UNDS

UNDS Coverage
Coverage
PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE ON SELF

Sociological Perspective on Self

Anthropological Perspective on Self

Psychological Perspective on Self

 Understanding
the Self
Lesson 1: PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE ON SELF
• Philosophy
— Philos (love) + Sophos (wisdom) = Love for wisdom
— Is the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when
considered as an academic discipline.

PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES:
1. Socrates
— We only know Socrates because his illustrious students (from Plato to Aristotle)
spoke eloquently and generously about his knowledge, wit, wisdom and intellect.
— Socrates left no known writings, his highly regarded student Plato, though, wrote extensively
about Socrates.
— “gnothi seauton”= “know thyself.”
— If you know who you are, all basic issues and difficulties in life would be gone in a simple snap of a
finger. If you know who you are, then everything would be clearer and simpler.
— One could now act according to his own self-definition without any doubt and self-contradiction.
— “Socractic method” or the art of questioning.
— Continuously asking and evaluating who we are we as a person will also be able to
understand our strengths and weaknesses, the things that we like and dislike, how we want people to
treat us and how we want ourselves to be treated, so by knowing these things we can act in
accordance to what we know we are and live our lives following our knowledge of ourselves.
— “Possession of knowledge is a virtue and that ignorance is a vice, that a person’s acceptance of
ignorance is a source or a springboard for the acquisition of knowledge later on”.
— Answers will always be subjective.
— There is really no right or wrong answers to the questions posited by Socrates, the quality and
quantity of answers is dependent on the respective person
— Historically, he is known as the first martyr of education,knowledge and philosophy. For
lighting up the minds of his students, he was literally charged with corruption of minors.
— Socrates is even considered to be so ugly, that only his own mother could love.
• THE UNEXAMINED LIFE IS NOT WORTH LIVING: One's True Self should not be identified with:
a. What one owns
b. One's social status
c. Reputation
d. One's body
— The state of the SOUL - the person's inner being - determines the quality of one's life
— Discovery of ONE'S TRUE SELF is one that is lived in accordance with knowledge, wisdom, and
virtue.
2. Plato
— He is the acknowledged author of the groundbreaking book "The Republic" which became the
bedrock of democracy as we now know it today.
> This book talks about justice, balance, equality, how best to rule and how to prepare for ruling. It
talks about statecraft, how to run a country, how to govern with the best interest of people at
heart.
— Believes in the division of body and soul;
a. Appetitive Soul : needs and wants that are to be satisfied.
b. Spirited Soul : courageous part of the person; one who wants to do something or right the wrongs.
C. Rational Soul : "the conscious mind"; decides, plans, and thinks.
— Also notable for the popular Allegory of the Cave
— The Forms

3. St. Augustine
— Follows the notion that everything is better if we devote ourselves to God.
— The Roman Catholic Church has written tons of papers about St. Augustine, in fact the concept of
modern church is predicated on his writings.
— St. Augustine is credited with the invention of the idea of "original sin".
— He even developed the concept of the church being the city of god. That a city governed by the
church is a city governed by god.
— The physical body is bound to die on earth while the soul is to anticipate living eternally in
communion with God.
— People need to establish their relationship with god through being virtuous.
— Existence comes from a higher form of sense in which bodily senses may not perceive or
understand.
— The more one doubts and questions his life means that that person is actually living.
— Continuously questioning and finding the truth will allow us to find the best answer to who we are
and what our role is in the world.

4. Rene Descartes
— COGITO ERGO SUM = “I THINK, THEREFORE I AM”
— Father of modern philosophy because of his radical use of systematic and early scientific methods
to aid his ideas and assumptions.
— Belief in modern dualism or the existence of body and mind and its implication on one’s existence
were presented with evidence from experiments as well as philosophical reasoning.
— Proponent of the “Methodical Doubt”, which simply meant a continuous process of questioning
what we perceive and accepting the fact that doubting, asking questions, are a part of one’s
existence.
— Defined the roles of the mind and body to the notion of one’s existence and sense of self.

5. John Locke
— English Philosopher, Physician
— Father of Classical liberalism
— His work on the self is most represented by the concept “Tabula Rasa”, which means a Blank
Slate (ignorance).
— The process of the mind to absorb information and accumulate knowledge may imply that
as a person, to be able to be whom we want to be, with the right stimulations, enough
experiences, as well as awareness, that by primarily knowing nothing will enable one to be
open to any kind of learning and does not limit any possibilities for growth.
6. David Hume
— Scottish Philosopher
— Focused his work in the field of Empiricism, Skepticism, and naturalism.
— The notion of self, one’s identity, and behavior does not exceed the physical realm and that
the “Self” is only the accumulation of different impressions.
— REASON IS THE SLAVE OF PASSION
— There is no permanent “self.”
— The self is a collection of a person’s different impressions and perceptions.

7. Immanuel Kant
— Became critical of Hume’s ideas.
— He posited the idea that there is a connection bet ween reason and experience. In order to
have solid rationality, one must have a variety of experience and exposure.
— He further contended that there is a correlation bet ween experience and rationality. You
cannot have one without the other.
— Subscribe to the idea of metaphysics, that which is beyond matter.
— Transcendental Apperception (collection of experiences):
> We are not only an object that perceives and reacts to whatever it is that we are
experiencing, we also have the capabilities to understand beyond those experiences and be
able to think and have a clear identification who we are and establish a sense of self that
is unique and distinct from others.

8. Sigmund Freud
— Austrian Psychologist and Physician
— Father of psychoanalysis (past experiences) and is known for his work on human nature and the
unconscious.
— Posited that sex and aggression with the unconscious mind as the platform.
— Present self or personality is greatly shaped by one’s past experiences.
— Utilized introspection as a tool.
• Introduced the levels of consciousness: Unconscious, Preconscious, Conscious
1. Id – pleasure principle
2. Ego – reality principle
3. Superego – morality principle
— Actions are driven by the idea of resisting or avoiding pain and are molded from our need for
pleasure or being happy.
— Freud’s Model of the Mind: Illustrated as an iceberg with the Id being hidden in the unconscious,
and the Ego and Superego interacting with the conscious and preconscious.
9. Gilbert Ryle
— Behavioristic approach to self.
— The main concept of Gilbert Ryle is that there is a relationship bet ween the body and the
mind. Conversely, the body affects the mind and the mind affects the body.
— While the focus of other philosophers is veered towards the separation of the mind and body,
for this:
— British philosopher – self is taken as a whole, with body and mind combination.
— The self is an integrated whole made up of different parts and systems.
— “I act, therefore I am.”
— He also posited the concept of ghost in the machine. By extension, things take a life of their
own. In his contemporary times, every machine assumed a life of its own – more than what it
was intended for.

10. Paul Churchland

— Canadian philosopher.
— According to Churchland, Folk Psychology (dreams, soul, mind) will eventually be
discredited by scientific inquiry. Indigenous notions, theories, concepts, and ideas will be
supplanted by scientific methods.
— The “self” is defined by the movements of the brain.
— The main philosophy of Churchland is predicated on “eliminative materialism”.
Principally, eliminative materialism contends that people’s common-sense understanding of
the mind is false and that most of the mental states that people refer to, in turn, do not
exist.

11. Maurice Merleau-Ponty

— French philosopher.
— Known for his works on existentialism and phenomenology.
— The self, regarded that the body and mind are not separate entities, but rather those t wo
components are one and the same.
— Phenomenology of Perception according to Merleau-Ponty is divided into three (3) divisions:
1. The Body
2. The Perceived World
3. People in the World
 LESSON 2: Sociological
Perspective on Self
• Sociology
— the study of how human society is established, its structure and how it works, the people's
interaction with each other and the effects they have to one another is an aspect in which we
have to consider with regards to the development of a person

• George Herbert Mead

— is an American Sociologist
— considered as the Father of American pragmatism
— one of the pioneers in the field of social psychology because
of his contributions on the development of the person relating
to various social factors.
— Mead rejected the idea of biological determination of the
self which proposes that an individual already has an
established self from the moment he is born
— For him, the notion of a person with regards to who they
are develops from one's social interaction with other people.

The “I” and “Me”

— Mead proposes that there are t wo components of the self
— Me : are the characteristics, behaviour, and or actions done by a person that
follows the "generalized others" that person interacts wit.
— I : is the reaction of the individual to the attitude of others, as well as the
manifestation of the individuality of the person.

Mead's Three Role-playing Stages of Self Development

• Preparation Stage : ( Birth - 2 Years Old)
• Play Stage : ( 2 - 6 Years Old)
• Game Stage : ( 6 - 9 Years Old)

• The Preparatory Stage (Birth - 2 Years Old)

— According to Mead, during this stage the infant simply imitates the actions and behaviors of the
people that the infant interacts with.
— Because the child is only mimicking what he or she obser ves from his or her environment, their
actions are only the reflection of what they can remember without any intention or meaning behind it.

• The Play Stage (2 - 6 Years Old)

— Children begin to interact with others where certain rules apply (rules that are set by the children
themselves)
— The child practices real life situations through pretend play and is the onset of self- consciousness.
 • The Game Stage (6 - 9 Years Old)
— The final stage of self-development according to Mead where are characterized by the
ability of the children to recognize the rules of the game and be able to identify their roles
and the roles of the others that is playing with them

Conclusion: Mead Stated:

“ With the idea of Mead with regards to the establishment of the sense of self, socialization is a
lifetime endeavor and the life, as such, considering the social environment one belongs to along with
the changes on the person's development.
 Lesson 3: Anthropological
Perspective on Self
• Anthropology and Its Subdisciplines
— The academic discipline of anthropology, or "four-field" anthropology, studies human
species and its immediate ancestors; includes
— four main sub disciplines or subfields: sociocultural, archaeological, biological and linguistic
anthropology

Cultural Anthropology
— is the study of human society and culture which describes, analyzes, interprets and explains
social and cultural similarities and differences; it explores the diversity of the present and the
past
— Ethnography and ethnology are t wo different activities which can study and interpret cultural
diversity.
— Ethnography: required field work to collect data; often descriptive and specific to group
— Ethnology: uses data collected by a series of researchers, usually synthetic and comparative;
cross-cultural comparison

Archaeological Anthropology
— reconstructs, describes and interprets human behavior and cultural patterns through material
remains (e.g. plant, animals, ancient garbage that provide stories about use and actions)

biological Anthropology
— focuses on these special interest, human evolution as revealed by the fossil, human genetics, human
growth and development, human biological plasticity and the biology, evolution, behavior and social
life of monkeys, apes and other nonhuman primates.

linguistic Anthropology
— studies language in its social and cultural context across space and over time.
— Universal features of language are analyzed and association bet ween language and culture are
evaluated.
— It also studies how speech changes in social situations and over time.

• The Self Embedded in the Culture

— Culture refers to customary behavior and beliefs that are passed on through enculturation
(Kottak, 2008) •
— Enculturation is the social process which culture is learned and transmitted.
 • Culture
— is a social process that is learned and passed down from generation to the next.
— Cordas (1999) elaborated that the body is not an object to be studied in relation to culture, but is
to b considered as the subject of culture.
— Geertz (1973) described culture as "a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic
forms by means of which men communicate perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and
attitudes toward life"
— Each culture has its own symbols and has its own meaning; one must need comprehend those
meanings keeping in mind the end goal to understand the culture.

• Shared
• Symbolic
• Natural
• Learned
• Integrated,
• Encompassing
• Maladaptive
• Adaptive
 Lesson 4: Psychological
Perspective on Self
• Psychology
— has various ways of understanding a person and the therapist way of helping people understand
themselves
— The psychology of studying self is about either the cognitive and affective representation of one's
identity or the subject of experience
— The earliest formulation of the self in modern psychology forms the distinction bet ween the self as
I, the person knower, and the self as Me, the person that is known.

"The Self and It Selves"

— William James, a psychologist, has introduced in his document The Principles of Psychology
(1890) a numerous concepts and distinction of self.
— His main concepts of self are the "me-self" and the "I-self".

• The "Me-Self" • The "I-Self"

— is the phenomenal self, the — is the self-thought or the self-
experienced self or the self as known. knower.

— James had claimed that the understanding of Self can be separated into three categories:
1. Its constituents;
2. Self-feelings — the feeling and emotions they arouse;
3. Self-seeking & Self-preservation — the actions to which they prompt

James' Sub-categories of Self

• The Material Self — is constituted by our bodies, clothes, immediate family and home
• The Social Self — is based on our interactions with society and the reaction of people towards us
• The Spiritual Self — is the most intimate; the ability to argue and discriminate one's moral
sensibility, conscience, indomitable will

Conception of Self
— Carl Rogers, had come up with his conception of self through the inter vention he used for his
client, the Person-centered therapy - a non-directive inter vention that believes that all people
have the potential to solve their own problems

Roger’’” Concept of self

• The Perceiver Self (Self Worth) — how the person sees self & otherssees them
• The Real Self (Self Image) —how the person really is people towards us
• The Ideal Self — how the person would like to be
 Concept of Unified and Multiple Self
— As Daniel CW (2016) wrote in his article "Psychoanalysis vs Postmodern Psychology" he has
emphasized how Freud perceived person as unified beings and Gergensconcept of multiple "selves".

In Freud's concept, he argued that mind is divided into three

connected but distinct parts
• Id — the centerof primitive, animalistic impulses (sex, food & comfort) following the pleasure principle
• Ego — the moderator bet ween these t wo which is driven by rationality principle
• Super Ego — as the center for ethical imperative; reminds that self of what is right or wrong following
morality principle

> Conscious — are the thoughts that we are aware of.

> Unconscious — as thoughts that we are not aware of.

— Freud has argued that self has a multiple parts, he still believed that ultimately we are a Unified
beings (atleast, when we are healthy).
— Gergen argued that having a flexible sense of self allows for multiple “selves”. That is up to the self
to define himself as warm or cold, dominant or submissive, sexy or plain
— According to Kenneth Gergen, proponent of Post-modern Psychology, the individual has many
potential selves (cold or warm, dominant or submissive, etc.)
— Multiple selfhood is part of what it means to be human, and forcing oneself to stick to one self-
concept maybe unhealthy

True Self & Fake Self

• True Self • Fake Self

— as rooted from early infancy is called the — Overlaying or contradicting the original
simple being. sense of self.
— The sense of self based on spontaneous — Problem would be we might build false set
authentic experience and feeling of being of is our defense facade. relationship through
alive, having "real self". concealing a barren emptiness behind an
independent-seeming facade.