UTAS

Sociology

sees the self as a product of social interaction, developed over time through  social activities and experiences

Anthropology

views self as a culturally shaped construct or ideas.

Psychology

sees the self as having characteristics or properties that can be used to describe it.

Socrates

One of the very few individuals who shaped western thought. was known for his method of inquiry in testing an idea

Socratic Method

whereby an idea is tested by asking a series of questions to determine underlying beliefs and the extent of knowledge to guide the person toward better understanding.

Socrates

One of his most-quoted phrases is “the unexamined life is not worth living”. According to him, self knowledge or the examination of one’s self, as well as the question about how one ought to live one’s life, are very important concerns because only by knowing yourself can you hope to improve your life.

Socrates

believed that the goal of life is to be happy, the virtuous man is a happy man.

Plato

supported the idea that man is a dual nature of body and soul. He is best known for his “theory of forms” that asserted the physical world is not really the real world because the ultimate reality exists beyond the physical world.

Plato

He added that there are three components of the soul : rational, spirited, appetitive

The rational soul (reasoning)

 forged by reason and intellect has to govern the affairs of the human person.

The spirited soul (feeling)

which is in charge of emotions should be kept at bay

The appetitive soul (sensual)

in charge of base desires like eating, drinking, sleeping and having sex.

St. Augustine

agreed that man is of a bifurcated nature.

St. Augustine

 one of the Latin Fathers of the Church, one of the Doctor of the Church and one of the most significant Christian thinkers

He believed that the human being was both a soul and body. 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.

Socrates

self-knowledge would open your eyes to your true nature and the state of your inner being determines the quality of your life

Thomas Aquianas

said that indeed, man is composed of two parts (matter and form)

Matter 

hyle in Greek, refers to the common stuff that makes up everything in the universe

Form

morphe in Greek, refers to the essence of substance or thing.

Thomas Aquianas

what makes a human person a human person is his soul. The soul is what animates the body, it is what makes us human.

Rene Descartes

Father of modern philosophy, conceived of the human person as having a body and a mind.

Rene Descartes

The first thinker to emphasize the use of reason to describe, predict and understand natural phenomena based on observational and empirical evidence.

Rene Descartes

He thought that the only thing that one cannot doubt is the existence of the self, a thing that thinks and therefore, that cannot be doubted. His famous line “cogito ergo sum”, “I think therefore I am”.

Rene Descartes

 The self for him is a combination of two distinct entities (cogito, extensa)

Cogito

the thing that thinks, which is the mind

Extensa

or extension of the mind, which is the body

thinking thing

 is a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, that imagines and perceives.

John Locke

believed that the self is identified with consciousness and this self consists of sameness of consciousness, usually interpreted to mean that the self consists of memory; that the person existing now is the same person yesterday because he remembers the thoughts, experiences or actions of the earlier self.

David Hume

 is identified with the “bundle theory” wherein he describe the self as a bundle or a collection of different perceptions that are moving in a very fast and successive manner.

David Hume

believed that human intellect and experiences are limited and the self is merely made up of successive impressions.

Self

according to Hume is simply a bundle or collection of different perceptions

Impressions

these are perceptions that are the most strong and enter the senses with the most forces. It is directly experienced. The basic objects of our experience and sensation.

Ideas

are copies of impression. These are the less forcible and less lively counterparts of impressions.

Immanuel Kant

view of the self is transcendental, which means that self is related to a spiritual or nonphysical realm. For him, self is not in the body, the self is outside the body and it does not have the qualities of the body. It is also the seat of knowledge acquisition for all human persons

Immanuel Kant

According to him there are two components of the self : inner and outer self.

Inner self

 the self by which you are aware of alterations in your own state.

Outer self

 it includes your senses and the physical world

Gilbert Ryle

what truly matters is the behavior that a person manifest in his day to day life. He suggests that the 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.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

 says that the mind and body are so intertwined that they cannot be separated from one another. The living body, his thoughts, emotions and experiences are all one. He argued that the body is part of the mind and the mind is part of the body. According to him, the body acts what the mind perceives as a unified one.

Society

 a group of people who share a common culture, occupy a particular territorial area and feel themselves to constitute a unified and distinct entity.

Culture

that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts,

Separate

self is distinct from other selves

Self-contained

its distinctness allows it to be self-contained with its own thoughts, characterisitcs and volition

Independent

in itself it can exist, it does not require any other self for it to exist

Consistent

it has a personality that is enduring

Unitary

it is the center of all experiences and thoughts that run through a person

Private

it sorts out information, feelings and emotions and thought processes within the self

Two Sides of Self (social self)

I and Me

Mead

proposed two interactive facets of the self

Me (Mead)

is the product of what the person has learned while interacting with others and with the environment. It exercises social control over the self.

I (Mead)

is that part of the self that is unsocialized and spontaneous. It is the individual’s response to the community’s attitude toward the person.

Marcel Maus

According to __________ , every self has two faces (Moi, Personne)

Moi

refers to a person’s sense of who he is and a person’s basic identity.

Personne

is composed of the social concepts of what it means to be who he is and has much to do with what it means to live in a particular institution, a particular family, a paricular religion and a particular nationality.

Self

 the sense of personal identity and of who we are as an individuals.

William James

was one of the earliest psychologists to study the self and conceptualized the self as having two aspects.

I (William James)

is the thinking, acting and feeling self.

Me (William James)

is the physical characteristics as well as psychological capabilities that make who you are.

I (Carl Rogers)

the one who acts and decides.

Me (Carl Rogers)

is what you think or feel about yourself as an object

Ideal Self

is the person that you would like yourself to be

Real Self

 is the person you actually are

Private Self

your internal standards and private thoughts and feelings

Public Self

your public image commonly geared toward having a good presentation of yourself to others

Identity

· is composed of personal characteristics, social roles and responsibilities as well as affiliations that define who one is.

Self Concept

·  is what basically comes to your mind when you are asked about who you are.

Self Awareness

when we are aware of our self concept. It can keep you from doing something dangerous.

Self Esteem

our own positive or negative perception or evaluation of ourselves.

Deindividuation 

· the loss of individual self awareness and individual accountability in groups.

Actual self

is who you are at the moment.

Ideal self

is who you like to be

Ought self 

·  is who you think you should be.

downward social comparison

where we create a positive self concept by comparing ourselves with those who are worse off than us

upward social comparison

is comparing ourselves with those who are better off than us

Analytical

· by analytic meant the tendency to see reality as an aggregate of parts, the self is an observer separate and distinct from external objects.

Monotheistic

· monotheism involved the tendency toward unitary explanations of phenomena and a closed system view of self as modeled after a unitary, omnipotent power.

Individualistic

· is a quality of western thinking where self-expression and self-actualization are important ways of establishing who one is as well as in finding satisfaction in the world.

Materialistic/Rationalistic

· western thinking tends to discredit explanations that do not use analytic deductive mode of thinking.

Confucianism

can be seen as a code of ethical conduct, of how one should properly act according to their relationship with others. It is also focused on having a harmonious social life. · Personality in this perception is an achieved state of moral excellence rather than a given human condition. Self cultivation is the ultimate purpose of life but the characteristics of a man of virtue or noble character is still embedded in his social relationship.

Taoism

is living in the way of the Tao or the universe. This rejects the hierarchy and strictness brought by Confucianism and would prefer a simple lifestyle and its teachings thus aim to describe how to attain that life. The ideal self is selflessness but this is not forgetting about the self, it is living a balanced-life with society and nature, being open and accepting to change, forgetting about prejudices and egocentric ideas and thinking about equality as well as complementarity among humans as well as other beings.

Buddhism

 is composed of the teachings of Buddha

collectivistic culture

Asian culture is called a __________ as the group and social relations is given more importance than individual needs and wants.