MIDTERM REVIEWER (UTS) PLATO

PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES OF THE SELF  Pupil and friend of Socrates

SOCRATES – “Father of Western Philosophy”  Dualist – believed that man is composed of body and
soul
 Classical Greek philosopher and one of the founders of
Western philosophy  Soul exists before birth and after death
 Known chiefly through the writings of Plato and  Resembles the idea of reincarnation – the soul lives
Xenophon and the plays of Aristophanes within a body, and upon death, it moves onto another
body
 Spent his days walking about the marketplace of
Athens, urging people to question and examine how Plato’s Division of the Soul (Psyche):
they were living
1. Rational soul – part of us that thinks deeply, makes
 His activities led to trial, imprisonment, and death wise choices, and achieves a true understanding of
eternal truths
Key Beliefs & Contributions:
2. Appetitive soul – includes our basic biological needs
 Most egalitarian of philosophers – believed anyone
such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire
could do philosophy
3. Spirited soul – includes our basic emotions such as
 People have an obligation to use philosophy to examine
love, anger, ambition, aggressiveness, and empathy
their own lives
 Justice in the human person is attained when these
 Socratic Method – logical process of using questions
parts of the soul are in tune with one another
and answers to explore a subject
ARISTOTLE
 "Know Thyself" – man must look at himself to
understand his long-standing mission  Greek philosopher who believed that the soul is
merely a set of defining features and does not
 “An unexamined life is not worth living.”
consider the body and soul as separate entities
 Believed in body and soul – soul is immortal
 Interested in compounds that are alive (plants and
 Death is not the end of existence animals) – these have souls, and their souls are what
make them living things
  Humans differ from other living things because of  The goal of each person is to be with God again
their capacity for rational thinking someday and achieve divinity
Aristotle’s Three Kinds of Soul:  To achieve this, we must live our lives virtuously
1. Vegetative soul – found in plants; includes the  A virtuous life is the dynamism of love
physical body that can grow
o Loving God means loving one’s fellowmen
2. Sentient soul – found in animals; includes sensual
o Loving one’s fellowmen means never doing any
desires, feelings, and emotions
harm to another
3. Rational soul – present only in humans; includes the
 Emphasized the importance of free will – the ability
intellect that allows man to know and understand
to choose between good and evil
things
 Originally, men were equally free to choose good or
 The rational nature of the self is to lead a good,
evil
successful, and fulfilling life (self-actualized)
 However, humans are now constantly attracted
 The pursuit of happiness is a search for a good life
toward evil, which leads to the excessive satisfaction
that includes doing virtuous actions
of lower desires for material things and pleasures
AUGUSTINE
RENE DESCARTES
 Also known as Augustine of Hippo, bishop of Hippo
 French philosopher, considered as the founder of
Regius in Northern Africa
modern philosophy
 Ancient Christian theologian who played a
 Also, a mathematician and scientist
significant role in the development of early Western
philosophy  Conceived of the human person as having a body and
a mind
 Believed that man is bifurcate (divided into two
branches) in nature – composed of the physical body  Famous philosophical statement: “I think, therefore
and the soul I am” (Cogito ergo sum)
Key Beliefs & Contributions: Key Beliefs & Contributions:
  The only thing one cannot doubt is the existence of o Sensations and reflections are the two sources of
the self all our ideas
o Even if one doubts oneself, it proves there is a DAVID HUME
doubting self – a thinking thing that cannot be
 Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and
doubted
essayist known for philosophical empiricism and
 The self is a combination of two distinct entities: skepticism
1. COGITO – the thing that thinks, which is the  Empiricist – believes that one can know only through
mind the senses and experiences
2. EXTENZA – the extension of the mind, which  The self is an illusion – there is no actual self
is the body (like a machine attached to the mind)
 Self is nothing but a bundle of perceptions,
 Although the mind and body are independent and categorized into:
serve their own function, man must use his mind and
1. Impressions – basic objects of experience or
thinking abilities to investigate, analyze, experiment,
sensation; forms the core of our thoughts
and develop himself
2. Ideas – copies of impressions; not as lively
JOHN LOCKE
and clear as impressions
 British philosopher and physician who laid the
 The self is a bundle or collection of various
groundwork for an empiricist approach to
perceptions, which succeed each other with an
philosophical questions
inconceivable rapidity and are in perpetual flux and
 Personal identity is a matter of psychological movement
continuity (ability to remember past thoughts and
 The self is simply a collection of all experiences with
actions as our own)
a particular being
 Described personal identity as the cumulation of
IMMANUEL KANT
consciousness, informed through memories of
experience  One of the most influential philosophers in the
history of Western philosophy
 Revolutionary theory: The mind is a tabula rasa
(blank slate) on which experience writes
  Believing that there is self and that self is a product of 3. Superego – considered the seat of conscience,
reasoning (consciousness is there) develops between ages 3 and 6 as children incorporate
their parents’ moral values
 We have both an inner and an outer self, which unify
to give us consciousness Freud’s Psychosexual Stages of Development:
o Inner self – comprised of our psychological  Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, and Genital – each stage
state and rational intellect is characterized by sexual drives where certain areas
become sources of pleasure, frustration, or both
o Outer self – includes our senses and the
physical world Ways to Observe Unconscious Functioning:
 Apperception occurs in the inner self – how we 1. Slip of the tongue (parapraxis) – verbal or memory
mentally assimilate new ideas into old ones mistakes linked to the unconscious mind, revealing
secret thoughts and feelings
SIGMUND FREUD
2. Dreams – route to the unconscious; while conscious
 Austrian neurologist credited with developing
information may appear in dreams, it is often in a
psychoanalysis (a method of treating mental disorders)
disguised form
 One of the most influential thinkers of the 20th
3. Neurosis – formation of behavioral or psychosomatic
century, though many of his ideas have been
symptoms due to the return of the repressed
challenged
GILBERT RYLE
 The unconscious self has the dominant influence on
our personalities, though the conscious self also plays  British philosopher known for his critique of
a role Cartesian dualism
Freud’s Three Hypothetical Parts of Personality:  Mind-body dualism – “ghost in the machine”
1. Id – operates according to the pleasure principle,  Believed that self comes from behavior – it makes us
focusing on immediate gratification of its needs who we are
2. Ego – operates according to the reality principle,  “Our knowledge of other people and ourselves
finding realistic ways to satisfy instincts depends on noticing how they and we behave.”
  Behavior is what truly matters in a person’s day-to-  Believes that self is defined by one’s perceptions of
day life experiences and how we interpret those experiences
 Critique of self-searching: Looking for the self is like  Mind and body are intertwined or connected – they
visiting a university and looking for the “university” cannot be separated from one another
itself
 Both mind and body are part of creating who you
 Self is not an entity one can locate and analyze – it is are
simply a convenient name people use to refer to all
behaviors that people make
PAUL CHURCHLAND
 Canadian philosopher known for neurophilosophy
and philosophy of mind
 Disagrees with dualism (mind and body as separate
entities)
 Holds to materialism – believes that nothing but
matter exists
 Eliminative materialism – claims that mental states,
beliefs, and desires do not exist at all
 The physical brain is where we get our sense of self
 By empirically investigating how the brain
functions, we can predict and explain how we
function
 We are our brain
MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY
 French phenomenological philosopher