UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

2018-103106

ARC185

CABUDSAN, MARIE JOANNIE C.

1.

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist who developed psychoanalysis a method

for treating mental illness and also a theory which explains human behavior. Freud
believed that events in our childhood have a great influence on our adult lives, shaping
our personality. According to his philosophical view of self, personality develops through
a series of stages, each characterized by a certain internal psychological conflict, first,
the id is the only component of personality that is present from birth. It is driven by the
pleasure principle which strives for it needs, wants and desire, example if you’re hungry
you should eat immediately a food. Next personality is, the ego, it is the component of
personality that is responsible for dealing with reality. It operates the reality principle,
which strives to satisfy the desires of id in realistic and socially appropriate ways,
example even though someone needed money, he decided not to steal the money from
the cash register because he didn’t want to get in trouble. And the last personality is
Superego, which develops last, and is based on morals and judgments’ about right and
wrong. For example, while away on business, Juan had many opportunities to be
unfaithful to his wife. However, he knew the damage such behavior would have on his
family, so made the decision to avoid the women who had expressed interest in him.
These personalities, the id, ego and superego work together in creating a behavior. The
id creates the demands, the ego adds the needs of reality with the superego adds
morality to the action which is taken.

According to Gilbert Ryle, a British Philosopher, the self is how you behave, Ryle’s
behaviorism was a different kind from 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. He says that “Human bodies
are in space and are subject to the mechanical laws which govern all other bodies in
space and are accessible to external observers. But minds are not in space, their
operations are not subject to mechanical laws, and the processes of the mind are not
accessible to other people—it’s career is private.”

According to Paul Churchland, his philosophical view about self is, Identity theory or
philosophy of the mind and reductive materialism, the thesis that mind states are
nothing but the states of brain. He believes that, the mental states of the body are one
in the same with brain states or known as double aspectism, They are the same
because, the biochemical actions produced in brain states have direct interaction with
the mental states or known as mood disorder like depression, with the help of
psychological and physiological evidence the identity theory can be supported.

For Ponty, according to him, Phenomenological approaches to Self-consciousness. He

states that self-consciousness is not something that comes about the moment one
attentively inspects or reflectively introspects one’s experiences or recognizes one’s
specular image in the mirror, or refers to oneself with the use of the first-person
pronoun, or builds a self-narrative. Ponty criticizes the tendency of philosophy to fall
within two main categories, neither of which is capable of peeling much light on the
problems that it seeks to speak to. He is equally critical of the rationalist, Cartesian
accounts of humanity, as well as the more empirical and behaviorist attempts to
designate the human condition.

2. The philosophical views of Freud, Ryle, Churchland and Ponty are, different
philosophically, for Freud self is multilayered, for Ryle self is how you behave, for
Churchland self is part of neuroscience, for Ponty self is based on phenomena of
experience. Comparing, they have their different perspective of oneself.

3. In these different philosophies, I would agree most with Freud, because his view
about self is, provided a valuable insight into how early experiences or relationships can
affect our adult personality. Which I experience too.