SOCRATES & PLATO  Adopting some ideas from Aristotle
SOCRATES
 first philosopher who engaged in a
systematic questioning about the self
 His mission is “the true task of the
philosopher is to know oneself”
 Body and soul are two important aspect of
his personhood
 Every man is composed of body and soul –
Every individual is dualistic
BODY - all individuals have an imperfect,
impermanent aspect
SOUL - all individuals have a perfect and
permanent
PLATO
 Socrates student
 Supported the idea of Socrates “man is a
dual nature of body and soul
THREE COMPONENTS OF THE SOUL
1. RATIONAL SOUL
 Forged by the reason and intellect has to
govern the affairs of the human person
2. SPIRITED SOUL
 Which is in charge of emotions, should be
kept at bay
3. APPETITIVE SOUL
 In charge of base desire, like eating,
drinking, sleeping, and having sexual
intercourse, is controlled as well
AUGUSTINE & THOMAS AQUINAS
ST. AUGUSTINE
 Human person reflects the entire spirit of
the medieval world when it comes to man
 Adopted some ideas from Plato but with
religious side
 “Man is bifurcated nature” – there is an
aspect of man, which dwells in the world,
that is imperfect and continuously yearns to
be with the divine while the other is
capable of reaching immortality
BODY – is bound to die on earth
SOUL – to anticipate living eternally in a realm of
spiritual bliss in communion with God
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
 The most eminent 13th century scholar and
stalwart of the medieval philosophy
appended something to this Christian view.
MAN IS COMPOSED OF TWO PARTS
1. MATTER or HYLE
 Refers to the common stuff that make up
everything in the universe
2. FORM or MORPHE
 Refers to the essence of a substance or
thing
SOUL – is what animates the body
BODY – What makes us human
RENE DESCARTES
 The father of Modern Philosophy
 conceived that the human person as having
a body and mind
 His famous treatise is “The Meditations of
First Philosophy”
 Do not believe in soul
 Body is nothing else but a machine that
attached to the mind
THE SELF TWO DISTINCT ENTITIES
1. COGITO or THE THING THAT THINKS
 Which is The Mind
2. EXTENZA or EXTENSION OF THE MIND
 Which is The Body
DAVID HUME
 A Scottish philosopher has a very unique
way of looking at man.
 Empiricist who believes that one can know
only what comes from the senses and
experience
 According to him men can only attain
knowledge by experience
 “The self is nothing else but a bundle of
expression”
THE SELF CATEGORIZED IN TWO
1. IMPRESSION
 Are the basic object of our experience or
sensation
2. IDEAS
 Copies of Impression
WHAT IS SELF?
 Commonly defined by the following
characteristics:
Separate, Self – Contained, Independent,
Consistent, Unitary, and Private.
 Separate – It is meant that the self is
distinct from other selves
 Unitary – It is the center of all experiences
and thoughts that run through a certain
person
 Self-contained – Distinctness is allowed
with its own thoughts, characteristics, and
volition
 Independent – Does not require any other
self for to exist
 Consistent – It has a personality that is
enduring and therefore can be expected to
persist for quite some time
 Private – self is isolated from the external
world. It lives within its own world
THE SELF & CULTURE
MARCEL MAUSS
 The French and Anthropologist
TWO FACES OF SELF
1. MOI
 Refers to a person’s sense of who he is, is
body, and his basic identity; his biological
givenness
 Person basic identity
2. PERSONNE
 Is compose of social concept of what it
means to be who he is
 Adjustment you will gonna do with your
environment
MAHAL
 Means “love” and “value”
 Bound with value with being expensive and
being precious
 From Sanskrit origin “Lubh” means desire
 Technically love is desire
LANGUAGE
 Another interesting aspect of this social
constructivism
FILIPINO LANGUAGE
 Is incredibly very interesting to talk about
GENDER NEUTRAL
 There is a clear distinction between third
person male and third person female
pronoun
THE SELF & DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL
WORLD
MEAD & VYGOTSKY
 Human person develop with the use of
language acquisition and interaction with
others.
MEAD
 Believes that through this that a child
delineates the “I” from the rest
VYGOTSKY
 Believes that a child internalizes real – life
dialogues that he has had with others, with
his family, his primary caregiver, or his
playmates
COGNITIVE & EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
 Is always a mimicry of how it is done in the
social world, in the external reality where
he is in
SELF & THE FAMILY
 The kind of family that we are born in and
the resources available to us (HUMAN),
Spiritual, economic will certainly affect sus
and the kind of development that we will
have as we go through life
GENDER & THE SELF
 Gender partly determines how we see
ourselves
GENDER
 Is one of those loci of the self that is subject
to alteration, change, and development