Philosophical Definition of the Self
SOCRATES
The unexamined life is not worth living.” According to him, in order to protect human being from the shallowness of their lives, one must examine his/her life for this is the duty of life bound to develop self-knowledge and a self that is dignified with values and integrity.
Plato
The psyche is composed of three elements; the appetitive, spirited, and the mind.
St. Augustine
Man can only attain true happiness by recognizing the love of the Supreme Being or the Divine.
Rene Descartes
His famous “cogito ergo sum” which is translated into “I think therefore, I am” or “I doubt therefore I exist” analytically explains the fact that one thinks should lead one to conclude without a trace of doubt that he exists.
John Locke
The individual person is not only capable of learning from experiences but also skillful to process different perceptions from various experiences.
The self is comparable to an empty space.
David Hume
There cannot be a persisting idea of the Self.
Asserted that as long as we only derive our knowledge from sense of impressions, there will be no “self”.
Immanuel Kant
These are the apparatuses of the mind.
Sigmund Freud
The “I” will continue to change overtime therefore it will never be the same.
Divide the “I” into conscious and the unconscious which he calls the censorship so that the conscious be left in its own.
Gilbert Ryle
The thinking “I” will never be found because it is just a “ghost in the machine”.
Merleau-ponty
The mind and body are so intertwined and they cannot be separated from one another.