Hello class, we will now continue and proceed with our discussion of understanding the self from the philosophical perspective. So the last time we talked about the philosophers, the ancient philosophers, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, and Saint Augustine. Today We will discuss the modern philosophers, namely Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Freud, Ryle, Churchland, and Merleau-Ponty. So let's begin with René Descartes.
He is also called as the father of modern philosophy, and he is very well known of the saying, I think. Therefore, I am. This is the key to Descartes'concept of self. And this is explained by saying that the essence of the human self is a thinking identity that doubts, understands, analyzes, questions, and reasons.
So the sense of self is based on the ability to think. For him. For Descartes, the act of thinking about the self, of being self-conscious, is in itself proof that there is a self. The essence of self for Descartes is that, as I stated earlier, a thinking entity that doubts, understands, analyzes questions and reasons. Also for Descartes, there is a mind and body dichotomy.
There are two dimensions of mind. the self. The self as a thinking entity and the self as a physical body.
Now, the thinking self, otherwise known as the soul, is the non-material, immortal, conscious being and independent of the physical laws of the universe. And therefore, this is unknown. The physical body is the material mortal non-thinking entity fully governed by the physical laws of nature. Now does this remind you of a certain concept about the dichotomy of the self? So Descartes is actually there in between the ancient and the modern.
So he still keeps to that concept of the self as being as consisting of the soul and the body and that the soul is immortal. But the soul here is the thinking self for Descartes. The soul and body are independent of one another, and each can exist and function without the other.
Notice the difference between Descartes and St. Augustine. They function separate from each other. The self as a thinking entity is distinct from the self. as a physical body. In other words, the thinking self can exist independently of the physical body.
So totally different and can exist separately. Now, Descartes is the one that conceived of the hyperbolical doubt. He stated that to prove oneself, one must doubt. By doubting, there is a thinking entity that is doing the act of doubting. and therefore exists.
What is this hyperbolical doubt? This is the basis of everything. The self must consider false any belief that falls prey to even the slightest doubt.
So we all begin with doubting. Being skeptical about the truth is a tool in the discipline of inquiry for Descartes. So we should always question the truth.
truth about everything. It is also sometimes known as the use of the hyperbolic or extreme doubt or Cartesian doubt. This is the method of investigating the extent of knowledge and its basis in reason or experience. So very empiricist, very empirical. That is Descartes.
proceeding to jean-luc John Locke states that the human mind at birth is tabula rasa or blank slate. So if 4D cut is the movement of the thinking, the doubting that makes us have a sense of self, for John Locke, our mind at birth is blank. There's nothing there.
The self or personal identity is constructed primarily from our experience, specifically from our experience. from what we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. It is very empirical.
John Locke believed that the human mind is like a clean slate at birth, devoid of innate ideas. There are no ideas preexistent there. And the mind is formed by sensory input from the outside world.
So, without the human's capability, the... To learn from experience and modify behavior, human adaptability will also be impaired. So we need to be capable of learning from experience and changing or modifying our behavior in order to be adaptable, in order to adopt.
So that's basic for Locke. So from this tabula rasa, John Locke felt that the self or personal identity is constructed primarily from sense experiences. And I stated this already before, no? What we see here, smell, taste, and feel.
These are the things, these experiences shape and mold the self throughout the person's life. Self-consciousness is therefore necessary to have a coherent personal experience. self-identity or knowledge of ourselves and that is John Locke and therefore John Locke focuses on the memories as the self. Consciousness is what makes possible our belief that we are the same identity in different situations. So for John Locke it is what we remember that makes us who we are.
So we are basically at the core. The same because of what we remember. Using the power of reason and introspection enables people to understand and achieve accurate conclusions about the self. In essence, the self is a collection of memories organized by consciousness.
So for John Locke, the key word is memories and consciousness. So Locke is otherwise known as the father of classical liberalism, actually. He was the first one who talked about human rights.
So he's basically an empiricist philosopher who states that without the human's capability, said this earlier, we should learn from experience and modify our behavior in order to adapt. He also brought about the memory theory. We are the same person as long as we remember the past. Identity is not locked in mind, body, or soul, according to the previous philosophers, but in our consciousness of our memory. So again, the key words for Jean Locke is tabula rasa and the consciousness of memory.
We now proceed to David Hume. So according to David Hume, there is no self. What people experience is just a bundle or collection of different perceptions, impressions, sensations, ideas, thoughts, and images. So in a sense, they're the same with luck that we know ourselves from experience. But for David Hume, there is no self.
remembrance of the past. It's always there is no past, there is no future, only the present stimulation provided by the environment. And that the idea of the personal identity is a result of imagination. So anything that we remember, anything that we think of as who we are is just fiction for David Hume. And so therefore for Hume, There is no self.
So, humans and empiricists states that senses are the key source of knowledge. Self is a fiction produced by the imagination. So, we experience ourselves through the sense. These are all impressions.
And from these impressions, simple ideas develop. And from these ideas, we produce complex ideas. And that is all just imagination. And so, therefore, if we say that these complex ideas are the source of our self, it's all fiction. Because it's not based on what we are experiencing now.
We are just imagining. So for Jung, very, very much an empiricist. The growth of human beings, according to Jung, covers a lifespan from conception to death by which abilities and skills are added or subtracted to. And so therefore, we are constantly changing, as opposed to luck. who states that we are constant.
So opposite silang dalawa. This view is consistent with Hume's analogy of a nation with constantly changing elements. So that's the difference between Hume and Locke.
Now we talk about Immanuel Kant. Kant states that the self is the product of reason, a regulative principle, Because the self regulates experience by making unified experiences possible. The self is not only personality, but also the seed of knowledge.
So Kant talks about essence of self, makes us remember Plato and Socrates. So he refuted Hume's skepticism and believed in the universal truth. the essence of self.
So if for Jung there's no self, then immediately Kant states no, there is an essence of self. And a person is gifted with reason and free will. So those are key to Immanuel Kant. Kant states that the self is autonomous and is a moral agent.
So for Kant, we have free will. We have a deep-seated knowledge, we have an essence, and we are the moral agent of ourselves. And therefore, we do not depend on anyone else to say what is right or wrong. The self organizes information in three ways.
Raw, perceptual input, recognizing the concept, and reproducing an imagination. So we begin, of course, with what happens to us. And then it becomes a concept and therefore it is reproduced in our imagination. So a key word for Kant is to understand.
We are the ones who construct the self. It is the self that makes experiencing an intelligible world possible because it is the self that is actively organizing and synthesizing all our thoughts and perceptions. And so, we have an internal world consisting of our thoughts and feelings, and there is an external world consisting of events, situations, and happenings outside our control.
We synthesize both internal and external in order to create the self. In other words, the self constructs its own reality, creating a world that is familiar and predictable. Through our rationality, the self transcends sense experience. And so, as opposed to Hume, who states that the self is everything that we experience, Immanuel Kant says that the self transcends our experience.
There is something else beyond our sensual experience that creates sense out of everything that we experience. Okay? And that is Immanuel Kant. Now, we have Sigmund Freud, who is the father of psychoanalysis.
Sigmund Freud, there are three levels of the mind. There's the conscious, the pre-conscious, and the unconscious. So the unconscious is something that we do not know about.
Pre-conscious is slightly behind the conscious. And conscious is what we understand, we know. Provinces of the mind, there are three.
We have the id, the ego, and the superego. So if we try to look at this drawing here, this sketch, we have the ego which is floating in all three levels. So the ego can go to the conscious, to the pre-conscious, and the unconscious.
The ego, we begin with the id. The id belongs mainly to the unconscious. We're not really aware of it.
This is the impulsive. part of your personality that is driven by pleasure and repulsed by pain. The superego, which belongs to the preconscious, is the judgmental and the morally correct part of our personality. The ego is the conscious part of your personality that mediates between the id and the superego and makes decisions. Three places, this is the iceboard metaphor according to Freud.
The conscious is the switch we can see, pre-conscious slightly below the surface, and then unconscious, we cannot control. So further, these three divisions of the mind are often in conflict with each other. So when the needs and functions of these three components mismatch, the conflict. arises.
But it is the ego that tries to put this conflict together or resolves the conflict. Then we proceed to Gilbert Ryle. If for Descartes, I think, therefore I am, Gilbert states, I act, therefore I am. The self is best understood as a pattern of behavior. So Gilbert focuses on our external behaviors.
the tendency for a person to behave in a certain way in certain circumstances. So for Descartes, the mind is non-physical entity separated from the body. But for Gilbert, it differs from Descartes. He states that the relationship between mind and body is not an isolated process. The concept of the mind expresses the entire system of thoughts, emotions, and actions.
Mental processes are intelligent acts and are not distinct from each other according to Gilbert and therefore the operation of the mind is itself an intelligent act. Mind in terms of its being part of the body. So Ryle's conception of the self is consistent with a materialistic perspective That stresses tangible physical characteristics that are observable in the real world. So very materialistic. It is something, the self is something that should be observed, not imagined.
So that is Gilbert Ryle. And therefore, I act the way I act. That's who I am. Don't think about anything else. That's according to Ryle.
Now, we proceed to church. Paul Churchland, he is the one who advocated the idea of eliminative materialism or the idea that the self is inseparable from the brain and the physiology of the body. So the brain and the body, they are connected, they are one according to Churchland.
So what is eliminative materialism? It is actually a revisionary view, it's a different view. in the philosophy of mind and of cognitive science, according to which our ordinary folk psychological notions and categories of mental states are empty. That is, they do not stand for anything in objective reality. So certain classes of mental entities that common sense takes for granted, such as beliefs, desires, and the subjective sensation of pain.
do not exist. So that is eliminative materialism. So in a sense, it's very much like Hume.
There is nothing subjective. There is always this separate from us objective reality. So they do not stand for anything in objective reality.
There is this disconnect for Churchland. Therefore, for Churchland, the self is the brain. All we have is the brain. And so if the brain is gone, there is no self. For Churchland, the physical brain and not the imaginary mind gives us our sense of self.
So there is nothing separate from our brain. Once the brain is gone, our self is also gone. Now we proceed to the last philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
For Ponty, opposite to Churchland, the self is embodied subject. Subjectivity. All knowledge of ourselves and our world is based on subjective experience. The self can never be truly objectified or known in a completely objective sort of way. So when we say subjective and objective, objective is supposedly universal.
Truth is something beyond ourselves. For Maurice Merleau-Ponty, there is no such thing. Everything is subjective.
is based on ourself. And it's very much like the previous philosopher who stated that everything comes from us. It reminds us of Kant, right? So all our reality is subjective and our understanding of reality.
There is no objective reality out there that is beyond our own understanding. So the physical body is the self. What we feel, what we hear, what we see, that is the self. We are an entity that possesses conscious experiences housed in the body. Very existentialist, Merleau-Ponty.
Definition of self is all about one's perception of one's experience and the interpretation of those experiences. So very individualistic. If I say that this is the truth, then this is the truth. If that is your truth, that is your truth.
There is no objective truth. There is no universal truth. It's very relative, therefore, and very existentialist.
So, in summary, if we talk about empiricism and rationalism, then the two philosophers which have a touch of the rationalist in them is Descartes and Kant. But they are also empiricists mostly. So Descartes focused on the mind and his key term is, I think, therefore I am, stating that these are separate from the body, luck, because he stated that tabula rasa, the mind is blank, and therefore everything that happens to us, if we remember it, and we have a memory of it in our consciousness, that is our self, that's for luck.
For Jung, he states that since everything that happens to us, we experience is very random, very chaotic, and he doesn't believe in remembering and thinking of the future because these are our imagination. Therefore, for Jung, there is no self. For Kant, his main word is reason and free will and that we are an autonomous moral agent. Therefore, we are the ones who say what is right and wrong and we do not listen to anybody else telling us that because inherently, we are the ones who in us is reason and free will.
For Freud, Freud is also belonging to the psychological which we'll be discussing further later. Freud believes in the subconscious, the pre-conscious and the conscious and he also talks about the id which is our passions, the superego which is that part of us it states no do not do this and that and the ego which tries to balance out the id and the superego. For Ryle, our sense of self is based on our body and the way we act is who we are.
Our behavior is a reflection of who we are. That is Ryle. For Churchland, the brain equals the self. So if there is no brain, there is no self. It's very, very scientific for Churchland.
And finally, Merleau-Ponty believes in subjectivity. He is very existentialist. So... This is what I experience, this is what I am, truth is the way that I think it is, and there is no objective rational or there is no objective universal truth. So these are our philosophers and their sense of self.
After this class, you will have to decide which of these philosophers you subscribe to. Because as you can see, they actually... They actually negate each other sometimes. And so you have to make your own decision about what your philosophy of self is.
At this point, this ends my talk about part two of the philosophical perspectives.