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Prepared by : Nikka S. Paman
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES OF SELF
PROPONENT PERSPECTIVE OF SELF
PHILOSOPHY
Socrates
Self-knowledge or the examination of one’s self; as well as the question about how one ought to live one’s life, are very important concerns because only by knowing yourself can you hope to improve your life. He believed that you as a person should consciously contemplate, turn your gaze inward, and analyze the true nature and values that are guiding your life. The virtuous man is a happy man, and that virtue alone is the one and only supreme good that will secure his/her happiness.
Plato
The “soul” is indeed the most divine aspect of the human being. However, his concept of the divine is not a spiritual being but rather one that has an intellectual connotation. The self/soul/mind according to Plato is the aspect of the human beings by which the Forms (ideas) are known.
St. Augustine
“self” was an inner, immaterial “I ” that had self-knowledge and self-awareness. He believed that the human being was both a soul and body, and the body possessed senses, such as imagination, memory, reason, and mind through which the soul experienced the world. He believed that the human being who is both soul and body is meant to tend to higher, divine, and heavenly matters because of his/her our capacity to ascend and comprehend truths through the mind.
Rene Descartes
It is constant; it is not prone to change; and it is not affected by time. Only the immaterial soul remains the same throughout time. Immaterial soul is the source of our identity. He further asserted that this thinking entity could exist without the body because it is an immaterial substance. Nevertheless, this immaterial substance (self) possesses a body and is so intimately bound/joined by it that the “self ” forms a union with its body. Despite this body-soul union, Descartes reasoned that the soul is still distinct from the body. He believed that the “self” is identified with consciousness and this “self” consists of
Immanuel Kant
Kant’s view of the “self” is transcendental, which means the “self” is related to a spiritual or nonphysical realm. For Kant, the self is not in the body. The self is outside the body, and it does not have the qualities of the body. Two components of the “self”: 1. Inner self. The “self” by which you are aware of alterations in your own state. This includes your rational intellect and your psychological state, such as moods, feelings, and sensations, pleasure, and pain. 2. Outer self. It includes your senses and the physical world. It is the common boundary between the external world and the inner self. It gathers information from the external world through the senses, which the inner self interprets and coherently expresses.
Sigmund Freud
Believed that man has different constructs of personality that provides an idea how a person develops a sense of self. He believed that we are a by-product of our experiences in the past and that are actions are driven by the idea of resisting or avoiding pain, and are molded from our need for pleasure or being happy. According to Ryle, the rationalist view that mental acts are distinct from physical acts
Gilbert Ryle
and that there is a mental world distinct from the physical world is a misconception. Ryle’s view, your actions define your own concept of “self” (who you,are).
Paul Churchland
Churchland’s view the immaterial, unchanging soul/self does not exist because it cannot be experienced by the senses. Churchland asserted the sense of “self” originated from the brain itself, and that this “self” is a product of electrochemical signals produced by the brain.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
He asserted that human beings are embodied subjectivities, and that the understanding of the “self” should begin from this fundamental fact. According to Merleau-Ponty, the body acts what the mind perceives as a unified one.
SOCIOLOGY
Believed the “self” is not present at birth; rather it develops over time through social experiences and activities. Mead developed a concept that proposed different stages of self-development. These
Joseph LeDoux
Catherine Raeff
believed that culture can influence how you view: relationships, personality traits, achievement, and expressing emotions.
PSYCHOLOGY
Jean Piaget
cognitive development is a progressive reorganization of mental processes resulting from biological maturation and environmental experience. He believes that children construct an understanding of the world around them, experience inconsistencies between what they already know and what they discover in their environment, and then adjust their ideas accordingly detailed the emergence of self-concept and asserted that the broad developmental changes observed across early childhood, later childhood, and adolescence could be interpreted within a Piagetian framework
Dr. Susan Harter
William James
the “self” has two elements: the I-self and the Me-self l-self is the pure ego. It is the subjective self. It is the “self” that' is aware of its ownactions, The l-se lf characteristically has four features The me-self is the self that is the object. It is the “self” that you can describe, such as your physical characteristics, personalities, social role, or relationships, thoughts, feelings Rogers stressed that a person is an active, areative, experiencing being who lives in the present and who thinks, feels, and responds to his or her environment all behavior is motivated by selfactualizing tendencies and these tendencies drive you to reach your full potential. He believes that the world a person exists in is the center of constant changes, and the person reacts to these changes
- Further divided the self into two categories: the ‘ideal self and the real self. The ideal self is the person that you would like yourself to be; it is your concept of the “best me” who is worthy of admiration. It is an idealized image of self that the individual has developed based on what you have has learned and experienced The real self is the person you actually are. It is how you behave right at the moment of a situation. It is who you are in reality - how you
Gordon Allport
a “trait" is your essential characteristic that never, ever changes and sticks with you all your life. Moreover, these traits shape who you are (how you think, feel, or behave, etc.) in any given day
Eric Berne
develop his transactional analysis model as basis for understanding behavior. Transactional analysis is anchored on two notions: 1. Every person has three parts called “ego states” in his or her personality. 2. People communicate with one another assuming roles of any of these ego states. Berne presented the ego states as:
- Parent- The parent ego state is the voice of authority
- Adult- The Adult ego state is the rational person
- Child- There are there child who states:
- Natural Child who loves to play but is sensitive and vulnerable
- Little Professor is the curious child who wants to try everything
- Adaptive Child is the one who reacts to the world. proposed that the human self has three related, but separable, domains. These domains are: 1. Experiential self; He described the “experiential self” as the theater of consciousness because it is the first to experience its bein gn ess (the state or fact of existing). He added that the experiential self is closely tied to memory. 2. Private self-conscious;
Gregg Henriques
The “private self-conscious" can be described as the narrator or interpreter. It is the self that narrates the unfolding events and at the same time tries to make sense of the experience. 3. Public self/persona The “public self or persona” is the image you project to the public. This is the image that interacts with others and will influence how others see you.
D. W. Winnicott
He introduced his concept of “false self” and "true self” The false self is the product of early experience. It is a defensive organization formed by the infant because of inadequate mothering or failures in empathy. True self flourishes in infancy if the mother is positively responsive to the child’s spontaneous expressions. Winnicott described true self as a sense of “self” based on “spontaneous authentic experience.” It is an awareness that bodily functions are working, such as the heart pumping, as well as simply breathing. The “self” is simply “the person who is me” He also proposed that the healthy core of a healthy person’s self is hidden from the outside world, uninfluenced by external (harsh) realities.
WESTERN CONCEPT OF SELF
He believed that the body constitutes individuality. The individual was the focus of Renaissance thought, with Descartes’ famous “I think, therefore I am” as the epitome of
Sacred Hindu texts
The true nature of humans is described as “Brahman” which is the divine universal consciousness encompassing the universe. The Brahman is the Self that is all within us
Buddhist traditions
The “self” is not an entity, a substance, or essence. Rather, the “self” is a dynamic process. It is interdependent and ever changing. The Buddha taught a doctrine called anatta ,which is often defined as “no- self or no-soul.” Annata is a concept that the sense of being a permanent, autonomous “self” is an illusion. It is the teaching that there is no eternal, unchanging “self/soul” inhabiting our bodies or living our lives Holds that the human being’s inborn erroneous view of “self” as an enduring entity is the cause of his/her suffering because he/she tries to hold on to that which is in constant flux (constantly flowing or constantly changing) and has no existence outside of shifting contexts The quest for the “self” in terms of substance, of spirit, of body, or of essence does not exist Confucius wrote about the concept of “self” is that of personality. The qualities that form a person’s character are not something that
Confucianism
exists inherently. Confucian philosophy presented the idea that every person is born with four beginnings. However, these do not yet comprise the concept of “self” but when perceived together, it could be explained in Western terms as a “pre-self” or a “potential self.” These four beginnings are: • Heart of compassion that leads to Jen ; • Heart of righteousness that leads to Yi; • Heart of propriety that leads to Li; and • Heart of wisdom that leads to Chih
Chuang-tzu
Reject a hierarchical view of the self, society, or cosmos. Does not regard the “self” as an extension of (or defined by) social relationship. But self is an extension of the cosmos (or the universe seen as a well-ordered whole). The perfect man has no self, the spiritual man has no achievement, the true sage (wise) has no name.
Individualistic Self
“I am my own man”. “ I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul”. - Believing that it is the person who determines how or she lives his/her life.
