WORK TEXT IN GE 09

UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

PREPARED BY:
CHERYL F. OLVIDA RICOH JAE U. MATERUM
FRANCIS DAVE N. MABBORANG MARK JOSEPH L. ARIMAS
 GE 09 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
APAYAO STATE COLLEGE VISION, MISSION, GOALS AND
OBJECTIVES
Vision

“Empowering lives and communities through stewardship for cultural sensitivity

and biodiversity”

Mission

Apayao State College is committed to provide empowering and holistic

development of citizens by providing quality and innovative instruction, strong
research, responsive community engagement and entrepreneurship in order to
prime the development of Apayao Province, the Cordillera Administrative
Region.

ASC OBJECTIVES
ASC GOALS • To elevate quality access and
• Transformative and relevance for instruction
empowering education • To strengthen research and
• Increase capacity and development and extension
performance in research and capability, outcomes and impact
innovation. • Strengthen partnership and
• Create a significant and highly institutional linkages to increase
visible development impact in the regional impact of ASC
the region. extension program.
• Generate additional resources • Increase productivity and income
for strategic of ASC
investmentEDUCATION CURRICULUM
GOALS OF GENERAL
programs and initiatives • Enhance governance and
• Transparent, responsive, organization and management
unifying and empowering system, processes and
In general environment.
education the holistic development
governance. of the person takes place in
overlapping realms:

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 GE 09 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
• Individual where the student is enabled to develop her/his identity as a
person, conscious of his/her talents, rights, and responsibilities toward the
self and others;
• Filipino society and nation, where the individual is aware and proud of
her/his collective identity, and able to contribute meaningfully to the
development of Filipino society at local and national levels;
• Global community where the Filipino student recognizes and respects the
fundamental humanity of all, respects and appreciates diversity, and cares
about the problems that affect the world

COURSE OUTLINE

WEEK TOPICS
NUMBER
Week 1 Mission , Vission, Goals and Objectives of Apayao State
College.
Week 2-4 THE SELF FROM VARIOUS PERSPECTIVE
a. Philosophy
b. Sociology
c. Anthropology
d. Psychology
Week 5-8 UNPACKING THE SELF
a. The Physical Self
b. Sexual Self
c. The Material/Economic Self
Week 9 MIDTERM EXAMINATION
Week d. The Spiritual self
10-11 e. The Political self
Week f. Ethnic Identity
12-14 g. The Digital self
Week MANAGING AND CARING FOR THE SELF
15-16 a. Learning to be a better student
b. Setting goals for success

Week 17 c. Taking charge of one’s health

Week 18 FINAL EXAMINATION

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Instructor’s Note
Good day! I hope that this module finds you healthy and safe during this
pandemic. I admired you for pursuing your education even in this time of health
crisis. You just proved that there is no greater hindrance to a student who is
determined to step up in education and learn. Keep doing it. Your journey to
your education will be an inspiration to a thousand of students coming to school.

I am excited to be part of your journey to your dreams. Though you can’t

come to school and attend classes, I am happy to tell you that I can still assist you
in this subject. I am your instructor, MARK JOSEPH L. ARIMAS. If you needed
help to understand the topic and have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact
me in my g-mail, [email protected] or you may message me on my
messenger or thru this number, 09151585138 , I am available to during eight in
the morning until five in the afternoon. If you have no load, I will do my best to
attend to you immediately.
This module/ work text you are holding I prepared is free. I made this
module as one of the support for your learning. But as an instructor, it’s not just me
who is making an effort, I also need your cooperation and support for this subject.
Please read this module in your convenient or available time and contact me if you
have any queries. Answer the activities given and please send it back to me. When
activities are being send back to me with your answers, it means that you are willing
to learn and being cooperative in this subject. Don’t worry, I will send back your
activities with answers. I hope that this cycle will go on until the last day of the
semester ends. When this cycle continues, you and I will not have any problems in
the future until your graduation.
I pray for God’s provision, protection and wisdom over your life. May you
continue to learn and inspire others despite this crisis.

Truly yours,

MARK JOSEPH L. ARIMAS

GE Instructor

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 GE 09 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

CHAPTER I

LESSON I PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES OF THE SELF

Learning Outcomes
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
1. explain why it is essential to understand the self;
2. describe and discuss the different notions of the self from the points-of-view
of the various philosophers across time and place;
3. compare and contrast how the self has been represented in different
philosophical schools; and

READINGS:
The history of philosophy particularly the western philosophy is replete
with men and women who inquired into the fundamental nature of self. A with the
question of the primary substratum that defines the multiplicity of things in the
world, the inquiry on the self has preoccupied the earliest thinkers in the history of
western philosophy: the Greeks. The Greeks were the ones who started to seriously
question myths and then moved away from them in attempting to understand reality
and responded to the perennial questions of curiosity, including the question of the
self.
Philosophy comes from the greek words “Philos” and “Sophia” meaning
love for wisdom
-It is the study of acquiring knowledge through rational thinking and inquiries that
involves in answering questions regarding the nature and existence of man and the
world we live in
The Process of Discovering the “Self”
often, we struggle in our lifetime to search for our “identity” and our “core
being”. The greatest challenge happens during the period of adolescence as we go
through “surge of hormonal imbalance”. The search for our true identity is a process
of learning, re-learning and unlearning the lessons that we acquire from the teaching
of life. Discovering and re-discovering the self becomes a complex procedure that
we need to undergo to finally find our genuine “self” and individuality. This life
learning is a continuous flux, an unending adventure onto the realms of life’s

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complexities. Everything that we embrace in this learning experience is part of our
meaningful evolution.

(THE JOHARI WINDOW: GETTING TO KNOW “THE SELF”)

The Johari Window model was developed in 1955 at the University of

California Los Angeles by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham who are both
American psychologists. This model allows participants to understand themselves
well and their corresponding relationship with the significant others through the
four quadrants determining traits relative to one’s self and other’s judgement.

Determining the Four Quadrants

The Arena – These are the traits or descriptions that one sees in the “self” similar
to that perceived by the significant others. Example of this is being outgoing and
sociable. This is also known as the public self as it is evident to the self and
others.

Façade – These are traits that are known to the self but not to the significant others.
An example includes being emotional and sensitive despite being a man. This
quadrant is also known to be the hidden quadrant as it covers those that we desire
not to expose to others.

Blind Spot – This includes traits that the subject is unaware of but the significant
others claim to be possessed by the subject. This quadrant covers those that others
perceive to characterize the subject such as being down to earth and soft spoken.

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Unknown – This quadrant cover traits that both parties do not recognize and
consider as comprising the subject traits. This is mystery that waits to unfold in the
proper time. Such ideally means that there is still much that needs to be discovered
in the individual self as we go through the process of discovering our unique
identity.

SOCRATES
Socrates as an enigmous figure of the Philosophy
➢ Socrates is probably the most mysterious figure of Western philosophy.
Socrates is both the most famous philosopher and one about we know
almost nothing.
➢ First martyr of education, knowledge and philosophy
➢ born in Attica (-470) and died in Athens (-399)
➢ His father was a sculptor and his mother a midwife. Charged with corruption
of minors
➢ Made to choose between exile and death via the intake of hemlock
➢ Died as a martyr that fought against ignorance and narrow-mindedness
➢ Socrates wrote nothing, his thoughts have been transmitted by his pupil
Plato.
The philosophy of Socrates:
➢ His philosophy underlies in the importance of the notion “KNOWING
ONESELF”
➢ Socrates is found wherever people are massaged, posing as one “who knows
nothing”, asking people what they think they know and destroying their
illusions and false knowledge, pushing them to think for themselves. For
example, it will show the hero Laches he does not know what the courage
or the politicians they misunderstand the essence of politics. It speaks of
Socratic irony, since Socrates seeks to awaken, or deliver the souls as he
says himself. But his teaching is condemned by his contemporaries, which
the judge and push him to drink hemlock. But in this event (which reflects
Plato in the Apology of Socrates), Socrates accepts his conviction,
continues to talk and die in serenity. This death, copy, Hegel will say that
Socrates is a “Hero of Humanity”. Socrates bases his philosophy on the

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ruthless criticism of human opinions, what will become a model for all
Western thought.
➢ For him, men’s goal in life is to obtain HAPPINESS
o Happiness motivates us to act towards or avoid things that could
have negative effects in our lives.
o As such, by fully knowing oneself a person will be able to achieve
happiness
THE PERSON IS COMPOSED OF BODY AND SOUL AND THE SOUL IS THE
TRUE SELF
➢ Possession of knowledge is a virtue: Ignorance is a depravity (evil,
corruption and wickedness)
o A person’s acceptance of ignorance is the beginning of acquisition
of knowledge
o Knowing ourselves, lies in our own abilities and wisdom
o Understanding ourselves is through internal questioning or
introspection (understanding our likes and dislikes, our strengths
and weaknesses)
➢ Use of SOCRATIC METHOD
o CONVERSTAION
o Role of both teacher and student is known to the world, asking and
answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out
ideas and underlying presumptions)
PLATO
➢ Plato was a Greek philosopher known and recognized for having allowed
such a considerable philosophical work.
➢ The sensible world, according to Plato is the world of contingent, contrary
to the intelligible world, which contains essences or ideas, intelligible
forms, models of all things, saving the phenomena and give them meaning.
➢ At the top of Essences is the idea of Good, which surpasses in dignity and
power: the supreme principle is identical with the divine.
o Student of Socrates
o He wrote several literatures that tackles politics, human nature and
established the idea of virtue and intelligence

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o Father of academy (a place where learning and sharing of
knowledge happens; later became one of the pillars and basis of
what schools and education is now in the present)
o Followed the idea of Socrates in knowing thyself
o Notable works are:
▪ Allegory of the cave
▪ The apology
▪ Perfect Government and societal system
▪ The republic (here je said that the world can only be led by
a philosopher king, a person who is virtuous, as well as
intelligent)
➢ According to him, a person who is a follower of truth and wisdom will be
tempted by vices and will always be correct/moral/ethical
➢ He believed in the division of a person’s body and soul which forms the
person as a whole aside from the material things and that could be observed
and associated with a person
➢ Believed that the soul is divided into 3 different parts that has different
views, leading to different behaviors.
o Appetitive soul – the part of the person that is driven by desire and
need to satisfy oneself. This satisfaction involves physical needs and
pleasures and desires, objects and situations.
o Spirited soul – courageous part of a person. One who wants to do
something or to right the wrongs that they observe. This is very
competitive and is very active. Competitiveness drives one to expect
positive results and winning.
o RATIONAL SOUL- the drive of our lives that part that thinks and
plan for the future (conscious mind). It decided what to do, when to
do it and the possible results one could have depending on their
actions.
ST. AUGUSTINE
➢ A saint and a philosopher of the church
➢ Follows that idea that God encompasses us all, that everything will
be better if we are with God

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➢ Believe that God and his teachings affects various aspects in life
(that everything is better if we devote ourselves in mending our
relationship with GOD)
➢ His idea of a man and how to understand who we are as a person is
related to our understanding of who we are and how we question
ourselves.
➢ Relates our existence to God being modelled in his likeness
though being alive means that we are still far from GOD and
has yet to be truly with him.
➢ Rejected the doubtness of the academy in which one cannot or
should not accept ideas from others.
➢ Emphasized that we may not be able to give our agreement to
everything other people tell us but we can still agree to those who
are from our own perception
➢ Think is right or wrong based from our perception
➢ Our notion of ourselves and our idea of existence comes from a
higher form of sense in which bodily senses may not perceive or
understand and the more one doubts and questions his life means
that the person is actually living
➢ Teaching of the church and establishing our sense of self with
GOD identifies the essence of our existence and role in the world
(The reason for this is because our bodies are limited)
➢ We need to established relationship with God through being
virtuous
➢ The body and soul… the body is the imperfect form nature and the
soul is the one we should work with to achieve Christ likeness.
RENE DESCARTES-
➢ Rene Descartes is the most famous french philosopher.
➢ Indeed, Descartes got nice charts of works to his credit … among the best
known:
o Rules for directions of the mind (1628)
o Discourse on Method, Preface to the Dioptric, the Meteors, and
Geometry (1637)

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o Meditations on First Philosophy (1641)
o Principles of Philosophy (1644)
o The Passions of the Soul (1649)
➢ Descartes founded the modern rationalism, he pressed it to the forces of
reason and evidence in order to achieve the real safely, the purpose of
knowledge is to “make us like the master and possessors of nature “.
o ACCORDING TO HIM , a person is comprised of MIND (thinks
and question or doubt what the body has experienced) and BODY (
perceives from the different senses)
o Body and its perception cannot be fully trusted or can easily be
deceived ( for example: there are times that we feel that a dream is
real before actually waking up or having different perception of size
based on an objects distance from the viewer)
o We should focus on the mind in order to perceive as who we are or
the essence of our existence because we cannot always trust our
senses
o Explained that the more we think and doubt what we perceived from
our senses and the answer that came from such thinking or doubting
lead to better understanding of ourselves
o Being in constant doubt regarding one’s existence is proof that a
person actually exist

JOHN LOCKE
➢ English philosopher and physician
➢ Considered the father of classical liberation
➢ - his works paved the way to several revolutions to fight the absolute powers
of monarchs and rulers of his time that led to the development of
governance, Politics and economic system that we now know.
➢ Locke teaches that man has no innate idea in theory and in practice. Our
ideas come from two sources: sensation and reflection.Simple ideas, the
most obvious because they look like their subject, are provided by the
senses, they concern the physical space, body shape, its rest or movement.

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Those that we are by our power of reflection are the thoughts and wills. The
error can arise with judgments that our understanding operates.
Complex ideas are the result of work of the mind, achieved by construction
and composition from simple ideas. First there is the ideas of simple modes,
space or time: we can always add length to a line, a time to time.
➢ Work on the self is most represented by the concept “ TABULARASA” (
BLANK SHEET)
➢ The experiences and the perceptions of a person is important in the
establishment of who that person can become.
➢ He does not disregard the experiences of the person in the identification and
establishment of who we are as a person.
➢ Stated that a person is born with knowing nothing and that is
susceptible to stimulation and accumulation of learning from the
experiences, failures, references and observations of the person.

DAVID HUME
➢ David Hume, a british and empiricist philosopher, wrote essentially the
following works:
o Treatise of Human Nature (1740)
o Essays Concerning Human Understanding ((1748)
o Natural History of Religion (1757)
➢ In summary, David Hume criticized the dogmatic rationalism of the
seventeenth century and brought the principle of causality in the subjective
opinion. His criticism will pave the way for Kant and a new way to
philosophize.
➢ Hume: psychic impressions and ideas
➢ David Hume is empiricist in his view, human knowledge is derived, as a
whole, of sensory experience (experience is the key word of this great figure
of the eighteenth century English).
➢ All that is in me, these are perceptions, by which Hume refers to all the
events constituting the life of the mind, these perceptions may themselves
be classified into two broad categories:

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o Impressions: perceptions brightly in us entering with force and
violence (feelings, emotions, …)
o The ideas, which represent, in Hume, pictures driving impressions.
➢ Impressions and ideas follow one another relentlessly, in me, combine and
associate themselves, by virtue of their similarity or contiguity.
➢ The whole psychic life can be explained by the association of ideas, a sort
of attraction existing in the world of spirit: it designates this property that
representations be called, or evoked by train each other, without any
intervention of the will.
➢ All operations were due to the mental game of association of ideas.
➢ Focused his work in field of empiricism, skepticism and naturalism.
➢ Self is accumulation of different impressions and does not exceed the
physical realm.
➢ There is no permanent self because impressions of things are based fro our
experiences where we can create our ideas and knowledge . thus it may
improve or totally be replaced.
➢ Example: if the neighbor you know your entire life to be happy and have a
positive outlook suddenly looked sad and discontented can we say that the
person you seeing is not your neighbor anymore?

THE PERSONAL IDENTITY PROBLEM IN PHILOSOPHY

➢ The personal identity is a huge philosophical problem, notably explored
by empiricist philosophers, such as David Hume. Who am i ? Am i the same
person over time ?
What is identity?
➢ The identity, as opposed to difference, to otherness, is the character of what,
in absolute or relative, can be considered as a unit.
➢ There is no entity without identity: for all A, A = A.
➢ We traditionally distinguish three types of identity:
o The substantial identity and digital identity
Ex: The Morning Star is numerically identical to the Evening Star.
This is Venus.

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o The specific identity and qualitative identity, being the same kind of
being.
Ex: All things belong to the same species have common
characteristics that make them similar in some aspects (although
they are numerically distinct).
o The identity through time, be a permanent being despite apparent
changes.
What is personal identity?
➢ Personal identity is what remains the same over time in a person.
➢ But personal identity implies to have a conscious of this permanence.
➢ Uniqueness: be UNIQUE (originality or personality, in terms of qualitative
identity)
What is the criterion of identity over time?
➢ Physiological continuity? (Having the same body)
➢ Psychological continuity? (Having the same memories)
➢ The construction of identity is a process still incomplete, always fragile,
always resumed. “I is another” (Rimbaud)
Identity / Equality / Difference
➢ Some questions
Situation 1: Noah’s Ark
Legend has it that after the flood, Noah’s Ark will be stranded on
Mount Caucasus. Suppose that, with careful maintenance, the arch has been
preserved to this day. However, following successive repairs made
necessary by the ravages of time, no more ironing, no more nails, no more
original material of the arch have been preserved.

Is this the same arch?

Situation 2: even Noah’s Ark

Suppose that after the flood, because they had not even use, the Ark
has been dismantled by Noah. From Noah’s Ark, all that remains is a pile
of planks and other materials.

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Can you show the job and say “Here is the Noah’s Ark”?

Situation 3: Always Noah’s Ark

From this pile of planks, it was a shack. Is it still Noah’s Ark?

Situation 4: The Prince and the Beggar

English empiricist philosopher of the seventeenth. century, John Locke, had
imagined the following story:
Once upon a time, a young prince who was bored to death in his
magnificent palace. Every day at the palace gate, a young beggar was
begging. The two young people had about the same age and were very
similar. The beggar envied the wealth of the prince, the prince envied the
freedom of the beggar. They became friends and one day, the magician’s
palace granted their wish: the memories and thoughts of the prince ended
up in the body of the beggar, free to come and go in the city, the memories
and thoughts of beggar found themselves in the body of the prince, between
the pampered palace walls.

After the exchange of body, which is the true prince, who is the real beggar?

Situation 5: Who am I? The criterion of continuity spatitemporelle

It is generally to say that despite the changes, I was, I am and I will
always be the same person of my birth to my death. However, since I was
born, every cell in my body have been renewed several times.
What makes me say, however, that it’s me, the same person who
was born, who grew up that old, who will die? What makes you say the
same thing?

Situation 6: Who am I? The criterion of psychological continuity

I had a serious accident and I was suffering from amnesia. On what basis do
I have or not keep the same identity?

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➢ In Hume’s philosophy, even the idea of causality, so important for science
and metaphysics, is reduced to an ordinary association of ideas.
➢ If I say that a rise in air pressure causes rainfall (effect), what is the meaning
of this statement?
o I associate two ideas based on habit.
o Thus, the question refers only, in Hume, a “constant antecedent,”
fruit of the association and habit.
➢ Reading Hume profoundly shook Kant. Troubled by this skeptical
empiricism, Kant will forge a new method: Hume took me out of my
“dogmatic slumber” that will be the cry of Kant in the Prolegomena to
any future metaphysics that will want to present it as science.

IMMANUEL KANT
➢ German philosopher that is known for his works on empiricism and
rationalism
➢ Established that the collection of impressions and different content is what
it only takes to define a person.
➢ Awareness of different emotions that we have, impressions and
behavior is only a part of ourself.
➢ To fully understand the self, a certain level of consciousness or sense that
uses our intuition which synthesizes all the experiences, impressions and
perceptions of our selves will pave the way to define and know who we are
really ARE.
➢ ARGUED THAT THE SENSE CALLED “TRANSCENDENTAL
APPERCEPTION” IS AN ESSENCE OF OUR consciousness that
provides basis for understanding and establishing the notion of self by
synthesizing one’s accumulation of experiences. Intuition and
imagination.
➢ We experience but still be able to become aware of
➢ For example: the idea of time and space, we may not be able to observe the
movement of time and vastness of space but we are still capable of
understanding their concept based from what we can observe as their
representation.

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➢ The idea of self are not only an object that perceives and react to whatever
it is that we are experiencing; we also have the capabilities to understand
beyond those experiences and be able to think and have a clear identification
who we are and establish a sense of self that is unique and distinct from
others.

Kant’s Philosophy: Metaphysic, Aesthetic and Ethics

➢ Immanuel Kant, German philosopher, has written a very abundant
philosophy, among:
o Critique of Pure Reason (first edition 1781, 2nd edition, 1787)
o Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783)
o Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)
o Critique of Practical Reason (1788)
o Critique of Judgement (1790)
o Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view (1798)
➢ Kant‘s philosophical project can be summarized as following : taking
man out its wild nature
o His metaphysical nature: Kant has restored limits to reason, but at the
same time ennobled human reason.
o His moral nature: the man pulling his primary passions (selfishness
and special interest)
o His aesthetic nature: freeing the senses, man must acquire the ability
to judge beauty.
o His political nature: exit states from their state of nature that would
bring them to the mutual annihilation to build a project of perpetual
peace.
➢ Kant asked three questions, which his entire work has sought to answer:
o What do I know?
o What should I do?
o What am I allowed to hope?

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1. Kant and Knowledge: A critique of reason
➢ What do I know? To answer this question, Kant operates a critical
examination of reason, determining what it can do and what it is incapable
of doing.
➢ Reason, in the broadest sense, refers to Kant, all that in mind, is a priori and
not from experience.
o It is theoretical (pure reason) or when related to speculative knowledge.
o She is practical (practical reason) when considered as containing the
rule of morality (this reason, in the broadest sense, is distinguished, in
Kant, reason, in the narrow sense, as the human faculty to higher unit).
o Kant here makes a critique of speculative reason: it is not a critical
skeptic, but a review of the use, scope and limits of reason.
o Practicing this approach, Kant notes that mathematics and physics went
into the safe route of science on the day they ceased to be empirical to
recognize the primacy of rational demonstration.
o Metaphysics should build on this method so fruitful.
o Here takes place the famous notion of Copernican revolution: just as
Copernicus assumed that the Earth revolved around the sun and not vice
versa, as Kant admits that it is our right to know who holds the
knowledge, not objects that determine it.
2. Kant, Space, Time and Categories
➢ This mean that we can apprehend the world through the a priori elements.
o The term “a priori” means, here, which is independent of experience.
o Thus, space and time are they past experience: they are a priori forms of
sensibility, that is to say structures from the subject and intuitive for
ordering objects out of us and in us.
➢ But this is not everything and, to a second level of organization, concept
this time, the objects must be designed, organized by intellectually
understanding, linking faculty sensations through the categories or pure
concepts, instruments to unify the material:
o Unity, Plurality, Totality (categories of quantity)
o Reality, Negation, Limitation (categories of quality)

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o Substance and accident, Causality and Dependence, Community
(Relationship types)
o Possibility, Impossibility, Existence, Non-existence, Necessity and
Contingency (categories of modality.
3. Kant: A transcendental point of view
➢ This analysis is conducted of a transcendental point of view: it is not on the
objects themselves, but on how to find and seize them, on a priori elements
and concepts that constitute the experience.
➢ Time, space and categories are in fact the a priori conditions of knowledge
and understanding of the user objects. Without them, no knowledge is
possible.
➢ Distinguish here the transcendental aesthetic, which means, in Kant, the
study of a priori forms of sensibility that are space and time, and
transcendental logic, study of the forms of the understanding, as they are a
priori.
o The logic itself is divided into a summary, which sets the table of pure
concepts and principles, and a dialectic.
4. Kant: Phenomena and noumena
➢ The consequences of these tests are decisive: if the only possible point of
view is transcendental, it deals with the a priori conditions of knowledge, it
follows that the way things are in themselves, ie, ie independently of the
knowledge that we have, can not be apprehended.
➢ What can I, indeed, seize?
o What awaits my perceptual field in the pure forms of sensibility (space
and time e) and under the categories: the field of phenomena.
o The concept of phenomenon means, in effect, for Kant, all objects of
possible experience, that is to say that stupid things for us, regarding our
mode of knowledge, as opposed to the noumenon, the thing so that the
mind can certainly think of, but not know.
o So God is a noumenon, a possible reality, but we can not achieve.

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5. Kant: The ideas of reason
➢ The man, far from being satisfied with access to the phenomena to the
categories of the understanding, develops the ideas of reason (understood
here in the narrow sense, as requiring the highest power unit).
➢ These ideas of reason are concepts which no corresponding object given by
the senses as the Idea of the Soul or God.
o If the idea of reason has a regulative use, and to unify our experience,
however, it is unknowable and can only be grasped intuitively.
➢ Kant explores the ideas of reason (soul, God, freedom) in a large part of the
Critique of Pure Reason, Transcendental Dialectic named party: it means a
critical revealing the misleading appearance of the pretensions of reason
when it tries to leave the field experience to adress the realm of pure
thought, wrongly believing domain independent phenomenal and empirical.
Kant, moral actions and obligations:
➢ We must now answer the question: “What should I do?”
o The answer to Kant is here unequivocally: the only duty is duty.
o What is meant by this term, the duty?
➢ To understand the meaning, let us turn first to the concept of goodwill.
➢ In the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant makes, in fact, an
analysis of the common conscience and notes that, of all that is conceivable
in this world there is nothing that can be viewed without restriction, as
absolutely correct, except goodwill, that is to say an intention absolutely
pure and good without restriction.
o What is it and what exactly is she back?
➢ A pure will, good in itself, means a willingness to do good, not tilt sensitive,
but by duty.
➢ The goodwill we refer to the idea of duty, the categorical imperative, not
hypothetical.
o A hypothetical imperative is when command statement is subject to an
assumption or a condition (eg if you want success, work!)
o He is categorical when he orders unconditionally is when, in itself,
independently of any assumptions and any condition (eg works!).

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o In the first case, the action is a way for a result. In the second, the action
is good in itself: this is a duty.
➢ What is the fundamental formula of duty?
o It sets the universality of the law.
o It simply asserts a universal law, a precept of obligatory character and
commanding to all without restriction.
➢ “Act only according to the maxim that you might want at the same time it
becomes a universal law.”
➢ The second formula relates the duty, in turn, respect the person, to be
reasonable, having an end in itself absolute.
➢ While things are means, people are ends in themselves.
➢ In its second aspect, the practical imperative is defined by respect for the
person, the human subject, which shall in no case be treated as means.
o Obeying the will of the duty is, finally, an autonomous will, finding
itself in its law.
o That is, in Kant, the principle of autonomy, the latter property has to
give itself its own law.
o While heteronomy means obedience to a law not emanating from the
will, autonomy is the fact of obeying its own law.
➢ We can now give a more complete and synthetic duty: it means the
autonomous moral obligation, the necessity to perform an action out of
respect for universal law, without ordering the imperative condition – This
is the concept of duty, central in the philosophy of Kant.

Kant and the religious hope:

➢ It remains now to answer the third question: “What can I expect?
o And this issue concerns the religious hope.
o However, Kant said here that God, freedom and immortality, far from
being demonstrable are postulates, assumptions required by practical
reason.
o For Kant, the hope of another life after death and a God judge, relates,
in fact, a practical requirement. I postulate God, freedom and
immortality: These are beliefs rationally based, asked by an act of faith.

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o I need these assumptions to act morally.
Kant and the Aesthetic: An Analysis of the Judgement of Taste:
➢ The first criticism of Kant is about knowledge, the second on morality, the
third on aesthetics.
➢ Beauty is here analyzed in its relationship to the human subject.
➢ What taste?
o The ability to judge an object or a representation by a clear appreciation
of any interest (“is beautiful, what pleases universally without a
concept”)
o While we pleasant charm, beauty takes us away from empirical
inclination.
o The universality of beauty can distinguish basically what pleases the
senses in the sense of beauty as such.
o Kant also distinguished the beautiful from the sublime: beauty can be
apprehended, while the sublime refers to what is beyond us, which is
infinite.
➢ In all areas, Kant refers to the autonomy and human freedom. The man,
about knowledge, is also autonomous moral agent and author of a
Judgement of Taste disinterested and universal.
CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY
MAURICE JEAN JACQUES MERLEAU-PONTY
➢ French philosopher
➢ Known for his works on existentialism and phenomenology
➢ Self-regarded that the body and mind are not separate entities but
rather those two components is one and the same
➢ A generation after Husserl, the philosopher Maurice Merleau-
Ponty* articulated the phenomenologist position in a simple declaration: “I
live in my body.” By the “lived body,” Merleau-Ponty means an entity that
can never be objectified or known in a completely objective sort of way, as
opposed to the “body as object” of the dualists. For example, when you first
wake up in the morning and experience your gradually expanding
awareness of where you are and how you feel, what are your first thoughts
of the day? Perhaps something along the lines of “Oh no, it’s time to get up,

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but I’m still sleepy, but I have an important appointment that I can’t be late
for” and so on. Note that at no point do you doubt that the “I” you refer to
is a single integrated entity, a blending of mental, physical, and emotional
structured around a core identity: your self. It’s only later, when you’re
reading Descartes or discussing the possibility of reincarnation with a friend
that you begin creating ideas such as independent “minds,” “bodies,”
“souls,” or, in the case of Freud, an “unconscious.”
➢ According to Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, if we honestly and accurately
examine our direct and immediate experience of our selves, these mind-
body “problems” fall away. As Merleau-Ponty explains, “There is not a
duality of substances but only the dialectic of living being in its biological
milieu.” In other words, our “living body” is a natural synthesis of mind and
biology, and any attempts to divide them into separate entities are artificial
and nonsensical.

GILBERT RYLE: THE CONCEPT OF MIND

➢ Summary of the work: The Concept of Mind by Ryle
o The concept of Mind, by Gilbert Ryle, is one of the most important
philosophy book of the 20th century, aside of Being and Time by
Heidegger or Being and Nothingness by Sartre. Ryle revolutionnises
our conception of the human conscious, etablished
since Descartes, Kant and Husserl.
➢ Ryle’s project consists in a sustained and punishing bombardment of the
cartesian conception of man, characteristically labelled “the dogma of the
ghost in the machine“. Ryle is trying to find how far he could push
analytical behaviourism, the doctrine that psychological notions can be
analysed in terms of actual or possible behaviour.
➢ The concept of Mind, shows how we can eliminate the misleading language
expressions in the broad sense (words, description, statements), that is to
say the words that can make believe in the existence of objects or ‘species’.
It is the source of this great book that is the Concept of Mind (1949). In this
book, Ryle launches an attack against the deep design “Cartesian” the
relationship between mind and body and particularly against the “ghost in

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the machine”, that is to say, the myth of the inner mental life. It attacks the
common treasure of the Cartesian tradition and phenomenology, that of a
“res cogitans” different from the empirical world, a set of images, processes,
mental events separate from the public and observable behaviors. In an
analysis of an extra-ordinary wealth, which is in itself a lesson in method,
Ryle shows that it is possible to dispense with the language of men-tal life
and translate the speech on the thin (mind) in terms of Behavior (behavior).
After this bold enterprise, which aims to defend a less materialist thesis
about the mind, as will the latest Australian philosopher Armstrong, to
remove a type of metaphorical language, lifelong mental consciousness as
intentionality Husserl is reduced to the capabilities, abilities, opportunities,
know-how. What is intelligence? Mysterious process that takes place “in
the head” or da ns avantque mind the student can not find the solution? Ryle
shows that we can do without the double horns in the recital that “faculty”
as simply an observable skills, which is a provision of behavior as being
able to swim. Everything else is pointless.
➢ Ryle’s metaphor, quite ambiguous, ultimately relies on the ordinary
language that is thankfully free of unnecessary jargon, but he also wants to
improve its spontaneous expression by reformulations that avoid a certain
numberof traps. In fact, common sense left to itself, as the philosophy that
claims of superior quality, are both victims of rash generalizations and
fabrications. It is therefore important to find the expression the least
misleading, that is to say, that which is best demonstrated the logical form
of the situation, which requires a clear determination of beings which is
made reference. Ryle wants to end the useless proliferation of bizarre
objects and entities that do not exist in the world of empirical experience,
and which leads, through language, to living ghosts.
REFERENCE/S:
https://www.the-philosophy.com/ryle-concept-mind-summary
Alata, Eden Joy Pastor et al. 2018. Understanding the Self. Manila: Rex Book Store.
Chaffee, John. 2015. The Philosopher’s Way: Thinking Critically about Profound Ideas. 5th Ed.
Boston: Pearson.
David, Randopl. 2002. Nation, Self, and Citizenship: An Invitation to Philippine Sociology.
Department of Sociology, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines.

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