Philosophical View

Philosophy

• Philosophy is often called he mother of all disciplines simply because all fields of study began as philosophical discourses.

• It originated from the Greek words Philo (loving) and Sophia (knowledge, wisdom). At its simplest, philosophy means "loving knowledge" or "loving wisdom."

• The term philosophy initially used by the Greeks meant "the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake."

Philosophy says about the Self

Empiricism - derives explanations of the Self from sensory and bodily responses. We know things because we have experienced them through our bodily senses.

Rationalism - there is innate knowledge; they differ in that they choose different objects of innate knowledge. Rationalism explains the Self from the standpoint of what is "ideal" and the "truth," not rooted in what the senses or our body feels.

Dualism - In the modern world "dualism" often refers to" mind-body dualism, or the idea that the mind is separate from the body.

Philosophers

ARISTOTLE: "Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom."

• Aristotle called the ideal as “essence” and the phenomena as “matter”. He also emphasized that the two coexist and are co-dependent, the essence provides meaning and purpose to the matter, and the matter provides substance and solidity to essence.

• the human person is a “rational animal”. In other words, for Aristotle, the human person is simply an animal that thinks.

SOCRATES “The unexamined life is not worth living.

• known as the “Father of Western Philosophy"

• he was believed to be the first thinker to focus on the full power of reason on the human self.

• Socrates believed that there was a soul first before a man's body.

• The soul has all the knowledge that is stored in his mind. However, once he came to the material world or the world of senses, he forgot most of what he knew.

Two parts of self by Socrates

Physical body- is a tangible aspect of us. It is mortal (it dies), constantly changing, imperfect, transforming, disappearing.

Soul -Socrates believed to be immortal, is eternal, perfect, or ideal.

PLATO -“The first and the best victory is to conquer self”

• Plato is a dualist

• there is both an immaterial mind (soul)

and a material body, and it is the soul

that represents the self.

• Plato believed the soul exists before

birth and after death. For him, one should care about his soul rather than his body.

• Plato believed that true and genuine happiness could only be achieved if we consistently make sure that our reason is in control of our Spirits and Appetites.

• Plato is sure that the true self is the soul, not the body.

3 parts of soul

Reason - our divine essence that enables us to think deeply, make wise choices and achieve a true understanding of eternal

Physical Appetite - our basic biological needs such as hunger, thirst, and sexual.

Will or Spirit - is our basic emotion or passion, such as empathy, aggressiveness, love, anger.

The Middle Ages

ST. AUGUSTINE God's love. “Accepting God is the path to know thyself.”

• Augustine believes that man is created in the image and likeness of God

• and he is essentially a soul whose goal is to be with God

• St. Augustine's sense of self is his relation to God

• Augustine believed one could not achieve inner peace without finding God's love

The Renaissance

RENE DESCARTES “Cogito ergo sum (I think; therefore I am.)”

• “Founder of Modern Philosophy."

• For Descartes, this is the essence of self— you are a "thinking thing" " (I exist because I think: I think, therefore I exist)

• Descartes believes that our physical body is secondary to our personal

identity.

• The thinking self—or soul—is a non-

material, immortal, conscious being, independent of the physical laws of the universe.

• The physical body is a mortal, non thinking material that is fully governed by the physical laws of nature.

• Soul and body- each one can exist and function without the other.

JOHN LOCKE "The Self Is Consciousness.”

• known for his theory that the mind is a tabula rasa, a blank slate.

• Locke believed that we are born without thoughts, or our mind was empty and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience.

• our conscious awareness and memory of previous experiences are the keys to understanding the self.

DAVID HUME (There is no self)

• believed that the source of all genuine knowledge is our direct sense of experience.

• the self keeps on changing, like how one looks, one feels, one thinks they constantly change. There is no permanent and unchanging self.

What’s inside the mind is divided into two: impressions and ideas.

Impressions- are those things we perceive through our senses as we experience them.

Ideas- are those things that we create in our minds even though we are no longer experiencing them.

IMMANUEL KANT “"We Construct the Self'

• man is a free agent, capable of making a decision for himself.

• we can build an idea of who we are. Human being has his inner self and outer self.

• Inner self includes rational reasoning and psychological state

• Outer self includes the body and physical mind, where representation occurs.

SIGMUND FREUD “'There Are Two Selves: One Conscious, One Unconscious.”

• Freud believes that there are two levels of human functioning: the conscious and the unconscious.

• Freud believes that even if the conscious self plays an important role in our lives, it is the unconscious self that has the dominant influence on our personalities

• Our unconscious self exists and influences us throughout our journey to life.

Conscious refers to all mental processes of which we are aware.

Unconscious refers to mental processes that are not easily accessible to our awareness.

• contains basic instinctual drives that include aggressiveness, sexuality, and self-destruction; traumatic memories; childhood fantasies and unfulfilled wishes; thoughts and feelings that would be considered socially taboo.

The Modern Ages

GILBERT RYLE "The Self Is How You Behave".

• focused on observable behavior in defining the self.

• No more inner selves, immortal soul, states of consciousness, or unconscious self: instead, the self is defined in terms of the behavior that is presented to the world.

• the self is defined by the observable behaviors we project to the world around us.

• every human being has both a physical body and a non-physical mind which are ordinarily “harnessed together” while we are alive.

• “I act, therefore, I am”. In short, the concept means the self is the brain.

PAUL CHURCHLAND "The Self is An Embodied Subjectivity”

• mind cannot be experienced by the senses, it does not exist. It is the physical brain, not the imaginary mind, that gives us our sense of self.

• Neuroscience is at the fore of understanding the self.

• Churchland believes that the term “mind,” our moods, emotions, actions, consciousness are deeply affected by the state of our brain that altered our actions, and physical state when they are manipulated,