THE SELF FROM

VARIOUS
PERSPECTIVES
GREEKS
PRE-SOCRATICS
•THALES
•PYTHAGORAS
•PARMENIDES
•HERACLITUS
•EMPEDOCLES
What the world is really
made up of?
What explains the
changes around them?
Mythological
accounts
HOMER
and
Hesoid
SOCRATES
“THE PROBLEM
OF THE

SELF”
 SYSTEMATIC
QUESTIONING
ABOUT THE SELF
“The true task of a
philosopher is to
know oneself”
-socrates
“Unexamined life is
not worth living”
-plato
•THE WORST THAT CAN

HAPPEN TO ANYONE :
To live but die
inside
GADFLY
 EVERY MAN IS
COMPOSED WITH
BODY AND SOUL
-SOCRATES
DUALISTIC
BODY-IMPERFECT,
IMPERMANENT
SOUL-PERFECT,
PERMANENT
THREE COMPONENTS OF THE
SOUL
•RATIONAL SOUL
•SPIRITED SOUL
•APPETITIVE SOUL
-PLATO
ST. AUGUSTINE
CHRISTANITY
“A MAN IS OF A
BIFURCATED NATURE”
-AUGUSTINE
• IMPERFECT AND
CONTINOUSLY YEARNS
TO BE WITH THE DIVINE
• CAPABLE OF REACHING
THE IMMORTALITY
-AUGUSTINE
 THOMAS AQUINAS

1. MATTER OR HYLE
2. FORM OR MORPHE
“THE SOUL ANIMATES
THE BODY; IT IS WHAT
MAKES US HUMANS”
-AQUINAS
 RENE
DESCARTES
FATHER OF MODERN PHILOSOHY
•BODY
•MIND
 •COGITO ERGO SUM
-I THINK THEREFORE I AM
TWO DISTINCT ENTITIES

•COGNITO-MIND
•EXTENZA-BODY
 “THE BODY IS NOTHING
ELSE BUT A MACHINE
THAT IS ATTACHED TO THE
MIND”
-RENE DESCARTES
 DAVID HUME
EMPIRICIST
• “One can only know
what comes from the
sense and experiences”
“The self is not an
entity over and
beyond physical
body”
 “ THE SELF IS
NOTHING ELSE BUT
A BUNDLE OF
IMPRESSIONS”
-DAVID HUME
•IMPRESSIONS
BASIC OBJECTS OF OUR EXPERIENCE
OR SENSATION

•IDEAS
• COPIES OF IMPRESSION
 “A bundle or collection of
different perceptions, which
succeed each other with an
inconceivable rapidity,and are in
a perpetual flux and movements”
-DAVID HUME
“WHAT ONE THINKS IS A
UNIFIED SELF IS SIMPLY A
COMBINATION OF ALL
EXPERIENCES WITH A
PARTICULAR PERSON”
-DAVID HUME
 IMMANUEL KANT
“ There is necessarily a
mind that organizes the
impressions that men
get from the external
world”
“He suggest that it is an actively
engaged intelligence in man
that synthesizes all the
knowledge and experiences”
 GILBERT RYLE
He denies the concept
of an internal and
non-physical self
“We are all just a bundle of
behaviors caused by the
physical workings of the
body”

-Gilbert Bryle
“What truly matters are
the behavior that a
person manifests in his
day-to-day life”
-Gilbert Ryle
 Self is not an entity one that
locate and analyze but simply a
convenient name that people
use to refer to all the behaviors
-Gilbert Ryle
 MERLEAU-PONTY
PHENOMENOLOGIST
“The mind and body are
so intertwined that they
cannot be seperated
from one another”
Merleau-ponty dismisses
“Cartesian Dualism”
“The living body, his
thoughts, emotions
and experiences are
all one”
-Merleau-ponty