UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

CHAPTER 1: Defining the Self: Personal and

Developmental Perspective
on
Self and Identity

LESSON 1: The Self from various Philosophical

Perspective
 Overview of
 Personality
The term personality is actually multifaceted since every
individual have unique characteristics and self-implicated
descriptions of themselves. However, the word personality was
derived from the Latin expression per sonare, meaning “to sound
through”.
 In turn, Hippocrates as early as circa 370 BC proposed two axes
which combined to form four descriptions of peoples’ personality
and temperament as represented by humor variances and
imbalances like:
a. Melancholic. It has an excess bile that represents a depressed
and pessimistic personality.
b. Choleric. It has an excess black bile that represents an ugly,
jumpy and irascible personality.
c. Phlegmatic. It has an excess phlegm that represents a sluggish,
stagnant and dull personality
Overview of
Personality

 Personality contrary wise is a unique organization of, that determine

the individual’s typical or recurrent pattern of behavior. Its
development is a function of the biological and environmental
factors.

 Enriquez, as cited by Lupdag (1984) said that “the closest Filipino

term for personality is Pagkatao”. This includes the Filipino
“paninindigan” which is more than values.

 Some “paninindigan” that are worth considering in are: paggalang

at pagmamalasakit (respect and concern); pagtulong at pagdamay
(helping), , pagpuno sa kakulangan (understanding limitations),
pakikiramdam (sensitivity and regard to others), gaan ng loob
(rapport and acceptance) and pakikipagkapwa (human concern and
interaction with others),
Erroneous Methods of Assessing
Personality

 A first impression gives some people

a clue to the pattern of the observed
individual. Once an impression of an
individual’s personality is formed, the
individual gains the reputation of being
that certain type and is judged in terms
of this reputation. Studies of social
acceptance and prejudice demonstrate
how difficult it is to change a reputation
gained from first impression.
Erroneous Methods of Assessing
Personality
 Another issues in assessing personality includes pseudo-
scientific methods such as the following:
 1. Physiognomy. A method in which a persons’ personality
is measured through their physical features, that is most of
the time depicted through facial features.
 2. Phrenology. A method goes to judging one’s personality
through the curvatures, shape and size o f the skull.
 3. Graphology. One’s personality is measures through their
handwriting.
 4. Astrology. A method that finds out the position of the
starts and activities of the planets.
Erroneous Methods of Assessing
Personality

 Personality assessment can be defined as

the set of processes used for developing
impressions and images , making decisions,
and checking hypothesis about a person’s
pattern of behavior in relation with the
environment.
Self as the Center of
Personality

 A self-concept is a collective of beliefs

about one’s own nature , unique
qualities, and typical behavior.
Your understanding of your inner self
holds the meaning of your life. –
McGraw Hills
Your Are What You Think – David
Stoop
Know thyself was perceived as a warning to every
temple entrants to constantly keep oneself in
temperance and mindfulness over others.
LESSON 1: The Self from various Philosophical
Perspective

 The history of philosophy is full with

men and women who inquired into the
fundamental nature of the self. The
different perspectives and views on the
self can best seen and understood by
revisiting its prime movers and identify
the most important conjectures made by
philosophers from the ancient times to
the contemporary period.
LESSON 1: The Self from various Philosophical
Perspective

 Socrates and Plato

 Plato claimed that Socrates affirmed that the unexamined life
is not worth living. Most men in his reckon were not fully aware
of who they were and the virtues that they were supposed to
attain in order to preserve their souls for the afterlife. Socrates
thought that this is the worst that can happen to anyone: to live
but die inside.
 Socrates : Every man is composed of Body and Soul. That every
human person is dualistic and that he is composed of 2 important
aspects of his personhood.
 Imperfect-impermanent aspect = body
 Perfect – permanent = soul
LESSON 1: The Self from various Philosophical
Perspective

Plato: Added that there are 3 components of the soul.

Plato emphasizes that justice in the human person can
only be attained if the 3 parts of the soul are working
harmoniously with one another.
a. Rational soul = forged by reason and intellect has to govern
the affairs of the human person.
b. Spirited soul = which is in charge of emotions should be kept
at bay
c. Appetitive soul = in charge of base desires like eating,
drinking, sleeping, and having sex are controlled as well.
LESSON 1: The Self from various Philosophical
Perspective

 Augustine and Thomas Aquinas

 Augustine’s view of the human person reflects the entire spirit of the
medieval world when it comes to man. Following the ancient view of
Plato and infusing it with the newfound doctrine of Christianity. The
body is bound to die on earth and the soul is to anticipate living
eternally in a realm of spiritual bliss in communion with God. This is
because the body can only thrive in the imperfect, physical reality that
is the world, whereas the soul can also stay after death in an eternal
realm with the all-transcend God.

 Thomas Aquinas adapted some ideas from Aristotle, Aquinas said that
indeed, man is composed of 2 parts: matter and form.
 Matter or Hyle = refers to the common stuff that makes up everything
in the universe.
LESSON 1: The Self from various Philosophical
Perspective
 Rene Descartes = the Father of Modern Philosophy conceived of the
human person as having a body and a mind. In his book “The
Meditations of First Philosophy” he claims that there are so much that
we should doubt.
Descartes also identifies 2 distinct entities for the self:
 Cogito = the thing that thinks, which is the mind
 Extenza or extension of the mind= the body
For Descartes view, the body is nothing else but a machine that is
attached to the mind. The human person has it but it is not what makes
a man. What then I am? A thinking man. It has been said. But what is
a thinking thing? It is a thing that doubts, understand, affirms, denies,
wills, refuses, imagines also and perceives.
LESSON 1: The Self from various Philosophical
Perspective

 David Hume, a Scottish Philosopher who believes that one can

know only what comes from the senses and experiences.
Empiricism is the school of thought that espouses the idea that
knowledge can only be possible if it is sensed and experienced.
Men can only attain knowledge by experiencing.
For David, the self is nothing but a bundle of impressions. If
one tries to examine his experiences, he finds that they can only
be categorized into two:
 Impression = the basic objects of our experiences or sensation.
They are products of our direct experience with the world.
 Ideas = are copies of impressions. Because of this they are not
as lively and vivid as our impressions. When one imagines the
feeling of being in love for the first time, that still is an idea.
LESSON 1: The Self from various Philosophical
Perspective

 Immanuel Kant, for him there is necessarily a mind

that organizes the impressions that men get from the
external necessarily. A mind that organizes the
impressions that men get from the external world.
Kant call theses the apparatuses of the mind. Kant
suggests that it is an actively engaged intelligence in
man that synthesizes all knowledge and experience.
Thus the self is not just what gives one his
personality. In addition, it is also the seat of
knowledge acquisition for all human persons.
LESSON 1: The Self from various Philosophical
Perspective

 Gilbert Ryle, solve the mind-body dichotomy that

has been running for a long time in the history of
thought by blatantly denying the concept of an
internal, non-physical self. For him, what truly
matters is the behavior that the person manifest in
his day to day life. He suggests that the self is not
an entity one can locate and analyze but simply the
convenient name that people use to refer to all the
behaviors that people make.
LESSON 1: The Self from various Philosophical
Perspective

 Merleau-Ponty, is a phenomenology of perception

who asserts that the mind-body bifurcation that has
been going on for a long time is a futile endeavor and
an invalid problem. Unlike Ryle who simply denies
the self, Merleau-Ponty instead says that the mind
and body are so intertwined that they cannot be
separated from one another. He also dismisses the
Cartesian Dualism that has spelled so much
devastation in the history of man. For him, the
Cartesian problem is nothing else but plain
misunderstanding. The living body, his thoughts,
END OF LESSON
1