UNDERSTANDING

THE SELF
GEC 101

Prepared by:
DANTE JR. R. BITOON,
LPT
GEC1O1 Instructor

COURSE OUTCOME:
Before we start the actual learning, it is necessary that students will analyze how understanding
oneself is the most interesting and challenging task as an individual should be able to achieve in
a lifetime, as well as they will establish an adequate knowledge on the different and
several information about themselves from various perspectives – time: their past, present
and future self; dimensional: their physical, emotional mental, social and spiritual self; and
functional: their political, material, economic, and digital self.

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

The course deals with the nature of identity, as well as the factors and forces that affect the
development and maintenance of personal identity. This course is intended to explore the issues
and concerns regarding self and identity to arrive at a better understanding of one's self. This
course includes the mandatory topics on family planning and population education.

COURSE OUTLINE
Chapter 1: The Self from various Perspective
Lesson 1: Philosophical Perspective
 Socrates: An unexamined life is not worth living
 Plato: The soul is immortal
 Aristotle: The soul is the essence of the self
 St. Augustine: I am doubting, Therefor I
 Rene Descartes: I Think, Therefore I am
 John Locke: The Self is Consciousness
 David Hume: There is no Self
 Immanuel Kant: We construct the Self
 Gilbert Ryle: The Self is the way people behave
 Paul Churchland: The Self is the Brain
 Maurice Merleau-Ponty: The Self is embodied Subjectivity

Lesson 2: Sociological Perspective

 Mead: The Social Self
 Cooley: The Looking-glass Self
 Goffman: Constructing Situations and Drama

Lesson 3: Psychological Perspective

 William James' Concept of Self
 Carl Rogers' Self Theory
 Lester's Multiple versus Unified Self
 Winnicott's True versus False Self
 Freud: The Importance of the Unconcious
 Bandura's Self as Proactive and Agentic
 Jung's Self as the Central Archetype

Lesson 4: Western and Eastern Concept of the Self

 Buddhism
 Hinduism
 Confucianism
 Taoism

Chapter 2: Unpacking the Self

Chapter 3: Managing and Caring for the Self

An Overview of Self/Identity

The “self” has many aspects. These aspects make up the “self’s” integral parts, such as
self-awareness, self-esteem, self-knowledge, and self-perception. With these aspects that person
is able to alter, change, add/or modify himself or herself for the purpose of gaining social
acceptance. The “self” is an important study in psychology. It holds either the cognitive and
affective representation of an individual. Knowing oneself is critical to being an effective team
member as well as being successful in life, work, and relationships. Your personal identity
influences everything you do, and it changes and evolves over time. The “self” is a topic that
is often talked about but largely goes unnoticed. Every time that ‘I’ is mentioned (e.g. I will
go to the theatre) the self is highlighted as an actor. The consciousness of the existence of the self
has been almost automatic or reflexive. Thus, people are almost unaware of that in our everyday
living. Scholars (i.e., theorists, scientists, philosophers) in different fields have attempted to
explain and expound some several issues about the character, subsistence and dimensionality of
the “self”.

LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of this TOPIC, you should be able to:
➢ Identify the role of philosophy in understanding the self.

➢ Determine the different concepts of the self from the philosophical view.
➢ Define the relevance of the philosophy of the self to how the youth define their own sense of
self.

Lesson 1: Philosophical View of Self

Philosophy is often called as the mother of all disciplines simply because all fields of study
began as philosophical discourses. Philosophy is from the Greek word Philo-(loving) and
Sophia (knowledge, wisdom). At simplest, philosophy is means “loving knowledge” or “loving
wisdom”. The term philosophy as originally used by the Greeks meant, “The pursuit of
knowledge for its own sake.” Consequently, Philosophy is a study of fundamental nature,
knowledge, reality, existence, especially in an academic discipline. It also investigates the
legitimacy of concepts by rational arguments concerning their implications, relationships as well
as moral judgment and etc. Ample of Philosophies concerns with the essential nature of the self.
The philosophical framework for understanding the self was first introduced by the ancient great
Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The Greeks were the ones who seriously
questioned myths and moved away from them to understand reality and respond to perennial
questions of curiosity, including the questions of the self. The different views of prominent
philosophers regarding the nature of the self are discussed; most of them agree the self-
knowledge is a prerequisite to a happy and meaningful life.
Let’s find out how the philosophers define or describe self during the early and modern times.

SOCRATES (“An unexamined life is not worth living”)

Socrates was a Greek philosopher. Though, unlike other philosophers
during his time, he never wrote anything. All the information’s about him
today is through second-hand information from his student Plato and
historian Xenophon (The Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017).
For Socrates the self is synonymous with the soul. He believes that every
human possesses an immortal soul that survives the physical body.
Socrates is concerned with the problem of the self. He is the one to first
focus on the full power of reason on the human self: who we are, who we
should be, and who we will become. Socrates believed that the real self is not the physical body,
but rather the psyche (or soul).
Thus, Socrates suggests that man must live an examined life and a life of purpose and value. For
him, an individual can have a meaningful and happy life only if he becomes virtuous and knows
the value of himself that can be achieved through incessant soul-searching (Rappe, 1995). He
added that self-knowledge would open your eyes to your true nature; which is contrary to pop
culture. It is not about how many properties you own or how many “likes” you get in your social
media accounts and even how successful you are in chosen career. In a real sense, your real self
is not even your body. He added that the state of your inner being (soul/self) determines the
quality of your life. Socrates was described to have gone about in Athens questioning
everyday views and popular Athenian beliefs. This leads to some leaders got offended by him.
He was accused of lack or reverence for the gods and for corrupting the minds of the youth. At
the age of 70, he was sentenced to death through drinking a cup of poison hemlock (Brickhouse
& Smith, 2002). The core of Socratic ethics is the concept of virtue and knowledge. Virtuis the
basic and most basic propensity of man and Self-knowledge is the source of all wisdom, an
individual may gain possession of oneself and be one’s own master through knowledge(The
Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017). The famous line of Socrates, “Know thy Self”,
tells each man to bring his inner self to light.
Some Socratic ideas were:
 “the worst thing that can happen to anyone is to live but die inside.”
 “every person is dualistic”
 “the true task of the philosopher is to know oneself.”
 Body + soul = Man
 imperfect/permanent (body) + perfect & permanent (soul) = Individual

PLATO (“The soul is immortal”)

Plato is another Greek Philosopher who elaborates Socrates’
concept of the soul. He was the student of Socrates. He is best
known for his Theory of Forms that asserted the physical
world is not really the “real” world because the ultimate reality
exists beyond the physical world. His philosophy can be explained
as a process of self-knowledge and purification of the soul. He
introduces the idea of a three-part soul/self-reason, physical appetite,
and spirit or passion. The self/soul/mind according to Plato, is
the best aspect of the human beings by which the FORMS (ideas)
are known.
 REASON is the divine essence that enables us to think deeply, make wise
decisions and achieve the true understanding of eternal truths.
 PHYSICALAPPETITE includes our biological needs such as hunger, thirst, and sexual
desires.
 SPIRIT or PASSION composes the basic emotions like love, anger, ambition,
aggressiveness, and empathy.

ARISTOTLE (“The Soul is the Essence of Life”)

Aristotle regarded psychology as a part of natural philosophy, and he
wrote much about the philosophy of mind. This material appears in
his ethical writings, in a systematic treatise on the nature of the soul
(De anima), and in a number of minor monographs on topics such as
sense-perception, memory, sleep, and dreams. For Aristotle the
biologist, the soul is not—as it was in some of Plato’s writings—an
exile from a better world ill-housed in a base body. The soul’s very
essence is defined by its relationship to an organic structure. Not
only humans but beasts and plants too have souls, intrinsic principles
of animal and vegetable life. A soul, Aristotle says, is “the actuality
of a body that has life,” where life means the capacity for self-
sustenance, growth, and reproduction. If one regards a living substance as a composite of matter
and form, then the soul is the form of a natural—or, as Aristotle sometimes says, organic—body.
An organic body is a body that has organs—that is to say, parts that have specific functions, such
as the mouths of mammals and the roots of trees.

The souls of living beings are ordered by Aristotle in a hierarchy. Plants have a vegetative or
nutritive soul, which consists of the powers of growth, nutrition, and reproduction. Animals
have, in addition, the powers of perception and locomotion—they possess a sensitive soul, and
every animal has at least one sense-faculty, touch being the most universal. Whatever can feel at
all can feel pleasure; hence, animals, which have senses, also have desires. Humans, in addition,
have the power of reason and thought (logismos kai dianoia), which may be called a rational
soul. The way in which Aristotle structured the soul and its faculties influenced not only
philosophy but also science for nearly two millennia.

ST. AGUSTINE (“I am doubting, Therefore I”)

The African philosopher, Augustine, is regarded as a saint (St.
Augustine of Hippo) in the Catholic Church. He is one of the Latin
Fathers of the church, one of the Doctors of the church, and one
of the most significant Christian thinkers (Encyclopedia
Britannica, 2017).
He integrates the ideas of Plato and teachings of Christianity. He
adopted Plato’s view that the “self” is an immaterial (but rational)
soul. Augustine believes that the physical body is radically
different form the inferior to its inhabitant, the immortal soul.
Giving the Theory of Forms a Christian perspective, Augustine asserted that these forms were
concepts existing within the perfect and eternal God (The Catholic University of America Press,
1982) where the soul belonged. He believed that the human being was both a soul and body, and
the body possessed sense, such as imagination, memory, reason, and mind through which the
soul experienced the world.
In his work, Confessions, Augustine describes that humankind is created in the image and
likeness of God. Everything created by God is all good is good. Therefore, the human person,
being a creation of God is always geared towards the good.
The aspects of the self/soul according to St. Augustine’s are:
 It is able to be aware of itself.
 It recognizes the self as a holistic one.
 It is aware of its unity.
St. Augustine highlighted the significance of reflection, as well as prayers and confessions to
arrive at justifications for the existence of God. He believed that both the soul and body is meant
to tend to higher, divine, and heavenly matters because of his/her capacity to ascent and
comprehend truths through the mind (The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017;
Mendelson, 206). St. Augustine believes that a virtuous life is dynamism of love. It’s the
constant turning point towards life. Loving God means loving one’s fellowmen; and loving one’s
fellowmen denoted never doing any harm to another or as the golden rule of justice denoted,
doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. Love and justice as the foundation of the
individual self.
RENE DESCARTES (“I think therefore I am”)
René Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, and a
scientist and considered as the father of modern philosophy. He was
regarded as the first thinker to emphasize the use of reason to
describe, predict, and understand natural phenomena based on
observations and empirical evidence (Bertrand, 2004; Grosholz,
1991).
The Latin phrase Cogito Ergo Sum – “I think therefore I am” is the
keystone of Descartes’ concept of self. For him, the act of thinking
about the self – of being self-conscious – I in it proof that there is a
self. He asserted that everything perceived by the senses could not be used as proof of
existence because human senses could be fooled.
Descartes’ claims about the “self” are:
 It is constant; it is not prone to change; and it is not affected by time.
 Only the immaterial soul remains the same throughout the time.
 The immaterial soul is the source of our identity.
Some distinctions between the soul and body as pointed out by Descartes are:
THE SOUL THE BODY

 It is a conscious, thinking substance that is  It is a material substance that changes

unaffected by time. through time.

 It is known only to itself (only you know  It can be doubted; the public can correct
your own mental event and others correct claims about the body.
your mental states).
 It is made up of physical, quantifiable,
 It is not made up of parts. It views the divisible parts.
entirely of itself with no hidden or separate
compartments. It is both conscious and
aware of itself at the same time.

In particular, he introduces the idea of the thinking self (soul) as non-material, immortal,
conscious being, and independent of the physical laws of the universe. In contrast, the physical
body is a material mortal, non-thinking entity, fully governed by the physical laws of the nature.
On the other hand, each other, the body and the soul are independent of one another and
each can exist and function without the other.

JOHN LOCKE (“The Self is Consciousness”)

John Locke is an English philosopher and physician. For Locke, the
human mind at birth is Tabula rasa or a blank slate. He expanded the
definition of the “self” that includes the memories of that thinking
thing. He feels that the “self” or personal identity is basically constructed from the
experiences – like what people see, smell, taste, hear and feel. He also interpreted that to mean
the “self” - it must consist of memory; meaning the person existing today is the same
person yesterday (Natsoulas, 1994; Fuchs, 2017).
For Locke, the memories of a person provide the continuity of its experiences that
allows him/her to really identify himself as the same person over the time (Winkler, 1991). Since
Locke account that the person is the same “self” in the passing of time, therefore, he/she is
accountable for whatever behaviors he will act. Locke's denial of innate ideas put a premium on
individual effort, on the labor necessary to gain knowledge from experience (Tarcov, P. 83).
Man could be ruled and be free - man is endowed with natural rights such as life, liberty and
property (Cranston,, p. 12)
Some of John Locke’s ideas about the “self”:
 Believed that at birth human mind is a blank slate; a tabula rasa (empty of ideas).
 All ideas are based on sensation – arriving at explanation by observing phenomena.

DAVID HUME (“There is no Self”)

Scottish Philosopher David Hume suggests that if people
carefully examine their sense of experience through the process
of introspection, they will discover that there is no self. According
to him, what people experience is just bundle or collection of
different perceptions Monilla, M.J. & Ramirez, N. (2018). He
was a fierce opponent of Descartes’ Rationalism. Rationalismis a
theory that reason, rather than experience, is the foundation of all
knowledge. He was one of the figureheads of the influential British
Empiricism movement. Empiricism is the idea that the origin
of all knowledge is experience (Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, 2017).
Hume is identified with the Bundle Theorywherein he described the “self” or person
(which Hume assumed to be “mind”) as a bundle or collection of different perceptions that are
moving in a very fast manner. He believed that the human intellect and experiences are limited;
therefore, it is impossible to attribute it to an independent persisting entity (i.e., soul) (Pike,
1967; Seigel, 2005).
Hume divided the mind’s perceptions into two groups:
1) Impressions. Perceptions that are the most strong. These are directly experienced; they result
from inward and outward sentiments.
2) Ideas. The less lively counterparts of impressions. These are mechanisms that copy and
reproduce sense data formulated based upon the previously perceived impressions.
For Hume, the “self” was nothing but a series of incoherent impressions received by the
senses (Montgomery, 1889). Hume compared the “self” to a nation; where a nation retains its
“being a nation “not by some single core of identity but by being composed of different,
constantly changing elements like people, systems, culture and beliefs. Hume did not believe in
the existence of the “self”. He insisted that your perceptions are only active for as long as you are
conscious. In line with this, Hume seemed to reduce the “self” as a light bulb that may be
switched on and off.
IMMANUEL KANT (“We construct the Self”)
For German philosopher Immanuel Kant, 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 (Monilla, M.J. & Ramirez, N. (2018). He also
proposed that the human mind creates the structure of human
experience.
Kant’s view of the “self” is transcendental, which means the “self” is
related to spiritual or nonphysical realm. For Kant, the self is not in
the body. The self is outside the body, and it does not have qualities of
the body. He proposed that it is knowledge that bridges the
“self” and the material things together (Boee, 1999; Brook, 2004).
Two kinds of consciousness of self (rationality):
1) Consciousness of oneself and one’s psychological states in inner sense, and
2) Consciousness of oneself and one’s states by performing acts of appreciation.
Appreciation is the mental process by which a person makes sense of an idea by assimilating it
to the body of ideas he or she already possesses.
Kant’s point is that what truly exist are your ideas and your knowledge of your ideas
that you perceive in the outside. He defended the diverse quality or state of the body and soul
(self) presenting that “bodies are objects of the outer souls; souls are objects of inner sense”
(Carpenter, 2004).
 Kant did NOT put forward a Moral Argument for the Existence of God.
 Kant rejected all attempts to argue from the world to God.
 Kant believed that God was a postulate of practical reason, meaning you can argue
from Reason to God.
➢ All human beings desire and seek happiness

➢ All human beings ought to be moral and do their duty

➢ The universe (not just the physical universe) is fair

➢ The Summum Bonum (highest good) represents virtue and happiness

➢ Everyone seeks the summum bonum (from (1) and (2))

➢ What is sought must be achievable because the universe is fair (see (3))

➢ The Summum Bonum is not achievable in this life

➢ So it is necessary to POSTULATE a life after death in which the Summum Bonum

can be achieved AND it is necessary to POSTULATE a God to guarantee fairness.
Kant did not believe that either Life after Death nor God could be proved, only that they could
be postulated. If the universe if fair and if the Summum Bonum can be achieved, then there
must be a God to ensure it.
GILBERT RYLE (“The Self is the way people behave”)
Denies the internal, non-physical self “what truly matters is the
behavior that a person manifests in his day-to-day life.” Looking for
the self is like entering LU and looking for the “university”.
The self is not an entity one can locate and analyze but simply the
convenient name that we use to refer to the behaviors that we make.
In philosophy one of the chief advocates of this view is Gilbert Ryle
(1900–1976), a British philosopher whose book, The Concept of Mind,
had a dramatic impact on Western thought. Ryle’s behaviorism was a
different sort from that of psychology. He thought of his approach as a logical behaviorism,
focused on creating conceptual clarity, not on developing techniques to condition and
manipulate human behavior. Ryle begins his book by launching a devastating attack on
“Descartes’ myth,” characterizing it as the “official doctrine” that has insidiously penetrated
the consciousness of academics, professionals, and average citizens alike. According to
Ryle, it’s high time that this destructive myth of dualism is debunked once and for all, and
replaced with a clearer conceptual and linguistic understanding of the true nature of the self.
Ryle, The Concept of Mind
Ryle summarizes the essential elements of the dualistic view of the self—mind and body
as distinct entities—first articulated by Plato and then perpetuated in various incarnations
through St. Augustine, Descartes, and others. Under this view, the body is seen as a physical
entity, subject to the physical laws of the universe, whereas the mind (soul, spirit) is a
nonphysical entity and exempt from the laws of the universe. As a result, the body is mortal and
dies, whereas the mind is at least potentially able to continue existing beyond the death of the
body. According to Ryle, this dualistic view has serious implications for what we can know and
not know. Although each person has direct knowledge of his or her mind, it is impossible for us
to have any direct knowledge of other minds.
Ryle observes, these transactional events “can be inspected neither by introspection nor
by laboratory experiment. They are theoretical shuttlecocks which are forever bandied from the
physiologist back to the psychologist and from the psychologist back to the physiologist.” And in
Ryle’s mind (note the commonly used spatial metaphor!) there are even more serious
implications of a dualistic perspective.
Behaviorism- The view that the “self” is defined by observable behavior.
Category mistake- Representing the facts or concepts as if they belonged in one logical
category when they actually belong in another.
In our everyday experience, we act and speak as if we have much more direct knowledge of
other minds and what they’re thinking without having to go through this tortured and artificial
reasoning process. We encounter others, experience the totality of their behavior, and believe
that this behavior reveals directly “who” they are and what they’re thinking. Ryle goes on to
analyze how this apparent conflict between the theory of Cartesian dualism (“the ghost in
the machine”) and our everyday experience of others is actually the result of confused
conceptual thinking, a logical error that he terms a “category mistake.”
PAUL CHURCHLAND (“The Self is the Brain”)
The philosopher Paul Churchland articulates such a vision in
the following essay. He begins by acknowledging that a simple
identity formula—mental states = brain states—is a flawed way
in which to conceptualize the relationship between the mind and
the brain. Instead, we need to develop a new, neuroscience-based
vocabulary that will enable us to think and communicate clearly
about the mind, consciousness, and human experience. He refers to
this view as “eliminative materialism.”
Churchland’s central argument is that the concepts and theoretical
vocabulary we use to think about ourselves—using such terms
as belief, desire, fear, sensation, pain, joy—actually misrepresent
the reality of minds and selves.
All of these concepts are part of a commonsense “folk psychology that obscures rather
than clarifies the nature of human experience. Eliminative materialists believe that we need
to develop a new vocabulary and conceptual framework that is ground in neuroscience that
will be a more accurate reflection of the human mind and self. Churchland proceeds to
state the arguments that he believes support his position. Churchland’s point is that the most
compelling argument for developing a new conceptual framework and vocabulary founded
on neuroscience is the simple fact that the current “folk psychology” has done a poor job in
accomplishing the main reason for their existence—explaining and predicting the commonplace
phenomena of the human mind and experience.
And in the same way that science replaces outmoded, ineffective, and limited conceptual
frameworks with ones that can Materialism: The Self Is the Brain 141 explain and predict
more effectively, so the same thing needs to be done in psychology and philosophy of mind.
This new conceptual framework will be based on and will integrate all that we are learning
about how the brain works on a neurological level. Although he believes strongly in the logic
of his position, Churchland recognizes that many people will resist the argument he is making
for a variety of reasons.

MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY (“The Self is embodied

Subjectivity”)
For Merleau-Ponty, everything that we are aware of—and can
possibleknows—is contained within our own consciousness.
It’s impossible for us to get “outside” of our consciousness
because it defines the boundaries of our personal universe. The
so-called real world of objects existing in space and time
initially exists only as objects of my consciousness. Yet in a
cognitive sleight-of-hand, we act as if the space/time world is
primary and our immediate consciousness is secondary.
In cases when the two worlds conflict, scientists automatically
assume that the scientific perspective is correct, and the direct
experience of the individual wrong. This is the difficulty we pointed out with the concept of the
unconscious: it was considered by Freud and many of his followers to be of such supreme
authority that no individual’s contrasting point of view can measure up to the ultimate truth
of the unconscious interpretation.
As a philosophical theory of knowledge, phenomenology is distinctive in the sense that its goal
is not to explain experience, but rather to clarify our understanding of it. A phenomenologist like
Merleau-Ponty sees his aim of describing what he sees and then assuming that his
description will strike a familiar chord with us, stimulating us to say, “I understand what
you’re saying—that makes sense to me!” From this perspective, the responsibility of
philosophy is not to provide explanations but to seek the root and genesis of meaning, “to reveal
the mystery of the world and of reason,” to help us think and see things more clearly.
For example, to develop a clear understanding of your “being in love,” you need to delay using
elaborate psychological theories and instead begin by describing the phenomena of the
experience in a clear, vivid fashion, trying to uncover the meaning of what you are experiencing.
Then you can begin developing concepts and theories to help you make sense of the phenomena
of “being in love.” The danger of using theories prematurely is that you may very well
distort your actual experience, forcing it to conform to someone else’s idea of what “being in
love” means instead of clearly understanding your unique experience.