Self in Philosophical Perspective

“ I think, therefore I am.”

• Socrates

• David Hume

• Rene Descartes

• Gilbert Ryle

“The mind is an iceberg. It floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water.”

• Aristotle

• Immanuel Kant

• Sigmund Freud

• John Locke

“Know thyself.”

• Socrates

• Plato

• Aristotle

• Rene Descartes

Everyone started as a blank state, and the content is provided by one’s experiences over time (tabula rasa).

• Gilbert Ryle

• Socrates

• David Hume

• John Locke

There is an inner self (One’s psychological state and intellect) and outer self (one’s senses and the physical world.

• Paul Churchland

• Maurice Merleau-Ponty

• Edmund Husserl

• Immanuel Kant

A neuroscientist who states that it is the physical brain and not the imaginary mind comprises the self.

• Paul Churchland

• Immanuel Kant

• John Locke

• David Humes

The more a person knows, the greater his or her ability to reason and make choices that will bring tru happiness.

• Aristotle

• Socrates

• Immanuel Kant

• Gilbert Ryle

He advocates that the mind has 2 fundamental capacities: receptivity and spontaneity.

• Sigmund Freud

• Immanuel Kant

• Paul Churchland

• Maurice Merleau-Ponty

He distinguished the body into 2 types: subjective body and objective body.

• Socrates

• Gilbert Ryle

• Plato

• Maurice Merleau-Ponty

He considered self to be founded in consciousness or memory and not on substance of either soul and body.

• John Locke

• David Hume

• Edmund Husserl

• Rene Descartes