Nature of the Self

2. “LetUsPray”
Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for today. Thank you
for ways in which you provide for us all. For Your protection
and love we thank you. Help us to focus our hearts and minds
now on what we are about to learn. Inspire us by Your Holy
Spirit as we listen to our teacher. Guide us by your eternal
light as we discover more about ourselves and the world
around us. Take control of our hearts, Lord. Make us the kind
of person you want us to be. Amen.

3. HOUSE RULES:
• Be attentive.
• Stay in a place where you won’t be
distracted.
• Have a note and a pen available.
• Keep your microphone turned off (unless
asked by the teacher to turn it on).
• Do the activities that you’re asked to do.

4. LESSON 3
The SELF: Definition, Nature and Significance
At the end of this module, you are expected to:
• Define self, and identify its nature and
importance; and
• Discuss the need and the process of
understanding the self.

5. Welcome back to your
learning journey of
KNOWING YOURSELF!

6. • What is SELF?
• Why there is a need for us
to know and
understand
ourselves?

7. So, what is SELF?
It is a perceived personality, as a self-
interest – (wherein) one’s interest and welfare
is placed before those of other people, or as a
complete personality – one that a person
recognizes as his or her own and with which
there is a sense of ease.
Encarta Dictionaries (Microsoft Encarta, 2009)

8. Meaning of the SELF
According to Ariola (2018), the term “self” is defined in
many ways:
1. SELF is a unified being and is essentially
connected to consciousness, awareness, and
activity or with the faculty of rational choice.
• It means all the different aspects of the self are
integrated (or connected) in a harmonious way
such that one aspect is not in conflict with others
or driven in another direction.

9. a Work Me and a Personal Life Me. It’s her passion to help people more
meaningfully connect through better communication. It is her realization that
the magical key to this, is recognizing that we are all human beings who
have our own emotions, dreams, inner worlds, and beautifully diverse lives.
For her, it only makes sense that she share her vulnerability as a fellow
human.
Meaning of the Self…
For example:
Jenn M. Choi (2016), in her blog, “The Unified Self”,
described that it is the authentic integration of all the
different aspects of herself and sharing the whole human
being for the world to see. Before, she felt a bit segmented.
The different parts of her life were compartmentalized into
neat little boxes. For years, when she was working in
corporate, she felt like she had to split between

10. Meaning of the Self…
2. SELF is the condition of identity that makes one
subject of experience distinct from all others.
• This means that the situations we encounter every
day make our experiences unique from what other
people are experiencing.
For example:
The experience of losing someone you love in an
untimely death is more painful than the death of a
friend’s loved one where she had been prepared for
his death.

11. Meaning of the Self…
3. SELF is exhibited and inferred in the conduct and discourse
that emanate from the individual alone.
• Our self can be shown in our behavior and in the way we present
ourselves to others that it can only come from our own self.
For example:
President Duterte is known to be a strong and tough-
talking leader. Since 2016, he has unleashed a “war
on drugs” and an all-out war against communist
insurgents, both of which have allegedly led to
widespread human rights abuses. He agitated state forces and supporters
with his bombastic rhetoric against “enemies of the state.” He is notorious
and unapologetic for cursing and resorting to profanity when expressing
dismay and anger over the country’s social problems (Palatino, 2020).

12. Meaning of the Self…
4. SELF is the person regarded as an
individual apart from all others.
• It is the character of the person that makes
him/her different from others.
For Example:
Pia Wurtzbach, Miss Universe 2015, was known for her answer in
the Miss Universe Pageant – “confidently beautiful with a heart” –
describing the best version of herself is when she is able to inspire and
help other people. Indeed, throughout her reign she was able to inspire
both men and women as well as done charitable works proving that she
is confidently beautiful (Green, 2020).

13. Meaning of the Self…
5. SELF is one’s identity.
• Self is usually referred to as the sense of “who I am”
and “what I am”, while IDENTITY is referred to as how
one perceived you or how others perceived you to be.
Therefore, self is the way I see it as how others perceived
me to be who I am.
For example:
• I described myself as beautiful because
other people perceived me to be beautiful.

14. Meaning of the Self…
6. SELF is expressed in the first person.
• Self is regarded as the “I” and the “me”.
For example:
I know how to dance.
Therefore, I can do it.

15. Meaning of the Self…
7. SELF is a dynamic, responsive process that structures
neural pathways according to past adolescent environment
(Self, Culture and Society Class, 2015).
• Self is capable of change and has the ability to adjust in
response to the stimuli in the social environment
• Self is involved in regulating its actions and responses as
influenced by past adolescent environment.
For example:
Emotions related to negative experience with
a teacher hinders a student to learn.

16. Nature of the Self
Ariola (2018) stated that there are many explanations with
respect to the nature of the self.
1. The self is independent of the senses. It has no sensory
contact with its own body. It is not logically dependent on any
physical being. – Avicenna in his famous essay, “The Floating
Man”
2. The self may have changed in many respects but the
same self appears present as was present then. Thus, the
self is a bundle or collection of different perspectives which
succeed one another with an inconceivable and are in
perpetual flux and movement. – David Hume

17. Nature of the Self…
3. The self is a narrative center of gravity, not physically
detestable but a kind of convenient fiction that does not
correspond to anything tangible. “People constantly tell
themselves stories to make sense of their world, and they
feature in the stories as a character and that convenient but
fictional character is the self” – Daniel Dennett
4. The self is both legal and moral person. It is legal in
the sense that he is free and equal to other selves; moral
because he may have a unique identity different from other
selves – Joshua Knobe

18. Nature of the Self…
5. The self is an intersubjective being, a unique being
who is never alone on its existence in the world. Since
the self is an intersubjective being, the self establishes
relationship with “I” and “thou” (you) – Rick Warren in his
“Purpose Driven Life”
6. According to Swami Vivekananda, the self is conditioned
by three factors: (1) the sense are unreliable; (2) the
mind is conditioned by space-time; and (3) the mind is
conditioned by logical limitations.

19. Nature of the Self…
7. The self is constantly evolving due to the complexities
of culture and societies. The self is dependent on the
culture that the self has been situated in. Eastern vs.
Western cultures show that there are differences among the
self.
8. Religion views the nature of the self very widely. The
self is a complex and core subject in many spirituality.
Spirituality is the self’s search for ultimate meaning through
independent comprehension of the sacred.

20. Nature of the Self…
9. Human beings have a self - that is they are able to look
back on themselves as both subjects and objects in the
universe.
10. The Self is the thinking and feeling being within us
and within ourselves – it is the distinct identity which is the
summation of the experiences of an individual (Magalona,
Sadsad and Cruz, 2018).

21. Importance of the Self
Philosophers look at self as very important in several
ways (Ariola, 2018):
1. According to Kant, by knowing ourselves, we can be free
and our actions and choices matter, we can make good
on these commitments without fear of being contradicted
by theory. In other words, we can be responsible to
ourselves.

22. Importance of the Self
2. By knowing the self, we are able to examine what type of
object the self is and how it is constituted.
3. According to Thorin Klosowski, by knowing the self, we
are able to develop self-awareness and introspection which
are the starting point to every improvement. This
improvement relates to understanding your own needs,
desires, and feelings, habits and everything else. The more
you know about yourself, the better you are at adopting life
changes.

23. Importance of the Self
4. Understanding the self is a very important basis of quantified
self-movement which means that if a person collects data about
himself, he can make improvements based on that data (New
York Times report)
5. Knowing the self requires more than intellectual self-
examination for it demands knowing something about your
feelings and emotions. The more you pay attention to your
feelings and emotions and how you work on them, the better you
will understand why you do the things you do. Ultimately, the
more you know about your habits, the easier it is to improve
those habits.

24. The Need of Understanding the Self
According to Ariola (2018), there is a well—encompassing
need to understand the self, thus, understanding the self –
Helps learners acquire a positive sense of self and social
responsibility.
Help learners develop their potentials to enable them to
live harmoniously in the context of a fast changing and
challenging world.
Helps learners participate meaningfully in all endeavors as
responsible members of a global community taking into
account multi-cultural perspectives.

25. The Need of Understanding the Self…
Helps learners understand local and global issues and
concerns that continue to impact their lives and the lives of
others.
Enables the learners develop the capacity to think, reason
and act legally and morally as these will have a sphere of
influence to others.
Enables the learners to behave in ways that will fulfill their
needs and goals in the contemporary society.
Helps the learners to possess personal, civil, and moral
obligations, not only to themselves but also to their families,
nations, and the globalized contemporary society.

26. The Need of Understanding the Self…
Ariola (2018) emphasized that understanding the self
must continue to expand beyond the self to a larger self.
The flow of change process must necessarily start from the
self and continues throughout life so that the self will live
and work effectively as a human person.

27. In Lesson 3, you learned about the various definitions of the self.
According to Ariola (2018), the nature of the self is as follows:
1)The self is independent of the senses;
2)The self may have changed in many respects but the same self
appears present as what was present then;
3)The self is a narrative center of gravity, not physically detestable but
a kind of convenient fiction that does not correspond to anything
tangible;
4)the self is both legal and moral person;
5)The self is an inter-subjective being, a unique being who is never
alone on its existence in the world;

28. 6) The self is conditioned by three factors: (a) the sense are
unreliable; (b) the mind is conditioned by space-time; and (c) the
mind is conditioned by logical limitations;
7) The self is constantly evolving due to the complexities of culture and
societies;
8) Religion views the nature of the self very widely;
9) Human beings have a self; and
10) The Self is the thinking and feeling being within us and within
ourselves.
You also learned why the self is important and the need of
understanding the self.

29. REFERENCES
1 ARIOLA, M. M. (2018). Understanding the Self. Unlimited Books Library Services & Publishing, Inc.
2 CRUZ, M.T.M. and CRUZ II, E.B. (2016). Personal Development. Books Atbp. Publishing Corporation. Pp. 1-
20
3 MAGALONA, E.D., SADSAD, E.S. and CRUZ, E.R.M. (2018). Understanding the Self. Mindshapers Co., Inc.
4 MICROSOFT® ENCARTA®. (2009). Self. Encarta Dictionaries. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights
reserved.
5 JMEQVIST. (2014). Unity and Disunity of the Self: Is a Unified Self a Suppressed Self?
https://jmeqvist.wordpress.com/2014/03/09/unity-and-disunity-of-the-self-does-unity-suppress-elements-of-the-
self-that-are-vital-to-our-humanity/. Date retrieved: October 5, 2020.
6 CHOI, J.M. (2016). The Unified Self. https://jennmchoi.com/a-unified-self/. Date retrieved: October 5, 2020.
7 PALATINO, M. (2020). Rodrigo Duterte: The Weak Strongman of the Philippines. The Diplomat.
https://thediplomat.com/2020/09/rodrigo-duterte-the-weak-strongman-of-the-philippines/. Date retrieved: October
5, 2020.
8 GREEN, J. (2020). Pia Wurtzbach Reveals The Best Version Of Herself. The Philippine News.
https://philnews.ph/2020/10/01/pia-wurtzbach-reveals-the-best-version-of-herself/. Date retrieved: October 5,
2020.
9 SCIENCE DIRECT. (2020). sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/self-and-identity. Date retrieved: October
5, 2020.

30. It’s a WRAP!
DON’T FORGET TO ANSWER ACTIVITY 3.