Philosophical Perspective Of The Self Flashcards
employs the inquisitive mind to discover the ultimate causes, reasons and principles of everything. It goes beyond the scientific investigation by exploring all areas of knowledge such as religion, psychology, politics, physics, and even medicine. Hence, the etymological definition of philosophy “love of wisdom” could pertain to the desire for truth by formulating never ending questions to provide answers to every inquiry about the nature human existence. The nature of the self is a topic of interest among philosophers.
“KWOW THY SELF.”
-SOCRATES
Philosophy
the self is synonymous with the soul.
He believes that every human possess an immortal soul that survives the physical body. ________ was the first to focus on the full power of reason on the who should be, and who we will become.
SOCRATES “AN UNEXAMINED LIFE IS NOT WORTH LIVING.”
Another ancient “Greek philosopher, _____, elaborates on Socrates concept of the soul. Like Socrates, _____ believes that the self is synonymous with the soul. His philosophy can be explained as a process of self-knowledge and purification of the soul.
PLATO “THE SELF IS AN IMMORTAL SOUL.”
believes that the soul is merely a set of defining features and does not consider the body and soul as separate entities. He suggest that anything with life has a soul. _________ holds that the soul is the essence of all living things. Thus, the soul is the essence of the self. However, humans differ from other living things because of their capacity for rational thinking.
ARISTOTLE
“THE SOUL IS THE ESSENCE OF THE SELF.”
An African philosopher, regarded as a saint. (_________) in the Catholic Church.
He ultimately came to view the body as “spouse” of the soul, both attached to one another by a
natural appetite.
He believes that the body is united with the soul,so that man may be entire complete.
He believes that the soul is what governs and defines man.
In his work, Confession, he describes that human kind is created in the image and likeness of God.
Everything created by God who is all good is good.
ST. AUGUSTINE
“THE SELF HAS AN IMMORTAL SOUL.”
(St. Augustine of Hippo)
French philosopher and father of modern philosophy. He has brought an entirely new perspective to philosophy and the self. He wants to penetrate the nature of reasoning process and understand its relationship to the human self. The Latin phrase “Cogito ergo sum”-“I think therefore I am” is the keystone of _________ concept of self. For him, the act of thinking about the self of being self-conscious s in itself proof that there is a self.
He is confident that no rational person will doubt his or her own existence as a conscious, thinking entity while we are aware of thinking about our selves.
RENE DESCARTES
“I THINK THEREFORE I AM.”
English philosopher
The human mind at birth is tabula rasa or a blank slate.
He feels that the self, or personal identity, is constructed primarily from sense experiences or more specifically what people see, smell, hear, taste and feel.
For _____, conscious awareness and memory of previous experiences are the keys to understanding the self.
Consciousness is what makes identity of a person similar in different situations..
_____ is proposing that people could use power of reason to gain knowledge and consequently his knowledge to understand experiences.
Knowledge is based on careful observation of experience.
Reason plays an important role in helping to figure out the significance of sense experience and reach intelligence conclusions.
JOHN LOCKE “THE SELF IS CONSCIOUSNESS”
Scottish philosopher
_____ ____ suggests that if people carefully examines their sense experience through the process of introspection, they will discover that there is no self.
DAVID HUME “THERE IS NO SELF”
For German philosopher ________ ____, it is the self that makes experiencing an intelligible world possible because it is the self that is actively organizing and synthesizing all of our
thoughts and perceptions. The self, in the form of consciousness, utilizes conceptual categories which he calls transcendental deduction of categories, to can be investigated scientifically. ____ believes that the self is an organizing principle that makes a unified and intelligible experience
possible. It is metaphorically above or behind sense experience, and it uses the categories of our mind to filter, order, relate, organize and synthesize sensations into a unified whole. In other words, the self construct its own reality, actively creating a world that is familiar, predictable, and most significantly, mine.
IMMANUEL KANT
“WE CONSTRUCT THE SELF”
• Austrian psychoanalyst
______ _____ is not a philosopher, but his views on the nature of the self have a far reaching impact on philosophical thinking, as well as other disciplines such as psychology and sociology
SIGMUN FREUD “THE SELF IS MULTI-LAYERED”
British philosopher _______ ____ believes that the self is best understood as a pattern of behavior, the tendency or disposition of a person to behave in a certain way in certain circumstances. ____ concept of the human self thus provides the philosophical principle, “I act therefore I am”. ____ considers the mind and the body to be intrinsically linked in complex and intimate ways. In short, the self is the same as bodily behavior. He concludes that the mind is the totality of human dispositions that is known through the way people behave. Nevertheless, ____ is convinced that the mind expresses the entire system of thoughts, emotions and actions that make up the human self.
GILBERT RYLE “THE SELF IS THE WAY PEOPLE BEHAVE”
Canadian philosopher
____ ___________ advocates the idea of eliminative materialism or the idea that the self is inseparable from the brain and physiology of the body. All a person has is the brain, and so of the brain is gone, there is no self. For __________, the physical brain and not the imaginary mind, gives people the sense of self. The mind does not really exist because it cannot be experienced by the senses.
PAUL CHURCHLAND “THE SELF IS THE BRAIN”
French philosopher
He argues that all knowledge about the self (e.g.,understanding the nature of the self) is based on the “phenomena” of experience. The “I” is a single integrated core identity, a combination of the mental, physical, and emotional structures around a core identity of the self. He further articulates that when people examine the self at the fundamental level of direct human experience, people will discover that the mind and body are unified, not separate.
He notes in his book, Phenomenology of Perception, that everything that people are aware of is contained within the consciousness.
MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY
“THE SELF IS EMBODIED SUBJECTIVITY”
Socrates suggests that reality consists of two dichotomous realms realms.
The Physical Realm
The Ideal Realm
Socrates suggests that reality consists of two dichotomous realms realms.
The Physical Realm
The Ideal Realm
