THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SELF Flashcards
- “Unified being, essentially at least, with the faculty of rational choice”
- Different philosophers have come up with more specific characteristics of the Self, and over time, these meanings have transformed from pure abstractions to explanations that hold scientific evidences
THE SELF
-The ancient philosophy of self can be traced back from the ancient Greek aphorism, “know thyself”
- Used by Socrates as his guiding - principle that he passed onto his students
APHORISM / PRINCIPLE
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Bring inner self to light by _______________?
- Socrates
- Socratic Method
- “Man is a being who thinks and wills”
- Puts more regard to the psyche/soul rather than the human body
- Preferred to engage his students in endless discussion
- Had never written down any of his ideas
- “The appearance of the body is inferior to its functions”
SOCRATES
Properly nurtured by knowledge, wisdom, and virtues
Soul
Enumerate the THE DOCTRINES OF SOCRATES
- KNOWLEDGE IS VIRTUE
- SOCRATIC IRONY
- THE ART OF GOOD LIVING
Someone who puts knowledge to good use is a wise one.
KNOWLEDGE IS VIRTUE
A pose of ignorance assumed in order to entice others into making statements that can then be challenged
SOCRATIC IRONY
Man’s nature is to know about good life
Knowing what is right means doing what is right
THE ART OF GOOD LIVING
- The immortal soul that, in some sense, “resides”, in the body and is separated from it at death to be born again.
- After a period in the spirit world, he thinks that the soul is born with some residual knowledge of its own nature and the nature of reality which can be recovered by appropriate questioning.
- The true self is not the body but the soul
THE SELF ACCORDING TO SOCRATES
SOCRATES SAID
The body is the ________
The soul is the _________
SOCRATES BELIEVED
The goal of life is _________
How to become happy? To have_______
SOCRATES SAID
The body is the slave
The soul is the master
SOCRATES BELIEVED
The goal of life is happiness
How to become happy? To have virtue
- Socrates’s prized student
- Thoroughly expound on Socrates’s ideas of self
- Emphasized the separation of ideal and phenomenal existence
- Truth-seeking
The metaphysical realm (mind) and the physical world (body)
PLATO
- Plato’s dialogue
- Introduced Plato’s conceptualization of the self
- A popular text for many decades in the subject of philosophy
PHAEDRUS
According to Plato, the truth or the reality can be distinguished in two:
- The “ontos” (ideal)
- The “phenomena”
Ultimate reality which tend to be permanent and spiritual
The “ontos” (ideal)
- The manifestation of the ideal
- Impermanent and inferior to the former
The “phenomena”
- Plato’s prized student
- Called ideal as “essence” which provides meaning and purpose to the matter and phenomena as “matter” provides substance and solidity to essence
- The two co-exist and are co-dependent
ARISTOTLE
derives explanations of the self from sensory and bodily responses.
We know things because we have experienced it through our bodily senses.
EMPIRICISM
-Innate knowledge
- Explains self from the standpoint of what is “ideal” and the “truth”
RATIONALISM
- Idealism
- Socratic philosophy
– Knowledge is the personification of good while Ignorance is that of evil. - Self-knowledge is the ultimate virtue. As the ultimate virtue, it will lead to ultimate happiness.
Socrates
-Idealism
- Dualism and Idealism
- Moral virtue is rooted in the intellect and leads to happiness.
- Wisdom and knowledge leads to virtue which will lead to happiness.
Plato
- Empiricist
- Aristotelian Philosophy
- Ideal is found inside the phenomena and the universals inside the particulars.
- Ideals are ESSENCE; Phenomena is MATTER.
- Matter and Essence need each other.
ARISTOTLE
- Platonism
- Neoplatonism
- All knowledge leads to God
- Understanding of His Gospel will ultimately lead to Happiness
ST. AUGUSTINE
- Rationalist
- Mind-body Dualism
- “I think therefore I am”
- The mind and soul can exist without the body.
- Establishing the distinction of soul from the body can make people believe in the afterlife and the soul’s immortality.
RENE DESCARTES
- Conscious, thinking substance
Unaffected by time - Known only to itself
- Not made up of parts
Views the entirety of self
Conscious and aware of itself
THE SOUL
- Material substance
Changes through time - Can be doubted
- Others can correct claims about it
- Made up of physical, quantifiable, divisible parts
THE BODY
- Empiricist
- Theory of Personal Identity
- It is in consciousness alone that identity exists, not on the body and soul.
- Distinction between man and person
-The self is a matter of psychological continuity - Personal identity is founded on consciousness (memory), not a substance of the soul or the body
JOHN LOCKE
- Empiricst
- Skeptical Philosophy
- A Scottish philosopher, economist, historian during the age of enlightenment.
- There is no self, only a bundle of perceptions.
DAVID HUME
- Rationalist/Empiricist
- Metaphysics of the Self
- Reason is the final authority of morality.
- Self is transcendental (independent of experience)
- The self is not the body
- The mind is not just a passive receiver of sense experience but rather actively participates in knowing the object it experience.
IMMANUEL KANT
TRUE OR FALSE
THE SELF IS THE BUNDLE THEORY OF THE MIND
No such thing as personal identity because perceptions and feelings may come and go
The self is not just one impression but a mixed and loose cohesion of various personal experiences
When we are asleep (unconscious), we cease to exist because our perception is removed
Self is the series of incoherent impressions received by the senses.
TRUE
- Interprets and coherently expresses what the senses gather.
- aware of alterations in your own state.
- Includes rational intellect and psychological state such as …
Moods
Feelings
Sensations
Pleasure
Pain
INNER SELF`
-Includes our senses and physical world.
- Gathers information from the external world through the senses, which the inner self interprets and coherently expresses.
OUTER SELF
- Empiricist
- The Concept of the Mind
- “I act, therefore, I am.”
- The mind is not the seat of self.
- It is not a separate, parallel thing to our physical body.
- The mind is a category mistake, brought about by habitual use. The only way it can affect the other is through the external world.
RYLE
- Empiricst
- Neurophilosophy
- The physical brain gives us a sense of self.
- The self is a product of electromagnetic signals produced by the brain.
CHURCHLAND
- Existentialism Empiricist
- Phenomenology of Perception
- Insisted that the mind and body are intrinsically connected.
- All knowledge of ourselves and our world is based on subjective experiences.
- The mind is part of the body and the body is part of the mind.
- Physical body is an important part of the subjective self.
MERLEAU-PONTY
