Course: Understanding the Self-PPT / CUTS 1A

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1. The self from various philosophical perspectives

2. INTRODUCTION Before we even had to be in any formal institution of learning, among the many things that we were first taught as kids is to articulate and write our names. Should we be named after a famous celebrity, a respected politician or historical personality, or even a saint? Our names represent who we are. It has not been a custom to just randomly pick a combination of letters and number

3. INTRODUCTION Human beings attach names that are meaningful to birthed progenies because names are supposed to designate us in the world. Thus, some people get baptized with names such as “precious”, beauty, or lovely. Likewise, when our parents call our names, we were taught to respond to them because our names on our papers, projects or any output for that matter.

4. INTRODUCTION Our names signify us. Death even cannot stop this bond between the person and her name. Names are inscribed even into ones gravestone. But a person who was named after a saint most probably will not become an actual saint. He/she may not even turn out to be saintly. The self is something that a person perennially molds, shapes and develops.

5. Socrates and plato For Socrates, every man is composed of body and soul. This means that every human person is dualistic, that is he is composed of two important aspects of his personhood. Plato, Socrates student, basically took off from his master and supported the idea that man is a dual nature of body and soul.

6. Socrates and plato In addition to what Socrates earlier espoused, Plato added that there are three components of the soul: the rational soul, the spirited soul and the appetitive soul. The rational soul forged by a person and intellect has to govern the affairs of the huma n person, the spirited part which is in charge of emotions should be kept at bay, and the appetitive soul in charge of base desires like eating, drinking, sleeping and having sex are controlled as well.

7. AUGUSTINE AND THOMAS AQUINAS Augustine’s view of the human person reflects the entire spirit of the medieval world when it comes to man. Augustine’s agreed that man is a bifurcated nature. An aspect of man dwells in th e world and is imperfect and continuously yearns to be with Divine and the other is capable of reaching immortality. The body is bound to die on earth and the soul is to anticipate living eternally with God.

8. descartes Rene Descartes, Father of Modern Philosophy, conceived of the human person as having a body and mind. The Meditations of First Philosophy, he claims that there is so much that we should doubt. In fact, he says that since much of what we think and believe are not infallible, they may turn out to be false.

9. descartes In Descartes view, the body is nothing else but a machine that is attached to the mind. The human person has it but it is not what makes man a man. If at all, that is the mind Descartes says, “But what then, am I? A thinking thing. It has been said. But what is a thinking thing? It is a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, that imagines also and perceives.” (Descartes) 2008

10. hUMES David Hume, a Scottish philosopher, has a very unique way of looking at man. As an empiricist who believes that one can know only what comes from the senses and experiences. Empiricism is the school of thought that espouses the idea that knowledge can only be possible if it is sensed and experienced.

11. hUMES For example, Jack knows that Jill is another human person not because he has seen her soul. He knows she is just like him because he sees her, hears her and touches her. For David Hume, the self is nothing else but a bundle of impressions. When one touches an ice cube, the cold sensation is an impression.

12. kant In contradiction of Hume, Immanuel Kant believe that everything starts with perception and sensations of impressions. To Kant, there is a necessarily a mind that organizes the impressions that men get from the external world.

13. kant For example, time and space are ideas that cannot find in the world, but is built in our minds. Kant calls these are the apparatuses of the mind. Kant therefore suggests that it is an actively engaged intelligence in man that synthesizes all knowledge and experience.

14. Ryle For Ryle, what truly matters is the behavior that a person manifests in his day-to-day life. For Ryle, looking for and trying to understand a self as it is really exists is like visiting your friends university and looking for the university

15. Ryle One can roam around the campus, visit the library and the football field, and meet the administrators and faculty but still end up not finding the university This is because the campus, the people, the systems, and the territory all form the university. In short, you will be remembered by some people based on the legacy you leave and the same time the behavior you show

16. Marleau-ponty Unlike Ryle, who simply denies the “self”, Merleau - Ponty instead says the mind and body are so intertwined that they cannot be separated from one another. One cannot find any experience that is not an embodied experience. All experience is embodied. The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and experiences are all one.