UTS Reviewer - Lesson 1

Philosophy

The study of acquiring knowledge through rational thinking and inquiries that involves in answering questions regarding the nature and existence of man and the world we live in.

Socrates

• He introduced the Socratic Method of thinking with the goal of which was to “Know thyself”

• Man’s goal in life is to obtain true happiness and such goal motivates us to act towards avoiding things that could have negative effects in our being.

• Soul, which is the essence of the Self, is in constant striving towards perfection. And it is only hindered because of its ties to our body.

• Physical and Ideal Realm

Socratic Method

promotes introspection, or examination of oneself thoughts and emotions. He also stated that “An unexamined life is not worth living.”

Plato

he stated there are three elements of mind/soul (appetites, passion, reason) and that happiness can only be found by those who pursue knowledge, and is controlled by reason.

Appetites (appetitive)

involve our pleasure desires such as those and physical comfort.

Passion (spirited)

denotes the part of our psyche that is agitated most of the time. It is highly spirited and motivated to surpass and conquer life.

Reason (Rational)

the conscious awareness which meditates, weighs choices, and assesses situations in our lives.

Aristotle

• he does not believe that the body and soul is separable or different from each other. (Hylomorphism)

• In order to fully understand self, we must be able to know the different types of soul that a person has.

• According to Aristotle, our soul can be classified as the vegetative, sentient, and rational.

Vegetative Soul

implies growth. An example of which is the body.

Sentient soul

includes the desires and emotions that people have.

Rational soul

includes the intellect and ability to think and understand things.

St. Augustine of Hippo

• The City of God, On Christian Doctrine

• “I doubt, therefore, I am”

• Believes that our understanding of who we are revolves around our own doubtfulness, understanding our standing and the way we question our own existence.

• Knowledge of God results to ones better understanding of oneself, he emphasized that “knowledge can only come by seeing the truth that dwells within us.”

St. Aquinas

man is composed of two parts

• Matter: refers to the common stuff that makes up everything in the universe

• Form: Essence of a substance or a thing. The soul is what animates the body; it is what makes a human.

Rene Descartes

• “Cartesian philosophy”, holds that mental acts determine physical acts. So by continuous thinking, questioning or doubting is in and of itself a proof of ones existence.

• Described the mind as the “intellectual substance” which possesses a will. He stated “Cogito, ergo sum” which is I think, therefore I am.

• If man thinks and reflects, a person will be able to realize the two dimensions of human Self.

John Locke

• He was known for his idea that when we are born, we began in a state of “Tabula rasa” or blank slate.

• He stated that a person is born with nothing and that is very susceptible to establishing a sense of self by accumulation and learning from our experiences, which maybe from, successes, failures, reflection, and observations to oneself.

• ability to think and the value of a person’s experiences

• Self-consciousness, reflective thinking, and experiences are the common bases to the concept of Self from his pov

David Hume

• He insisted that there is no “self”, and that people and their experiences are just a collection of perceptions from the physical realm, which led to our impressions and ideas about who we are.

• Impressions are feelings and/or sensations the people have, such as, love, hate, fear, cold, heat, and sadness. It can be observed and introspected.

Immanuel Kant

His philosophy which revolves on the idea that the self can only be established by organizing and synthesizing one’s accumulation of experiences, intuition, thoughts, imagination, and perception.

Sigmund Freud

• Freud idea of self revolves around the role of the consciousness and its various levels.

• According to him the self can be divided into three layers: the conscious, preconscious and the unconscious.

conscious

a layer of self that contains all of the things that we are aware of. It is the area where reality and rationality is.

preconscious

these are still memories and thoughts that is not necessarily available at any given time but could still be easily brought into the consciousness.

unconscious

part of our selves where our instinctual drives and pools our feelings, thoughts, and memories that is outside our awareness.

Gilbert Ryle

• I act, Therefore I am

His explanation of self is further exemplified in his “ghost in the machine” view.

- This concept explained that a person can be compared to a complex machine with different functioning parts, and the intelligence and behavior of man is represented as the “Ghost”.

Paul Churchland

• eliminative materialism - nothing but matter exist

• Self which is the accumulation of all the emotions, perceptions, actions and behavior of a person is attached to their source which is the brain.

• Neurophilosophy, he believed that to fully understand one’s behavior, one should understand the different neurological movement of the brain.
  

Maurice Merleau Ponty

• A French philosopher, who unlike others that believe on the separation of the mind and body, he believes that if one studies their experiences a person may identify that the mind and body is unified.

• From his work in “Phenomenology of Perception” which follow the gestalt notion “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts“.