Adrian Rufo P.

Naragas October 11, 2017

Modern Philosophy Rev. Fr. Joseph Alner Y. Garrido
Extensive Outline
Part I: Introduction to the Modern Era
The modern era started at the 15th century. It is the shift of era from Medieval to Modern.
It is the era on which the concern now of the society is not more on theology—which is the main
concern of the medieval period—but on Man. It is the age of reason and of discovery as of what
they describe. Its shift occurred at the continuous development of the main aspects in the society.
The modern era is described and most popular at the event called the 3Rs Renaissance,
Reformation, and Revolution.
 Change in Social Structure (Renaissance)
- Before in the Medieval Period, there is a popular system called the feudalism. It
was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of
land in exchange for service or labor1. The structure is composed of Feudal lords
and servants/laborers. The servants must strive to work for the Feudal lord for a
living and a land to live.
- But when the City (Burg) become popular, there has been changes in social
structure.
- In the city, you have the autonomy over yourself. From slave of the feudal lord to
an individual.2
- The money that you work for will not be given on the lord but all yours to enjoy.
- From community (feudal society) to individual
- The rise of individual humanism, The renaissance
 Invention of the Movable Type (Reformation)
- Knowledge is much easier to acquire with the invention of movable type by
Johannes Guttenberg (printing press)
- People can now read on their own and not relying on speeches.
- Books before were exclusive only to very rich people because copies of books
were handwritten.
- Everyone now has the capacity to interpret freely on their own accord.
- This was the rise of the Protestantism, the separation of some Christian Catholics
to join a new religion—Protestantism—that Martin Luther initiated. The
reformation.
 Emerging of Experimental Science (Revolution)
- Invention and discovery was very rampant in this era.
- Major astronomical and geographical discoveries that questions the metaphysical
understanding of the world created by the medieval traditions. Example of this
was Newton’s law of gravity and Copernican’s revolution

1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism
2
Greer Thomas. “A Brief History of Western Man.” Harcourt Brace and World, INC, USA. 1968. Page 261
 - Discovery of cure between many sicknesses which they thought was incurable
became popular.
- Solving of agricultural problems, which they thought was plaque, through
experimental science was very successful.
- Scientists had the freedom to explore without being accused of witchcraft. The
Revolution.
The beginning of modern philosophy was marked by a period of doubt brought by
modern empirical sciences from Copernicus to Newton. Everything that people used to believe
was put into doubt/question. The emergences of modern sciences help the beginning of modern
era. To this, some scientists have made a profound and lasting contribution to its development.
 Nicholaus Copernicus- this polish born scientist was the first to make the heliocentric
model of the universe a plausible theory by proving through his computations.
Heliocentric is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the
Sun at the center of the Solar System.
 Johannes Kepler- was a German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer. He revised
the heliocentric model and rendered it more possible and workable. He proposes that the
earth, which Copernicus had spoken of as spherical in shape and revolution, follows an
elliptical orbit.
 Galileo Galilei- as an Italian polymath: astronomer, physicist, engineer, philosopher, and
mathematician. Often invoked as the martyr of the cause of science against religion. He
discovered the parabolic pattern of the trajectory of projectiles, made important
observations on heavenly bodies by reconfiguring the telescope, formulated initial ideas
on inertia and gravity.
 Isaac Newton- was an English mathematician, astronomer, and physicist (described in
his own day as a "natural philosopher") who is widely recognized as one of the most
influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution. One of his
important works was the formulation of the law of gravity and laws of motion.
Part II: Rationalism
1. Rene Descartes

Rene was hailed as the father of the modern period. He was intrigued of the new discoveries that
happened in his society especially in the realm of science. He too aspired to contribute to the
outburst development of the society in the field he is most familiar of and that is in the realm of
Philosophy. He came into a realization where he observed that the truths he believed in were
proven false when a new truth came in. He then reflected to that situation and created a
Philosophy of his own by writing a book entitled “Meditation on First Philosophy.”
 Meditation on First Philosophy
This book is his understanding on how to attain knowledge. This is his Philosophy
and is composed of 6 meditations:
- 1st Meditation:
 He said that if an old truth can be replaced by a new one then everything
that exist is subject to doubt (Universal Methodic Doubt).
 Our knowledge of a reality then maybe false.
 He said that the foundation of our knowledge is weak and that is why it is
subject to doubt.
 He said that there is an evil genius manipulating our knowledge of the
world. We are in the state of illusion.
 He tends to investigate his thoughts and find a certain explanation that is
cannot be subject to doubt.
 The bedrock of certitude as of what he would describe it.
 He said that Opinion, Senses, Science, Math, Dreams, and even God is
subject to doubt.
 We must have a critical doubt/reasonable doubt in order to achieve a
certain knowledge that is certain. I have to go back to my mind because
everything in the senses is false.
 I have to acquire knowledge now by myself.
nd
- 2 Meditation
 He said that if everything is false my body and myself is also false.
 But I cannot be unreal for if I am tricked by the evil genius then the fact
that I am tricked means I am real.
 I then is something.
 In his struggle to find what is certain, unique and indubitable, he
realized that there is something that he cannot doubt and that is the mere
fact of Doubting.
 He cannot doubt that he is in the state of doubting everything that there is.
Doubting is thinking and if it the only thing that I can say that is certain
then thinking is inseparable to me.
 I, then is a thinking thing! Then if I think, therefore I exist! (Cogito ergo
Sum)
 I am, I exist and that is certain. I am a thing that doubts, understand and
affirm.
 Even if I doubt that I am thinking the fact that I doubt means that I think.
 This was the rise of the thinking called the “Rationalism”
rd
- 3 Meditation
 Having discovered that consciousness is the starting point of certitude.
Descartes is confronted with a dilemma: how can he warrant the certainty
of the reality outside the res cogitans, the res extensa? Aside from this, the
most important question remains: how can one be certain of God’s
existence
 There are 3 arguments on how he seeks to prove God’s existence
a) Efficient Causality argument – the idea of the infinite strikes as
the most distinct and clearest idea of all. However, this idea cannot
come to me since I am finite and so it must come from the infinite
 itself. This, however, demonstrates a union of innate and
adventitious ideas.
b) Proofs through ontologism – the infinity of perfect ideas in me
cannot come from me who is imperfect. More so, it cannot be that
I am the one causing this idea. However, as I, imperfect may be,
still desire for the perfect—a unique desire which is metaphysical
in character—desire for being. This desire, then, cannot be false;
the perfect must exist.
c) Proof through Cartesian Cogito – God is my idea of a supreme
perfect being. Existence is a perfection of all perfections; therefore,
God as the most perfect being necessarily exists. This reality
asserts itself in human thought.

2. Baruch Spinoza
Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Sephardi/Portuguese origin. By laying the groundwork
for the 18th-century Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism, including modern conceptions
of the self and the universe, he came to be considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century
philosophy. He is famous for his philosophy that is related to Pantheism.
 According to him, God is not a personified being. He is a substance that made up
everything.
 He said that in order to understand the will of God we should study nature and material
world.
 To understand good and evil we must not look at things from our own perspective but
from a global viewpoint.
 Spinoza’s argument for pantheistic God.
- For a substance to exist it must have at least one property.
- If two things share a property they must have the same substance.
- God exists and had all properties.
- God shares properties in everything that exists.
- God is the same substance as everything that exists.

3. Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German polymath and philosopher who occupies a
prominent place in the history of mathematics and the history of philosophy, having developed
differential and integral calculus independently of Isaac Newton. He wrote 50,000 documents in
his entire life and half only published.
 He is famous for the line that he said “why is there something rather than nothing?”
 His philosophy starts on that line. And with that, he tries to explain the existence of the
universe through the existence of God.
  His argument goes like this:3
- Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence (either in the necessity
or external cause)
- If the universe has an explanation of universe that explanation is God.
- The universe exists.
- The explanation of the universe existence is God.
 He starts by saying that the premise 3 is correct and is evident. He supports the premise 1
by using the example of a sphere in the street. So the presence of the sphere demands an
explanation it may be small or big because you cannot say that the sphere has always
been there all the time. Then so is our universe, it demands an explanation big or small.
 Then in our universe he said that there are two things that exist:4
- Necessary Being
 It is impossible for them not to exist because it is the source of where all
contingent being exists. Exists by necessity of their own nature. (e.g
numbers)
- Contingent Being
 It cannot cause itself to exist in the universe. They don’t have to exist.
They just exist because something caused them to exist
 The universe is a contingent being, then if it is a contingent being then it don’t have to
exist. But why did the universe exists? The reason why the universe existed because it is
caused by something that is not contingent.
 That non-contingent being exists because of the necessity of its nature. There are two
entities that we can say that are possible causes that is beyond space and time.
- God
- Abstract Objects
 Abstract Object cannot cause anything to exist, therefore God is the necessary Being
who created the Universe.
Part III: Empiricism
1. David Hume
“The Most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation” This quotation is very
popular to the philosophy of David Hume. He is one of the great philosophers in the Modern era.
He asserted that senses is still powerful in any aspect than just thinking. He is an Empiricist. It is
an epistemic position on which knowledge can be attained through experience only.
 According to Hume, Knowledge can be attained only through perception of the senses.
 It is where through experience that we can gain knowledge of anything in the world.
 Sense is superior to ideas for it is what can be felt more.
 Our thoughts and ideas are only impressions of the senses. The powerfulness of the mind
is copied to the experience of the senses.

3
Martin Kulp. “Leibniz's Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God”. www.youtube.com. Date accessed: Oct.
04, 2017
4
Inspiring Philosophy. “The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument“. www.youtube.com. Date accessed: Oct. 04, 2017
  We cannot make thoughts of something if we cannot sense them. The same as the blind
man cannot tell what color blue is and a deaf man cannot hear what music is.
 Our mind has the capacity to think of something great because it is fond of associations.
Our mind associates ideas coming from the senses. Our mind can compound, transpose,
compact, and diminish.
 All knowledge comes from the mind’s impressions of senses
- Impression – refers to experience; more lively perception
 External – Sensation
 Internal – Reflection
- IDEAS/THOUGHTS (faint/obscure) – The impressions as it becomes imprinted
in the mind; less lively perception.
 Resemblance
 Contiguity of time/ Place
 Cause and Effect
- From Understanding
 Relation of Ideas - These are self-evident truths, necessary truth, a priori
truths. To deny its opposite is completely wrong.
 Matters of Fact - These are contingent truths, a posteriori truths. It is
understanding through experience and is based on observation. Cause and
Effect.
But there is a negative thing that concludes the Philosophy of Hume. He then resorted to
Skepticism. It is a state where knowledge is unattainable by man. At the end of his philosophy
he said that knowledge is impossible for man.
 He said that it is not knowledge that we have been thinking of. It is the
uniformity/regularity of nature.
 It is not knowledge because we do not really know what is the cause of everything we
knew.
 There is no knowledge but only succession of events.
2. John Locke
John Locke was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most
influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism" He is
one the great empiricist of the Modern era
 He said that knowledge can only be gained through experience. He rejected the notion
of A priori conditions where man has innate ideas instilled in him.
 He said that man is born knowing nothing tabularasa – a blank slate.
 But Locke said that not everything that comes to our senses can be subject to knowledge.
 In all things there are what he called qualities.
- Primary qualities
 Belongs to the thing itself (size, solidity, density, mass, height)
- Secondary qualities
 They are not real and they are just in our minds but they get there through
the primary qualities. (Sweetness, Hardness, redness, how it taste)
  Locke said in gaining knowledge we must conform to both Primary and Secondary
qualities that the being gave in order to have a better understanding.
3. George Berkeley
George Berkeley — known as Bishop Berkeley — was an Irish philosopher whose primary
achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism" He writes his own
philosophy after John Locke. Berkeley began by taking part the distinction that Locke made
between Primary and Secondary qualities.
 Berkeley said that you cannot totally perceive qualities of an object by disregarding the
others. When you think of an object, you cannot detect the primary qualities without also
considering the secondary qualities.
 Berkeley has shown that the two qualities are inextricably linked with each other—you
cannot have one without the other. This led him to say that there are no such things as
matter (weight, size etc…) but only perception.
 He came up with an idea called “To be is to be perceived” (esse est percepi). 5 He said that
there are no objects only perceivers. The perceivers even themselves does not have
physical form. They are just disembodied minds perceiving things that are not really there
(matters).6
 He said that we are all set adrift in the world of nothing but thought. If anything is a
perception then if the perception is not present then anything will not be present to.
 Berkeley said that the only thing that kept us from being present in the universe is
because of God. He is the ultimate perceiver that is always perceiving us.
4. Francis Bacon
He was an English scientist and lawyer. Bacon was an instrumental figure in the Renaissance
and Scientific Enlightenment. He was the father of scientific method and the father of
empiricism. He is an early empiricist of modern times. Bacon wants to reconstruct all knowledge
through scientific method.

 He said that our mind was corrupted we must restore our mind’s original condition.
 He classifies our mind’s corruption into idols:7
- Idols of the Tribe  
 The Idols of the Tribe have their foundation in human nature itself, and in
the tribe or race of men. For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is
the measure of things. On the contrary, all perceptions as well of the sense
as of the mind are according to the measure of the individual and not
according to the measure of the universe.
- The Idols of the Cave

5
Buckingham, Will. “To Be Is To Be Perceived.” The Philosophy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained. DK Publishing,
New York. 2011. Pg. 138
6
Berkeley, George, and Howard Robinson. Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues. Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 2009.
7
Lawhead, William. “The Voyage of Discovery: A History of Western Philosophy”. Wadsworth Publishing Company,
California. 1996. P. 232
  The Idols of the Cave are the idols of the individual man. For everyone
(besides the errors common to human nature in general) has a cave or den
of his own, which refracts and discolors the light of nature, owing either to
his own proper and peculiar nature; or to his education and conversation
with others; or to the reading of books, and the authority of those whom he
esteems and admires; or to the differences of impressions, accordingly as
they take place in a mind preoccupied and predisposed or in a mind
indifferent and settled; or the like.
- Idols of the Marketplace
 But the Idols of the Market Place are the most troublesome of all — idols
which have crept into the understanding through the alliances of words
and names. Now words, being commonly framed and applied according to
the capacity of the vulgar, follow those lines of division which are most
obvious to the vulgar understanding.
- Idols of the Theater
 Idols which have immigrated into men's minds from the
various dogmas of philosophies, and also from wrong laws
of demonstration.
 Proceeds from particular facts given in observation and then rises cautiously to the level
of generalizations. The Inductive method as of what he would Define.
 Proposes a systematic procedure that he call the “tables of inquiry”8
- Demonstrations
 To discover the form of heat, we must list all the cases where heat is
present, such as rays of the sun, sparks struck from flint, interiors of
animas, the taste of strong spices, and so on. (the Table of Essence and
Presence)
 We should make a list of cases that are similar to the first list, but where
the particular effect is missing. I we are studying heat for example, we
would note that the light from the moon is coon and, compare to animals,
the bodies of fishes lack warmth. (Table of Deviation or Absence in
Proximity.”
 Construct a list of cases in which the nature whose form we are studying is
present in various degrees. For example, animals become more heated
when exercising or suffering a fever. (Table of Degrees)
 Having systematically collected our date, the real process of induction
begins we examine the tables to find “such a nature as is always present or
absent with the given nature, and always increases and decreases with it”

Part III: Political Philosophers

8
Lawhead, William. “The Voyage of Discovery: A History of Western Philosophy”. Wadsworth Publishing Company,
California. 1996. P. 230
1. Niccolo Machiavelli
A late 15th century political adviser and political theorist. He was famous for his work The
Prince and The Discourses. In them he addressed the central problems of Politics that it is almost
impossible to be both a good politician and a good person in the traditional Christian sense. He
argued that we should not think that that the politicians are simply immoral and bad for lying,
assembling, and maneuvering. He said that a good politician is not someone who is friendly,
honest and kind. It is someone that is occasionally dark, and underhand they might be who
knows how to defend, enrich and bring honor to the state which is an extremely important goal.
 He said that the overwhelming responsibility of a prince is to protect his kingdom both
from external and internal threat. So the Prince must know how to fight and at the
same time know about the reputation and management of those who are around him.
 People should not think that he is soft and easy to disobey nor should they find him so
cruel that he disgust his society. He should be unapproachable strict but reasonable.
 He said that there are two choices what a prince have in his leadership it is to be loved
or to be feared. He said that the prince should pick for what is the inspiring terror for
it will ultimately keeps people in check.
 He gave examples of politicians in his time that failed because they side only to one
aspect of being a leader.
- Geronimo Savoranola
 A dominican friar who promised to create a society that is honest, kind
and God-centered. Later, he was hanged by pope alexander.
- Caesary Borgia
 Was overly violent leader in his time.
 He said that a leader should dwell to make judicious use of what he called virtu—
virtue. He has his own concepts of virtu for politicians and those are:
- Wisdom
- Strategy
- Strength
- Bravery
- Ruthlessness (when necessary)
 He categorized ruthlessness as one of the “Criminal Virtue” where he said that it is
necessary to be cruel in the name of the state and yet still good as leaders.
 Any violence is necessary in order for the security of the state. But not to be repeated
occasionally because that might be too brutak.
 He said that being nice is may well be a virtue in general but what the citizens need for
most of their rulers is effectiveness.
 We cannot good at all for all things because of our limited abilities and resources. But
also because of the conflict between moral codes.
2. Thomas Moore
He was venerated by Roman Catholics as Saint Thomas More, an English lawyer and
social philosopher. He was a councilor to Henry VIII, and Lord High Chancellor of England. He
opposed the King's separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to acknowledge Henry as
Supreme Head of the Church of England. He wrote Utopia - about the political system of an
imaginary ideal island nation.
The Utopia is a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. It
is the new world as of what he would suggest.
 He criticizes the use of execution to punish theft, saying thieves might as well murder
whom they rob, to remove witnesses, if the punishment is going to be the same
 The people will live on an island that contains 54 cities and that each city are divided
into four equal parts.
 In the Utopia, a Prince will become the governor of the island. He will be elected
through secret ballot. He stays in position as Prince till he die. He will be kicked out in
his position if he commits tyranny.
 People are re-distributed around the households and towns to keep their population
even.
 The people cannot acquire a private property. All the goods are stored in warehouses
and people are free to make use of it when they need it.
 There is no need to put locks on the doors of the houses. Agriculture is one of the most
important occupation on the island.
 It is fine to have slaves in the houses, they can have at least two
- It can be slaves from other countries.
- Criminals of the Utopia.
 A welfare state with free hospitals, euthanasia permissible by the state, priests being
allowed to marry, divorce permitted, premarital sex punished by a lifetime of enforced
celibacy and adultery being punished by enslavement.
 There are several religions on the island: moon-worshipers, sun-worshipers, planet-
worshipers, ancestor-worshipers and monotheists, but each is tolerant of the others.
 Atheists are despised (but allowed) in Utopia, as they are seen as representing a danger
to the state
 Utopians do not like to engage in war. If they feel countries friendly to them have been
wronged, they will send military aid, but they try to capture, rather than kill, enemies
3. John Locke
He was influenced by the Whig politician Anthony Ashley Cooper known as the first earl
of shaftesbury who went to oxford, a university that Locke studied, for a cure for a liver disease.
Cooper offered Locke to become one of his household in London. With that, John Locke was
now able to participate to political debates in his society. He also cured Shadtesbury of his liver
disease which gave him a lifetime gratitude afterwards. He was famous of his works Toleration
and The Two Treaties of Government.9
 In his book Toleration, he advocates man’s right to the freedom of belief. He
advocates toleration on the basis of three points:

9
The School of Life. “Political Theory” by John Locke. www.youtube.com. Date Accessed: Oct. 04, 2017
 - We must tolerate religion because earthly judges, the state in particular, and
human beings in general, cannot dependably evaluate the truth-claims of
competing religious standpoints
- Even if they could, enforcing a single “true religion” would not work because
you cannot be compelled into belief through violence.
- Coercing religious uniformity leads to far more social disorder than allowing
diversity.
 He argued that the ultimate aim of the state was just to preserve the quiet and
comfortable living of men in the society and it have nothing to do with the good of
men’s souls. He said that religion is a personal choice and churches are voluntary
organizations which could set their own rules and be left to it.
 What man believe is deemed irrelevant to his status or prospects.
 In his second book The Two Treaties of Government, he tries to answer that who
should rule the country and on what legitimate basis.
 One famous and yet fanciful notion at that time was that political authority was derived
directly from God.
 In the First treaties, Locke thoroughly demolished the scriptural claim that God created
the Kings and in the second treatise he took on Hobbes’ idea on the state of nature.
 He agreed with Hobbes that before and without government, they would have been a
state of nature but he disagreed what this place would actually have been like.
 He argued that it would have been broadly peaceful and that in agreeing to submit to
governments, people had therefore not fearfully agreed to surrender all their rights.
 He said that the people possessed a range of inalienable or natural rights that no ruler
could ever take away. He insisted that people had voluntarily consented to cede some of
their personal freedom but only insofar that it better preserve their rights.
 The people could not entirely expected to give up all their rights because that will just
defeat the point of joining society in the first place. If the ruler will start to act as a
tyrant, they have the rights to withdraw the king and choose their new ruler.
4. Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes, in some older texts Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, was an English
philosopher who is considered one of the founders of modern political philosophy. He is famous
for his book he published entitled The Leviathan.
 In his book Leviathan, he suggested how important government is and man’s
participation to it.
 He said that a world that is without rules, nothing is illegal, nothing is immoral and is
absolutely free or a world that is without government is fearful and terrible. He called
this hypothetical time with no rules to govern our behavior, the State of Nature. 10
- He described life there as “Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish and Short.”

10
"Of the Natural Condition of Mankind As Concerning Their Felicity, and Misery." Wikipedia.org. Dater accessed:
Oct. 05, 2017
 - In that life, man will strive to live by relying on resources. But as they keep
their resources for survival, they have to watch over it for the other people
might take it from them for the other people are also fighting for survival.
- Man are called savages here or prime apes.
- In the state of nature, as man finds out that he has abundance of freedom, he
does not have security. So this type of system—a sort of anti-system without
orders—is a terrible way to live.
 But man as a rational being, they would want to change that system. They would trade
some of their natural freedom, in exchange for the security offered by civil society. He
said that it was the key to save the world from Chaos and that would be the Social
Contract.11
- He said that morality is not innate on man. Morality came from a society of
free, self-interested and rational individuals living together.
- As free and rational beings, they realize that there are more benefits to be
found in cooperating than not cooperating.
- Man make an agreement with each other in order to conform with each other
and not be like the savages in the state of the nature. With that they build a
security with each other with a simple contract.
- With that simple contract, agreement, morality then is born.
5. Jean Jacques Rosseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Francophone Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of
the 18th century. He was famous for his work on The Discourse on the Origins and
Foundations of Inequality. In his work he said that our civilization and progress had not in fact
improved people. Instead they had exacted a terrible destructive influence on the morality of
human being who had once been good.
 In his argument he said that individuals were once been good and happy but as
people had emerged from their pre-social state and join society, they had been
became plague by vice and sin.
 In his work, he sketched what would be in like where at the beginning of the history,
an idyllic period that he called “the state of nature”. It a long time ago where men
and women lived in the forest. The philosopher pictured the people more easily
understanding their own minds and so being drawn towards the essential features of
a satisfied life.
- A love of family
- Respect for Nature
- Curiosity about others
- A taste for music
- Simple Entertainment
 The state of nature was a moral and guided sympathy for others and their sufferings.

11
Lawhead, William. “The Voyage of Discovery: A History of Western Philosophy”. Wadsworth Publishing
Company, California. 1996. Pp. 239
  He claimed that the march towards civilization had awakened in people and
unhealthy form of self-love. Amour propre as of what he would define it as
something that is artificial and was centered towards pride, jealousy and vanity.
 He said that this destructive form of self-love had emerged as people to move into
cities and there begun to compare themselves to others and create their identity
solely by reference to their neighbors.
 Civilized people had stop thinking about what they wanted and what they felt and
merely imitating other people entering into ruinous competition and losing sight of
their own sensations.
Also in 1762 as continuation of his work he wrote Emile or On Education. It was one of the
most successful book ever written about how to raise children.
 He suggested that children were born naturally good and that the key to raising them
was therefore always to prevent their corruption by society.
 The children is not a blank slate and not wild beasts to tame with.
Part IV: Morality
1. Immanuel Kant
Kant is a German Philosophy teacher who is very famous for synthesizing the
Philosophies of the rationalism and empiricism. It was the two opposing major schools of the
modern era. Kant called his synthesis as the Copernican revolution because his goal was to solve
problems in his era mainly:
 To reconcile the philosophies of the rationalism and empiricism.
 To resolve quarrels between the faith and the science.
 To solve the problem of traditional metaphysics by destructing it and build a humbler
one.
Kant wrote a book entitled “Critique of Pure Reason” and it tells the whole idea of his
Philosophy regarding to his synthesis. Kant agrees to what David Hume’s idea that experience is
without doubt the first product that our understanding brings forth as it works on the raw
material of sensible sensations. But not all knowledge arises from experience.
 According to him, when we experience things we do not only objectify it. Man has a
priori cognitions of the mind that enables him to understand/interpret things within the
mind. It is where the capacity to judge resides.
 He said that there are two judgments
- Analytic Judgment
 It is the relation of ideas, necessary truths and a priori judgments.
- Synthetic Judgment
 It is the judgment of experience, contingent truth, and a posteriori
judgments.
 Then, he asserted that it is possible to have synthetic a priori. Our mind is not pure
reason. It is not also passive who only receives data.
 Our mind can interpret something but is still based on manifold sensibilities/synthetic
judgment.
  There are two modes of cognition:
- Transcendental Aesthetics
 It is how an object causes an impression and sensation to us. This is the
cognition based on physical understanding.
 Transcendental Aesthetics works on two ways:
a) Intuition
b) Time and Space
Here it presents that all knowledge came from sensation but the mind is
working to understand.
- Transcendental Logic
 It is our capacity to cognize. It is where our reason resides. Our mind
manifold sensibilities in order to make sense of our experience.
 Our mind is not simply receiving sensations. It is the mind who is judging
the knowledge that we get from experience.
 Our mind has the capacity to understand something even without concrete
experience. (e.g. Ghost)
 Our mind uses representation in order to understand.
 But there is a limit to man’s capability to cognize. A reality is composed of Noumena,
and Phenomena. We live in the phenomenal world and it is where our senses dwells.
We do not have access to the noumena for we do not reside in it.
 Since, we can only experience what is the phenomena then it implies that man cannot
fully understand a reality because we do not have access to the noumena.
 We only knew them by its phenomena/physical but we cannot understand the reality as it
is in itself/noumena.
 That is why our mind is only capable of representations of the noumena because our
senses do not have access to it.
 Some things do exist whether we believe it or not and those things probably are present
in the Noumena.
With this, Kant synthesizes problems in the modern era. With his notion on the noumena and
phenomena he connects the philosophies of rationalism and empiricism. He solves the tension
between the science, who presents physical facts and the religion who presents noumenal facts.
Lastly, this was the new methapysics that he built. He created it into a humbler metaphysics by
asserting that we cannot understand the whole of reality and by pure reason alone because
we cannot deny the facts that our senses presents to us.
2. Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is solely determined by its
contribution to overall utility in maximizing happiness or pleasure as summed among all people.
It is, then, the total utility of individuals which is important here, the greatest happiness for the
greatest number of people. Utility, after which the doctrine is named, is a measure in economics
of the relative satisfaction from, or desirability of, the consumption of goods. Utilitarianism can
thus be described as a quantitative and reductionistic approach to Ethics.12
Jeremy Bentham

He was an English philosopher, political radical and legal and social reformer of the early
Modern period. Bentham was born in Spitalfields, London on 15 February 1748, the son of a
wealthy Tory attorney.

 He also suggested a "felicific calculus" for estimating the moral status (or "happiness
factor") of any action. A means of balancing the pros and the cons of an envisaged act. 13
 The morally good act is that which lies at the point of intersection of maximum pleasure
and minimum pain.
 He said that pleasure is reducible to quantifiable units:
- Intensity
- Duration
- Probability
- Proximity
- Fecundity
- Purity
- Extent

John Stuart Mill

He was an English philosopher, political economist and Member of Parliament of the

early Modern period.

 One of Mill's major contributions to Utilitarianism was his argument for the qualitative
separation of pleasures, his insistence that happiness should be assessed not merely by
quantity but by quality and, more specifically, that intellectual and moral pleasures are
superior to more physical forms of pleasure.
 He went so far as to say that he would rather be a dissatisfied human being than a
satisfied pig. He also turned away from Bentham's external standard of goodness to
something more subjective, arguing that altruism was as important as self-interest in
deciding what ought to be done.
 Man’s end is not mere pleasure and absence of pain, but a more generalized kind of
happiness.

12
Ramon Castillo Reyes. “Ground and Norm of Morality”. Ateneo de Manila University Press, Philippines. 1989. p.
68
13
Ramon Castillo Reyes. “Ground and Norm of Morality”. Ateneo de Manila University Press, Philippines. 1989. p.
70
  Seeks that there are higher and lower pleasures, and qualitatively different kinds of
pleasure and satisfactions.
 Contrary to Bentham’s quantitively differentiated pleasures.
 “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be a Socrates
dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.”
 Happiness as the ultimate end of all human desires
- Not mere pleasure but… the harmonious development of the human person.
- Must consider the happiness of others much as ones’ own.
 Introduces a metaphysical theory of human nature which are hardly reconcilable with
utilitarianism’s empirical approach14

Part V: Idealism
1. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher and an important figure of
German idealism. He achieved wide renown in his day and, while primarily influential within the
continental tradition of philosophy, has become increasingly influential in the analytic tradition
as well. Although Hegel remains a divisive figure, his canonical stature within Western
philosophy is universally recognized. He was famous for his work Philosophy of world history.
 He offered us a way of looking at the darker periods of history that neither glosses over
their pain nor refuses to up hope but intelligently helps us to understand why human
progress cannot be linear while encouraging us to trust that it does occur, nevertheless.15
 He said that our history is moving in a “Dialectic Way” It is a philosophical term that is
made up of three parts:
- Thesis(Problem)
 These are problems containing truths that is relevant to subject matter.
- Anti-Thesis(Reaction)
 These also contains truth of the subject matter that the thesis asserted
which is contradictory to its position.
- Synthesis(Solution)
 Solution to the problem and reaction imposed on a subject matter.
 He said that both the thesis and anti-thesis contains part of the truth but they are also
exaggerations and distortions of the whole. They need to clash and interact until the best
elements find resolution in a Synthesis.
 He said that one way, thesis or synthesis, cannot go to the synthesis alone. He said that it
is observable in our history. The world makes progress by lurching from one extreme to
another, as it seeks to overcompensate for previous mistake. It requires then three moves
to attain balance.
14
Ramon Castillo Reyes. “Ground and Norm of Morality”. Ateneo de Manila University Press, Philippines. 1989. p.
70 - 71

15
Lawhead, William. “The Voyage of Discovery: A History of Western Philosophy”. Wadsworth Publishing
Company, California. 1996. P. 378
  One great example is the Athenian, Persian, and Roman Empire.
 His arguments has a highly reassuring feel at moments when it seem that one kind of
progress has been entirely lost.
 All sides of matter will contain important truths lodge amidst exaggerations and
bombast. Yet these truths will eventually be sifted out through the wisdom of time.
 He reminds us that big overreactions are eminently compatible with events broadly
moving forward in the right direction. The dark moments are not the end. They are
challenging, but even in some ways necessary parts of an anti-thesis that will eventually
find a wiser point of synthesis.
Reflection:
On my reflection in studying the modern philosophy, I found out that the philosophers were
trying to build up an idea or philosophy of their own especially the political philosophers in order
to bring harmony in the society. They created different ideas which would be a possible solution
for good governance in the society.
In the medieval era, the government were more focused on the affairs of the religion they
believed that the government will be good if they follow what is the will of God. With that, the
society was stable for centuries. But as the religion abuses its authority, the people find that the
governance was ineffective. They grew sick of the notion of God and therefore strives to create a
method that will bring back the stable government that they once had but in a different way.
Thus, man became anthropocentric.
For me, to branch out from the religion to create new ideas was somehow good for the
people. We can see the vast ideas that the philosophers created after they branched out from
religion. It manifests their awareness and love for the society. They exercise their being as
rational and conscious. It is important also because it creates new idea and can somehow
improve the old in order to create a better society. But, we must not forget the past because they
are the main agents for our awareness of the new ideas. We must always go back to the past as a
reference to our present struggle in life.
In my life, I too had an experience of separation—not literally—of ideals and ways in life. I
branched out to the idea of life that my parents provided to me. Before, I blindly follow them
because I believe that every command they give to me was for my own benefits. But as grew and
found out many things in life I found out that my parents were hiding something from me. I was
angry and started to rebel out of them.
As I try to live and learn my life outside my parents concern, I found out many things and
learned many things in life where I did not find it at home. I was successful but not enough. I
was reckless and endured many problems along the way. After then, I realized my parents were
not wrong after all. They were right all along and they were just trying to protect me from the
dangers of life. For me, it was a good experience because it consciously opened my mind to the
realities in life. I was aware and I now I knew some of it and now know how to handle it
properly. I must have to follow my parents for I know now that they have more experience in life
but at the same time be conscious why I am following them.