Philosophical perspective of self

• Socrates believed that the real self is not the physical body, but rather the psyche or soul
• Plato's view on the self:

  • The psyche is composed of three components:

  1. Appetitive element includes desires, pleasures, physical satisfactions, comfort, etc.

  2. Spirited element is excited when given challenges, fights back when agitated, or fights for justice when unjust practices are evident.

  3. Mind is the most superior element, referred to as nous, which means the conscious awareness of the self
• St. Augustine believed that the development of the self is achieved through self-realization and self-presentation, centered on religious convictions and beliefs
• Rene Descartes' famous quote "I think, therefore I am" or "I doubt, therefore I am" emphasizes human rationality
• Gilbert Ryle's perspective "I act, therefore I am"
• Maurice Merleau-Ponty view the self as a phenomenon of the whole, with a Gestalt understanding of perceptual synthesis
• Patricia Churchland states that the physical brain gives us sense of self
• SIGMUND FREUD

  The self as a product of multiple interacting processes, systems and schemes.

  
  

  Topographical model.

  It is divided into the conscious and unconscious.

  
  

  Structural model.

  1. Id pleasure instinct.

  2. Ego reality principle.

  3. Superego moral principle
• Self defined as "a unified being, essentially connected to consciousness, awareness, and agency (or, at least, with the faculty of rational choice.
• Immanuel Kant state that the self is always transcendental. Self is not the body, it is outside the body and even outside the qualities of the body - meaning transcendent.
• Philosophy comes from two Greek words philos meaning love and sophos meaning wisdom or knowledge. The mother of all disciplines simply because all fields of study began as philosophical discourses.