Lesson 1: The self from the Perspective of Philosophy PDF

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GNED 08: UNDERSTANDING THE SELFLESSON 1: FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PHILOSOPHYPHILOSOPHY - The study of theoretical basis of a particular branch of knowledge or experience 600 BCE, marked as the birth of Philosophy The Greeks are in search of knowledge come up with answers that are both cognitive and s...

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GNED 08: UNDERSTANDING THE SELF LESSON 1: FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PHILOSOPHY • PHILOSOPHY - The study of theoretical basis of a particular branch of knowledge or experience 600 BCE, marked as the birth of Philosophy The Greeks are in search of knowledge come up with answers that are both cognitive and scientific in nature. • Greek Philosopher from Miletus - chose to seek natural explanations to events and phenomena around him instead of seeking for supernatural explanations from the gods as what was passed down through the generations. • •

SOPHIST  People who are skilled in rattling arguments by discussion and debate.  The first teachers of the west 1. SOCRA SOCRATES TES • One of the Popular “Big Three” • The mentor of Plato • Socratic/Dialectic Method - involves the search for the correct/proper definition of a thing. SOCRA SOCRATES TES VIEW OF HUMAN NA NATURE TURE • He believed that his Mission in life was to seek the highest knowledge and convince others who were willing to seek this knowledge with him. • It allowed him to question people’s belief and ideas. • Expose their misconception • Get them touch their soul • TOUCH TOUCHING ING OF THE SOUL - May mean helping the other person to get in touch with his TRUE SELF TRUE SELF - Not the body but the Soul - Virtue is inner goodness, and real beauty of is that Soul.

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His Socratic Method forces people to use their innate reason by reaching inside themselves to their deepest nature. The aim of the Socratic Method is to make people think, seek and ask again and again. Some may be angered and frustrated, but what is important is for them to realize that they are ignorant of, to accept this and to continue learning and Searching for answers.

2. PLA PLATO TO  His real name is “Aristocles”  Named as ‘Plato’ because of his physical built which means “wide/broad”  He established the school known as ‘THE ACADEMY’  Socrates and Plato believe that philosophy is more than analyses but rather is a way of life.  PLATO’S METAPHYSICS - Philosophical study on the causes and nature of things. - Known as ‘THEORY OF FORMS’

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THEORY OF FORMS Refers to what are real. They are not objects that are encountered with the senses but can only be grasped intellectually.

CHARACTERISTICS OF PL PLA ATO’S FORMS 1. The forms are ageless and therefore are eternal 2. The forms are unchanging and therefore permanent. 3. The forms are unmoving and indivisible. PLA PLATO’S TO’S DUALISM 1. THE REALM OF THE SHADOWS is composed of changing, ‘sensible’ things which are lesser entities and therefore imperfect and flawed. 2. THE REALM OF FORMS is composed of eternal things which are permanent and perfect. It is the source of all reality and true knowledge. Page 1 of 5

LESSON 1: FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PHILOSOPHY PLA PLATO’S TO’S VIEW OF HUMAN NA NATURE TURE • He made use of Socrates' Dialectic Method and considered it an important tool in discovering knowledge. • He believed that knowledge lies within ones soul • He considered human beings as microcosm of the universal macrocosm. • Even if the materials of the human body and the physical world are imperfect, humans have the immortal, rational soul which Plato believes is created in the image of the Divine. • He describes the soul as having three components. THE THREE COMPONENTS OF THE SOUL 1. THE REASON is rational and is the motivation for goodness and truth. 2. THE SPIRITED is non-rational and is the will or the drive toward action. This part of the soul is initially neutral but can be influenced/ pulled in two directions. 3. THE APPETITES are irrational and lean towards the desire for pleasures of the body. 

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Plato believed that people are intrinsically good. Sometimes, however, judgements are made in ignorance and Plato equates ignorance with evil. PLA PLATO’S TO’S THEORY OF LO LOVE VE AND BECOMING – “Allegory of the Cave”  What people in the cave see are only shadows of reality which they believe are real things and represents knowledge.  “Only the forms are Real” – Plato  Once these people get out of the cave and into the light, what they will see are the Forms which are what real knowledge is. PLATO’S SYMPOSIUM PLATO’S - LOVE is the way by which a person can move from a state of imperfect knowledge and ignorance to a state of perfection and true knowledge. - Love is the force that paves away for all beings to ascend to higher stages of self-realization and perfection.

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GNED 08: UNDERSTANDING THE SELF Love is the way of realizing and knowing the truth.

THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHERS  They are also Theologians  Their concern was with God and man’s relationship with God.  They did not believe that self – knowledge and happiness were the ultimate goals of man but instead man should rely on God’s commands and his judgement of what constitutes good and evil. CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHERS GREEK PHILOSOPHERS • Sees man as sinners who • Sees man as basically good and becomes evil through reject/go against a loving ignorance of what is good. God’s commands. • Held faith supreme over reason and logic. 3. ST ST.. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO  He rejected Christianity  He wanted to know about moral evil and why it existed in people, his personal desire for sensual pleasures and questions about all the sufferings in the world. ST ST.. AUGUSTINE’S VIEW OF HUMAN NA NATURE TURE 1. GOD AS THE SOURCE OF ALL REALITY AND TRUTH.  Man is capable of knowing eternal truths.  Without God as the source of all truth, man could never understand eternal truths.  This relationship with God means that those who know most about God will come closest to understanding the true nature of the world. 2. THE SINFULNESS OF MAN  The cause of sin or evil is an act of man’s freewill.  Moral goodness can only be achieved through God’s grace.

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LESSON 1: FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PHILOSOPHY THE ROLE OF LOVE  St. Augustine is in agreement with the Greeks that man searches for happiness.  He stated that real happiness can only be found in God.  For God is love and he created humans for them to also to love. Problems arise because of the objects humans choose to love.  Disordered love results when man loves the wrong things which he believes will gives him happiness. St. Augustine explains … 1. Love of Physical objects leads to the sin of greed. 2. Love for other people is not lasting and excessive love for them is the sin of jealousy. 3. Love for the self leads to the sin of pride. 4. Love for God is the supreme virtue and only through loving God can man find real happiness. 4. THOMAS AQUINAS  The most eminent 13th century scholar and stalwart of the medieval philosophy  He adapted some ideas From Aristotle MATTER AND FORM  Matter – (Hyle in Greek) common stuff that makes up everything in the universe.  Fo Form rm – (Morphe in Greek) essence of a substance or thing.

5. RENE DESCAR DESCARTES TES  Known as the “Father of Modern Philosophy”  He produced what is known as the CARTESIAN METHOD and invented analytic geometry.

GNED 08: UNDERSTANDING THE SELF DESCA DESCATES’ TES’ SYSTEM  Using his dream as guide, he came up with a system using principles that were true and related to each other in a clear and meaningful way.  Through Mathematics, he discovered that the human mind has two powers: a. Intuition; b. Deduction TWO POWERS OF HUMAN MIND  INTUITION – the ability to apprehend direction of certain truths  DEDUCTION – the power to discover what is not known by progressing in an orderly way from what is already known. DESCAR DESCARTES’ TES’ VIEW OF HUMAN NA NATURE TURE  I Think, therefore I am” - he believed that to doubt is to think.  He deduced that a thinker is a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses and that also imagines and feels.  THE MIND – BODY PROBLEM  He considered the soul/mind (also the self) as a substance that is separate from the body.  He believed that all bodily processes are mechanical.  “The body is like a machine that is controlled by the will and aided by the mind.” 6. JOHN LOCKE  His interest is on the workings of the human mind, particularly the acquisition of knowledge.  Believed that knowledge results from ideas produced a posteriori or by the objects that were experienced.  Ideas are not innate but rather the mind at birth is a blank slate (TABULARASA). LOCKE’S VIEW ON HUMAN NA NATURE TURE  Morals, religious and political values must come from sense experiences. Page 3 of 5

LESSON 1: FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PHILOSOPHY  Moral good depends on conformity or non-conformity of a person’s behavior towards some law. THREE LAWS ACCORDING TO LOCKE 1. Law of Opinion – where actions that are praiseworthy are called virtues and those that are not called vice. 2. Civil Law – where right actions are enforced by people in authority. 3. Divine Law – set by GOD on the actions of man. 7. DA DAVID VID HUME  He relied on the scientific method, believing that it could analyse human nature and explain the workings of the mind.  He discovered the limitations of the mind and his optimism turned into skepticism. THE HUMAN MIND The mind receives materials from the senses and calls it perceptions.  Impressions are immediate sensations of extreme reality.  Ideas are recollections of these impressions. HUME’S VIEW OF HUMAN NA NATURE TURE  Soul = The Self  He concluded that man does really have an idea of so-called self because ideas rely on sense impressions and people have no sense of impression of the self.  The self is also a product of the Imagination.  There is no such thing as “Personal Identity” behind perceptions and feelings that come and go.  There is no permanent/unchanging self. 8. EMMANUEL KANT  His studies on Asian philosophies had a strong influence on him but it was the French philosopher Rousseau that made him realized and enabled him to formulate ideas.

GNED 08: UNDERSTANDING THE SELF KANT’S VIEWS OF THE MIND  Kant argued that the mind is not just a passive receiver of sense experience but rather actively participates in knowing the objects it experiences.  Instead of the mind conforming to the world, it is the external world that conforms to the mind. KANT’S VIEW OF HUMAN NA NATURE TURE AND THE SELF  When the self sees an object, it tends to remember its characteristics and applies on it, the forms of time and space.  TRANCENDENTAL APPERCEPTION – a self must exist according to Kant or there could be no memory or knowledge. - Experience of the self and its unity with objects.  In the matter of God, Kant stated that the Kingdom of God is within the Man.  God is manifested in people’s lives therefore it is man’s duty to move towards perfection. 9. SIGMUND FREUD  Proponent of “Psychoanalytic theory”  Determine human behavior pave the way for science to look into workings of the unconscious mind.

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STRUCTURES OF THE MIND ID – Pleasure Principle EGO – Reality Principle SUPEREGO – Primarily dependent on learning what is right and wrong.

LEVELS OF MENT MENTAL AL LIFE 1. Unconscious - contains all those drives, urges, or instincts that are beyond our awareness but that nevertheless motivate most of our words, feelings, and actions. 2. Conscious - mental elements in awareness at any given point in time. Page 4 of 5

LESSON 1: FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PHILOSOPHY 10. GILBERT RY RYLE LE  An English Philosopher whose Ideas contradicted Cartesian Dualism  Argues that dualism “involves category mistakes and is a philosophical nonsense.

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 RYLE’S VIEW OF HUMAN NA NATURE TURE AND KNOWLEDGE  Freewill was invented to answer the questions of whether an action deserves praise or blame.  He agreed with Kant who stated that freewill involves a moral responsibility which further assumes that man’s action must be moral for it to be free. 11. PA PATRICIA TRICIA AND PAUL CHURCHL CHURCHLAND AND  NEUROPHILOSOPHY – Modern scientific inquiry looks into the application of neurology to age-old problems in philosophy, one of which is the mind-body problem.  Philosophy of neuroscience is the study of the philosophy of the mind, the philosophy of science, neuroscience and psychology.  It aims to explore the relevance of neuroscientific experiments/studies to the philosophy of the mind.  Even if the neuroscience found that there is no causal relationship between the brain and the mind, the mind would still be associated with the brain  The biochemical substances of the brain according to this philosophy of neuroscience are really responsible for human’s thoughts, feelings and behavior.

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GNED 08: UNDERSTANDING THE SELF Phenomenology provides a direct description of the human experience while perception forms the background of experience which serves to guide man’s consciousness assigns meaning to the world. He stated that perception is not purely the result of sensations nor is it purely interpretation. Rather consciousness is a process that includes sensing as well as interpreting/reasoning. He was known as a Philosopher of the body.

PREP PREPARED ARED BY BY:: MS. CARY CARYL L JOY M. SUMAGANG, RPm Instructor, GNED 08: Understanding the Self

12. MAURICE MERLEAU – PON PONT TY  A French Phenomenological Philosopher whose thoughts were greatly influenced by Edmund Husseri and Martin Heidegger MERLEAU – PONT PONTY Y VIEW OF HUMAN NA NATURE TURE AND THE SELF  Developed the concept of body-subject and contended that perceptions occur existentially.  According to Merleau-Ponty, the world and the sense of self are emergent phenomena in the on-going process of man’s ‘becoming’. Page 5 of 5...