things in the universe.

Socrates

A Greek philosopher who taught that 'the unexamined life is not worth living' and viewed the human individual as dualistic, consisting of an imperfect body and a perfect soul.

Rational Soul

In Plato's tripartite soul model, the part representing reason and intellect that governs human affairs.

Spirited Soul

In Plato's tripartite soul model, the part responsible for emotions, which should be kept at bay.

Appetitive Soul

In Plato's tripartite soul model, the part driven by base desires such as food, drink, sleep, and sexual needs.

St. Augustine

A medieval philosopher who integrated Platonic views with Christianity, asserting that the soul yearns to dwell with the Divine to achieve immortality.

Matter (Hyle)

In St. Thomas Aquinas' philosophy, the common stuff that makes up everything in the universe with the potential to become a substance.

Form (Morphe)

In St. Thomas Aquinas' philosophy, the essence of a substance or thing that makes it what it is (such as the soul in humans).

René Descartes

The Father of Modern Philosophy who asserted 'I think, therefore I am' and defined the human person as a mind attached to a body-machine.

Cogito

René Descartes' term for the thinking self or mind—a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, imagines, and perceives.

Impressions

In David Hume's empiricism, the basic objects of direct experience or sensation that form the core of thoughts.

Ideas

In David Hume's empiricism, the mental copies of impressions that are less vivid and real than direct impressions.

Bundle Theory of Self

David Hume's concept that the self is not a unified entity, but rather a perpetual flux and bundle of rapidly succeeding perceptions and experiences.

Apparatus of the Mind

In Immanuel Kant's philosophy, the active mental structure that synthesizes, organizes, and regulates perceptual impressions in relation to time and space.

Gilbert Ryle

A philosopher who denied an internal, non-physical self, asserting that the self is simply a convenient name for the daily behaviors a person manifests.

Merleau-Ponty

A phenomenologist who argued that mind and body are inseparable, and that one's living body, thoughts, emotions, and experiences form a single unified opening to the world.