SS031-UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

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 Who Am I? A Philosophical Journey to Discovering the Self
SS031-UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

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 WHAT’S WITH THE QUOTE?

“Who am I?”- Not knowing this is the

greatest death to the Soul (one’s own self)!
- Dada Bhagwan
 In this lesson, the students
must be able to:
1. Understand the importance
of knowing one’s self.
2. Recognize the different
perspectives regarding the
nature of man.
3. Assess the philosophical
perspective of the self by
critiquing the arguments
given.
4. Develop their own answer
to the question, Who am I?
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HOMEWORK

Since you have already read the first chapter

“Who Am I? A Philosophical Journey to
Discovering the Self”, of the book, answer Pop-up
Questions numbers 1-6 found in the chapter in
your small bluebook to be submitted next meeting.
What is the Self?

Composed of self perception as defined by

their self concept, self knowledge, self
esteem and social self.
  There is soul first before
man’s body. Man first
exists in the realm of
ideas and exists as a soul
or pure mind.
 When man came to the
material world, he forgot
the ideas that he knew,
hence he became
ignorant. Ignorance
causes problem to man.
 Solution: Dialectic
method/Socratic method.
SOCRATES
 “If we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything,
we must get rid of the body and contemplate things
by themselves with the soul by itself.”
-Plato

 Human beings are composed of two things – body and soul.

 Soul is the true self- the permanent unchanging self found in the world of Ideas.
 Body is what we see in the material world- a mere replica of the true self (that is
why it is changing).
 Soul was already existing even before bodily death and thus, will survive even after
the body dies.
 Thus, the body becomes a prison of the soul. To free us, we have to contemplate.
 Contemplation- union of the mind with universal and eternal ideas.
 “When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers,
the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained;
What is a man, that Thou art mindful of him? And the
son of man, that Thou hast visited him?”
-Psalm 8:3-4

 Highly influenced by Plato- the permanent world is where God is and

the material world is our world now.
 Man is created out of God’s love and also created in His image. He also
has an immortal soul whose goal is to be with God eternally.
 The pursuit of happiness can be achieved in God alone.
 Moral law is also existing in man’s mind. Man’s rationality helps him
distinguish between what is right and wrong.
 “ I think, therefore, I am.”
(Cogito ergo sum)
-Rene Descartes

 The essence of man is in being a purely thinking being. Thus, I think,

therefore; I am.
 The mind and body are separate but at the same time conjoined with one
another that they causally act upon each other. (I cannot act without my
body)
 The self is Mind more than the Body.
 Difference: Body is structured but the mind cannot be boxed- hence, the
study of the self requires a science of its own because mind pursues its
own thoughts.
 “What worries you, masters you.”
-John Locke
Do you agree with Locke? If such is the case, what will happen
to your existence when we forget what we have been
doing three days ago?

 The self is not locked in mind, body and soul only.

 Memory is part of the definition of the self.
 Memory theory- we are the same person as we were in the past for as
long as we can remember something from that past.
 “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the
passions, and can never pretend to any other office
than to serve and obey them.”
-David Hume

 The mind is divided into two: Impressions and Ideas

 Impression: Things directly perceived by the senses
 Ideas: things created in the mind. Can be a combination of impressions.
 Hume: When he looks in the mind, there is no impression that corresponds
to the self because the self constantly changes. Thus, the self is merely the
perception we have at the moment it is being perceived. Therefore, the
enduring Self is just a fiction. We cannot observe a permanent self, in
short, THERE IS NO SELF.
 ““All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds
then to the understanding, and ends with reason.
There is nothing higher than reason.”
-Immanuel Kant

 Refuting Hume, he argued that it is possible to find the essence of the self
by using our reason.
 Man is gifted with reason and freewill, therefore man can organize the
different data gathered by the senses. From this, we can now have a good
idea of the self.
 Man has inherent dignity and should be treated with respect as an end
and not as a means.
 “The ego is not master in its own house.”
-Sigmund Freud

 Mas is a combination of his biological structure and the influence of

his socio cultural environment.
 He devised a tripartite division of man- id, ego, superego.
 Id represents the biological structure, superego represents the
socio-cultural environment.
 The two are at battles against each other and whoever wins between
them is manifested in the ego. The ego being the Self.
 “Minds are things, but different sorts
of things from bodies.”
-Gilbert Ryle

 The debate on the definition of the self is only a problem of language.

 For him, a talk of the mind is only a talk of behavior. The mind is not
distinct from the body but is part of a certain aspects of our bodies.
 Criticized Descartes and said Descartes made a category mistake.
 In a discourse, separation of mind, body and soul is possible but not in
practice. Thus, we can see how the mind is working through his
behavior. The self can be known by the behavior.
 “We do have an organ for understanding and
recognizing moral facts. It is called the brain.”
-Paul Churchland

 Known for his Eliminative Materialism- the idea which states that the
mind is unreal, and the brain is real.
 The self is the brain. The brain is the essence of the self.
 The term mind, moods, emotions, actions, and consciousness are
deeply affected by the state of the brain.
 A new conceptual framework should be based on neuroscience.
 “We know not through our intellect
but through our experience.”
-Maurice Merleau-Ponty

 An existentialist, he believes that a person is defined by virtue of

movement and expression. A person is the sum of all that he does with
his body. Including his interpretation of his past and his decisions.
 The definition of self is all about one’s perception of one’s experience
and the interpretation of those experiences.
 The self is grounded on the experiences from the past, the possibilities
for the future and the present cognition.
SUMMARY
 THE PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW OF THE SELF
SS031-UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

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End of Lecture