UNDERSTANDING THE SELF Flashcards
- Thinkers for centuries have searched for the explanations and reasons for everything that exist around him.
Philosophy
2 Idea of Permanence
Pro Permanence
Pro Changeability
According to Parmenides, Everything in existence is permanent and unchangeable. Something exist because it is permanent
Pro Permanence
Everything flows”, “ you can never step on the same river twice”
-Heraclitus
“You cannot step on the same river even once”
-Cratulus
Pro Changeability
- One of the big three (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle)
Mentor of Plato
Stone mason with a sharp mind
Great debater
Angered Sophist who brought him to trial where he was finally sentenced to death.
Sophist- people skilled in discussion and debate.
Socrates
- This method involves the search for the correct/ proper definition of a thing.
The Socratic Method
- He did not lecture, instead ask questions and engage people in a discussion.
The Socratic/ Dialectic Method
- Using this method the questioner should:
- be skilled at detecting misconceptions
- revealing misconceptions by asking the right questions.
The goal is to bring the person closer to final understanding.
The Socratic Method
- He believed that his mission in life was to seek the highest knowledge and convince others who are willing to seek this knowledge with him.
Socrates’s View of Human nature
- Socratic Method allowed him to question people’s beliefs and ideas, exposing their misconceptions and get them to touch their souls.
Socrates View of Human Nature
- Aristocles (428-348 BCE)
- Born in Athens to one of Greece’s aristocratic families.
- Nicknamed ____ because of his physical built which means wide or broad.
- Left Athens for 12 years after the death of Socrates.
- Established “The Academy”
- Both Socrates and ____ believed that Philosophy is more than analyses but rather a way of life.
- Plato wrote more than 20 Dialogues with Socrates as protagonist in most of them.
Plato
- refers to what are real.
- not encountered with the senses
- can only be grasped intellectually
Theory of Forms
- Forms are ageless and therefore are eternal.
- Forms are unchanging and therefore permanent.
- Forms are unmoving and indivisible.
Characteristics of Forms
2 types of Plato’s Dualism
The Realm of Shadows
The Realm of Forms
is composed of changing, “sensible” things which are lesser entities and therefore imperfect and flawed.
The Realm of Shadows
is composed of eternal things which are permanent and perfect. It is the source of reality and true knowledge.
The Realm of Forms
- ______ made use of Socratic Method
- He believed that knowledge lies within a person’s soul.
- Considered human beings as microcosms of the universal macrocosms
- Humans have immortal rational soul, which ________ believed is created in the image of the divine.
Plato’s View of Human Nature
3 Components of Soul
The Reason
The Spirited
The Appetites
is rational and is the motivation for goodness and truth.
The Reason
in non-rational and is the will or the drive toward action. This part of the soul is initially neutral but can be influenced/ pull in two directions.
The Spirited
are irrational and lean towards the desire for pleasures of the body.
The Appetites
what people see in the cave are only shadows which they believe are real things and represents knowledge.
Allegory of the Cave
- Only forms are real.
Once the people get out of the cave and into the light, what they will see are the Forms which is the real knowledge is. - In knowing the truth, the person must become the truth. – Theory of Being
- To know is to be.
- The more a person knows, the more he is, and the better he is.
- Each individual has in his immortal soul a perfect set of Forms that he can recall which constitutes true knowledge.
- To recall/ remember the Form = to know the truth and become just and wise.
PLATO’S THEORY OF LOVE AND BECOMING
- Plato and other Greek philosophers see man as basically good and becomes evil through ignorance of what is good.
St. Augustine, Descartes & Locke
– sees man as sinners who reject/go against a loving God’s command
- Christianity
- Christian philosophy became so powerful that the church ordered Plato’s Academy in Athens closed.
- Christian philosophers held faith supreme over reason and logic. A question is raised then as to whether reason and logic could/should be used to understand Christian truths (Price, 2000)
St. Augustine, Descartes & Locke
- From Hippo, Africa
- Initially rejected Christianity for it seemed to him then that Christianity could not provide him answers to questions that interested him.
- Wanted to know about moral evil and why it existed in people, his personal desire for sensual pleasures and questions about all sufferings in the world.
St. Augustine (354-436)
2 types of St. Augustine’s view of Human Nature
God as the source of all reality and truth
The Sinfulness of Man
- Man searches for happiness.
- Real happiness can only be found in God.
- For God is love and he created man for them to also love.
- Problems arise because of the objects humans choose to love.
- Disordered love results when man loves the wrong things.
- Love of physical objects leads to sin of greed.
- Love for other people is not lasting and excessive love for them is a sin of jealousy.
- Love for self leads to sin of pride.
- Love for God is the supreme virtue and only through loving God can man find real happiness.
- All things are worthy of love but they must be loved properly.
Role of Love
- Father of modern Philosophy
- One of the rationalist philosophers in Europe.
Rene Descartes (1596- 1650)
- group of philosophers who considered truth as a universal concept and reason is superior to and independent of sensory experience. They are impressed by the scientific method and mathematics that they aimed to apply it in their philosophy
Rationalist
2 types of Descartes System
Intuition
Deduction
- the ability to apprehend direction of certain truths
Intuition
- the power to discover what is known by progressing in an orderly way from what is already known. Truths are arrived using a step by step process.
Deduction
2 types of Descartes View of Human Nature
I think, therefore I am
The Mind- Body problem
To doubt is to think.
- A thinker is a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, imagines and feels (Price, 2000)
I think, therefore I am
- Descartes considered the soul/mind as a substance that is separate from the body.
- All bodily processes are mechanical.
- The body is like a machine that is controlled by will and aided by the mind.
The mind body problem
- Interested in the workings of the human mind, particularly the acquisition of knowledge.
- Believed that knowledge results from ideas produced a posteriori or by the objects that were experienced.
- The process involves two forms:
- objects were experienced through the senses and reflection - by which the mind looks at the objects that were experienced to discover relationships that may exists between them.
John Locke (1632- 1704)
3 Laws according to Locke
Law of Opinion
Civil Law
Divine Law
where actions that are praiseworthy are called virtue and those that are not are called vice.
Law of Opinion
where right actions are enforced by people with authority (ex. Courts, police)
Civil Law
set by God on the actions of man. The true law for human behavior. It is eternally true and the one law that man should always follow.
Divine Law
Ideas are not innate but rather the mind at birth is a blank slate.
Tabula Rosa
Ideas can also be the result of reflection which demonstrate the power of thinking and volition or will.
Tabula Rosa
Simple ideas are repeated and compared to become complex ideas.
Tabula Rosa
is one of the disciplines in the social sciences which aims to discover the ways by which the social surrounding/environment influences people’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
Sociology
The main focus is understanding human societies, the need to know and be aware of social processes may make people see themselves better when they realize how the social world impacts on their existence.
Sociology
- He wrote and published many articles and book reviews, but did not publish any book. It was his students who put together his numerous writings and edited them for publication.
- Died due to heart failure in 1931.
George Herbert Mead
- According to Mead the Self is not there from birth, but is developed over time from social experience and activities. And self cannot be separated from society.
MEAD’S SOCIAL SELF THEORY
is based on the perspective that the self emerges from social interactions, such as observing and interacting with others, responding to other’s opinion about oneself and internalizing external opinions and internal feelings about oneself.
The social self theory
the approach Mead used to describe the power of the environment in shaping human behavior. At the center of the theorizing concept is the Self
Social Behaviorism
of personality that is made-up of the individual’s self-awareness and self-image.
Self Dimension
3 types of Mead’s social Self
The social self theory
Self Behaviorism
Self Dimension
3 types of Development of Self
Language/ Preparatory Stage
Play Stage
Game Stage
develops self by allowing individuals to respond to each other through symbols, gestures, words, and sounds. Language conveys others’ attitudes and opinions toward a subject or a person. Emotions such as anger, happiness and confusion, are conveyed through language.
Activity: Express different emotions by saying the word “ANO”
Language
develops self by allowing individuals to take on different roles, pretend and express expectation of others. Play develops one’s self-consciousness through role-playing. During role-play a person is able to internalize the perspective of others and develop an understanding of how others feel about themselves and others in a variety of social situations.
Play