UTS

• Philosophy plays a crucial role in understanding the concept of self.
• The self can be viewed in three ways: as innate, emergent, and integrated and developing.
• The self is an important quality of humans that is present upon birth and that self-awareness is natural, as per the view of self that includes the philosophies of Socrates, Plato, Augustine, and Rene Descartes.
• The self is an outcome of interaction with the physical as well as the social world, according to the view of self that includes the empiricist perspectives of Aristotle, John Locke, and David Hume.
• The self has various components that undergo change through time, as per the view of self that includes the phenomenological perspectives of Immanuel Kant, Gilbert Ryle, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s The Phenomenology of Perception.
• Different philosophical views of the self include Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Rene Descartes, John Locke, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Sigmund Freud, Gilbert Ryle, Paul Churchland, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
• Socrates inspired the youth of Athens to “know thyself” and discover the importance of their souls by continuous questioning called as the Socratic Method.
• Socrates equates knowledge with virtue and ignorance with vice.
• Plato, a student of Socrates, proposed the Theory of Forms, which suggests that the world of Forms (nonphysical ideas) is separate from the world of Sense.
• Aristotle, another student of Plato, suggests that anything with life has a soul and identifies the threefold nature of man as Vegetative (physical body), Sentient (sensation & emotion), and Rational (intellect).
• Augustine, an early Christian philosopher, integrated the ideas of Plato and the teachings of the Catholic Church and contemplated that the soul is an essential element which governs and defines the human person.
• Rene Descartes, the father of Modern Philosophy, is considered as a Rationalist and proposed Mind-Body Dualism, stating that the mind and body are distinct entities and co-existent.
• The self is embodied subjectivity, according to Merleau-Ponty.
• The goal of psychoanalysis is to release repressed emotions and experiences to overcome self-defeating behavior, as per Freud.
• Paul Churchland, a Canadian philosopher, is a proponent of Eliminative Materialism, which maintains that the self is inseparable from the brain and the physiology of the body.
• Sensory experience is the source of all knowledge for David Hume, a Scottish philosopher, according to Bundle Theory (Lack of Self).
• The self contains repressed memories and emotions, and instinctual drives, according to Freud.
• Perception is not merely a consequence of sensory experience; rather, it is a conscious experience, as per Merleau-Ponty.
• John Locke, an English philosopher, postulated that the human mind at birth is a blank slate or tabula rasa.
• Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher, harmonized the contradicting ideas of rationalists and empiricists.
• Sigmund Freud, an Austrian psychoanalyst, proposed that the self is multilayered: Conscious, Preconscious, Unconscious.
• Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a French phenomenological philosopher, stated that the consciousness, the world, and the human body are intricately intertwined in perceiving the world.
• Gilbert Ryle, a British philosopher, stated that the mind and body are intrinsically linked; mental states and bodily actions are one and the same.
• Rene Descartes is known for his statement “Cogito ergo sum” (I think, therefore, I am).