Chapter 1 • The body is bound to die on earth and the soul is to

anticipate living eternally in a realm of spiritual bliss in

Lesson 1: THE PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE
communion with God.
Pre-Socratics [Prior to Socrates]
Thomas Aquinas
preoccupied themselves with the question of the
• Adapting some ideas from Aristotle, Aquinas said
primary substratum,” arche” that explains the
that indeed, man is composed of two parts: matter and
multiplicity of things in the world.
form.
Pre-Socratics
• Matter or hyle in Greek, refers to the “common stuff
To name a few, these men like Thales, Pythagoras, that makes up everything in the universe.” Man’s body
Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Empedocles are concerned is part of this matter.
with explaining what the world is really made up of and
• Form on the other hand, or morphe in Greek refers to
why the world is so, and what explains the changes that
the “essence of a substance or thing.” It is what makes
they observed around them.
it what it is.
Socrates
• To Aquinas, just as in Aristotle, the soul is what
• was more concerned with another subject, the animates the body; it is what makes us humans.
problem of the self. This has become his life-long
Descartes
mission, the true task of the philosopher is to know
thyself. • Rene Descartes, Father of Modern Philosophy,
conceived of the human person as having a body and a
• affirmed that “the unexamined life is not worth
mind.
living.” every man is composed of body and soul.
• In his famous treatise, The Meditations of First
body – the imperfect, impermanent aspect.
Philosophy, he claims that there is so much that we
soul – the perfect and permanent aspect. should doubt.

Plato • In the end, Descartes thought that the only thing that
one cannot doubt is the existence of the self, for even if
• In addition to what Socrates earlier espoused, Plato one doubts oneself, that only proves that there is a
added that there are three components of the soul: the doubting self, a thing that thinks and therefore, that
rational soul, the spirited soul, and the appetitive soul. cannot be doubted. Thus, his famous, cogito ergo sum,
• In his magnum opus, “The Republic” Plato emphasizes “I think, therefore, I am.”
that justice in the human person can only be attained if • The self then for Descartes is also a combination of
the three parts of the soul are working harmoniously two distinct entities: the cogito, the thing that thinks,
with one another. which is the mind, and the extenza or extension of the
• The rational soul forged by reason and intellect has to mind, which is the body.
govern the affairs of the human person;

• The spirited soul which is in charge of emotions

should be kept at bay; and the
Hume
• The appetitive soul the one in charge of base desires
like eating, drinking, sleeping, and having sex is • David Hume, a Scottish philosopher, is an empiricist
controlled as well. who believes that one can know only what comes from
the senses and experiences.
• When this ideal state is attained, then the human
person’s soul becomes just and virtuous. • Empiricism is the school of thought that espouses the
idea that knowledge can only be possible if it is sensed
and experienced.

• Hume argues that the self is not an entity over and

Augustine beyond the physical body.

• Following the ancient view of Plato and infusing it • Men can only attain knowledge by experiencing.
with the newfound doctrine of Christianity, Augustine • To David Hume, the self is nothing else but a bundle
agreed that man is of a bifurcated nature. of impressions [or collection of different perceptions].
• An aspect of man dwells in the world and is imperfect • If one tries to examine his experiences, he finds that
and continuously yearns to be with the Divine and the they can all be categorized into two: impressions and
other is capable of reaching immortality. ideas.
• Impressions are the basic objects of our experience or intertwined that they cannot be separated from one
sensation. They therefore form the core of our another.
thoughts.
• One cannot find any experience that is not an
• Ideas, on the other hand, are copies of impressions. embodied experience. All experience is embodied.

• In reality, what one thinks is a unified self – is simply • One’s body is his opening toward his existence to the
a combination of all experiences with a particular world. Because of these bodies, men are in the world.
person.
• Merleau-Ponty dismissed the Cartesian Dualism that
Kant has spelled so much devastation in the history of man.
For him, the Cartesian problem is nothing else but plain
• Thinking of the “self” as a mere combination of
misunderstanding.
impressions was problematic for Immanuel Kant.
• The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and
• Kant thinks that the things that men perceive around
experiences are all one.
them are not just randomly infused into the human
person without an organizing principle that regulates
the relationship of all these impressions.

• To Kant, there is necessarily a mind that organizes the

impressions that men get from the external world.

• Time and space for example are ideas that one

cannot find in the world, but is built in our minds. Lesson 2: The Self, Society, and Culture
• Kant calls these the apparatuses of the mind. Along What is the Self?
with the different apparatuses of the mind goes the
“self.” • The self, in contemporary literature and even
common sense, is commonly defined by the
• Without the self, one cannot organize the different following characteristics: “separate, self-contained,
impressions that one gets in relation to his own independent, consistent, unitary, and private.”
existence.
• By separate, it means that the self is distinct from
• The self is not just what gives one his personality, it is other selves. The self is always unique and has its own
also the seat of knowledge acquisition for all human identity. One cannot be another person. Even twins are
persons. distinct from each other.
Ryle • Self is also self-contained and independent because
in itself it can exist. Its distinctness allows it to be
• Gilbert Ryle solves the mind-body dichotomy that has
self-contained with its own thoughts, characteristics,
been running for a long time in the history of thought
and volition. It does not require any other self for it to
by blatantly denying the concept of an internal, non-
exist.
physical self.
• It is consistent because it has a personality that is
• For Ryle, what truly matters is the behavior that a
enduring and therefore can be expected to persist for
person manifests in his day-to-day life.
quite some time. Its consistency allows it to be
• Looking for and trying to understand a self as it really studied, described, and measured. Consistency also
exists is like visiting your friend’s university and looking means that a particular self’s traits, characteristics,
for the “university.” tendencies, and potentialities are more or less the
same.
• Ryle suggests that the “self” is not an entity one can
locate and analyze but simply the convenient name that • Self is unitary in that it is the center of all experiences
people use to refer to all the behaviors that people and thoughts that run through a certain person. It
make. is like the chief command post in an individual
where all processes, emotions, and thoughts
Merleau-Ponty
converge.
• Merleau-Ponty is a phenomenologist who asserts
• Finally, the self is private. Each person sorts out
that the mind-body bifurcation that has been going on
information, feelings and emotions, and thought
for a long time is a futile endeavor and an invalid
processes within the self. This whole process is
problem.
never accessible to anyone but the self.
• Unlike Ryle who simply denies the “self”, Merleau-
The self is always in participation with social life and its
Ponty instead says that the mind and body are so
identity subjected to influences here and there.
The Self and Culture In trying to achieve the goal of becoming a fully
realized human, a child enters a system of
Remaining the same person and turning chameleon
relationships, most important of which is the family.
by adapting to one’s context seems paradoxical.
However, the French anthropologist Marcel Mauss has Gender and the Self
an explanation for this phenomenon.
Another important aspect of the self is gender.
According to Mauss, every self has two faces: Gender is one of those loci of the self that is
personne and moi. subject to alteration, change, and development. We
have seen in the past years how people fought hard
for the right to express, validate, and assert their
gender expression.

Moi Many conservatives may frown upon this and insist

on the biological. However, from the point of view of
• refers to the person’s sense of who he is, his body the social sciences and the self, it is important to give
and his basic identity, his biological givenness. one the leeway to find, express, and live his identity.
• is a person’s basic identity. This forms part of selfhood that one cannot just dismiss.
One maneuvers into the society and identifies himself
Personne as who he is by also taking note of gender identities.
• on the other hand, is composed of the social Lesson 3: The Self as Cognitive Construct
concepts of what it means to be who he is.
“Self” is the sense of personal identity and of who we
• has much to do with what it means to live in a are as individuals.
particular institution, a particular family, a particular
religion, a particular nationality, and how to behave William James was one of the earliest psychologists
given expectations and influences from others. to study the self and conceptualized the self as having
two aspects – the “I” and the “me”.
The Self and the Development of the Social World.
The “I” is the thinking, acting, and feeling self.
Recent studies indicate that men and women in their
growth and development engage actively in the shaping The “me” on the other hand, is the physical
of the self. characteristics as well as psychological capabilities
that makes who you are.
The unending terrain of metamorphosis of the self is
mediated by language. Carl Rogers’s theory of personality also used the
same terms, the “I” as the one who acts and decides,
Mead and Vygotsky while the “me” is what you think or feel about yourself
For Mead and Vygotsky, the way that human as an object.
persons develop is with the use of language Other concept related to self
acquisition and interaction with others.
Identity is composed of personal characteristics, social
The way that we process information is normally a form roles, and responsibilities, as well as affiliations that
of an internal dialogue in our head. define who one is.
“Should I do this or that?” But if I do this, it will be like Self-concept is what basically comes to your mind when
this.” you are asked about who you are.
“Don’t I want the other option?” Carl Rogers captured this idea in his concept of self-
And so cognitive and emotional development of a child schema or our organized system or collection of
is always a mimicry of how it is done in the social world, knowledge about who we are.
in the external reality where he is in.

Self in Families Theories, generally see the self and identity as

While every child is born with certain givenness, mental constructs, created and recreated in memory.
disposition coming from his parents’ genes and Current researches point to the frontal lobe of the brain
general condition of life, the impact of one’s family is as the specific area in the brain associated with the
still deemed as a given in understanding the self. processes concerning the self.

The kind of family that we are born in, the Sigmund Freud
resources available to us [human, spiritual, Freud saw the self, its mental processes, and one’s
economic], and the kind of development that we will behavior as the results of the interaction between the
have will certainly affect us as we go through life. Id, the Ego, and the Superego.
Id – instinct. Deindividuation- the “loss of individual self-awareness
and individual accountability in groups.
Ego- reality
One of the ways in which our social relationships affects
Superego- morality
our self-esteem is through social comparison.
Social interaction always has a part to play in who we
Social comparison theory
think we are. This is not nature vs. nurture but instead a
nature-and-nurture perspective. • we learn about ourselves, the appropriateness of
our behaviors, as well as our social status by
Under the theory of symbolic interactionism, GH
comparing aspects of ourselves with other people
Mead argued that the self is created and developed
[downward versus upward social comparison].
through human interaction.
Downward social comparison- coparing ourselves with
Basically, there are three reasons why self and
those worse than us.
identity are social products:
Upward social comparison- comparing ourself with
1] We do not create ourselves out of nothing.
those better than us.
Society helped in creating the foundations of who we
are and even if we make our choices, we will still • It also entails what is called self-evaluation
operate in our social and historical contexts in one way maintenance theory, which states that we can feel
or the other. threatened when someone out-performs us,
especially when that person is close to us.
2] Whether we like to admit it or not, we actually need
others to affirm and reinforce who we think we are. We In the attempt to increase or maintain our self-
also need them as reference points about our identity. esteem, some people become narcissistic.
One interesting example is the social media interactions
Narcissism is a “trait characterized by overly high
we have.
self-esteem, self-admiration, and self-centeredness.
3] What we think is important to us may also have been
influenced by what is important in our social or
historical context. Education might be an important
thing to your self-concept because you grew up in a
family that valued education. Lesson 4: The self in the Western and Eastern Thoughts

There are times when we are aware of our self- Eastern- Asia
concepts, this is also called self-awareness. Western- Europe and Northern America

Confucianism- can be seen as a code of ethical conduct,

of how one should properly act according to their
relationship with other people; it also focused on having
a harmonious social life.
Carver and Scheier identified two types of self that In Confucianism, self-cultivation is the ultimate purpose
we can be aware of: of life but the characteristic of a “Chun Tzu” --- a man of
virtue and noble character still be embedded in his
1] the private self or your internal standards and
social relationships with others.
private thoughts and feelings, and
Cultivated self in Confucianism is called “Subdued Self”.
2] the public self or your public image commonly
geared toward having a good presentation of yourself Confucianism society is a hierarchical for the purpose of
to others. maintaining order and balance in the society.
Self-awareness Taoism rejects hierarchy of Confucianism and and
prefer a simple lifestyle and its teaching thus aim to
• also presents us with at least three other self-
describe how to attain that life.
schema: the actual, ideal, and ought self.
Buddhism
Actual self- who you are at the moment.
The self is seen an as illusion, born out of ignorance, of
Ideal self- the self you like to be.
trying to hold and control things, or human-centered
Ought self- who you think you should be. needs; thus, the self is also the source of all sufferings.

• self-awareness can be too much that we are Renounce the self to attain the state of Nirvana.
concerned about being observed and criticized by
Western culture- individualistic culture since their focus
others, also known as self-consciousness.
in one person.
Eastern culture- collectivistic culture as the group and Heterosexual behavior- male and female
social interaction are given more importance.
Homosexual behavior- male x male or female x female

Physiology of Human Sexual Response

Chapter 2
Excitement Phase- increase pulse and blood pressure
Lesson 1 : The Physical and Sexual Self
Plateau Phase- orgasm occurs if stimulation continued
Pseudohermaphrodites- individuals having accessory
Sexual Climax-marked by a feeling of abrupt, intense
reproductive structures that do not match their gonads.
pleasure.
Ex: having uterus and penis.
Resolution Phase- back to normal.
Hermaphrodites- having testes and ovaries at the same
time. Sexual Problems
Phimosis- inability to retract the skin covering the penis. Classified as physiological, psychological, and social.
Puberty- period of life, between ages 10 to 15 wherein Premature emission of semen
the reproductive organ started to grow to their adult
size and become functional. Ejaculatory impotence- results from inability to
ejaculate.
Diseases associated with the reproductive system
caused by Escherichia Coli for female: Vaginismus- strong spasm of the pelvic musculature
constricting female reproduction thus, penetration is
Syphilis painful.
Gonorrhea Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Herpes Virus Human Immunodeficiency Virus- Virus
Yeast AIDS- disease cause by HIV
For male: 1. Chlamydia
2. Gonorrhea
Prostatitis
3. Syphilis
Urethritis 4. Chancroid
5. Human Papillomavirus
Epididymites
6. Herpes Simplex Virus
Orchiditis 7. Trichomonas Vaginalis

Neoplasm-major threats to reproductive organs. Natural and Artificial Methods of Contraception

Breast cancer and cervix for females and prostate Natural Method
cancer for males.
1. Abstinence
Erogenous Zones- parts of the body that are primarily 2. Calendar Method
receptive and increase sexual arousal when touched in 3. Basal Body Temperature
a sexual manner. 4. Cervical Mucus Method
5. Symptothermal Method
Human Sexual Behavior- define as any activity --- 6. Ovulation Detection
solitary, between two people persons, or in a group— 7. Coitus Interruptus
that includes sexual arousal.
Artificial Method
Two major factors that determine the HSB:
1. Oral Contraceptives
Inherited sexual patterns that have evolved as a means 2. Transdermal Patch
of ensuring reproduction and the degree of restraints or 3. Vaginal Ring
other types of influence exerted on the individual by 4. Subdermal implants
society. 5. Hormonal injections
Types of Behavior 6. Intrauterine Device
7. Chemical Barriers
Solitary Behavior- involving one individual. 8. Diaphragm
Self-gratification means self-stimulation that leads to 9. Cervical cap
sexual arousal. 10. Male condoms
11. Female condoms
Sociosexual Behavior 12. Surgical Methods