Marmoleño, Lianne Remie Charisse T.

BS Economics 1B
Understanding The Self
In your own words, state what “self” is for each of the following philosophers. After doing so,
explain how your concept of “self” is compatible with how they conceived of the “self”.

1. Socrates
Socrates' self is the individual self, not as someone detached from surrounding reality, but in it's
quite unreflected relationship to nature and society.
My understanding to Socrates’ definition of self is that we do not disconnect from reality and
that we should know who we really are since society will always have their definition of ourselves.
2. Plato
Plato, defined the soul as the core essence of a living being, but argued against its having a
separate existence.
Like what people would say that we can define ourselves through our values.
3. Augustine
Augustine's sense of self is his relation to God, both in his recognition of God's love and his
response to it—achieved through self-presentation, then self-realization. Augustine believed one
could not achieve inner peace without finding God's love.
I think this is at least a practice of self-love on how you present your personality onto others and
showing your true potential may it be talent, teachings, or platforms.
4. Descartes
Descartes believed the mind is the seat of our consciousness. Because it houses our drives,
intellect, and passions, it gives us our identity and our sense of self.
It is our mind that tells us who we are, how we are as a human being or as an individual. we
know the existence of the mind better than we know the existence of body.
5. Hume
Hume argues that our concept of the self is a result of our natural habit of attributing unified
existence to any collection of associated parts.
It is when we consider first impressions of ourselves from others that gives us the concept of
ourselves and that it is a just a bundle chain-like perception about ourselves from other people.
6. Kant
According to Kant, both of these theories are incomplete when it comes to the self. According to
him, we all have an inner and an outer self which together form our consciousness. The inner self is
comprised of our psychological state and our rational intellect. The outer self includes our sense and
the physical world.
It is somehow similar to Hume’s theory of self since of course they both tackle about our minds,
Kant says that we are who we are through the recognition of duties that are owed to oneself. And
that we are open to self-improvements because of the world that we experience and we get to learn
from it.
7. Ryle
Ryle believed that self comes from behavior. We're all just a bundle of behaviors caused by the
physical workings of the body.
It says that we are all just a bundle of behaviors caused by the physical working of the body, I
think that we become who we are also through our emotions that can cause through our behaviors
and that we experience it because of struggles and/or achievements.
8. Merleau-Ponty
Merleau-Ponty believed the physical body to be an important part of what makes up the
subjective self. This concept stands in contradiction to rationalism and empiricism. Rationalism
asserts that reason and mental perception, rather than physical senses and experience, are the basis
of knowledge and self.
Like what I have just said, it is through mental or physical experiences that changes us, as
individuals, and that would be the basis of ourselves why we are who we are.