Philosophical Perspectives on the Self – Vocabulary Flashcards

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards covering key philosophers, concepts, and theories about the self from ancient Greece to contemporary thought.

Understanding the Self

The academic study that explores what constitutes personal identity, consciousness, and individuality.

Pre-Socratics

Early Greek philosophers before Socrates who searched for the arche or originating substance of the cosmos.

Arche

The fundamental principle or primal substance from which everything originates, studied by Pre-Socratic thinkers.

Dualism

The view that reality is composed of two distinct substances, typically mind (or soul) and body.

Socrates

Greek philosopher who first centered reason on the human self; taught that the soul is immortal and superior to the body.

Plato

Socrates’ student who proposed a tripartite soul consisting of reason, physical appetite, and spirit/passion.

Chariot Analogy

Plato’s image likening the soul to a charioteer (reason) guiding two horses (appetite and spirit).

Reason (Plato)

The divine element of the soul enabling thought and pursuit of eternal truths.

Physical Appetite

Plato’s term for basic biological drives and desires of the body.

Spirit / Passion

Plato’s term for the emotional and assertive part of the soul.

Augustine

Bishop of Hippo who fused Platonism with Christianity, viewing body as inferior vessel of the immortal soul.

Neoplatonism

Philosophical system derived from Plotinus emphasizing mystical union with the One; influenced Augustine.

Immortal Soul

The imperishable, non-material essence of a person in many philosophical and religious traditions.

Thomas Aquinas

Medieval theologian who synthesized Aristotle with Christianity; rejected strict mind–body dualism.

Hyle (Matter)

Aristotelian term for the common physical substrate composing all things, used by Aquinas.

Morphe (Form)

Aristotelian term for the essence or organizing principle that shapes matter.

Substance (Formed Matter)

The union of matter and form that constitutes any concrete thing, including living beings.

René Descartes

French philosopher who laid foundations of modern philosophy; asserted Cogito, ergo sum.

Cogito, ergo sum

Latin for “I think, therefore I am,” Descartes’ fundamental statement of self-certainty.

Cogito (Res cogitans)

Descartes’ term for the thinking thing or mind.

Extensa (Res extensa)

Descartes’ term for extended substance, i.e., physical matter.

Empiricism

Epistemological view that knowledge originates in sensory experience.

Rationalism

View that reason and innate ideas are primary sources of knowledge.

John Locke

English empiricist who described the mind as a tabula rasa and located identity in consciousness.

Tabula Rasa

“Blank slate”; Locke’s notion that the mind is empty until experience writes upon it.

Personal Identity

Locke’s idea that selfhood is founded on continuity of consciousness and memory, not on substance.

David Hume

Scottish skeptic who denied a permanent self, reducing it to a bundle of perceptions.

Impressions (Hume)

Vivid, original sensory experiences constituting the mind’s raw data.

Ideas (Hume)

Faint copies of impressions that form thoughts, memories, and images.

Bundle Theory of Self

Hume’s claim that the self is merely a collection of fleeting perceptions without fixed essence.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher who synthesized rationalism and empiricism and stressed the active mind.

A priori Principles

Innate organizing rules of the mind that exist prior to experience, according to Kant.

Unity of Consciousness

Kant’s concept that thoughts and perceptions are synthesized into a single, coherent experience.

Copernican Revolution (Kant)

Kant’s shift claiming the mind structures experience instead of passively receiving it.

Sigmund Freud

Austrian founder of psychoanalysis who divided the mind into conscious and unconscious levels.

Topographical Model

Freud’s scheme of conscious and unconscious regions of the mind.

Conscious (Freud)

The rational, aware part of the mind accessible to introspection.

Unconscious (Freud)

Reservoir of repressed thoughts, memories, and desires beyond awareness.

Structural Model

Freud’s division of psyche into Id, Ego, and Superego.

Id

Primitive, instinctual component of personality governed by the pleasure principle.

Ego

Mediating “I” that deals with reality, balancing Id and Superego.

Superego

Moral component representing internalized societal and parental standards.

Gilbert Ryle

Analytic philosopher who rejected mind–body dualism as a category mistake.

Category Mistake

Ryle’s term for misclassifying mental concepts as if they were physical objects.

Eliminative Materialism

View that common mental vocabulary misrepresents reality and should be replaced by neuroscience.

Paul Churchland

Contemporary philosopher advocating eliminative materialism and criticism of folk psychology.

Folk Psychology

Everyday network of concepts (belief, desire, pain) that Churchland argues is scientifically inaccurate.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Phenomenologist who emphasized embodied consciousness and perception.

Phenomenology

Philosophical method describing experience as it appears, without causal or scientific explanations.

Phenomenology of Perception

Merleau-Ponty’s major work asserting that consciousness and body form an inseparable unity.

Embodied Consciousness

Merleau-Ponty’s idea that thought, emotion, and bodily experience are integrated and inseparable.