Saint Thomas Aquinas was a theologian, philosopher, and writer who lived during the 13th century. He is considered one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Western philosophy and is famous for his Summa Theologica, a comprehensive work on theology and philosophy. According to Aquinas, the purpose of man is to seek happiness, which is the ultimate end of human existence. In this essay, we will explore Aquinas’s views on the purpose of man in detail.
The Nature of Man
According to Aquinas, man is a rational being, endowed with intellect and free will. He is created in the image of God and has the capacity to know and love Him. Man’s rational nature allows him to reason and understand the world around him, and his free will enables him to choose between good and evil. In Aquinas’s view, man’s nature is intrinsically good, but he is also prone to sin due to the effects of original sin.
The End of Man
Aquinas believed that the end or purpose of man is to seek happiness. However, he did not define happiness in the conventional sense of pleasure or satisfaction. Instead, he viewed happiness as the ultimate goal of human existence, which could only be achieved through a life of virtue and the attainment of the beatific vision, or the direct vision of God.
Aquinas believed that happiness was not something that could be achieved by external means such as wealth or power, but rather by internal means such as wisdom, self-control, and moral virtue. He argued that human beings are naturally inclined to seek happiness and that this inclination is part of their rational nature.
Virtue and Happiness
According to Aquinas, virtue is the key to happiness. Virtue is a habit or disposition of the soul that enables a person to act in accordance with reason and the moral law. Virtue is acquired through practice and habituation and is expressed in actions that are morally good and beneficial to oneself and others.
Aquinas identified four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. Prudence is the ability to make wise decisions and judgments, justice is the ability to treat others fairly and equitably, temperance is the ability to control one’s desires and passions, and fortitude is the ability to face adversity and overcome fear.
In addition to the cardinal virtues, Aquinas believed that there are three theological virtues that are essential for the Christian life: faith, hope, and charity.
Faith is the first theological virtue, and it is the foundation of all Christian belief. According to Aquinas, faith is a supernatural gift from God that enables us to believe in Him and accept the truths of the Christian faith. Faith is not based on our own reasoning or intellect but is a free gift from God that we receive through grace. Faith involves both intellectual assent to the truths of Christianity and a personal trust in God. Through faith, we believe in God’s existence, His revelation to us through Scripture and Tradition, and the doctrines of the Church.
The second theological virtue is hope, which is closely related to faith. While faith involves believing in God’s promises, hope involves trusting in them. Aquinas describes hope as the “sure and steadfast expectation of eternal life and the grace to attain it.” Hope is a gift from God that enables us to trust in His promises, even when we face difficulties and challenges in life. It is through hope that we can endure suffering and persevere in our Christian journey, trusting that God will ultimately bring us to eternal life.
The third and final theological virtue is charity, which Aquinas describes as the greatest of all virtues. Charity is the supernatural love of God that is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. It is through charity that we love God above all things and love our neighbors as ourselves. Charity is not merely a feeling or emotion but is a decision of the will to seek the good of others for their own sake. It is through charity that we imitate Christ, who loved us and gave Himself up for us.
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In this lecture notes, I will briefly explain the nature and dynamics of the “Self” according to Immanuel Kant. But it must be noted at the outset that Kant’s concept of the self is very difficult to systematize because in the first place, Kant himself did not fully develop this concept. This is partly because Kant’s concept of the self serves only as the foundation of his moral theory. In fact, for Kant, the human person as a rational moral agent is the sole basis in determining the truth of the categorical imperative.
Indeed, behind the formal ethical façade of Kant’s categorical imperative is the attempt of the human person to achieve moral perfection. Hence, we can surmise that the ultimate goal of Kant’s moral teachings is for the human person to become morally perfect. And for this reason, it can be argued that anybody who wants to study Kantian ethics should first and foremost understand Kant’s concept of the self as the anthropological basis of his moral teachings.
So, how does Kant view the self?
According to Kant, the human person has a two-fold nature, namely:
1) homo noumenon and
2) homo phaenomenon
On the one hand, the term noumenon, which is derived from Kant’s epistemology, refers to the essence of things. For Kant, the noumenon is the thing-in-itself (das Ding an sich). According to Kant, the noumenon cannot be known because, as the essence of things, it is beyond experience. For example, as Kant would have us believe, we cannot know the “tableness” of the table, or that which makes a table really “a table”. Later on, Hegel argues that there is no such thing as “thing-in-itself” or the “tableness” of the table. For Hegel, what reason knows is all there is to know.
On the other hand, the term phaenomenon, according to Kant, refers to the thing as it appears to the observer. In other words, the phaenomenon is the empirical part of a thing. It is indeed that part of a thing that can be experienced by humans. The hardness, texture, color, and shape of a table are all that we can know about the table. For Kant, they are the phaenomenal aspects of the table.
For Kant, therefore, everything that exists has two natures, namely:
1) the non-empirical part (noumenon or essence) and
2) the empirical part (phaenomenon).
Applied to humans, the homo noumenon for Kant is the godlike self of the human person which comprises the psychological state and intellect, while the homo phaenomenon is the merely human self or, simply, the physical self.
Now, it is important to note that when it comes to Kantian ethics, the phaenomenal self is dropped from the equation. This is because the homo phaenomenon is the animal or instinctual aspect of the human person. Therefore, it cannot be put under moral obligation. Just think, for example, of how ridiculous it is to sue a cat for stealing your food. So, when it comes to Kantian ethics, we only talk about the homo noumenon or the “godlike self”. However, the phaenomenal self is equally important if we talk about the “self” in itself because one cannot be a complete self without it. In fact, according to Kant, we humans have both an inner self and an outer self which allow us to become conscious. This is because the inner self comprises our psychological state and rational intellect, while our outer self comprises our senses and other instinctual functions. Again, it is just that when it comes to ethics, Kant focuses only on the noumenal self for the same reason already given.
If the homo phaenomenon cannot be put under moral obligation, Kant says that the homo noumenon or the noumenal self (or godlike self) can be put under moral obligation simply because it is the self that is endowed with “freedom”. The homo noumenon or the noumenal self, therefore, is a free agent. And it is this very idea of freedom that the noumenal self is said to have an “absolute inner worth”, a value which is beyond any price and which demands respect.
As a free agent, Kant says that the the noumenal self has two aspects, namely, 1) free choice (freie Willkür) and 2) will (Wille).
On the one hand, “free choice” is understood as the capacity of the self to act without being determined to do so by any external material forces. On the other hand, “will” is the capacity of the self to set forth unconditionally binding moral laws.
So, with free choice, the human person (and it must be noted that in Kantian philosophy, when we say the “human person” we mean the “noumenal self) can do whatever she wants to do. However, even if the human person can do whatever she wants to do, she may not always do whatever she wishes because of the self-imposed moral law promulgated by the will. For instance, because of free choice, the human person is free “to lie”, but because the will promulgated the moral law “not to lie”, then the human person or the self has to always tell the truth.
This now brings us to the idea that being true to one’s self is, for Kant, respecting one’s self. And for Kant, it is our duty to respect our own self because doing so is respecting humanity at the same time. This implies that if we violate our duty to respect our very own selves, then we fail somehow to give humanity the same respect it demands.
A concrete example of respecting one’ self is not to harm it by, say, not drinking too much alcohol or committing suicide. Needless to say, drinking too much alcohol will harm the body, which in the long run will ruin the entire person. In the case of suicide, if one kills herself, she is not only undermining her own “absolute inner worth” as a person but also the “absolute inner worth” of the entire human race.
Now, Kant believes that the noumenal self is the idealized person who is destined to be perfect since she has in herself the godlike nature as belonging to the world of understanding.
Logically then, we can infer that for Kant, the noumenal self is the human person’s real self. It is indeed the person’s true self. Since we have this godlike self, Kant believes that it is our duty to attain perfection by actualizing this godlike noumenal self. And according to Kant, we can attain perfection or we can actualize our godlike self by developing ourselves into moral persons, which can be done by obeying the command of the categorical imperative.
But how does the human person actualize her true self if she cannot know her noumenal self? The phaenomenal self can provide us the key.
Since the human person cannot know her noumenal self, then she must take into account the fact that part of her “self” belongs to the phaenomenal world, that she has a phenomenal self, a physical body so to speak. As already mentioned, this is the self that can be experienced by the senses. We can touch it, see it, smell it. We can even taste it if we like.
In this way, the human person can have an idea of her noumenal self. In simple terms, the body, which is the seat of reason or intellect, allows the self to think, analyze, understand, and interpret reality. The phenomenal self, therefore, serves as the springboard for the actualization of the noumenal self.
Lastly, because the phaenomenal self always appeals to “desires”, which, according to Kant, is the source of errors, it has to be guided by a moral principle based on reason. Thus, the human person as a rational being must also consider her “self” as belonging to the intelligible world if she hopes to attain perfection. This is where the categorical imperative comes in. As Tucker (1972, p. 35) argues, the noumenal self tries to actualize its godlike nature as the real self by obeying the dictate of reason through the categorical imperative.
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David Hume’s concept of the self does not only differ from but runs counter to Descartes’s and the other philosophers of the self, such as Plato and Aristotle. This is because, for Hume, there is no such thing as a “self”.
Let me briefly explain why for Hume the concept of the self is an illusion.
First, we need to clarify the term “soul” that Plato and Aristotle used and “mind” that Descartes used.
For Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and other philosophers who engaged this issue, the term soul or mind refers to a thing or substance which is supposed to be invariably the same through time. So, these philosophers understood the soul as a substance. And as we may already know, a substance is understood in traditional metaphysics as anything, material or immaterial, whose existence is independent on anything else.
So, for these thinkers, the soul or mind is the seat for all our mental states, such as thinking, analyzing, imagining, and the like. This means that the “I”, that is, “the self” is the same all throughout one’s lifetime. One may change physically or emotionally, but the “I” or “self” remains the same.
Now, for Hume, if we possess this substance, then we must have an “impression” of it. However, for Hume, we do not, and cannot, have an impression of such idea. For Hume, therefore, the term soul, mind, or self is one of those meaningless words that we utter.
So, for Hume, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and the rest of the philosophers of the self were arguing only about “words” simply because neither of them knows exactly what a soul, mind, or self is. They don’t experience it concretely in the first place, according to Hume.
But how did Hume arrive at the idea that there is no such thing as the idea of the “self”?
Let us now turn to Hume’s theory of ideas.
First, we have to remember that Hume neither affirms nor denies the idea of the self. It’s just that for Hume, talking about it simply doesn’t make sense.
The reason behind Hume’s claim that there is no such thing as the idea of the self can be gleaned from his theory of ideas. So, on Hume’s theory of ideas.
As John Locke argues, ideas come from sensation and reflection. Hume calls it impression. Hence, it must be noted that when Hume used the term “impression”, he means “idea”. When we say “impression” in Hume, this includes both sensation and reflection in Locke. And for Hume, we can have an idea, that is, an impression, of something if we experience it concretely. For this reason, Hume argues that ideas that do not represent something in reality is an abstract idea and, therefore, meaningless. The idea of a “unicorn” is an example of an abstract idea because in the first place, there is no unicorn in reality.
For Hume, there is a multiplicity of ideas; yet all these ideas are linked together that form a coherent whole. According to Hume, this is made possible by the “laws of association”.
According to Hume, there are three laws of association, namely:
1) resemblance,
2) contiguity in time or place, and
3) cause and effect
Hume says that in the law of resemblance, the idea of one object tends to call to mind ideas of resembling objects. For instance, the idea of “honey” resembles the ideas of “sweet” and “liquid”.
In the law of contiguity in time and place, Hume says that when we think, for instance, of “Osama Bin Laden”, we tend to think of “terrorism” or “suicide bombing”.
In the law of cause and effect, Hume says that when we think of, for instance, the idea of a “fresh egg falling to the ground”, it calls to mind the idea of a “splattered mess”.
Please note that Hume puts more emphasis on the third law of cause and effect. As a matter of fact, the law of cause and effect is one of the most important concepts in Hume’s theory of ideas. This explains why after talking about the law of cause and effect, Hume proceeds to the discussion on “perception” and “reasoning”.
On Perception and Reasoning
According to Hume, human understanding is furnished with the faculty of perception and the faculty of reason.
On the one hand, the object of perception are impressions or ideas. And, on the other hand, the object of reason are propositions.
According to Hume, propositions are either
1) a priori statements about relations of ideas or
2) empirical statements about matters of fact and real existence.
For Hume, relations of ideas can be known intuitively or demonstratively. For example, the proposition “All triangles have three angles” is an example of a proposition that can be known intuitively. The proposition “The sum total of all three angles in a right triangle is equal to 180 degrees” is an example of a proposition that can be known demonstratively.
It is important to note that in relations of ideas, the truth can be established without empirical evidence. In fact, in both examples above, we don’t need to resort to experience before we can truly say that all triangles have three angles or, indeed, the sum total of all three angles in a right triangle is equal to 180 degrees. Through mental processes alone, we can truly say that indeed the propositions above are absolutely true.
Matters of fact, for Hume, are propositions whose truth can be discovered through experience alone. Take, for example, the proposition “Sugar is sweet”. Obviously, one cannot really say that indeed sugar is sweet if one has not tasted it. Hence, we can never come to know that sugar is sweet without resorting to experience.
It must be noted that it is “matters of fact” that concerns Hume. In fact, Hume’s theory of knowledge centers on the idea of “matters of fact”.
Hume asks: “What is the nature of the empirical evidence which assures us of any real existence of matters of fact?”
According to Hume, we are assured of some facts by the present testimony of our senses or by the records of our memory. In other words, for Hume, we know that facts exist in reality simply because we experience them. This explains why Hume was an empiricist.
But the question is by what means do we get beyond such facts? In other words, how can we be sure that such facts exist in reality? This is the central question in Hume’s theory of knowledge, which he developed in his famous work Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.
So, again, by what means do we get beyond such facts?
According to Hume, it is by means of the relation of cause and effect that we are enabled to make, more or less reasonable, predictions and conjectures that go beyond the data of perception and memory.
But how do we arrive at the knowledge of cause and effect?
The answer, for Hume, is not reasoning a priori (as the rationalists would have us believe) but entirely from experience. Again, for Hume, our knowledge of cause and effect relation remains limited to experience. Of course, the mind steps beyond experience and engage in reasoning. But for Hume, this kind of reasoning is not supported by any argument or process of understanding through relations of ideas or through reasoning a priori. This kind of reasoning, for Hume, is supported by habit or custom.
Now, it must be noted that for the rationalists, cause and effect relation falls under a priori reasoning. In other words, for the rationalists, there is a necessary connection between cause and effect. For example, if it is raining at the moment, then reason tells us that the road must be wet. However, for Hume, in reality there is no necessary connection between two events, between cause and effect. The idea of a necessary connection is produced in the mind not through reason a priori, but through habit or custom. Hence, Hume did not reject the idea of “connection” wholesale. He only rejects the idea of connection employed in metaphysical reasoning, that is, the a priori reasoning in rationalism.
Again, for Hume, there is (necessary) connection only through experience (in common life and practice) which is based on habit. Hence, the only evidence assuring us of any real existence and matters of fact is experience, that is, 1) the present testimony of our senses, 2) the records of our memory, and 3) the causal (experiential) reasoning based on the empirically observed regularities of past experience.
Now, let’s go back to Hume’s concept of the self and apply what we have learned from his theory of ideas.
For Hume, if we look inside ourselves, we cannot find an impression (that is, an idea) of a “self” as a substance. In other words, we cannot experience the self concretely. Hence, for Hume, we have no reason to suppose that we are “selves” or “mind”, or “souls”. As Hume famously says, we are just a bunch of impressions.
This means that like the idea of an ultimate or necessary cause (as we discussed above) the idea of “self” is natural and inevitable. We are inclined to think about the self because we exist, because we are accustomed to it. However, for Hume, like the idea of an ultimate or necessary cause, the idea of a “self” is a mere fiction. Again, the idea of the self is anything but a bundle of impressions or, in other words, the idea of the self is just a supposition.
Indeed, for Hume, the idea of the self is simply an idea and there is no guarantee that it exists in reality. Again, it is natural to talk about it because we exist, because we are accustomed to it, but to suppose that there is within us an unchanging substance called the “self” is an illusion, at least for Hume.
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René Descartes’s concept of the self revolves around the idea of mind-body dualism. For Descartes, a human person is composed of two parts, namely, a material body and a non-material mind.
It must be noted that Descartes’s idea of the “mind” is not different from the idea of the “soul” understood in antiquity, for instance, Plato’s concept of the soul.
For Descartes, the mind, or the soul, is superior to the body for it is in the mind that “mental states” occur. This is because for Descartes, the mental states, such as thinking, imagining, and analyzing, rather than the physical states of the body, such as pain, hunger, and thirst, are fundamental to our life as persons. In other words, for Descartes, it is the mind that makes us humans. Thus, for Descartes, the “mind” is the “real self”.
But how does Descartes view the soul as the true self of humans and how does it differ from the body?
On the one hand, Descartes’s understanding of the body as a material entity consists in extension (resextenza). In fact, according to Descartes, all things in the material world can be understood and explained in terms of size, shape, and motion. Hence, to be a “body” for Descartes is
1) to have size and shape,
2) to endure, and
3) to be movable and changeable.
The main reason why Descartes puts premium on “extension” as the essence of bodies or material things is that the conception of the things’ extension, such as size or shape, is clear and distinct. In other words, one cannot doubt the size and shape of a thing. For example, if one is holding a pen, one cannot doubt that it is tubelike and a bit small. But if we talk about the other purported features of a thing, such as color and taste, Descartes says that they are obscure and confused. Hence, these attributes do not constitute a thing. For example, the color red is not what makes a rose truly a rose. A rose flower can be white or yellow. It doesn’t have to be red for it to be called a rose. Later on, Jonh Locke calls these qualities “secondary qualities”, which for him do not necessarily constitute a thing.
On the other hand, as explained in his second meditation, Descartes argues that the mind or soul is an immaterial, nonextended substance that thinks (res cogitans). By “thinking” Descartes means being conscious of one’s self and the object of its thinking. Thus, for Descartes, the mind as the true self of humans is a thinking thing. And it is interesting to note that, according to Descartes, knowledge of oneself as a subject of conscious states and acts is the most certain knowledge anyone can have.
But how does Descartes view a thinking thing?
For Descartes, a thinking thing is a being that doubts, understands, asserts, denies, wills, imagines, and the like.
In Meditation II of his seminal work titled Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes demonstrates how certainty can be attained.
As already mentioned, Descartes is convinced that he can be certain that he exists because if he doubts, there must be a thinking mind that does the doubting. Thus, Descartes famously say: “I think, therefore, I am”. According to Descartes, this statement is indubitable because even if a powerful demon were to deceive him into thinking that he does not exist, he needs to exist in order for the demon to deceive him. Therefore, whenever Descartes thinks, he exists.
From here, Descartes proceeds to addressing the question “What is this ‘I’ that does the thinking?”.
Descartes, however, concedes that though what he perceives with his senses may be false, he cannot deny that he is perceiving. Thus, for Descartes, the human mind is capable of both thought and perception. In other words, for Descartes, sensation or perception belongs to the mind. As a matter of fact, sensation is one of the functions of the mind (the other is thinking). Descartes uses the analogy of the wax to prove his point.
As we can see, a solid wax and melted wax are the same wax. For some thinkers, such as the empiricists, it is the senses that distinguishes a solid wax from a melted wax. For Descartes, however, the ability to distinguish a solid wax from a melted wax is not the function of the senses but of thought. In other words, it is “thought” or the “reasoning mind” that makes the judgment that a solid wax and melted wax are the same wax.
For Descartes, therefore, because the senses can be deceived, physical objects, including bodies, are properly perceived only by the intellect. Indeed, for Descartes, the mind is the only thing that one can be certain of.
Finally, Descartes believes that the mind and body are both substances (please note that in traditional metaphysics, the term substance refers to anything that can exist on its own independent of anything else). Therefore, for Descartes, mind and body are completely distinct and that they are independent from each other.
Although they are completely distinct from each other, Descartes argues that the mind and body are in some sense unified. For Descartes, this union is what makes possible the interaction between mind and body.
So, despite the real distinction between mind and body, Descartes argues that these substances nevertheless interact with each other. According to Descartes, the mind causes certain changes in the body and the body in the mind.
Part of the reason why Descartes aims to establish the distinction between mind and body is to establish the fact that the soul is immortal. As we can see, the distinction between mind and body opens up the possibility of establishing the immortality of the soul since it involves the idea that the “decay of the body does not imply the destruction of the soul”.
But how does Descartes prove the crucial claim that the mind and body are capable of existing apart from each other?
Here, Descartes invokes what he calls 1) clear and distinct conception of the mind as a thing that is complete and does not require any extended qualities in order to exist, and 2) the corresponding clear and distinct conception of the body not requiring any mental properties in order to exist.
As we can see, Descartes’s real distinction argument turns on the reliability of so-called clear and distinct perception. However, Descartes did not give a concrete example of a mind existing apart from the body, and a body existing apart from the mind.
Also, when asked about the specificity of this interaction, Descartes was unable to answer and instead appeal to God. In Descartes’ understanding, God sets up or institutes those particular causal relations between mind and body that are, in general, the most conducive to the well-being of the composite of mind and body.
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Aristotle was undoubtedly the most brilliant student of Plato. Yet, Aristotle diverged from most of Plato’s fundamental philosophies, especially on the concept of the self.
As we may already know, Plato is sure that the true self is the soul, not the body. And to be specific, the true self for Plato is the rational soul which is separable from the body. Aristotle’s concept of the self is quite the opposite.
Aristotle’s concept of the self is more complicated as he talked about so many things in this topic. However, there is one main theme in Aristotle’s narrative of the soul that guides us in understanding his concept of the self, that is, the human person is a “rational animal”. In other words, for Aristotle, the human person is simply an animal that thinks.
How did Aristotle come up with the idea that the human person is just an animal that thinks? His idea of the soul provides the key.
Aristotle defines the soul as the principle of life. And as the principle of life, it causes the body to live. This explains why for Aristotle all living beings have souls. Because for Aristotle all living beings have souls, then it follows that plants and animals (in addition to humans) have souls too. Thus, Aristotle distinguishes three levels of soul, namely, vegetative soul, sensitive soul, and rational soul.
According to Aristotle, the vegetative soul is found in plants, while the sensitive and rational souls are found in animals and humans respectively.
According to Aristotle, plants have souls because they possess the three basic requirements for something to be called a “living being”, that is, the capacity to grow, reproduce, and feed itself.
Sensitive souls also grow, reproduce, and feed themselves; but unlike vegetative souls, sensitive souls are capable of sensation.
Finally, rational souls grow, reproduce, feed themselves, and feel; but unlike the sensitive souls, rational souls are capable of thinking. According to Aristotle, this highest level of soul is present only in humans.
Since humans possess all the characteristics of animals, that is, the capacity to grow, reproduce, feed itself, and feel, in addition to being rational, Aristotle concludes that the human person is just an animal that thinks. As Aristotle’s famous dictum on the human person goes, “Man is a rational animal.”
Again, this explains why for Aristotle the human person is just an animal that thinks.
Now, for Aristotle, the human person is not a soul distinct from the body as Plato would have us believe. Aristotle argues that the self or the human person is a composite of body and soul and that the two are inseparable. Aristotle’s concept of the self, therefore, was constructed in terms of hylomorphism.
Aristotle views the soul as the “form” of the human body. And as “form” of the body, the soul is the very structure of the human body which allows humans to perform activities of life, such as thinking, willing, imagining, desiring, and perceiving.
While Aristotle believes that the human person is essentially body and soul, he was led to interpret the “true self” of humans as the soul that animates the body. However, Aristotle believes that the body is as important as the soul as it serves as “matter” to the soul.
Although Aristotle contends that the soul is the form of the body, he did not argue for the primacy of the former over the latter. Again, Aristotle’s concept of the self is hylomorphic, that is, the self or the human person is composed of body and soul. The two are inseparable. Thus, we cannot talk about the self with a soul only or a self with a body only. For Aristotle, the self is essentially body and soul. Indeed, for Aristotle, the self is a unified creature.
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Plato’s concept of the self can be gleaned from his notion of the soul. This is because, and it must be noted from the outset, we cannot find in Plato a full articulation of the concept of the “self”.
In fact, in ancient Greek philosophy, we could not find any systematic articulation of the concept of self. What we can find when we study the ancient Greek’s conception of the self are questions like “What is the fundamental truth about human nature?” or “What defines the fundamental identity of an individual?”. These questions, however, give us an idea of how the ancient Greek philosophers understood the “self”, that is, as human persons capable of reason and action. And if one is quite familiar with ancient Greek philosophy, these aspects of the human person (that is, the capacity to think and act) point to the idea of the “soul”.
Again, this explains why we always refer to the soul when we study Plato’s concept of the self. As a matter of fact, in many of his dialogues, Plato contends that the true self of the human person is the “rational soul”, that is, the reason or the intellect that constitutes the person’s soul, and which is separable from the body.
So, how does Plato conceive of the soul as the true self of humans?
Plato conceives of the self as a knower. Hence, for Plato, the concepts of the self and knowledge are inextricably linked. This is because Plato’s concept of the self is practically constructed on the basis of his reflections on the nature of the rational soul as the highest form of cognition.
But it must be noted that for Plato, the human person is composed of body and soul. In other words, the human person is a dichotomy of body and soul. The body is the material and destructible part of the human person, while the soul is the immaterial and indestructible part. Plato argues that the soul is really an entity distinct from the body. Indeed, for Plato, the soul is the self.
As we can see, the body and the soul can be separated. In fact, Plato believes that the soul is just residing in the body temporarily. Thus, in Plato’s concept of the self, we have the idea that when the human person dies, the soul departs from the body leaving the latter to decompose. And because the soul is immaterial and indestructible, it cannot die. It is eternal.
According to Plato, the soul, conceived of as self, has three parts, namely:
1) the rational soul,
2) the spiritual soul, and
3) the appetitive soul
For Plato, the rational soul is located in the head. Being located in the head, the rational soul enables the human person to think, reflect, analyze, and do other cognitive functions.
The spiritual soul, on the other hand, is located in the chest. It enables the person to experience happiness, joy, sadness, abomination, anger, and other emotional feelings.
Lastly, the appetitive soul is located in the abdomen. This is the part of the soul that drives the human person to experience physical pain, hunger, thirst, and other physical wants.
Now, according to Plato, the rational soul is superior to the spiritual soul and appetitive soul as it serves as their moral and rational guide.
In the Allegory of the Chariot, which Plato developed in his work Phaedrus, Plato illustrated the role of the rational soul as the charioteer. The charioteer’s role is to drive his horses onward and upward, keeping his team working together in harmony towards the realm of the gods, a place of illumination, reality and truth.
As narrated in the Phaedrus, the chariot is pulled by two winged horses, one mortal and the other immortal.
On the one hand, the mortal horse is deformed and obstinate. Plato describes it as a “crooked lumbering animal, of a dark color, with grey eyes and blood-red complexion; the mate of insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to whip and spur”.
On the other hand, the immortal horse is noble and game, “upright and cleanly made…his color is white, and his eyes dark; he is a lover of honor and modesty and temperance, and the follower of true glory; he needs no touch of the whip, but is guided by word and admonition only”.
In the driver’s seat is the charioteer whose task is to control both horses, guiding and harnessing them to propel the chariot with speed and efficiency. Plato says that the destination of the charioteer is the ridge of heaven, beyond which he may behold the “Forms”, that is, the essences of things like Beauty, Wisdom, Courage, Justice, and Goodness.
Now, the white horse wishes to rise and reach the destination, but the dark horse pulls the chariot back towards the earth. They pull in opposite directions. As we can see, the two horses are very different and they struggled against each other. For this reason, the task of the charioteer is difficult and troublesome. But if the charioteer wishes to reach his destination, then he must harmonize the two horses by controlling them.
In relation to the self, Plato shows that the black and white horses represent desire and spirit respectively, while the charioteer represents the person’s reason or the rational soul. And as the rational soul, the charioteer must have a vision and purpose. He must know where he is heading. And he must know and understand the nature of the two horses if he wishes to properly harness the chariot and reach his destination.
The rational soul as the true self, therefore, must at all times control the spiritual and appetitive soul. And according to Plato, if the rational soul is successful in controlling the spiritual and appetitive souls, that is, if the charioteer is able to harmonize the two horses, a well-balanced personality is attained. Indeed, this is, in a nutshell, how Plato views the true self.
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Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher considered to be the forerunner of Western philosophy. He was, in particular, a scholar, teacher and philosopher who influenced countless of thinkers throughout generations. His method of questioning, famously known as the “Socratic Method”, laid the groundwork for Western systems of logic in particular and philosophy in general.
Plato was considered to be his greatest student. In fact, it was Plato who wrote his philosophy. As is well known, Socrates did not write anything. It was Plato who systematically articulated Socrates’s philosophy through his famous dialogues, which also chronicled Socrates’s life.
Socrates was eventually accused of corrupting the youth of Athens and sentenced to death by drinking hemlock. He could have opted for exile, but chose death instead. It can be surmised that Socrates used his death as a final lesson for his students to face the adversities of life calmly and squarely rather than flee like chickens and ducks when faced with storms in life.
Socrates was fully convinced that philosophy must obtain practical results for the greater wellbeing of society. And for Socrates, the very first step towards the realization of this goal is the acquisition of wisdom through “knowing one’s Self”. As Socrates famously said, ultimate wisdom comes from knowing oneself.
So, how does Socrates view the self?
The key to understanding Socrates’s concept of the self is through the philosopher’s take on the “Soul”.
But Socrates’s concept of the soul should not be viewed from the vantage point of Christianity, that is, a religious conception of the soul. It is important to note that the ancient Greeks lived long before the existence of Christianity so that for them, the concept of the soul did not have the same religious connotations that it has for us today.
But what does Socrates actually mean by soul?
Of course, we cannot know for certain what Socrates really meant by the term soul. But most scholars in philosophy agreed with Frederick Copleston, a famous historian of philosophy, who believes that when Socrates speaks of the soul, the philosopher refers to a “thinking and willing subject”.
With this conception of the soul as a thinking and willing subject, it is safe to assume that the soul for Socrates is the intellectual and moral personality of humans. So, when Socrates said that the soul is the essence of the human person, he meant that it is the essence of humans to think and will. For this reason, the soul or the self for Socrates is the responsible agent in knowing and acting rightly or wrongly.
This is because for Socrates, the soul is the seat of knowledge and ignorance, of goodness and badness. Again, as the seat of knowledge and ignorance, of goodness and badness, the soul, for Socrates, is the essence of the human person. In other words, for Socrates, the soul is the person’s true self. In fact, Socrates said that when we turn inward in search for self-knowledge, we would eventually discover our true self. Viewed from this vantage point, the self is our “inner being”.
Now, because the soul or the self is the essence of the human person, and because it constitutes our personality, Socrates urges us to take care of our soul.
But why should we take care of our soul?
According to Socrates, we need to take care of our soul to attain the “Good Life”. As we can see, this is the ultimate goal of Socrates’s philosophy. As Socrates said, the human person must see to it that her life is geared towards knowledge of the Good Life. And for Socrates, the Good Life simply means being wise and virtuous. This explains why for Socrates, the Good Life is attained through the acquisition of knowledge, wisdom, and virtue.
Now, it is important to note that for Socrates, knowledge of the Goof Life cannot be acquired exogenously, but endogenously. For this reason, it is paramount that we devote considerable amount of attention, energy, and resources to making our soul as good and beautiful as possible. This conviction is expressed most visibly in perhaps Socrates’s most famous statement: “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
This gives us a clear idea of what Socrates meant by knowledge in this context: “to know” is “to know oneself”. Indeed, for us to attain the Good Life, we need to examine our life. The reason for this is quite obvious: virtue (which for Socrates is identical with knowledge) is intrinsic to the human person, and which can be accessed through self-examination. Since virtue is intrinsic to the human person, Socrates was convinced that the human person can discover the truth, that is, the truth of the Good Life. And once the human person discovers the truth, she then does what she thinks is the right thing to doꟷthus the famous Socratic dictum: “Knowing what is right is doing what is right.”
If knowing what is right is doing what is right, what about the problem of evil?
This seems to be a problem in Socrates’s concept of the self. Socrates seems to think that humans were angels, that once they know the right thing to do, they act accordingly.
Of course, Socrates was very much aware of the existence of evil in the world. However, for Socrates, those who commit evil acts are ignorant of the truth. They are ignorant in the sense that they don’t have an immediate realization of the “Good”. Thus, again, examining one’s self is the most important task one can undertake, for it alone will give her the knowledge necessary to answer the question “how one ought to live her life”. So, the famous Socratic dictum “Knowing what is right is doing what is right” means that once the person knows her “Self”, she may then learn how to care for it.
Finally, and contrary to the opinion of the masses, one’s true self, according to Socrates, should not be identified with what one owns, with one’s social status, reputation, or even with one’s body. For Socrates, it is the state of the soul, that is, the person’s inner being, which determines the quality of one’s life. It’s not money, fame, elegant clothes, nice house, beautiful and expensive car, or high-tech gadgets that makes life meaningful, but knowledge, wisdom, and virtue.
Therefore, the true self, for Socrates, is one that is lived in accordance with knowledge, wisdom, and virtue. The true self is the virtuous self.
