Understanding the Self
physical reality that is the world
Self - is an active agent that promotes differential sampling,
processing, and evaluation of information from the environment,
and thus leads to differences in social behavior
 Nature of Self (Philosophical Perspective)
o Socrates – was more concerned with another
subject “The problem of the self”.
 First philosopher who engaged in a
systematic questioning about the self
 His view on self (dualistic) – the self has
body and soul
 Body – imperfect and impermanent
 Soul – perfect and permanent
o Plato – is a dualist; immaterial mind (soul) - the
driving force of the body, that is what gives us our
identity. Material body - only concerned with the
material world we live in. It wants to experience
self-gratification.
 The soul has 3 parts:
 The appetites – desires
 The spirited – in charge of emotions.
The part that gets angry when it
perceives an injustice being done
 The mind (Rational) – reason and
intellect. Conscious awareness of the
self
 Diagnosis - persons differ as to which part of
their nature is predominant.
o St. Augustine - agreed that man is of a bifurcated
nature
 Body – can only thrive in the imperfect,
 Soul (Immortal) - can also stay after death
in an eternal realm with the all transcendent
God
 The goal of every human person is to attain
this communion and bliss with the Divine by
living his life on earth in virtue.
o Aquinas
 Matter – Hyles – common stuff that makes
up the universe – body
 Form – morphed – essence of a substance
or thing – soul – what makes us human
o Rene Descartes - “Father of modern philosophy”
 Dualism- reality and existence is divided into
two parts
 Mind is separate from the Physical Body
 Self is also a combination of two distinct
entities
 Cogito - the thing that thinks, which
is the mind
 Extenza - the extension of the mind,
which is the body.
o David Hume - An empiricist who believes that one
can know only what comes from the senses and
experiences
 Self is nothing else but a bundle of
impressions.
 What one thinks is a unified self is simply a
combination of all experiences with a
particular person.
o Immanuel Kant - thinks that the things that men
are perceive around them are not just randomly
infused into the human person without an
 organizing principle that regulates the relationship
of all these impression
 The apparatuses of the mind - a mind that
organizes the impressions that men get from
the external world.
 The self is not just what gives one his
personality. It is also the seat of knowledge
and acquisition for all human persons
 Two components of the self:
 Empirical Ego - How others identify
us- this is our body, what we look like,
how we sound, etc. This is the self
which makes us an individual
 Transcendental Ego - How we identify
our self. This is the ‘self’ that what
makes us human
o Sigmund Freud - view of the self was multitiered,
divided among the conscious, subconscious and
unconscious.
 Two Levels of Human Functioning:
 Conscious - Governed by the reality
principle
 Unconscious – Contains basic
instinctual drives
o Gilbert Ryle - solves the mind-body dichotomy that
has been running for a long time in the history of
thought by blatantly denying the concept of an
internal, non-physical self
 What truly matters is the behavior that a
person manifests in his day-to-day life.
 Self is not an entity one can locate and
analyze but simply the convenient name that
people use to refer to all the behaviors that
people make.
 The mind is never separate from the body
 All manifestations in the physical activities
or behavior are the dispositions of the self
 I act therefore I am or You are what you do
o Paul Churchland
 Materialism - The belief that nothing but
matter exists, if it is somehow cannot be
recognized by the senses, then it’s akin to a
fairy tale.
 Eliminative Materialism - Developing a new,
neuroscience-based vocabulary that will
enable us to think and communicate clearly
about the mind, consciousness and human
experience
o Merleau-Ponty - asserts that the Mindbody
bifurcation that has been going on for a long time
is a futile endeavor and an invalid problem
 The mind and body are so intertwined that
they cannot be separated from one another.
 One cannot find any experience that it is not
an embodied experience
 The living body, his thoughts, emotions and
experiences are all one.
 Stevens (1996) Definition of Self
o Self is separate – it is unique
o Self is contained/ self-contained – own thoughts
and feelings
o Self is independent – exist apart from the other
selves
o Self is consistent
o Self is unitary – center of all the experiences we had
o Self is private – information/ thoughts /
feelings/emotions/ can sort it by ourselves
 Sociological Perspective - who we are is a product of the  Self in the Social World
social world. We are socially constructed o Gender is a part of it, gender is subject to change
o The self is not static o Alfred Kinsey – sexual orientation is a continues
o Continues to change move
o Multifaceted
 Psychological Perspectives
 Self and culture - self is a product of influence of the world A. Definition of self: sense of personal identity
around us o James William – duality (I & he)
o Marcel Mauss (French Sociologist)  I – thinking/acting/feeling self
 2 Types of Self  Me – physical characteristics
 The idea of 'person' (personne), the o Carl Rogers – I & me
idea of 'self' (moi) – person  I – one who divides
him/herself. Self, including body and  Me – what you feel/think who you are
own identity. o Sigmund Freud – we are a product of the
 The 'role' (personnage), and the place interaction of the Id, ego, superego
of the 'person' (personne). The  Id (me) – lowest form of self/appetitive
Pueblos desires/ instinctual part of the mind
o Erwing Goffman – “Life is like theatre, there’s a  Superego – operates as a moral conscience
back stage and a front stage”  Ego – realistic part that mediates/balances
between the desires of the id and the super-
 Self and the Social World – product of language and ego
acquisition. Product of human social interaction o George Herbert Mean – product of human
o GEORGE HERBERT MEAD interaction. Individual human interaction may also
 Language and role playing affect who we are.
o LEV VYGOTSKY
 Real life dialogues  3 Reasons why We are Products of Human Interaction
o We do not create ourselves out of nothing. We are
 Self and the External World – cannot do away with self always living in a social/historical context.
and families. Indirectly thought with words and o We need other people to affirm who we are.
punishment. o What we think that is important to us is affected by
o Family – link between us and external world/major what is important to the historical & sociological
socialization agent. context.
B. Concepts of Self  Self-esteem – positive/negative evaluation or concept of
who we are
 Identity – composed of personal/social characteristics/
 Social Comparison
social roles and responsibilities / affiliation that define us
o Upward Social Comparison – comparing yourself to
 Self-Concept – personal/things that comes to your mind
someone ‘higher’ than you are
as supposed to who you are
o Downward Social Comparison – compare yourself
o Both are constant/ not fixed/ over changing mental
to someone lower than you are
constructs
 Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory – states that we feel
 Self-Schema – organized systems/ collection of knowledge
threatened when somebody out performs us or is better
Hobbies than us
o 3 Reactions when someone is better that us
 We distance ourselves
 We reconsider our skills
Family Self Nationality
 We strengthen our skills

Religion

 Self-Awareness – being aware of yourself, conscious about

yourself
o Actual – who we really are
o Ideal – what we would like to be
o Ought – what we think who we are

o 2 Types (Carver and Schier)

 Private Self - cognitions that involve traits,
states or behaviors of the person/ our real
self
 Public Self - cognitions concerning the
generalized other’s view of the self/public
image/the ones we portray
 Collective Self - cognitions concerning a view
of the self that is found in some collective