LESSON 1: FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PHILOSOPHY

• Birth of Philosophy (love of wisdom)

- Athens, Ancient Greece(600BCE)
• Athens
- Center of western thought. Influenced western thought until today.
- Enjoyed city state and democracy
- Settle arguments through discussion and debate
➢ Sophists
- First teachers of the west. Arguments are about practical things
• Greek’s Answers
- Cognitive and scientific in nature
• Greek Philosophers in Miletus
- Chose to seek natural explanations to events and phenomena around them instead of seeking for supernatural
explanations from the gods that was passed down through generations
- Observed changes in the world and wanted to explain these changes by understanding the laws of nature. Led to
idea of permanence
• BIG THREE: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
➢ Socrates - mentor of Plato
➢ Plato - mentor of Aristotle
A. SOCRATES
- Wanted to discover the essential nature of knowledge, justice, beauty and goodness
- He didn’t write anything, he is not a writer
- A lot of his thoughts were only known through Plato’s writing (The Dialogues)
- Was sentenced to death by the Sophists because he is a brilliant debater and was idolized by the Athenians
- “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing”
- “The unexamined life is not worth living”
➢ Socratic Method
- Discovering what is essential in the world and in people
- He did not lecture, he would ask questions and engage in a discussion
- Would begin by acting like he doesn’t know anything and would get the other person to clarify their ideas and
resolve logical inconsistencies (Price, 2000)
- The questioner should be skilled at detecting misconceptions and at revealing them by asking the right
questions. The goal is to bring the person closer to the final understanding
➢ View of Human Nature
- Believed that his mission in life was to seek the highest knowledge and convince others who were willing to
seek his knowledge with him
- Socratic method allowed him to question people’s beliefs and ideas, exposing their misconceptions and get
them to touch their souls
• True Self
- The touching of the soul or helping the person to get in touch with his true self
- Virtue is inner goodness, and real beauty is that of the soul
- Real understanding comes from within the person
- His Socratic method forces people to use their innate reason by reaching inside themselves to their deepest
nature
- Delphi Oracle: named Socrates the wisest of all men because people were ignorant of what knowledge is most
important. Socrates knew the importance if this but was also aware of his ignorance. In other words, he was
the only one who knew that he did not know
- The aim of the Socratic Method is to make people think, seek and ask again and again, because what is
important is for them to realize that they do not know everything, that there are things that they are ignorant
of, to accept this and to continue learning and searching for answers
B. PLATO (428-348 BCE)
- Real name is Aristocles
- Nicknamed “Plato” = his physical built which means wide/broad
 - Left Athens for 12 years after the death of Socrates and returned and established a school “The Academy”
- Philosophy - More than analyses but rather a way of life
- 20+ Dialogues: Socrates as protagonist
- Metaphysics: Study on the causes and nature of things
➢ Theory of Forms: what is real that can only be grasped intellectually
1. The Forms are ageless and therefore eternal
2. The Forms are unchanging and therefore permanent
3. The Forms are unmoving and indivisible
➢ Plato’s Dualism
1. The Realm of the Shadows = Composed of changing, ‘sensible’ things which are lesser entities and
therefore imperfect and flawed
2. The Realm of Forms = Composed of eternal things which are permanent and perfect. It is the source of
all reality and true knowledge.
➢ View of Human Nature
- Believed that knowledge lies within the person’s soul
- Considered human beings as microcosms of the universal macrocosms i.e. everything in the universe can
also be found on people – earth, air, fire, water, mind and spirit
- Soul as having three components:
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. It 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
- Plato believed that people are intrinsically good. Sometimes however, judgements are made in ignorance
and Plato equates ignorance with evil.
➢ Theory of Love and Becoming
• Allegory of the Cave
- What people see are only shadows of reality which they believe are real things and represents
knowledge. What these people fail to realize is that the shadows are not real for according to Plato,
“only the Forms are real”
• Theory of Being = In knowing the truth, the person must become the truth
• Plato’s Symposium on Love
- 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 begins with a feeling or experience that there is something lacking. This drives the person to
seek for that which is lacking. Thoughts and efforts are then directed towards the pursuit of which is
lacking
- Love is a process of seeking higher stages of being, The GREATER the love, the MORE intellectual
component it will contain
- Lifelong longing and pursuit seek even higher stages of love which lead to the possession of absolute
beauty. To love the highest is to become the best
C. ST. AGUSTINE OF HIPPO (354-436 CE)
- Hippo, Africa. Became a priest and bishop of Hippo
- Initially rejected Christianity for it seemed that it could not provide him answers to questions that interested him
- He wanted to know about moral evil and why it existed, his personal desire for sensual pleasures and questions
about all the suffering in the world
- Christianity’s influence dominated western thought after the fall of the Hellenistic-Roman Eras
• Theologians: Christian Philosophers of medieval era
- Concern with God & Man’s relationship with God
- Did not believe that self-knowledge and happiness were the ultimate goals of man, but man should rely on
God’s command instead
- Greek Philosophers - Man as basically good
- Christian Philosophers– Man sinners who reject God’s commands
- Church ordered to close Plato’s Academy in Athens
 - Held faith supreme over reason and logic
➢ View of Human Nature
1. God as the source of all reality and truth.
- Through a mystical experience, a man is capable of knowing the eternal truths, which is possible through
the existence of God
2. The sinfulness of man
- The cause of sin or evil is an act of man’s freewill
- Moral goodness can be only achieved through the grace of God
➢ The Role of Love
- “For God is love and he created humans for them to also love”
- Disordered love results when man loves the wrong things which he believes will give him happiness
1. Love of physical objects leads to 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 people
4. Love for God is the supreme virtue and only through loving God can man find real happiness
D. RENE DESCARTES
- Father of Modern Philosophy. One of the Rationalist Philosophers of Europe
- Truth is a universal concept
- Reason: Superior and independent of sensory experiences
- Cartesian Method he asked himself ‘is there anything I know with certainty’ and invented analytic geometry
- Three dreams instructed him to construct a system of knowledge using human reason
➢ Descartes’ System – He turned to math and discovered that the human mind has two powers
1. Intuition: Ability to apprehend direction of certain truths
2. Deduction: The power to discover what is not known by progressing in an orderly way from what is already
known. Truths are arrived through step by step process
- Reasoning could produce absolute truths about nature, existence, morality and God
- Truths that can be discovered are priori
- Ideas discovered do not rely on experiences but are innate in the human mind
- Simple to complex ideas = formation of new insight
➢ View of Human Nature
• “I think, therefore I am”
- First principle of his philosophy
- To doubt is to think. Deduced that a thinker is a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills,
refuses and also imagines and feels
➢ The Mind-Body Problem
- Soul/ mind (self): as a substance that is separated from the body
- Body: mechanical/machine controlled by will aided by mind
E. JOHN LOCKE (1632 – 1704)
- Born in Wrington, England. A son of a Puritan lawyer and a defender of the parliamentary system
- Book at 57 y/o on the scope and limits of the human mind which was significant during the new era of
Enlightenment
- Interests on human mind = acquisition of knowledge which involves two forms in the process:
• Knowledge results from idea produced posteriori - objects that were experienced
1. Sensation: Experienced through senses
2. Reflection: Mind ‘looks’ at objects that were experienced to discover relationships that may exist in between
• Tabula Rasa (i.e. blank state) –ideas are not innate but rather the mind at birth is a blank slate
- “Nothing exists in the mind that was not first in the senses”
- Ideas can also be result of reflection which demonstrates power of thinking and volition/will
➢ View of Human Nature
Moral good depends on the conformity of a person’s behavior towards some law There are 3 laws:
1. Law of Opinion: where actions that are praiseworthy are called VIRTUES and those are not are VICES
2. Civil Law: where right actions are enforced by people in authority (i.e. courts and police)
 3. Divine Law: set by God on the actions of man. True law of human behavior as it is eternally true and the one
man should always follow
F. DAVID HUME (1711 – 1776)
- Born in Edinburgh, Scotland
- Became cynical
- Gave empiricism its clearest formulation
- Relied on the scientific method, believing that it could analyze human nature and explain the workings of the mind
➢ Human Mind- Mind receives materials from the senses and calls it perceptions. Two types of perception:
1. Impressions– Immediate sensations of external reality. More vivid than ideas
2. Ideas - Recollections of impressions
- These two together make up the content of human mind
- Without impressions - no formation of ideas
• 3 principles on how ideas relate to one another
1. Resemblance
2. Contiguity
3. Cause and Effect - people experience relations between objects thus cannot be basis for knowledge
➢ View on Human Nature
• Self
- Looking for ‘the self’, Hume only discovered sense of impressions
- Believed that ‘the self’ is a product of imagination
- No such thing as ‘personal identity’ behind perceptions and feelings that come and go; THERE ISNO
PERMANENT/UNCHANGING SELF
G. IMMANUEL KANT (1724 – 1804)
- Lived in Konisberg, East Prussia
- French philosopher Rousseau - enabled him to formulate philosophical ideas
- Founder of German Idealism
- Wrote three books: Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical reason and Critique of Judgement
➢ 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
- The external world conforms to the mind
• Rationalism and Empiricism are both valid, but lacking
- Combined the two and defined knowledge as a result of human understanding applied to sense
experience
➢ Views of Human Nature and The Self
- Sensory impressions (by Hume) imply a unity of the self without which there would be no knowledge of
experience
- A self must exist or there would be no memory or knowledge
• Transcendental Apperception:
- Term used for the experience of the self and its unity with objects
- Used because people do not experience the self directly but as a unity of all impressions that organized
by the mind through perceptions
• In the matter of God
- The Kingdom of God is within man
- God is manifested in people’s lives therefore it is man’s duty to move towards perfection
H. SIGMUND FREUD (1856 – 1939)
- Austrian Neurologists
- His psychodynamic theory has characteristics of philosophical thought
• Enough psychic energy
- To impose its control on the person’s consciousness.
- Repressed thoughts and memories
• Hysteria
- Represses memories resurface and are manifested as some form of psychopathology
 - Made use of free association and dream analysis for his clinical practice
➢ Structures of The Mind
- In Freud’s illustration, he made use of the typical iceberg to show how the mind works based on his theorizing.
The tip of the iceberg shows conscious awareness which characterizes the person as he deals with his external
world. The three levels of the mind are structured by the following components:
1. ID – based on the pleasure principle. Demands immediate satisfaction and isn’t hindered by societal
expectations
2. EGO – based on the reality principle. Mediates between the impulses of the Id and restraints of the
superego
3. SUPER EGO – primarily dependent on learning the difference between right or wrong. Morality is
dependent on childhood upbringing on rewards and punishments
➢ Beyond the Pleasure Principle
- 1920 book where he presented 2 kinds of instincts that drive individual behavior:
1. Eros– Life Instinct; the energy is called LIBIDO and urges necessary for individual and species survival like thirst,
hunger and sex
2. Thanatos–Death Instinct; behavior that is directed towards destruction in the form of aggression and violence
➢ View of Human Nature
- “Man’s behavior by his pleasure-seeking life instinct and his destructive instinct is said to be born with his ego
already in conflict”
- Man, then liveshislife balancing the forcesof life and death – opposing forces that make mere existence a
challenge
I. GILBERT RYLE (1900 - 1976)
- English Philosopher
• Contradicted Cartesian Dualism
- Mistake was in applying properties to a non-material thing that are logically and grammatically appropriate
only for a category of material things. With this he stigmatized the mind as “Ghost in the Machine”
• The Concept of the Mind: Dualism involves category mistakes (mind can influence a physical, material body) and
is a philosophical nonsense
• Philosophical problems: caused by the wrong use of language (tono, content)
➢ View of Human Nature and Knowledge
- Believed that freewill was invented to answer the question of whether an action deserves praise or blame
- Agreed with Kant that freewill involves a moral responsibility which assumes that man’s actions must be moral
for it to be free
• Two Types of Knowledge:
1. KNOWING-THAT
- Refers to knowing facts/ information. Considered as empty intellectualism
2. KNOWING-HOW
- Using facts in the performance of some skill or technical abilities
- “A person may acquire a great bulk of knowledge but without the ability to use it to solve some practical
problems to make his life easier, this bulk of knowledge is deemed to be worthless”
- Knowing involves an ability and not just an intellect
J. PATRICIA AND PAUL CHURCHLAND
- Neurology deals with the study of the nervous system, its structure, physiology and aberrations
• Patricia Churchland
- Born on July 16, 1943 is a Canadian-American philosopher. Claims that man’s brain is a responsible for the
identity known as the self where philosophy is really responsible for man’s thoughts, feelings and behavior
• Paul Churchland= Born on October 21, 1942
• Neurophilosophy
- Patricia coined the term who together with Paul was dissatisfied with the particular approach of philosophers
and instead sought to guide scientific theorizing with philosophy and guide philosophy with scientific inquiry
• Philosophy of Neuroscience
- Study of the philosophy of the mind, the philosophy of science, neuroscience and psychology.
- Aims to explore the relevance of the neuroscientific studies to the philosophy of the mind
 - Issue of the brain-mind is central to this study
- necessary in virtually understanding the nature of the mind which in turn makes it relevant philosophy
➢ View of Human Nature
- “Man is endowed with more than just physical or neurological characteristics. Despite research findings,
neurophilosophy states that the self is real, that it is the tool that helps the person tune-in to the realities of
the brain and the extant reality”
- Man is able to do amazing things and is constantly evolving at the same being molded by experiences.
K. MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY (1908 – 1961)
- French Phenomenological Philosopher and known as the philosopher of the body
- Wrote books on art, perception and political thought
- Center of his philosophy is the emphasis placed on the human body as the primary site of knowing the world
➢ View of Human Nature
- The consciousness, world and human body are interconnected as they mutually perceive the world, wherein
all knowledge is perceived through the body with its sensory functions
- The world and the sense of self are emergent phenomena in the ongoing process of man’s ‘becoming’
- The Phenomenology of Perception = described the nature of man’s perceptual contact with the world.
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
LESSON 2: FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF SOCIOLOGY
• Sociology: One of the disciplines in the social sciences which aims to discover the ways by which the social
surrounding/environment influences people’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior
• How social world impacts on their existence
A. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
- Born on February 1863 in Massachusetts, USA
➢ Social Self
• Social behaviorism: Describe the power of environment in shaping human behavior
• “Self”
- A dimension of personality that is made-up of the individual’s self-awareness and self-image.
- Cannot be separated from the society
• Stages of development
1. Preparatory
- Self-did not exist at birth as it develops over time
- Children’s behavior is based on Imitation
- Symbols were the basis of communication
2. Play
- This stage is where the child widens his perspective and realizes that he is not alone and there are
others around him which he has to consider.
- Knowing and Understanding the symbols of communication to constitute basis for socialization to
form social relationship.
- Role-taking is the process of assuming the perspective of another person to see how this person might
behave or respond in a given situation
3. Game
- Begins to consider several tasks and various types of relationships simultaneously.
- The child had the ability to respond not just to one but several members of his social environment
- Generalized other was used to explain the behavior when a person considers other people in the
course of his action. Through this, the person realizes the cultural norms, beliefs, & values
incorporated to each self. With this, it forms the basis of self-evaluation
➢ Theory of self
- The self is not present at birth but begins as a central character in a child’s world.
- Children see themselves as “universe” and is having difficulty understanding people around them.
- As they grow and mature, they begin to see other people and is concerned about their reactions.
- Family play a major role in the formation of the self. They are the Significant others – strongly influence his
development
 ➢ The I and Me – person’s capacity to see the self through others
• I self – Subjective, when the person initiates, the self functions as subject
• Me self – Objective, when the person takes the role of the other, the self function as object
B. CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
- Socio Psychological approach
- Human Nature and the Social Order: Discussed formation of the self through interaction
- People learn who they are through social interaction
- Looking glass self: self product of social interaction
➢ 3 phases of self-development
1. People imagine how they present themselves to others (ex: you dress up elegantly for the prom)
2. People imagine how others evaluate them (ex: other will see you as pretty by the way you fix yourself)
3. People develop some sort of feeling about themselves as a result of those impressions (ex: you may see
yourself as confident or inferior)
• Used the word imagine
- Possibility that people develop self - identities based on the wrong perception of how others see them
- I am not what I think I am; I am not what you think I am; I am what I think you think I am
C. ERVING GOFFMAN
- The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life - people slant their presentations to create preferred appearances
and satisfy particular people
- Impression management - process of altering how the person presents himself
- He sees similarities of real social interaction to a theatrical presentation. This is the reason for the label
dramaturgical approach to his view.
- phrase face - work to describe another aspect of the self. This was observed in situations where face-saving
measures are resorted to in the maintenance of a proper image of self in frustrating or embarrassing situation
- face saving measures
4. ADD YEARS AGE
• The discussions & observations of the sociologists represented a progression on how the self has developed through
the process of socialization to how the person manages self-presentation in order for him to be accepted by others.
LESSON 3: The Self from the Perspective of Anthropology
• Anthropology: Study of man. Specifically, the totality of what it means to be human. Everything in anthropology is
interconnected and a complete understanding is necessary to achieve better understanding of oneself, as one learns
the facts that make him similar to the next person, he will also know the different characteristics that sets him apart.
• Fields of Anthropology
1. ARCHAEOLOGY
- Archaeologists: Scientist who studies artifacts in order to discover how these people lived their lives. They
have discovered humans adapted to changes in their environment in order for them to survive
- They believe that homo sapiens did not become extinct because of their ability to think, use tools, and learn
from experience
- These discoveries made people realize that the most important aspect of human life is survival. Human
Behavior according to School of Functionalism, continues to adapt, in order to survive.
- Men are similar, but the manner they use to survive differs. This is the dilemma that archaeology continuously
searching for answers.
2. BIOLOGICAL
- Focuses on how the human body adapts to the different earth environments. They look at the probable cause
of diseases, mutation and death. They are interested in explaining how biological characteristics of human
beings affect how they lived their lives.
- They study people in different places and discovered that while human beings vary in their biological make-
up and behavior, there are a lot more similarities among them than there are differences
- Biological characteristics of human beings share may earn for them complete dominion over all earth
creatures and at the same time be the cause of their extinction.
3. LINGUISTIC
- Human survival is primarily linked to their ability to communicate and an essential part of human
communication is language.
 - Language: identifies group of people; words, sounds, symbols, writings and signs that are used are reflections
of a group’s culture.
- Linguistic Anthropologists used language to discover a group’s manner of social interaction, to create and
share meanings to form ideas, concepts, and to promote social change, and how language change over time.
- Other forms of languages have evolved which represent the subculture of a particular group
- Language is reflective of the time and mode of thinking of the people using it. As societies change and
technologies develop, so do the symbols and meaning people use through language as their way of
communicating
4. CULTURAL
- Culture: group of people’s way of life. Including their behavior, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept,
socially transmitted through communication and imitation from generation to generation.
- Cultural Anthropologists focus in knowing what makes one group’s manner of living particularly to that group
and forms an essential part of the member’s personal and social identity.
➢ Theory of Cultural Determinism
- Where culture has a strong impact on how individual view himself.
- Human nature is determined by the ideas, meanings, beliefs, and values learned as member of a society.
- Who or what a person is maybe determined by the kind of culture he is born into and grew up in
- Having different cultures, Cultural Anthropologists suggests that there is no universal or right way of being
human. The right way is always based on culture. Since culture vary, there is no one way of understanding
human nature.
- Positive and negative implications
• Positive: Human beings can be shaped to have the kind of life they prefer. There is no limit placed on
the human ability to be or to do whatever they set their minds and hearts into.
• Negative: People have no control over what they learn. They blindly accept the learning their culture
expose them to. They are seen as helpless and do only what their culture instructs them to do.
- Cultural diversities are manifested in different ways and levels of depth. Symbols are considered the most
superficial level of culture and values belong to the deepest level or are considered as the core of culture.
➢ Ways in which culture may manifest itself in people:
a. Symbols
- Words, gestures, symbols, that have recognized meaning in a particular culture. (Ex: Rings that signify
commitment)
b. Heroes
- Person from the past or present who have characteristics that are important in a culture. They may
be real or fictitious and are models of behavior. (Ex: Real – Jose Rizal; Fictitious – Darna)
c. Rituals
- Activities, may be religious or social, participated in by a group of people for the fulfillment of desired
objectives and are considered to be socially essential. (Ex: Baptism, Wedding)
d. Values
- Unconscious, and can neither be discussed nor be directly observed but can only be inferred from the
way people act and react to circumstances and situations. (Ex: Kissing of the hand of elders)
• The Self from the Perspective of Anthropology
- Anthropology makes the person aware that what he is maybe determined by his past, and present condition, his
biological characteristics, the way he communicates, the language that he uses and the manner in which he
chooses to live his life.
LESSON 4: The Self from the Perspective of Psychology
• Psychology
- Deals with the description, explanation, prediction and control of behavior
- Believes that the world of material things including people exists independently of the perceiving human mind
• William James (1842 - 1910)
- American Philosopher and Psychologist
- One of the great pragmatists
- Wrote a book entitled “The principles of Psychology”
- Known for “Theory of the Self”
 - The Principles of Psychology: Book with articles on philosophy & psychology, where theory of the self is explained
• THE ‘ME’ AND THE ‘I’ (5 characteristics of thoughts)
1. All human thoughts are owned by some personal self.
2. All thoughts are constantly changing or are never static.
3. There is a continuity of thoughts as its focus shifts from one object to another.
4. Thoughts deal with objects that are different from and independent of consciousness itself.
5. Consciousness can focus on a particular object and not others.
➢ ‘Me’ Self
- A separate object or individual that the Person refers to when discussing or describin g their personal
experiences.
- Examples: 1. The gifts were sent to ME. 2. The person is smiling at ME.
- James called the ‘ME’ self as the empirical ME.
• Divided into three components:
1. Material Self
- Consists of the things or objects that belong to the person or entities that a person belongs to.
- (e.g. The person’s body, his family, clothes, his money)
2. Social Self
- Refers to the person is in a particular social situation
- Changes in behavior usually result from the different social situations the person finds himself in.
3. Spiritual Self
- Refers to the self that is more concrete or permanent when compared to the material and social
selves. The most subjective and intimate part of the self.
- Always engaging in the process of introspection (self-observation).
➢ ‘I’ Self
- Knows and recognizes who they are and what they have done
- Pure Ego = person’s soul or mind, which comprises the totality of the person’s identity.
➢ Other selves in Psychology
A. Global and Differentiated Self Models
• Global Self
- Represents the overall value that a person place upon himself.
- The groups of people that you interact with everyday strongly influences you.
- The global self is the product of all experiences that he had in the society which accounts for the kind of
person he presently is.
• Murray Bowen (1913-1990)
- Came up with the concept of a differentiated self
- Observed that there are two forces affecting the person: togetherness and individuality wherein balance
should be maintained between the two because too much togetherness may cause friction and conflict
and prevents the development of person’s self; too much individuality on the other hand results in distant
and estrange feelings towards family and other people
• The Differentiated Self
- Affected by the presence of others and has the ability to separate feelings and thoughts
- Enables the person to develop and sustain his unique identity, make his own choices, and accept
responsibility for his behavior and still be able to stay emotionally connected with his family and friends.
B. Real and Ideal Self-Concepts
• Carl Rogers (1902-1987)
- Proposed a personality theory known as the ‘Person-Centered Theory’
- Self-concept: used to refer how a person thinks about or perceives himself.
• Two types of self-concept: (Rogers stated, there should be congruence for the person to be happy/satisfied)
1. The real self-concept: Refers to all information and perception the person has about himself.
2. The ideal self-concept: Refers to what the person aims for himself to be
• The Self-Discrepancy Theory (By Edward Tory Higgins, 1987)
- Self-guides - internalized standards to which people use to compare themselves
- When the self is found to be deviating from these guides, the result is self-discrepancy.
 - Self-discrepancy: may cause emotional discomfort and manifest as guilt or worst as indifference
A. Multiple and Unified selves
• Multiple Selves Theory
- Suggests that there exists in the individual different aspects of the self
- A psychologically healthy individual is a person who is able to make sense of the sometimes confusing
and conflicting aspects of themselves and integrate them into a single, unified self.
- A unified being is essentially connected to consciousness, awareness, and agency
- To be considered a well-adjusted person, success and failures should be accepted and understood
B. True and False selves
• D.W. Winnicott (1896-1971): observed people as having true/false selves
“True and false selves are present in all individuals. They should be functional for the advantage of both the
person himself and his society.”
The True Self The False Self
✓ Creative ✓ May be manifested as a form of defense
✓ Spontaneously experiencing each day of their lives mechanism
✓ Appreciate being alive ✓ Lacks spontaneity
✓ High level of awareness in the person of who he is ✓ Dead and empty
✓ Recognizes his strengths ✓ The mask that hides the true person for fear
✓ Accepts his limitations of pain of rejection and failure
✓ Enjoys winning and success ✓ At times, enable the person to form
✓ Learns from mistakes superficial but productive social relationship
C. The self as proactive and agentic
• Albert Bandura (1925 – present)
➢ Triadic Reciprocal Causation Program
- Explanation on how humans are affected by the interaction among environmental events, behavior
and personal factors
➢ The Social Cognitive Theory:
- Person is seen as proactive & agentic where he has the capacity to exercise control over his life
- Learning through observation
- Suggested that human beings are proactive, self-regulating, self-reflective, and self-organizing
- The human agency is the essence of being human
• Four Features of Human Agency
1. Intentionality
- Actions performed by the person with full awareness of his behavior. Example: Kenneth went
online to apply for a passport because he wants to travel outside his country
2. Forethought
- Person’s anticipation of likely outcomes of his behavior. Example: Kenneth chose an
interview date for his passport application where most likely he will be on-leave.
3. Self-reactiveness
- Process in which the person is motivated and regulates his behavior as he observes his
progress in achieving his goals. Example: Kenneth saves a larger portion of his salary in the
bank so he can have enough cash to travel to Japan.
4. Self-reflectiveness
- Self-reflectiveness is self-efficacy which is the person’s belief that he is capable of behavior
that will produce the desired positive results
- The person looking inward and evaluating his motivations, values, life goals, and other
people’s effect on him. Example: Kenneth believes that he has to enjoy and experience life
a little while still able and capable
D. Self-Regulation
- A person reactively attempts to minimize the discrepancies between
what he has already accomplished and what he still wants to achieve
- It allows the person to set goals that are better and higher than the
former
LESSON 5: The Self in Western and Eastern Thought
- Through the process of introspection and reflection, a man decides to search for his purpose in life and the role he
plays in this world.
- A person who makes most of his life, going into the world with the life he chooses, making decisions, acting upon
these choices and taking full responsibilities of the consequences is called an individualistic self
• Individualistic Self
- Although he is aware that he isn’t alone, he sees himself as capable of living his own life.
- Aware of his rights and the limitations of his freedom in the extant society.
- Sets goals, and works hard to achieve them, because he knows he will suffer if he wastes his chance. Something
that would define him and inspire others that being in the world meant making it better only for himself but also
for others. Thus, his legacy.
- This behind after birth and is observed in thr child-rearing practices of parents in the West.
- Self-reliance and independence form the development of the self in the West.
- Example: when a person is 18y/o is expected to “move out” as individual freedom and the ability to stand on his
own is expected
• Collective Self
- The cultures of the East is focuses with the collective self of individuals.
- It’s where the identity of the individual is lost and does not exist except as a part of the group.
- The family and society control how group members should think, act and behave in society.
- Strong bonds of unity are formed and developed in collectivism
- When the group decides every member should follow. They depend on each other.
- Collectivistic cultures give birth to individuals who develop collective selves. They are bounded by customs,
beliefs and traditions of the group (ex: gender roles, marriage practices). In such cases individual freedom is
sacrificed for the benefit of the group.
- In society, collectivism fosters nationalistic attitude as what the group believes.
- In contemporary society, both individualistic and collective self may exist in a single individual. The sharing of
knowledge from mass media has presently taken the positive aspects of individualism and collectivism and
blended them into one to enable to filly exercise one’s freedom without sacrificing his family and culture
• The Self in Western Thought
- The self plays a central role in almost all perspectives of intellectual inquiry.
- Has been an area of interest by the French and English philosophers.
- Is an entity whose proof of existence is most challenging by Greek philosophies of Socrates and Plato.
➢ Descartes
- Self exists regardless of his environment.
- The cognitive basis of the person’s thoughts is proof for the existence of the self
➢ Kant
- Self is capable of actions that entities it to have rights as an autonomous agent.
- This then inspired the recognition of human rights as important in the expression of individual freedom
➢ Ecological Self:
- Self as a process that is undergoing development.
- Human biological and environmental characteristics like race, gender, social status, education, culture, etc
are factors that influence self-development.
- Self is seen as dynamic, different and unique and constantly exposed to an ever-changing world.
• The Self in Confucian Thought
➢ Confucius
- The name for which Kong Zhongi of China was known in the West.
- Confucius was born in Zhou dynasty period in 551 BCE in small state of Lu.
- Grew up poor even though he descended from a scholarly family
➢ Confucian Thought
- Zhou dynasty was characterized by political, social and moral disintegration in China.
- Through scholarly study, Confucius came to be known as ‘Master Kong’ and as ‘Great Sage and Teacher’
- Confucius’ philosophy came to be known as humanistic social philosophy.
- Humanistic social philosophy focuses on human beings and the society he finds himself in.
- The society and communities serve as the main source of values of both human beings and society in general
- “That although the way of humans is grounded in the way of heaven and operates in harmony with the way
of nature, it is to the ideals of the human way that people must turn for guidance in reforming and renewing
society”
• Ren
- Signifies the Chinese culture’s emphasis on feelings or the heart as the most important instead of the
head in human nature.
- Confucius believed that ren is a reflection of the person’s own understanding of humanity.
➢ It is found within each person
➢ Guides human actions
➢ Makes life worth living.
- To abandon ren means abandoning what is truly human.
- Ren can only be realized through:
1. Li (propriety)
- Rules of propriety should be followed in order to guide human actions.
- Such rules involve adherence to the rituals of the community: Customs; Ceremonies; Traditions
- The rules forms the basis for li which persisted and strengthened by human practice through
generations.
- “To master oneself and return to propriety is humanity”
- Self-mastery involves self-development. which is characterized by self-control and the will to
redirect impulses and change socially accepted expressions of human nature.
- Li conforms to the norms of society.
- Confucius believes that everyone has duties and responsibilities hence five relationships. - 5
relationships 1) Father and son 2) Ruler and subject 3) Older and younger brothers 4) Husband
and wife 5) Friend and friend
2. Xiao (filiality)
- Xiao is the virtue of reverence and respect for family.
- Parents should be revered for the life they had given.
- Children show respect to their parents by exerting efforts to take care of themselves.
- Reverence for parents and family is further demonstrated by bringing honor to the family, making
something of himself to earn the respect of others.
- If the person is having difficulty giving his family honor, he should do his best not disgrace the
family.
- Relationship that exist in the family reflect how the person relates to others.
- Family is the reflection of a person.
- How the person interacts socially and values acted upon can be traced back to his family
environment which forms the bases of the person’s moral and social virtue.
3. Yi (rightness)
- It is the right way of behaving. Unconditional and absolute.
- Right is right and what is not right is wrong. There are no gray areas.
- Actions must be done because they are the right actions. For example: obedience to parents
which is expected from children because it’s morally right and obligated to do so.
- “Don't do unto others what you don't want done unto you.”
- Li, Xiao and Yi are virtues observed in a person whose humanity is developed, morally cultivated and
aware. According to Confucianism, virtuous people result in a well-rounded, civilized, humane society.