Lesson 2: The Self According to Philosophy Flashcards
It is defined as the study of knowledge or wisdom from its Latin roots, philo (love) and sophia (wisdom).
Philosophy
In Latin, this means love.
philo
In Latin, this means wisdowm.
sophia
This field is also considered as “The Queen of All Sciences” because every scientific discipline has philosophical foundations.
Philosophy
They were the ones who seriously questioned myths and moved away from them in attempting to understand reality by exercising the art of questioning that satisfies their curiosity, including the questions about self.
Greek philosophers
A philosopher from Athens, Greece and said to have the greatest influence on European thought.
Socrates
He is known from the writings of his student Plato who became one of the greatest philosophers of his time.
Socrates
Who was Socrates’ student who became one of the greatest philosophers of his time?
Plato
This was Socrates’ unique style of asking questions.
Socratic Method
It involves the search for the correct/proper definition of a thing.
Socratic Method or dialectic method
What was the foundation of Socrates’ philosophy?
Delphic
Oracle’s command to “Know Thyself”
According to Socrates, the self is dichotomous which is composed of two things, what are those?
physical realm and ideal realm
It is consisting of anything we sense – see, smell, feel, hear, and taste. It is always changing and deteriorating. It is also the best example of the physical realm.
physical world
It is the one that is imperfect and unchanging, eternal, and immortal.
ideal realm
This includes the intellectual essences of the universe like the concept of beauty, truth, and goodness.
ideal realm
A human is composed of body and soul, the first belongs to the physical realm because it changed, it is imperfect, and it dies, and the latter belongs to ideal realm for it survives the death.
Socrates
This is the immortal and unified entity that is consistent over time.
Socrates’ definition of self
A student of Socrates, who introduced the idea of a three-part soul/self that is composed of reason, physical appetite and spirit or passion.
Plato
This enables human to think deeply, make wise choices and achieve a true understanding of eternal truths.
reason
It is the basic biological needs of human being such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire.
physical appetite
It is the basic emotions of human being such as love, anger, ambition, aggressiveness and empathy.
spirit or passion
Plato also calls this as divine essence.
reason
According to Plato, it is always the responsibility of the __________ to organize, control, and reestablish harmonious
relationship between these three elements.
reason
“The soul is like a winged chariot drawn by two powerful horses: a white horse, representing Spirit, and a black horse, embodying appetite.” The charioteer is reason, whose task is to guide the chariot to the eternal realm by controlling the two independent-minded horses.
Plato’s view of the soul/self in “Phaedrus”
He is considered as the last of the great ancient philosophers whose ideas were greatly Platonic.
St. Augustine
He has been characterized as Christianity’s first theologian.
St. Augustine
Like Plato, he believed that the physical body is different from the immortal soul.
St. Augustine
St. Augustine described the body as a _____ or _____ of the soul and said that the body is a _____ of the soul. Later on he came to view the body as _____ of the soul, with both attached to one another by a _____.
snare, cage, slave, spouse, natural appetite
“The soul makes war with the body.”
St. Augustine
“That the body is united with the soul, so that man may be entire and complete, is a fact we recognize on the evidence of our own nature.”
St. Augustine
According to St. Augustine, the human nature is composed of two realms.
- God as the source of all reality and truth
- The sinfulness of man
He is the one eternal truth.
God
Through mystical experience, man is capable of knowing eternal truths. This is made possible through the existence of the one eternal truth which is God. He further added that without God as the source of all truth, man could never understand eternal truth. This relationship with God means that those who know most about God will come closest to understanding the true nature of the world.
God as the source of all reality and truth
According to St. Augustine, what is the cause of sin or evil?
an act of man’s freewill
The cause of sin or evil is an act of mans’ freewill. Moral goodness can only be achieved through the grace of God.
The sinfulness of man
He stated that real happiness can only be found in God. For God is love and he created humans for them to also love.
St. Augustine
This results when man loves the wrong things which he believes will give him happiness.
disordered love
A French philosopher, mathematician, and considered the founder of modern philosophy.
Rene Descartes
His famous principle is the “cogito, ergo sum.” or “I think, therefore I exist.”
Rene Descartes
He established his philosophical views on “true knowledge” and concept of self.
Rene Descartes
He explained that in order to gain true knowledge, one must doubt everything even own existence.
Rene Descartes
It makes someone aware that they are a thinking being; thus, they exist.
Doubting
The essence of self is being a thinking thing.
Rene Descartes
It is a dynamic entity that engages in metal operations – thinking, reasoning, and perceiving processes.
Rene Descartes’ definition of self
It is dependent on the awareness in engaging with those mental operations.
Self-identity
He declared that the essential self or the self as the thinking entity is radically different from the physical body.
Rene Descartes
According to Rene Descartes, this is a non-material, immortal, conscious being, independent of the physical laws of the universe.
thinking self or soul
According to Rene Descartes, this is a material, mortal, non-thinking entity, fully governed by the physical laws of nature.
physical body
He also maintained that the soul and the body are independent of one another and each can exist and function without the other.
Rene Descartes
Descartes identified that the physical self is part of _____ and the conscious self (mind, soul) is part of the _____.
nature, spiritual realm
This is governed by the physical laws of the universe, and available to scientific analysis and experimentation.
nature
This is independent of the physical laws of the universe, governed only by the laws of reason and God’s will.
spiritual realm
An English philosopher and physician and famous in his concept of “Tabula Rasa” or Blank Slate that assumes the nurture side of human development.
John Locke
What concept assumes the nurture side of human development?
tabula rasa or blank slate
The self, according to him is consciousness.
John Locke
What is the self, according to John Locke?
consciousness
What is John Locke’s most famous work?
Essay Concerning Human Understanding
On which essay did John Locke discuss the reflective analysis of how an individual may experience the self in everyday living?
Essay Concerning Human Understanding
- To discover the nature of personal identity, it is important to find out what it means to be a person.
- A person is a thinking, intelligent being who has the abilities to reason and to reflect.
- A person is also someone who considers themself to be the same thing in different times and different places.
- Consciousness as being aware that we are thinking—always accompanies thinking and is an essential part of the thinking process.
- Consciousness makes possible our belief that we are the same identity in different times and different places.
Essay Concerning Human Understanding
A thinking, intelligent being who has the abilities to reason and to reflect.
John Locke’s definition of a person
Someone who considers themself to be the same thing in different times and different places.
John Locke’s definition of a person
This refers to being aware that we are thinking—always accompanies thinking and is an essential part of the thinking process.
consciousness
It makes possible our belief that we are the same identity in different times and different places.
consciousness
The bottom line of his theory on self is that self is not tied to any particular body or substance. It only exists in other times and places because of the memory of those experiences.
John Locke
He was a Scottish philosopher and also an empiricist.
David Hume
His claim about self is quite controversial because he assumed that there is no self! In his essay entitled, “On Personal Identity” (1739) he said that, if we carefully examine the contents of [our] experience, we find that there are only two distinct entities, “impressions” and “ideas”.
David Hume
On which essay did Hume say that “if we carefully examine the contents of [our] experience, we find that there are only two distinct entities, ‘impressions’ and ‘ideas’.”
On Personal Identity (1739)
They are the basic sensations of our experience, the elemental data of our minds: pain, pleasure, heat, cold, happiness, grief, fear, exhilaration, and so on.
impressions
They are copies of impressions that include thoughts and images that are built up from our primary impressions through a variety of relationships, but because they are derivative copies of impressions, they are once removed from reality.
ideas
He considered that the self does not exist because all of the experiences that a person may have are just perceptions and this includes the perception of self. None of these perceptions resemble a unified and permanent self-identity that exists over time.
David Hume
It is created to unify the mental events and introduce order into an individual lives, but this “self” has no real existence.
fictional self
According to Hume, the self that is being experienced by an individual is nothing but a kind of __________.
fictional self
A well-known Australian psychologist and considered as the Father and Founder of Psychoanalysis. His influence in Psychology and therapy is dominant and popular in the 20th to 21st century.
Sigmund Freud
The dualistic view of self by Freud involves the _____ and _____.
conscious self, unconscious self
It is governed by reality principle. Here, the self is rational, practical, and appropriate to the social environment.
conscious self
It has the task of controlling the constant pressures of the unconscious self, as its primitive impulses continually seek for immediate discharge.
conscious self
It is governed by pleasure principle. It is the self that is aggressive, destructive, unrealistic and instinctual.
unconscious self
Freud proposed how the mind works by illustrating the tip of the iceberg which according to him represents conscious awareness which characterizes the person in dealing with the external world.
provinces or structures of the mind
It serves as the repository of past experiences, repressed memories, fantasies, and urges.
subconscious
It is further controlled by the workings of the subconscious/unconscious mind.
observable behavior
This is primarily based on the pleasure principle. It demands immediate satisfaction and is not hindered by societal expectations.
id
The structure that is primarily based on the reality principle. This mediates between the impulses of the id and restraints of the superego.
ego
This is primarily dependent on learning the difference between right and wrong, thus it is called moral principle. Morality of actions is largely dependent on childhood upbringing particularly on rewards and punishments.
superego
According to Freud, there are two kinds of instinct that drive individual behavior.
the eros or the life instinct and the thanatos of the death instinct
This is the energy of eros and it includes urges necessary for individual and species survival like thirst, hunger, and sex.
libido
In cases that human behavior is directed towards destruction in the form of aggression and violence, such are the manifestations of _____.
thanatos
A British analytical philosopher. He was an important figure in the field of Linguistic Analysis which focused on the solving of philosophical puzzles through an analysis of language.
Gilbert Ryle
This field focuses on the solving of philosophical puzzles through an analysis of language.
Linguistic Analytics
The self is best understood as a pattern of behavior, the tendency or disposition for a person to behave in a certain way in certain circumstances.
Gilbert Ryle
He opposed the notable ideas of the previous philosophers and even claimed that those were results of confused conceptual thinking he termed, category mistake.
Gilbert Ryle
This happens when we speak about the self as something independent of the physical body: a purely mental entity existing in time but not space
categorical mistake
A German Philosopher who made great contribution to the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.
Immanuel Kant
He is widely regarded as the greatest philosopher of the modern period.
Immanuel Kant
He maintained that an individual self makes the experience of the world comprehensible because it is responsible for synthesizing the discreet data of sense experience into a meaningful whole.
Immanuel Kant
It is the product of reason, a regulative principle because it regulates experience by making unified experience possible.
Immanuel Kant’s definition of self
This is not the object of consciousness, but it makes the consciousness understandable and unique.
Immanuel Kant’s definition of self
This happens when people do not experience self directly, instead as a unity of all impressions that are organized by the mind through perceptions.
Transcendental apperception
He concluded that all objects of knowledge, which includes the self, are phenomenal.
Immanuel Kant
He emphasized that people should always see duty as a divine command.
Immanuel Kant
For Kant, the kingdom of God is within _____.
man
They are American philosophers interested in the fields of philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, cognitive neurobiology, epistemology, and perception.
Paul and Patricia Churchland
Their central argument is that the concepts and theoretical vocabulary that people use to think about the selves—using such terms as belief, desire, fear, sensation, pain, joy—actually misrepresent the reality of minds and selves.
Paul and Patricia Churchland
He claims that the self is a product of brain activity.
Paul Churchland
This is where the behavior of the self can be attributed to.
neuropharmacological states
This is the neural activity in specialized anatomical areas.
neuropharmacological states
This term was coined by Patricia Churchland, the modern scientific inquiry looks into the application of neurology to age-old problems in philosophy.
Neurophilosophy
This is the study of the philosophy of science, neuroscience, and psychology. It aims to explore the relevance of neurolinguistic experiments/studies to the philosophy of the mind.
Philosophy of Neuroscience
She claimed that man’s brain is responsible for the identity known as self. The biochemical properties of the brain according to this philosophy of neuroscience is really responsible for man’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
Patricia Churchland
He is one of the many philosophers and psychologists that viewed the self from a materialistic point of view, contending that in the final analysis mental states are identical with, reducible to, or explainable in terms of physical brain states.
Paul Churchland
A French philosopher and phenomenologist.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
He took a very different approach to the self and the mind/body “problem.” According to him, the division between the “mind” and the “body” is a product of confused thinking.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
This is experienced as a unity in which the mental and physical are seamlessly woven together. This unity is the primary experience of selves and begin to doubt it when an individual use their minds to concoct abstract notions of a separate mind and body.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s definition of self
Developed the concept of self-subject and contended that perceptions occur existentially. Thus, the consciousness, the world, and the human body are all interconnected as they mutually perceive the world.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
This provides a direct description of the human experience which serves to guide man’s conscious actions.
Phenomenology
He further added that, the world is a field of perception, and human consciousness assigns meaning to the world. Thus man cannot separate himself from his perceptions of the world.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
It is not purely the result of sensations nor it is purely interpretations.
perception
This is a process that includes sensing as well as interpreting/reasoning.
consciousness
