DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY

The word philosophy can be looked at from two aspects: its etymological and its real definition.

Etymologically, philosophy comes from two Greek words, Philo and Sophia, which mean love of wisdom.
Thus, a philosopher is a lover of wisdom

Its real definition can be stated briefly: philosophy is a search for meaning.

The word “search” means to look, to find, to seek.

The different lies in the three elements found in philosophical search. These are:

1. The object of the search is of real value to the subject.

2. It “consumes” the whole person – his attention, concentration, interest, effort.
3. It is continued without let-up until the answer is found, or the answer is not yet found, but the
conviction is reached that for the moment at least this is the best possible although still
imperfect answer.
Homo viator – a man on a quest (long search of something), pilgrimage, or journey
In Philosophy, it means to be on a way

The philosopher searches for the meaning of life-its importance, significance, value, relevance.

THE NATURE OF PHILOSOPHY

Universities with a major in philosophy usually offer the following core subjects:

1. Logic – the science and art of correct thinking

2. Ethics – the science of the morality of human acts
3. Epistemology – the theory of knowledge, goal of which is truth
4. Metaphysics – the foundation subject of all philosophy, it deals with human reality and system
of human thought that seeks to explain the fundamental concepts of man
5. Cosmology – the study of inanimate things such as the universe, from the philosophy viewpoint
6. Aesthetic – the study of the beautiful
7. Rational or Philosophical Psychology – the study of life principle of living things, specifically that
of man
8. Theodicy – the philosophical study of God
9. Social Philosophy – the study of man in relation to the family, the state, and the church
10. Philosophy of Man – as already defined in the first chapter, is the inquiry into man and his
dimensions as person and as existent being in the world: his dignity, truth, freedom, justice,
love, death, his relations with others and with God

To the early Greeks, philosophy was a superstar of a subject.

Today, philosophy is considered to have four main branches: logic, ethics, epistemology, and
metaphysics.
A SHORT HISTORICAL OUTLINE

 Thomas Aquinas – the “angelic doctor”, the best philosopher of the Middle Ages

 Frederick Copleston – “magnum opus”, consists of several volumes in which he traces the history
of philosophy from Greece and Rome to Modern Philosophy

 The Sahakians – present their ideas in terms of “realms” of philosophy

 Approaches of Ethics – is a study according to historical periods

The outline that follows is based on these three sources.

A. Pre-Socratic Period
B. The Greeks
1. Socrates
2. Plato
3. Aristotle
C. The Romans
1. Seneca
2. Marcus Aurelius
3. Epictetus
D. The Middle Ages
1. Augustine
2. Bonaventure
3. Boethius
4. Albert the Great
5. Thomas Aquinas
6. Duns Scotus
7. Pico Della Mirandola
E. Early Modern Period
1. Rene Descartes
2. Nicolo Marchiavelli
3. Thomas Hobbes
4. Benedict Spinoza
5. John Locke
6. David Hume
7. Immanuel Kant
F. The Nineteenth Century
1. Jeremy Bentham
2. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
3. Arthur Schopenhauer
4. John Stuart Mill
5. Soren Kierkegaard
 6. Frederich Nietzsche
7. Karl Marx
G. The Contemporary Period
1. Jean Paul Sartre
2. Gabriel Marcel
3. Edmund Husserl
4. Martin Heidegger
5. Teilhard de Chardin
6. Karl Jaspers
7. Martin Buber
8. Robert Johann
9. Henri Bergson
10. Ludwig Wittgenstein
11. William Luijpen
12. Alfred North Whitehead
13. John Dewey
14. William james
15. Charles S. Peirce
16. Paul Ricoeur

WHY PHILOSOPHY?

There will always be some thinking men in every generation, men who will wonder at what they see, not
just accept what they see. Of course, there are times, Johann admits as “in our age of streamline
efficiency” when philosophy is “under a cloud”. This is because philosophers cannot seem to agree, thus
leaving to students and “men affairs” dissatisfied and more muddled than before.

Johann cites a few reasons for this: (1) Man misunderstands philosophy’s nature and function by
comparing it with science. (2) Man experiences his own life a problem. Being a thinking creature, he
realizes his life depends on what he makes of it. Being free, he realizes he can decide, he is responsible
for such decision. (3) he turns to philosophy only to discover that reality is not something only there but
it also involves him. His response must necessarily be subjective. The quality of his life depends on “his
own free response”

PHILOSOPHIZING AND INSIGHT

Philosophizing

An emotional experience like young love or a harrowing event can arrest a person’s attention and push
him into thinking deeply about it. Into philosophizing? For philosophizing is a search for meaning.

Insight

What I am trying to say is that one “sees” into something more than what meets the eye. It is what
philosophers call “insight”
Insight’s men have had ever since they used their intelligence and powers of reflection. The history of
philosophy shows that men have seen and noticed things around them, thought and pondered on these,
and acted on their reflections.

THE NATURE OF PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY

Johann has adopted the position of Ontological Pragmatism in his article:

Ontological Pragmatism (Practical real-world application)

Ontological because the instrument conception of knowing, far from implying a veil between us and
reality, actually enables us progressively to discern its nature;

Pragmatism because it views thematic knowledge as an instrumental function of experience aimed at

the latter’s transformation. Ideas must be tested by consequences. Their validity is measured by their
success.

Inquiry may be provisionally defined as man’s effort to integrate his experience as responsible agent.

Experience in Johann’s paper signifies the interactive process itself, that is, the human self in dynamic
relation with the whole range of the other.

There are different steps in inquiry:

1. Man, functions as the responder. He does not just react, he responds. Which means he is
confronted by external realities such as problems. He answers these problems while keeping in
mind the impact his responses will have not just on the present but on the future, too.

2. Man may be aware of the inadequacy of past habits in dealing with a problem which gives rise
to hesitancy and uncertainty.

3. The uncertainty is a positive and pervasive quality of the interactive process itself. It is the
incoherence that calls for inquiry.

The Modes of Philosophical Inquiry

1. Logic – correct reasoning

2. Phenomenology – ultimate source of all meaning and value is the lived experience of human
beings

3. Meta-pragmatics – understanding the language itself. Ex. Norms, rules

PHILOSOPHY IN A CRISES SITUATION

The three Roles of Philosophy

The Role Of Krises

- We have to look at the economic and political scenery and do some critical reflection which is,
after all, what Dr. Reyes calls “the special role of philosophy in a crisis situation”
 a. “Crisis” comes from the Greek word krisis which means “the act or power of distinguishing,
of separating”, of distinguishing the good from the bad, not just concentrating on the bad
alone, Examples of critiques are the reviews you read on the newspaper: of concerts (piano,
violin, voice), of paintings and sculptures, of books.

b. Thus, we filipino did some critical reflecting when Ninoy was killed when we went into an
examination of our values such as Kapwa tao.

The Role Of Poesis

- Poesis is a creative role. The philosopher interpreter must dare to say which has been unsaid to
transform and lift his experience.

Meduim of language

Language is the medium that the philosopher uses as critic and as interpreter. Interpretation is
actually what all philosophers have done, from Thales on: in interpretating the world as they see it,
interpreting other philosophers in the past as well as their contemporaries, as archaeologist do with
their discovery stones and bones and parchment.

The Role Of Phronesis

- Aristotle defines phronesis as a “short of practical wisdom, a certain capacity to think and feel in
the situation as befits a man of action,” that is why Dr. Reyes recommends “DAPAT TAYONG
MATUTONG MAKIRAMDAM, SABI NGA NG ATING MGA AMAIN”

This means we have to look at the three dimensions of time: the past, not so far back as Magellan and
Legaspi but, to my mind, something more recent like Rizal’s time, to see how this and our community’s
traditions have affected our present, and how we can transform this present to a " better future world”.

THE MATRIX AND SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY

This section views inquiry in relation to man’s communal life.

1. Human experience is a shared experience. There is cooperative activity. The very acts of eating,
learning, playing have to be done with others. Our bayanihan spirit is evident in building a house
moving a house, in wakes and funerals in family reunions.
2. This shared experience has a double import.
3. Use of common sense

MAN: AS SOME WESTERN PHILOSOPHERS SEE HIM

 Philosophy, as a search for meaning, has only one obsession: MAN

 As an attempt to understand himself and the world he lives in, the philosopher cannot but start
his inquiry on man.
 The study of man himself is called philosophical anthropology.
 Martin Buber says this study is unique in the sense that man is the subject as well as the object
of knowledge
 Thales – his answer to the primary compositions of everything was water, nothing that
everything was moist, and that if evaporated, it became either mist or air, and if frozen, coild
become earth
 Anaximander – (origin of life/evolution ideas) the primary element was indeterminate. This
philosopher talked of the evolution of animals. His main distinction then is “his attempt to
answer the question how the world developed out of this primary element”. He claims “Man
was born from animals of another species.
 Anaximenes – he was closed to Thales in his approximation of the primary element in that this
was determinate. This was air, for man and all other things cannot live without it.
 The most important Greek Philosophers are Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
 Socrates – for him, man’s body comes from this world of matter, but reason comes from the
Universal Reason or Mind of the World.
 Plato – man as a knower and a possessor of an immortal soul.
- He believes in “virtue is knowledge” and the source of knowledge is virtue. It is not abstract but
concrete knowledge, not theoretical but practical knowledge.
- Virtue can be taught, and there are four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage or fortitude,
temperance and justice.
- His three best known works in dialogue form: Symposium, The Republic, Phaedrus
 Aristotle – man as a rational animal.
- He founded the school he called Lyceum
 Marcus Aurelius – to him, mas does not do evil willingly.
 Epictetus – To him men must find happiness in himself, not in outside circumstances he cannot
control. He must fear most of all the God within him. His favorite maxim is “bear and forbear”
 Boethius – to him, mas is “an individual substance of a rational nature”
 Augustine – calls man the “great mystery”
 Thomas Aquinas – he talks “mas as the existent being in this private world and of God, in
whom essence and existence are one”
 Pico Della Mirandola – Man may make of himself what he wishes to be.
 Rene Descartes – the Father of Modern Philosophy. “Incontrovertible and absolute proof”. That
was when he formulated his “Cogito, ergo sum” which means, I think, therefore I am.