ENG1 UNDERSTANDING YOURSELF

Lesson #1: The Self from Various Perspectives

Key terms: Experience, Sensation, Attitude, Belief.

1. Self-Knowledge

- Refers to one's knowledge and understanding of one's own characteristics, motivations, and capabilities. One must know his/her particular experiences, sensations, attitude, and beliefs.

2. Self-Activity

- Defined as an independent and self-determined action of one person.

- It infers motion or the powers of moving one's self without the help or aid of external powers.

- It refers to actions which carry out actions that you have thought about yourself and were not told to do by others.

3. Self

- Independent of the senses. It refers to the inner self.

- It refers to maintaining a person as a separated or self-contained individual.

- Its attributes contribute to a person becoming active and directed from actions. It is the basis of all learnings.

- Its internal attributes are like our abilities and learnings — our natural intelligence, not an acquired one.

The self is also related to a person's sense of worth and self-esteem, and it helps us strive to achieve our goals in life.

4. Self-Identity

- The particular characteristics that determine the individuality or uniqueness of a person among others.

- It is the recognition of one's potentials and qualities as an individual.

- It determines the awareness of one's individual qualities (e.g. gender identity).

5. Self-Image

- A mental picture of an individual, and is quite resistant to change through time.

- It involves how you see yourself regarding your personality and role.

- It is about how you feel about your personality and values, and about your values, achievements in life.

Lesson #2: The Eastern Philosophy of Self

Hindu Belief

- Hindus believe that the self is made up of two aspects: "Atman" and "Braman."

- "Atman" (self-soul) is a secular word — "essence, breath or soul" — the "real self" of an individual, the innermost self.

- Hinduism considers Atman as eternal, imperishable. It is different from the body or mind. It is different from consciousness and the soul of the person.

- One must accept it — the body or mind — as the spiritual self-concept for the Hindus.

Atman: the true self that lies at the inner core of the person, that is identical with God. The self can be compared to that of a person with various layers, like an onion:

- The outer layer of our identities involves the common sense of views of ourselves that we experience.

- The inner layer involves the self — that we experience with various layers, and each layer involves the self that sees the underlying unity of the world.

Braman

- Connotes the highest Universal Principle, the ultimate Reality in the universe.

- It is the material, efficient, formal, and final cause of all that exist.

Buddhist Philosophy of Self

It is the persuasive, genderless, infinite, eternal truth and bliss which does not change, yet is the cause of all changes.

Buddha's teaching of self is to understand the nature of self, which is a combination of five aggregates of existence known as the Five Skandhas.

Five Skandhas

1. Form — Physical form

2. Sensation — made up of feelings, both emotional and physical (five senses)

3. Perception — takes in most of what is called thinking, which includes conceptualization, cognition, reasoning

4. Mental Formation — includes habits, prejudices, and predispositions

5. Consciousness — awareness of or sensitivity to an object, but without conceptualization

Confucian Philosophy

Confucianism — defined as an achieved state of moral excellence rather than a given human condition, and there are several implications to such an understanding.

- Every person is born with four beginnings.

- (Western framework of thinking):

• 1) Heart of Compassion — leads to Jen

• 2) Heart of Righteousness — leads to Yi

• 3) Heart of Propriety — leads to Li

• 4) Heart of Wisdom — leads to Chi

Lesson #3: The Self

Socrates

Socrates believes that to understand the self is to "Know thyself."

6. Man has to look at himself (to find what? By what means?)

7. Man must stand and live according to his nature.

8. This knowledge of oneself can be achieved only through the Socratic method — through the dialogue between the soul and itself, or between a student and his teacher.

Aristotle: Father of Western Philosophy

The self is made up of the soul, which is the core essence of a living being, which is not separated from the body (just as we cannot separate the act of cutting from the knife). The knife is the body, and the act of cutting is the soul. On the soul (Peri Psyche).

3 Kinds of Soul ("Psyche")

9. The Vegetative Soul — it can grow and nourish itself.

10. The Sensitive Soul — its ability to receive forms of other things and to compare them; it can experience sensations and move locally.

11. The Rational Soul — its ability to receive forms of other things and to compare them using the Nous (intellect) and Logos (reason).

Rene Descartes

To him the "self" is a thinking person. In his writing "Cogito ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am"), he stressed that the mind is a substance capable of thinking (affirming, doubting, judging, etc.) within the brain.

Descartes emphasized the notion of consciousness of self, which is made of (observer/observed) that forms our thinking and guides our behaviour.

David Hume: Scottish Empiricist

The self is nothing more than the mental perceptions which are available to our memory.

- The perception relies on our previous experiences that give meaning based on the principles of cause and effects.

- Perceptions of the mind are divided into two distinct kinds: "impressions" and "ideas."

- Impressions — are the original form of all our ideas.

John Locke: English Empirical Philosopher

Locke stressed that the mind consists of memory, where our consciousness (thoughts, experience) resides.

Locke suggests that the self (consciousness) is a thinking, intelligent being that has reason and reflection, and continues to define one's personal identity.

Sigmund Freud: Drive Theory of Self

Freud believes that the self has three layers:

12. The Id — works on the pleasure principle, is the seat of our passion, desires, and other instinctual drives — like our bodily needs, wants, and impulses (ex. our sexual and aggressive drives).

13. The Ego — seeks to please the Id drives in a realistic way. It is also the ego that regulates our action (ex. we can resist the urge of stealing money from others, but instead we work to earn money).

14. The Super Ego — works on the morality principle, is the seat of what is right or wrong, as it reflects the internalization of cultural rules set by the guidance and influence of our parents.

Sikolohiyang Pilipino

Virgilio Enriquez

- The self in the Filipino is the unity of the "self" and "others."

- He proposed the idea that the "self" or "personhood" can be centered on the core values expressed in the word "kapwa."

Lesson #4: Scientific Self

O — egg cell

- Fallopian Tube

- 150,000,000 sperm in the semen in a single ejaculation.

- 12–48 hrs — the sperm have to complete this.

- 85% of the sperm are not properly structured for travel.

- 15% of the sperm complete the journey to the egg — 1,000 sperms are left.

The union of the male sperm and female egg cell signals the beginning of human life. This results in a fertilized egg called a zygote that contains an equal number of chromosomes from each parent.