Modern Philosophy and Concepts of Self

A set of vocabulary flashcards covering major philosophers, theories, and definitions of the self in Modern Philosophy.

Modern Philosophy

The era of philosophy spanning from the 14th century to the 20th century.

Anthropocentric

Meaning man-centered (Anthropos = Man, Centric = Center), describing genuine knowledge based on independent rational inquiry (investigation) and real-world experimentation (immersion).

René Descartes

A Rationalist philosopher who declared 'Dubito ergo, cogito ergo sum' ('I doubt; therefore, I think; therefore, I am') and described the self as a thinking thing that can exist independently of the body.

Cartesian Dualism

René Descartes' view dividing the self into a Spiritual self (governed by the laws of reason and God's will) and a Physical self (governed by the laws of nature), connected intimately through the pineal gland.

Pineal Gland

The anatomical location cited by René Descartes as facilitating the intimate connection between the soul and physical body.

John Locke

An Empiricist philosopher who posited that knowledge comes from direct sense experience as a product of stimulus-response, with identity enduring through conscious awareness and memory of experiences.

David Hume

An Empiricist, Sceptic, and Nihilist philosopher who argued that there is no constant, invariable self existing as a unified identity over the course of life.

Bundle Theory of Self

David Hume's definition of the self as a bundle of different perceptions succeeding each other in an inconceivable rapidity and in perpetual flux and movement.

Immanuel Kant

A philosopher who argued that the self is not a disconnected stream of sensations, but is organized through built-in mental architecture.

Priori Concepts

Fundamental organizing rules built into the architecture of the mind, as defined by Immanuel Kant.

Sigmund Freud

The founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology who conceptualized a multi-layered self made up of the conscious and unconscious mind.

Conscious Self (Sigmund Freud)

The layer of the multi-layered self governed by the reality principle.

Unconscious Self (Sigmund Freud)

The layer of the multi-layered self containing basic instinctual drives.

Gilbert Ryle

A Physicalist philosopher associated with Behaviorism who viewed 'mental concepts' as dispositions to act and behave in specific ways under certain circumstances.

Behaviorism (Gilbert Ryle)

The physicalist view that the self is a pattern of behavior presented to the world, encapsulated by the principle 'you are who you show yourself to be'.

Paul Churchland

A Physicalist philosopher who developed Eliminative Materialism, equating the mind/self directly with the brain.

Eliminative Materialism

Paul Churchland's view that common-sense ideas of the mind are wrong, consciousness is a brain-generated construct and likely an illusion, and Mind/Self equals the brain.

Edmund Husserl

The Father of Phenomenology who asserted that we experience our 'self' as a unity where the mental and physical are seamlessly woven together as two sides of the same coin.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

A philosopher who posited the concept of the 'Lived Body', rejecting a duality of substance in favor of a dialectic of living being in its biological milieu.

Lived Body

Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concept describing an entity that can never be known in a completely objective way, operating as a dialectic of living being in its biological milieu.

Embodied Subjectivity

The agreement between Husserl and Merleau-Ponty that our living body is a natural synthesis of mind and biology.

Phenomenological Approach

A method that describes the phenomena of lived experience (reducing biases) by describing immediate responses.